QAnon song plays and MAGA supporters give unusual finger salute as Trump speaks at JD Vance rally in Ohio, video shows

Joshua Zitser

Sun, September 18, 2022 

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio, on September 17, 2022.Tom E. Puskar/AP Photo

• Former President Donald Trump spoke at a rally for JD Vance on Saturday in Youngstown, Ohio.

• A QAnon song played while he spoke about Ukraine, "Fake News," and Hunter Biden's laptop.

• His followers pointed their fingers to the sky. Experts say the finger salute may have also been a nod to QAnon.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday spoke at a rally for Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance while a QAnon song played dramatically in the background, and his supporters raised their fingers in an unusual salute.

In recent weeks, Trump has amplified QAnon talking points on his social media, but Saturday night's spectacle in Youngstown, Ohio, was perhaps the clearest sign yet that he's now openly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory.

As Trump complained about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, "Fake News," and Hunter Biden's laptop at the Ohio rally, a cinematic soundtrack played throughout.

According to Media Matters, the US-based media watchdog, the soundtrack appears to be a song previously released online with the title "Wwg1wga" — the QAnon slogan.

QAnon figures noticed the song choice, perceiving it as a nod to the movement by the former president. "QAnon figures are claiming the use of the song brings some kind of legitimacy for them," said Alex Kaplan, a senior researcher for Media Matters, in a tweet on Saturday.

Last month, Trump posted a video on his social media platform Truth Social using the same audio, per Media Matters. At the time, the former president's spokesperson claimed to Vice that it was not a QAnon song but music by the composer Will Van de Crommert.

However, a Media Matters review using Google's voice assistant and Apple's Shazam app identified it as "Wwg1wga," which stands for "where we go one, we go all," by an artist called Richard Feelgood. QAnon followers celebrated the use of the audio at the time, per Media Matters, with one describing it as "THE mother of all Q proofs" and "the biggest nod they've ever given us."

People point their fingers to the sky during a speech by former President Donald Trump at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio.Newsmax via Aaron Rupar/Twitter

An unusual finger salute, which saw attendees of the Youngstown rally raise their fingers to the sky, is also being described by experts on the conspiracy theory as a potential nod to QAnon.

"Some on Twitter are calling it a QAnon salute, with 1 finger for 'Where we go 1,' and Trump is playing a pro-Q song as he talks," said Will Sommer, author of an upcoming book on QAnon, in a tweet on Saturday.

Ben Collins, a senior reporter who covers extremism for NBC News, said in a tweet that there is confusion in Trump forums as to why his followers raised their fingers at the rally and whether it was a gesture to the QAnon community.

"Some people think it's for Where We Go 1 We Go All — the QAnon catchphrase," he wrote. "Others think it's to symbolize America First. Whatever it is, it's deeply weird and I haven't seen it before."

Recently, per AP's reporting, Trump has moved from "winking" at QAnon to openly embracing it.

On Tuesday, he reposted an image on Truth Social of himself wearing a Q pin on his jacket with an overlay of the words "The Storm is Coming." In QAnon mythology, the "storm" refers to a day of violent retribution when Trump's enemies will face televised mass executions.

In late August, Trump reposted (and then deleted) a "Q drop" — a cryptic message said to be posted by the anonymous Q.

And according to AP, nearly a third of the 75 accounts Trump has reposted on his Truth Social profile in the past month have promoted QAnon.

Insider contacted Trump's post-presidency office for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Yeshiva University halts clubs amid high court LGBTQ ruling


The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, Monday, June 27, 2022. The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked a court order that would have forced Yeshiva University to recognize an LGBTQ group as an official campus club. The court acted Friday, Sept. 9, in a brief order signed by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that indicated the court would have more to say on the topic at some point. 

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) 

Associated Press
Sat, September 17, 2022 

NEW YORK (AP) — Yeshiva University has abruptly suspended student club activity in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier this week that ordered the school to recognize — for now — an LGBTQ student group.

In an email to students, university officials on Friday said that it “hold off on all undergraduate club activities while it immediately takes steps to follow the roadmap provided by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect YU's religious freedom.”

