It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, January 12, 2021
After an insurrectionist at the Capitol repeated Steve Bannon's call for violence, his show is still streaming via Google Play
Yesterday I reported that an insurrectionist at the Capitol on Wednesday had repeated Steve Bannon’s call to put federal bureaucrats' “heads on pikes.”
At the time of Bannon’s remarks, YouTube issued a strike against the former White House chief strategist’s channel and suspended his show War Room: Pandemic from streaming for a week. Twitter removed him from the platform altogether, Bannon’s lawyers dropped him as a client, and Spotify later followed suit.
But it comes too late; YouTube deserves no congratulations.
We’ve now seen how his words have been directly connected to a violent insurrection. Only after the worst possible outcome became a terrifying reality did YouTube decide to enforce its own policies against inciting violence and pushing misinformation related to the 2020 election.
YouTube’s parent company Google must now follow through with its commitment to deplatform War Room: Pandemic. The co-hosts are nowdirecting their audience to watch them on the app for Real America's Voice, the cable network that hosts the show. The app is accessible via Google Play, which has a policy against the incitement of violence on the platform. If the company is serious about preventing further political violence in this country, it must take action to ban this app.
During the insurrection itself, one of the insurrectionists directly echoed Bannon:
In the lead-up to the attack, Bannon used his YouTube channel to repeatedly call for violence and revolution around the 2020 election while spreading false claims that it was being stolen from President Donald Trump. I've compiled a noncomprehensive review of this rhetoric, from before and after the insurrection
Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, was reportedly struck in head during Wednesday’s riot, while four Trump supporters also died
The US Capitol on Friday. Officer Sicknick’s death is being investigated as a homicide. Photograph: Ken Cedeno/UPI/Rex/Shutterstock
Kenya Evelyn in Washington THE GUARDIAN Fri 8 Jan 2021
Family members and law enforcement have confirmed more details on the now five people who died in an attempted insurrection against the United States on Wednesday, including a Capitol police officer who died from his injuries.
The remaining four were among the supporters of Donald Trump who stormed the US Capitol, attempting to halt counts of electoral college ballots that would formally seal Joe Biden’s victory over the incumbent president.
“Don’t dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple,” Biden said in response to Thursday’s attack.
Details on the five people killed are below.
Brian Sicknick, 42
According to statement from the US Capitol police, the New Jersey native joined the force in 2008. Sicknick was reportedly struck in the head with a fire extinguisher while “physically engaging” with the rioters. He collapsed soon after returning to his division before being rushed to a nearby hospital. Sicknick died on Thursday night after being removed from life support.
A reported 60 Capitol police officers were injured. According to the Democratic congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio, many were also hit in the head with metal pipes. More than a dozen remain hospitalized.
Sicknick’s death is being investigated as a homicide by federal and local authorities.
Ashli Babbitt, 35
Babbitt, a 14-year air force veteran from San Diego, was among a group of people who could be seen attempting to break down the doors of the US Senate chamber as members sheltered. Cameras captured the moment she was rushed out on a stretcher after being shot by a Capitol police officer. She died at the hospital.
“I really don’t know why she decided to do this,” Babbitt’s mother-in-law told Washington’s WTTG.
Just a day before the rally, Babbitt tweeted the QAnon conspiracy called “the storm”, in which supporters believe Donald Trump will emerge to overthrow and execute corrupt political elites and enemies.
Benjamin Phillips, 50
A computer programmer from Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania, Phillips organized a caravan from Pennsylvania to the Capitol grounds for the planned insurrection. Once there, he had a stroke and died, although authorities have not confirmed at what point during the attack.
Witnesses told the Philadelphia-Inquirer he was last seen looking for parking before the president gave his speech at the “Save America March”.
Kevin Greeson, 55
A native of rural Athens, Alabama, Greeson died of an apparent heart attack at an unknown point during the events. His family confirmed in a statement that a history of high blood pressure “in the midst of the excitement” contributed to the medical emergency.
Greeson posted racist diatribes online and associated with the Proud Boys, a far-right group known for enacting political violence and racial terror.