On Wednesday, the high court cleared the way for the LGBTQ group, YU Pride Alliance, to gain official recognition from the Jewish university in New York.

The undergraduate group describes itself as “a supportive space for all students, of all sexual orientations and gender identities, to feel respected, visible, and represented.”





Spokespeople for the university did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Saturday.

By a 5-4 vote Wednesday, the justices lifted a temporary hold on a court order that requires Yeshiva University to recognize the group, even as a legal fight continues in New York courts. Two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, sided with the court’s three liberal justices to form a majority.

The disagreement among the justices appears to be mostly about procedure, with the majority writing in a brief unsigned order that Yeshiva should return to state court to seek quick review and temporary relief while the case continues. If it gets neither from state courts, the school can return to the Supreme Court, the majority wrote.

The case was being closely watched by other faith-based institutions.

Following the ruling, the president of the university, Rabbi Ari Berman, said that faith-based universities have the right to establish clubs within its understanding of the Torah.

“Yeshiva University simply seeks that same right of self-determination,” he said. “The Supreme Court has laid out the roadmap for us to find expedited relief and we will follow their instructions.”

Berman also said the university's “commitment and love for our LGBTQ students are unshakeable.”

Nevertheless, a lawyer for the students said the university's action Friday was divisive and “shameful.”

“The Pride Alliance seeks a safe space on campus, nothing more. By shutting down all club activities, the YU administration attempts to divide the student body, and pit students against their LGBT peers,” said the lawyer, Katie Rosenfeld.

The university's tactic, she said, “is a throwback to 50 years ago when the city of Jackson, Mississippi closed all public swimming pools rather than comply with court orders to desegregate.”

The university, an Orthodox Jewish institution in New York, argued that granting recognition to the Pride Alliance, “would violate its sincere religious beliefs.”

The club argued that Yeshiva’s plea to the Supreme Court was premature, also noting the university already has recognized a gay pride club at its law school.

A New York state court sided with the student group and ordered the university to recognize the club immediately. The matter remains on appeal in the state court system, but judges there refused to put the order on hold in the meantime.

HUMAN RIGHTS TRUMP RELIGIOUS RITES

ANTI-LGBTQ RIGHTS PROTEST IN TURKEY

Turkish demonstrators chant slogans while holding Turkish flags during a anti LGBTI+ protest, in Fatih district of Istanbul, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2022. AP Photo/Khalil Hamra

Sun, September 18, 2022 

ISTANBUL (AP) — An anti-LGBTQ group marched Sunday in Istanbul, demanding that LGBTQ associations be shuttered and their activities banned, in the largest demonstration of its kind in Turkey.

Several thousand people joined the demonstration dubbed “The Big Family Gathering.” Kursat Mican, a speaker for the organizers, said they had gathered more than 150,000 signatures to demand a new law from Turkey’s parliament that would ban what they called LGBTQ propaganda, which they say pervades Netflix, social media, arts and sports.

Hatice Muge, who works as a nanny, came to the gathering from Bursa province.

“People are here despite the rain for their children, for future generations,” she said, urging the Turkish government to take action. “They should save the family, they should save the children from this filth."

The group held banners that read: “Protecting the family is a national security issue.”

LGBTQ parades have not been allowed in Turkey since 2015.

Ahead of Sunday’s demonstration, the organizers circulated a video using images from past LGBTQ Pride marches in Turkey. The video was included in the public service announcement list of Turkey’s media watchdog.

The video and the demonstration prompted an outcry from LGBTQ associations and other rights groups. The organizers of Istanbul Pride called on the governor’s office to ban the event and authorities to take down the video, arguing both were hateful.

ILGA Europe, which works for LGBTQ equality, tweeted it was extremely concerned about the risks of violence.

“The Turkish state needs to uphold its constitutional obligation to protect all its citizens against hate and violence,” it said.

Amnesty International’s Turkey office said public service announcements listing the event violated Turkey’s equality and non-discrimination principles.