Despite the family’s insistence that “he was not there to participate in violence or rioting” and did not “condone such actions”, Greeson had posted to popular conservative social platforms calling for supporters to “load your guns and take to the streets” in the weeks leading up to the events.
“Let’s take this fucking country back,” he posted to Parler. Like many of the white nationalists who participated, Greeson never specifies from whom the country is being taken.
Rosanne Boyland, 34
The resident of Kennesaw, Georgia, reportedly died of a medical emergency during the riots. Family members later told reporters Boyland had been crushed in the melee.
Boyland, an avid Trump supporter, had a criminal history, including being charged with possession or distribution of heroin “at least four other times” in Georgia. Other past charges include battery, obstruction of law enforcement and trespassing.
According to the Daily Mail, Wednesday’s attack was the first Trump event that Boyland ever attended. Her family told local WGCL that although they understood she “was really passionate about her beliefs”, they were shocked and “devastated” to learn she participated in the insurrection.
“Tragically, she was there and it cost her life,” Justin Cave, Boyland’s brother-in-law, told WGCL.
“I’ve never tried to be a political person but it’s my own personal belief that the president’s words incited a riot that killed four of his biggest fans last night, and I that we should invoke the 25th amendment at this time,” he added.
The number of Republican state lawmakers identified as having either been at Wednesday's attack on the U.S. Capitol or part of the rally that led up to it continues to grow, as photographic evidence helps investigators pin down who was a part of the insurrection.
Four more GOP state lawmakers have been identified as attending either the rally that preceded the attack or the attack itself. They join 12 others who have already been outed as being part of the mayhem, along with a former state legislator.
The newly identified include:
West Virginia state Sen. Mike Azinger: Azinger posted photos to Facebook of being at the Washington Monument on Jan. 6 — the day of the attack — lauding the efforts by Trump supporters, even after knowing that the actions of the pro-Trump mob led to violence, death, and destruction. 00:1501:15
"We're here!" Azinger wrote in a post that included photos of the Washington Monument, which has now been closed to the public due to threats of violence. "Stop the Steal, baby!"
Azinger blamed Antifa for the violence, a baseless lie.
Maryland state Del. Dan Cox: Cox is facing calls to resign after he went to the rally and tweeted that Pence is a "traitor" — at the very same time the violent mobs were marauding through the Capitol.
We've since learned that the terrorists at the Capitol were chanting that Pence should be hung, with a noose and a platform for a hanging spotted outside of the Capitol building.
Rhode Island state Rep. Justin Price: Like the other Republican state lawmakers who attended the rally or the insurrection itself, Price is also facing calls to resign after he marched to the Capitol with the pro-Trump mob.
Price claims he did not enter the Capitol, and also falsely blamed the violence on Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement, a patently false and racist accusation.
Virginia Del. Dave LaRock: LaRock wrote on Facebook that he was at the Capitol on Wednesday but did not say whether he entered the building.
He, too, falsely blamed outside agitators for the violence, even though the violence was carried out by Trump supporters and "antifa" was not found to be part of the crowd.
So far, at least one GOP state lawmaker has been arrested for their role in the violent attack: Incoming West Virginia Del. Derrick Evans, who took a selfie video of his crimes and shouted, "Derrick Evans is in the Capitol."
The Justice Department announced it was charging Evans with "one count of knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority; and one count of violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol Grounds."
Evans' video made it easy for law enforcement to determine that it was, indeed, Evans.
Evans "streamed live to his Facebook page a video of himself joining and encouraging a crowd unlawfully entering the U.S. Capitol," the Justice Department wrote in a news release announcing Evans' arrest.
Evans resigned on Saturday, saying "I take full responsibility for my actions, and deeply regret any hurt, pain or embarrassment I may have caused my family, friends, constituents and fellow West Virginians."
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which seeks to get Democrats elected to state legislatures across the country, criticized GOP legislative leaders for not commenting on the number of Republican lawmakers who were part of the mayhem on Wednesday.