Top Turkish officials have called LGBTQ people “perverts” who aim to hurt traditional family values.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves Mocked Jackson At An Event After More Than 150,000 Of The City's Residents Had No Clean Water

Steffi Cao   Sun, September 18, 2022 

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves made fun of the ongoing water crisis in Jackson on Friday, just a day after the state lifted a weeks-long boil water advisory, that left more than 150,000 people in the capital city without clean water in their homes.

“I’ve got to tell you it is a great day to be in Hattiesburg. It's also, as always, a great day to not be in Jackson,” Reeves said, as he spoke at a groundbreaking event in the southern Mississippi city on Friday. “I feel like I should take off my emergency management director hat and leave it in the car and take off my public works director hat and leave it in the car.”

The governor’s comments drew swift backlash online, with people blasting Reeves for making light of a public health emergency that has disproportionately impacted people of color. For nearly seven weeks, Jackson residents — about 82.5% of whom are Black — were forced to boil what came out of their faucets because of concerns that the water was contaminated and could cause illness. The crisis intensified in late August, when the city’s main water treatment facility started to fail, forcing workers to adjust treatment processes. As a result, many residents were left with no or low water pressure in their homes for days.

“In the most disgraceful Governor sweepstakes, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves is a winner,” Sherrilyn Ifill, a civil rights attorney and former president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, tweeted.

“I think we can officially say that Tate Reeves, Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are the new Axis of Evil,” another person said.

A representative for Reeves did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

Residents of Jackson have grown accustomed to going weeks without safe, reliable drinking water due to years of deferred maintenance on its aging water infrastructure. While speaking to reporters last month about the lack of water pressure in the city’s pipes, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba acknowledged that “it's not a matter of if our system would fail, but a matter of when our system would fail.”

His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Reeves’s statements on Friday. Reeves has tried to blame city officials for the latest chapter of the yearslong crisis, though the state has historically refused to help pay for repairs that have been impossible for the city to afford as decades of white flight have left it with less tax revenue.

In recent weeks, residents took to social media to post about the dire realities of the water crisis, sharing videos of opaque brown water coming out of their faucets and long lines of people in their cars waiting to pick up clean water. Although the latest boil-water notice was lifted on Thursday, health officials advised that pregnant people and young children should continue to take precautions due to high lead levels previously found in some homes.

More on this

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  More Than 150,000 People In Jackson, Mississippi, Are Once Again Trying To Survive Without Reliable Clean WaterStephanie K. Baer · Aug. 30, 2022

• 
  

  In Jackson, Mississippi, You Can Go Into Debt Trying To Take A ShowerBrianna Sacks · April 7, 2021

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves says it's 'a great day to not be in Jackson,' where residents went without clean running water for weeks

Sarah Jackson
Sat, September 17, 2022

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves seen on June 30, 2020.Rogelio V. Solis/Pool via REUTERS

More than 150,000 people in Jackson — Mississippi's largest city and capital — went without clean running water for weeks.

Speaking in Hattiesburg on Friday, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said it was "a great day to not be in Jackson."

Jackson lifted its boil-water notice, which had been in place since July, on Thursday.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves called it "a great day to not be in Jackson" on Friday, referring to the state's capital, which has been deprived of clean running water for weeks.

Reeves made the remarks while attending a groundbreaking ceremony in Hattiesburg, roughly 90 miles southeast of Jackson, according to local reports.

"It is a great day to be in Hattiesburg. It's also, as always, a great day to not be in Jackson," he said, according to local television station 16 WAPT News. "I feel like I should take off my emergency manager director hat and leave it in the car and take off my public works director hat and leave it in the car."

Jackson is the state's largest city, home to more than 150,000 residents, the majority of whom are Black. The city lost access to clean running water after severe flooding in late August damaged its main water treatment facility.

The crisis has highlighted the devastation that happens and will continue to happen when issues like climate change, poor infrastructure, and systemic racism intersect.

Jackson had a boil-water notice in place since July, as residents turned on their taps to see brown water and waited in hourslong lines for bottled water. The city lifted the notice on Thursday.

"We've significantly increased the quantity of water produced," Reeves said at a press conference announcing the update on Thursday, according to The Mississippi Free Press. "We've restored water pressure to the city. We've installed an emergency rental pump. We've fixed and reinstalled broken parts on site, and we've monitored and tested water quality."

Jackson Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba later tweeted, "This is progress as we continue to work towards a consistent and reliable system."

Rep. Lauren Boebert said humanity is in its 'last days' and Christians should 'rise up,' invoking Christian nationalist imagery that's linked to violence


Kelsey Vlamis
Sun, September 18, 2022 

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., addresses attendees during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit, Saturday, July 23, 2022, in Tampa, Fla.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

Boebert echoed Christian nationalist talking points and invoked the end times in a speech last week.

She said it's time for Christians to "rise up" and "influence this nation as we were called to do."

Christian nationalism experts say such rhetoric has been linked to violence.

A recent speech by Rep. Lauren Boebert — during which she invoked the end times and said it's time for Christians to "rise up" — demonstrated how Christian nationalist ideals, including some associated with violence, have made it to the halls of Congress.

"It's time for us to position ourselves and rise up and take our place in Christ and influence this nation as we were called to do," the Colorado Republican told the crowd at a Christian conference held by the Truth and Liberty Coalition in Woodland Park, Colorado, on September 9.

"We need God back at the center of our country," she added.

Boebert heavily quoted scripture in her speech. She framed the formation of the US as divinely inspired and described the founding fathers as men of faith who were motivated by God — contentions that have been challenged by historians.

"We know that we are in the last of the last days," Boebert later said, referencing the belief held by some evangelical Christians that Jesus will return after a period of tribulation, or great suffering, and save believers. "But it's not a time to complain about it. It's not a time to get upset about it. It's a time to know that you were called to be a part of these last days. You get to have a role in ushering in the second coming of Jesus."

Boebert's comments expressing an intrinsic tie between the US and Christianity aren't new: In June she said she was "tired of this separation of church and state junk" and that "the church is supposed to direct the government." But by invoking the end times, Boebert is tapping into a side of Christian nationalism that has been associated with violence.

Although a spokesperson for Boebert told The Denver Post she does not identify as a Christian nationalist, her comments align with the tenants of Christian nationalism, an ideology and cultural framework that says Christianity should have a privileged position in American society.

"We found in our book that among Americans that embrace Christian nationalism, we see increasingly this embrace of a premillennialist interpretation of the end times, where there will be a tribulation but Christ will take away the faithful," Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at IUPUI and co-author of "Taking America Back for God: Christian Nationalism in the United States," told Insider.

Whitehead said Boebert was taking a specific and relatively new interpretation of the end times and melding it with the idea that Christians are supposed to have an influential role in public life. He said her view wasn't necessarily about saving the nation, but about Christians countering the forces of evil while they still can and remaining faithful up until the end.

"Citing the end times really does feel like a call to action and a rallying cry in some sense," Whitehead said, adding: "A lot of that end times imagery is associated with violence and rapture and descending into chaos societally."

Experts on religion and politics told The Denver Post that Boebert's remarks could be interpreted as a call for violence, particularly in relation to the midterm elections.

"Now the apocalypse is because if we don't get our people in, it's an apocalypse," Anthea Butler, chair of the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Religious Studies, told the outlet.

Though Boebert's comments aren't new among proponents of Christian nationalism, such rhetoric has rarely, if ever, been deployed by a member of Congress.

Christian nationalism has also inspired acts of violence in the past. A report published in February by a group of faith leaders, historians, and religious scholars — including Whitehead — argued the concept was on display at the Capitol on January 6 and helped justify the insurrection. Christian nationalist ideals were also espoused by the suspects in the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the 2019 New Zealand mosque shootings.

"Any time that our political rhetoric moves in an area where we are raising the stakes — where it is ultimate good vs. ultimate evil," Whitehead said, "that's when political violence becomes much more likely."