"There can be no unity without accountability," Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee President Jessica Post said in a news release. "Every elected official who betrayed our democracy is unfit to represent their communities. We challenge our Republican counterparts to step up for the country they claim to love and join us in upholding the values that make this nation great. If there was any time to put country over party, it is now."
To date, at least five people died in the attack, including a Capitol Police officer.
And Trump is now likely to be impeached a second time for inciting the insurrection that led to the deaths and desecration of the Capitol.
A number of Republican lawmakers and right-wing media personalities are blaming "antifa" for the violent attack by supporters of Donald Trump on the Capitol on Wednesday that led to at least four deaths, ignoring their own responsibility in helping foment the rage underlying the attack.
Some GOP lawmakers did call out Trump and members of their own party for the lies about voter fraud and a stolen election that culminated in Wednesday's failed coup, placing the blame at their feet.
"What happened here today was an insurrection incited by the President of the United States," Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) said in an impassioned speech on the Senate floor after the body reconvened to certify President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.00:3501:15
"You have some senators who, for political advantage, were giving false hope to their supporters. These senators, as insurrectionists literally stormed the Capitol, were sending out fundraising emails," Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Fox News.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) had quite literally sent a fundraising text as the Trump-supporting mob ransacked the Capitol.
Some repetitions of the lie that the attack was carried out by so-called antifa and not Trump supporters came from top GOP leadership. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy made the suggestion Wednesday night in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham.
"People came here to do some damage. I don't know who they were with," McCarthy said of the group, which wore Trump hats, Trump shirts, and carried Trump flags. His comment was followed by a suggestion from Ingraham that "Antifa was in there."
Two other House Republicans, some of the most vocal supporters of Trump's coup, have also falsely blamed antifa for the attacks.
Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama, a leader in the failed effort to block the certification of Biden's win, has tweeted numerous times that the attack was a false-flag operation.
"Please, don't be like #FakeNewsMedia, don't rush to judgment on assault on Capitol. Wait for investigation. All may not be (and likely is not) what appears.
Evidence growing that fascist ANTIFA orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics," Brooks tweeted, a baseless lie that seeks to absolve Trump supporters of the violence.
ALSO SINCE ANTIFA STANDS FOR ANTI FASCIST IT MAKES NO SENSE
Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who has previously said his sole purpose in Congress is to support Trump, issued the same lie from the House floor during the debate over certification.
"Some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters, they were masquerading as Trump supporters and in fact were members of the violent terrorist group antifa," Gaetz said.
Other right-wing figures, such as Fox News' Sean Hannity and Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential nominee, also tried to absolve Trump supporters of guilt by falsely pinning the attack on antifa.
Trump knew that the rioters were his own supporters, treating the terrorists with kid gloves in tweets, as members of his current and former staff implored him to send a message to end the attack.
"We love you. You're very special. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil but go home and go home in peace," Trump said.
Antifa has been the go-to boogeyman for Republicans over the 2020 presidential cycle. They blamed the group for violent protests across the country.
Trump himself demanded his administration designate antifa as a domestic terror organization on Tuesday night.
Experts say antifa cannot be deemed a domestic terror organization because it is not an organization at all, but rather a loosely organized movement. Analysis continues to show that right-wing white supremacist groups and not antifa represent the biggest domestic terror threat the country currently faces.
THAT SOUNDS OMINOUS
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: 'It's time that we simply put wokeism to sleep' Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made the remark during a speech at the Voice of America. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Jan. 10, 2020 (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during a speech at Voice of America in the nation's capital on Monday, said that he had read that some of the organization's employees did not want him to deliver an address.
HE AND TRUMP ADVOCATED AND TRIED TO SHUT DOWN VOA
"I'm sure it was only a handful. They didn't want the voice of American diplomacy to be broadcast on the Voice of America. Think about that for just a moment," the secretary of state remarked during the speech which was also broadcast.