Boebert's office did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Melinda French Gates calls out 'great problem' of DC politics: 'There are too many men with seats of power still'

Sarah Jackson 

Sat, September 17, 2022

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda Gates.Denis Balibouse/Reuters

• Melinda French Gates is calling out the lack of comprehensive paid family medical leave in the US.

• Electing more women and people of color would help fix this, she told Fortune, saying, "There are too many men with seats of power still on Capitol Hill in the United States."

• The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recently found the world won't reach gender equality until at least 2108, three generations later than previously projected.

Melinda French Gates knows the US lags behind other countries in paid family medical leave, and she says electing more women and people of color would help close that gap.

"We are the only industrialized country that doesn't have a robust paid family medical leave policy, and that just shouldn't be," the billionaire philanthropist said in an interview with Fortune this week. "But you have to be frank: There are too many men with seats of power still on Capitol Hill in the United States."

Though there's a record number of women in the 117th Congress, they still make up just 28% of it, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. And though this Congress is the most racially and ethnically diverse in history, people of color make up roughly 25% of the Senate and House of Representatives, holding 136 of the 535 seats according to the report.

Earlier this week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the charitable organization she runs with her ex-husband and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, published a report finding the world won't achieve gender equality until at least 2108, three generations behind previous projections.

"A lot of times, we think we think we're going to get there on gender equality—that we might move the needle a little bit," French Gates told Fortune. When it comes to female representation in government, "We kick up a percentage point or two, and we think, 'Okay, we're on our way to empowerment.'"

French Gates pointed out the disparity in funding between female and male political candidates.

"We don't finance women's campaigns the way we finance men's," she said in the interview. "That's a great problem."

US-backed Syrian forces free women in 3-week raid of IS camp



Children gather outside their tents, at al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group, in Hasakeh province, Syria, May 1, 2021. U.S.-backed Syrian fighters said Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022, they have concluded a 24-day sweep at operation at a sprawling camp in northeast Syria housing tens of thousands of women and children linked to the Islamic State group.

 (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

BASSEM MROUE
Sat, September 17, 2022


BEIRUT (AP) — U.S.-backed Syrian fighters said Saturday they have concluded a 24-day sweep at a sprawling camp in northeast Syria housing tens of thousands of women and children linked to the Islamic State group.

Dozens of extremists were detained and weapons were confiscated in the operation at al-Hol camp, which began on Aug. 25, the U.S.-backed forces said. The U.S.-backed force said two of its fighters were killed in clashes with extremists inside the camp during the operation.

IS sleeper cells preparing a new generation of militants — boys and girls being fed extremist ideology to eventually try and set up a second so-called Islamic State caliphate — were also uncovered, the statement by the Internal Security Forces said. It added that the operation was assisted by the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as well as members of the U.S.-led coalition.

The operation at al-Hol in the northeastern province of Hassakeh also led to the release of two Yazidi girls taken from Iraq as sex slaves years ago and four non-Yazidi women, who had been chained and subjected to torture.

“The operation was launched following the increasing crimes of killing and torture committed by ISIS cells against the camp residents,” said the statement from the U.S.-backed forces, using another acronym for the Islamic State group. It added that since the beginning of the year, the extremists have killed 44 camp residents and humanitarian workers.

The statement also said that 226 people, including 36 women, were detained in al-Hol — widely seen as a breeding ground for the IS.

Some 50,000 Syrians and Iraqis are crowded into tents in the fenced-in camp. Nearly 20,000 of them are children; most of the rest are women, wives and widows of IS fighters.

In a separate, heavily guarded section of the camp known as the annex are an additional 2,000 women from 57 other countries — they are considered the most die-hard IS supporters — along with their children, numbering about 8,000.

“ISIS has depended mainly on women and children, as real resources related directly to the ISIS leaders, to maintain the ISIS extremist ideology and spread it in the camp,” the statement said.

The camp was initially used to house the families of IS fighters in late 2018 as U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces recaptured territory in eastern Syria from the militants. In March 2019, they seized the last IS-held villages, ending the “caliphate” that the group had declared over large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

The United States and other nations have struggled to repatriate the families, but have had only very limited success.