"Look, we're all part of institutions with duties and responsibilities higher and bigger and more important than any one of us individually. But this kind of censorial instinct is dangerous, it's morally wrong. Indeed it's against your statutory mandate here at VOA. Censorship, wokeness, political correctness, it all points in one direction: Authoritarianism cloaked as moral righteousness," he said, noting a similarity regarding "what we're seeing at Twitter and Facebook and Apple and on too many university campuses today. It's not who we are. It's not who we are as Americans. And it's not what Voice of America should be. It's time that we simply put wokeism to sleep. And you can lead the way," Pompeo said.
Notorious White Nationalists Spotted At Capitol Riots
Reprinted with permission from ProPublica. This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between ProPublica and FRONTLINE that includes an upcoming documentary.
Members of the ultranationalist street gang known as the Proud Boys were easy to spot at the protests that flared across the United States throughout 2020, often in the middle of a brawl, typically clad in black and yellow outfits.
But in December, as the group's leaders planned to flood Washington to oppose the certification of the Electoral College vote this week for President-elect Joe Biden, they decided to do something different.
"The ProudBoys will turn out in record numbers on Jan 6th but this time with a twist...," Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, the group's president, wrote in a late-December post on Parler, a social media platform that has become popular with right-wing activists and conservatives. "We will not be wearing our traditional Black and Yellow. We will be incognito and we will spread across downtown DC in smaller teams. And who knows....we might dress in all BLACK for the occasion."
00:0201:15
Henry "Enrique" Tarrio's Parler post in late December.Screenshot from ProPublica.
The precise composition of the mob that forced its way into the Capitol on Wednesday, disrupting sessions of both houses of Congress and leaving a police officer and four others dead, remains unknown. But a review by a ProPublica-FRONTLINE team that has been tracking far-right movements for the past three years shows that the crowd included members of the Proud Boys and other groups with violent ideologies. Videos reveal the presence of several noted hardcore nativists and white nationalists who participated in the 2017 white power rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that President Donald Trump infamously refused to condemn.
Invasion of the Capitol Was Planned for Weeks in Plain Sight | FRONTLINE + ProPublicawww.youtube.com
Tarrio does not appear to have been present during the insurrection. Two days before members of the House and Senate gathered to certify the Electoral College results, Washington's Metropolitan Police Department arrested Tarrio and charged him with possessing high-capacity firearm magazines and destruction of property over the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner last month. A judge barred him from entering the city while he awaits trial.
But it appears that Tarrio's followers heeded his advice. A journalist working with ProPublica and FRONTLINE encountered members of the Proud Boys in dark clothes walking through Washington on the night before the attack. The four men posed for a photo and confirmed their membership in the group. Few participants involved in the Capitol siege were seen wearing Proud Boys colors or logos.
But since the incident, Proud Boys social media channels have flaunted their direct role in the attack and looting of the Capitol.
One prominent Proud Boys account encouraged rioters as the chaos was unfolding: "Hold your ground!!!... DO NOT GO HOME. WE ARE ON THE CUSP OF SAVING THE CONSTITUTION."
So far, police have arrested more than 80 people in connection with the attack, including at least one Proud Boy, Nick Ochs. They have seized pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails and arrested at least six people on illegal firearms charges, including one Maryland man who was captured in the visitors' center of the Capitol. More arrests are expected.
As the crowds ringing the Capitol swelled on Wednesday, a small group of men clad in body armor shuffled toward the doors at the center of the building's east-facing facade.
The eight men, whose movements were captured on video, were identified by ProPublica and FRONTLINE as members of the Oath Keepers, a long-standing militia group that has pledged to ignite a civil war on behalf of Trump. Members of the group joined the protesters and insurrectionists flooding into the Capitol. Footage from later in the day shows Oath Keepers dragging a wounded comrade out of the building.
Stewart Rhodes, a former soldier and Yale law school graduate, who founded the Oath Keepers in 2009 and built it into a nationwide network, was seen on video standing outside the Capitol building. While he was not seen entering the Capitol, he could be seen talking with his militia followers throughout the day.
Stewart Rhodes, founder of the Oath Keepers, at the Capitol on Wednesday. (Ford Fischer)Screenshot from ProPublica.
Several other of the participants ProPublica and FRONTLINE identified from video have direct links to the white nationalist movement, which has seen a resurgence of activity during the Trump era.
One was Nick Fuentes, an internet personality who streams a daily talk show on DLive, an alternative social media platform. Fuentes, who marched in Charlottesville during the 2017 white power rally there, speaks frequently in anti-Semitic terms and pontificates on the need to protect America's white heritage from the ongoing shift in the nation's demographics. He has publicly denied believing in white nationalism but has said that he considers himself a "white majoritarian."
Fuentes, who spoke at pro-Trump rallies late last year in Michigan and Washington, D.C., said he was at the rally on Wednesday but didn't follow the mob into the Capitol. One group of Fuentes' supporters, who call themselves the Groyper Army, was filmed running through the Capitol carrying a large blue flag with the America First logo.
Days before the Capitol was stormed, Fuentes seemed to encourage his followers to kill state legislators in a bid to overturn Biden's electoral victory, as Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University who follows online extremist communities, noted on Twitter.
"What can you and I do to a state legislator — besides kill him?" he said with a smirk. "We should not do that. I'm not advising that, but I mean, what else can you do, right?"
Squire fears that Fuentes' incendiary rhetoric will inspire his followers to engage in more drastic — even lethal — acts of political violence. "Instead of trying to appear democratic he's making an argument for fascism, for monarchism," she said. "He's criticizing democracy at every turn. He doesn't believe in democracy and it's scary because his fans find him fascinating."
DLive recently announced that it has booted Fuentes from its platform.
Another figure inside the Capitol with ties to white nationalists was Tim Gionet, a livestreamer who uses the handle Baked Alaska and who participated in the Charlottesville rally, which left one woman dead. Gionet was photographed within the Capitol and apparently used DLive to stream from within the building as events unfolded. Part of his video appeared to show him in Nancy Pelosi's office, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
Other extremist figures present either at the rally or within the Capitol included Vincent James Foxx, an online propagandist for the Rise Above Movement, a now-defunct Southern California white supremacist group.
Also on scene: Gabe Brown, a New Englander who helped create Anticom, a now-defunct organization devoted to physically combating leftists. In 2017, Anticom members posted a vast trove of bomb-making manuals to a private online chatroom.
The militant group members joined with scores of others who rampaged inside the Capitol.
Carson and other House members who spoke to ProPublica and FRONTLINE said the body would be launching an extensive investigation of the Capitol Police force and its mishandling of Wednesday's events.
The rioters, said Carson, who is Black, "were hostile. They were venomous. And I think there was a sense of entitlement that they carried that somehow their country was being taken away from them."
After the siege, a Boogaloo Bois group called the Last Sons of Liberty, which includes militants from Virginia, posted a video to Parler purporting to document their role in the incident — a clip that shows members inside the Capitol. A loose-knit confederation of anti-government militants, the Boogaloo Bois have been tied to a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and to the murder of two law enforcement officers in California. ProPublica and FRONTLINE have been unable to independently confirm their involvement.
Some far-right activists are already calling for retribution over the death of Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from California who was shot and killed by a security officer. "We've got a girl that's dead. She's shot, laying on the ground in there," said Damon Beckley, leader of a group called DC Under Siege, in an interview just outside the Capitol while the riot was ongoing. "We're not putting up with this tyrannical rule. ... If we gotta come back here and start a revolution and take all these traitors out — which is what should happen — then we will."
Another person took to Parler to say that they were planning to show up, armed, in Washington for Inauguration Day. "Many of us will return on January 19, 2021 carrying Our weapons," wrote the Parler user, who goes by the handle Colonel007. "We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match."
The Proud Boys also celebrated on social media. On Parler, one Proud Boys leader posted a photo of members of Congress cowering in fear and captioned it with a menacing statement: "Today you found out. The power of the people will not be denied."
Logan Jaffe of ProPublica and Lila Hassan, Dan Glaun and Zoe Todd of FRONTLINE contributed reporting.
