Trump Spread Multiple Conspiracy Theories on Monday. Here Are Their Roots.

Davey Alba and Ben Decker,
The New York Times•September 2, 2020


In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Monday night, President Donald Trump spread multiple conspiracy theories about the protests that have erupted across the nation. Many of his unfounded claims can be traced back to narratives that have been swirling online for months.

Here are three of the baseless conspiracy theories that Trump spread and where they came from.

A plane ‘loaded with thugs’ headed to the Republican convention.

During the interview with Ingraham, Trump claimed that “we had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that.”- ADVERTISEMENT -


Trump then alleged that the people were headed to Washington, D.C., to disrupt the Republican National Convention.

There is no evidence of a flight matching Trump’s description. But the claim is similar to a baseless allegation that appeared online as early as June, when a wave of cities and towns became alarmed by unsubstantiated rumors that the loose collective of anti-fascist activists known as antifa was being sent into their communities to disrupt the peace.

On June 1, a man from Emmett, Idaho, posted on Facebook: “Be ready for attacks downtown and residential areas. At least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise from Seattle, dressed head to toe in black.” He claimed, “One had a tattoo that said ‘Antifa America’ on his arm.” The post was shared nearly 4,000 times.

That same day, the local sheriff’s office posted that there was no merit to the rumor. “The Payette County Sheriff’s Office has not had contact with and has not verified that antifa is in Payette County,” it said. “The Payette County Sheriff’s Office has not given any specific warnings to our citizens about antifa or other organizations.” It was shared only 716 times on Facebook.

The idea resurfaced prominently again last week when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., spoke about protesters who confronted him at the Republican convention.

“You just think, ‘Oh, these are some normal hoodlums from a big city.’ I promise you that at least some of the members and the people who attacked us were not from D.C.,” Paul said, according to Politico. “They flew here on a plane. They’ve all got fresh, new clothes.”

Paul did not offer any evidence to support this assertion.

Some ‘very stupid rich people’ are bankrolling racial justice protests across the U.S.

In the same Fox News interview, Trump said he believed “some very stupid rich people” had been financing the racial justice protests that took place in Washington last week and around the country in recent months.

The unsupported idea echoes claims spread online for months that George Soros, the billionaire investor and Democratic donor, was funding protests against police brutality.

Soros has for years been cast as an anti-conservative villain by a loose network of activists and political figures on the right and has become a convenient boogeyman for many different conspiracies, including that he “owns” antifa and Black Lives Matter groups.

Open Society Foundations, a philanthropic organization that Soros founded, has donated to Black Lives Matter in the past. But so have many other public figures, including Jay-Z, Beyoncé and Prince, just weeks before he died.

The false notion that a shadowy cabal of Democratic elites like Soros pulls strings behind the scenes and controls the world with money is a main pillar of the far-right extremist conspiracy theory QAnon.

‘People that you haven’t heard of’ are controlling Joe Biden

This rumor, too, is a pillar of the baseless internet conspiracy QAnon. The theory states, falsely, that the world is run by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles that is plotting against Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.

QAnon followers, who number in the millions, believe that this clique includes top Democrats like Soros, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And they believe that real and actual political power resides not with public candidates like Joe Biden but with these individuals exercising their secret power beyond any immediately visible public link.

Since the start of the pandemic, as people in lockdown turned to the internet for entertainment, membership in 10 large Facebook QAnon groups grew more than 600%, a recent article by The Wall Street Journal said. This year, QAnon has been a main faction fueling false information about COVID-19, the Black Lives Matter protests and the 2020 election. Followers have also attached themselves to anti-vaccine and anti-child-trafficking movements, helping expand their ranks.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company

The energy jobs that Gen Z wants
Ben Geman, author of Generate

Data: Morning Consult; Chart: Axios Visuals


Members of Generation Z are far more interested in careers in renewable energy than nuclear power or fossil fuels, new Morning Consult polling shows.

Why it matters: The new data underscores a much-discussed problem facing the oil-and-gas and nuclear sectors: Attracting young talent.

How it works: Morning Consult polled 1,000 people ages 13–23 about whether they were interested in careers in the industries listed above.

"When Gen Zers do look to the future, it seems that participating in sectors whose emissions contribute to climate change holds little appeal," they report.
Nuclear power also holds much less appeal than renewables, even though it's a zero-emissions generation source.

Of note: The poll's margin of error is ±3%.

The renewable threat to biodiversity

Ben Geman, author of Generate

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Expanded mining for materials used in renewable power technologies and electric cars could harm vulnerable species and ecosystems absent better planning, according to a peer-reviewed paper in Nature Communications.

Why it matters: The tech needed to fight one threat to biodiversity — climate change — can create other big risks unless policymakers act "urgently" on the matter, the researchers found.
It's not a far-off threat either. A new Financial Times feature explores how increased mining in Indonesia for nickel, an electric vehicle battery component, will create more marine waste.

How it works: They looked at tens of thousands of "pre-operational, operational, and closed" mining sites for dozens of materials, many of which target supplies needed for clean energy applications.
It then draws a 50-kilometer radius around them to assess their "spatial coincidence with biodiversity conservation sites and priorities."
They find that mining "potentially influences" almost 50 million square kilometers.
8% of that overlaps with "protected areas," 7% with "key biodiversity areas," and 16% with "remaining wilderness."

Yes, but: Simon Evans of the climate news and analysis site Carbon Brief cautions via Twitter that the analysis assumes an extremely wide potential impact radius (again, 50 kilometers) around mining sites.
"[O]f course it's possible to think of potential impacts that can extend a long way, but as a default for all mines I don't think it is that meaningful," Evans tweeted.

The big picture: Greatly expanding climate-friendly energy and transport means much higher demand for materials like lithium, copper, cobalt and more.
As the International Energy Agency puts it, rising deployment is set to "supercharge demand for critical minerals."

The paper's authors, writing in The Conversation, cite World Bank estimates that demand for a suite of critical materials could grow by 500% by 2050.

The bottom line: "Careful strategic planning is urgently required to ensure that mining threats to biodiversity caused by renewable energy production do not surpass the threats averted by climate change mitigation and any effort to slow fossil fuel extraction and use," the paper concludes.
Lead author Laura Sonter of the University of Queensland in Australia tells the Guardian that the "good news" is “many of the required materials also exist outside areas important for conservation.”

THIRD WORLD USA
Half of Americans fear a health-related bankruptcy

Caitlin Owens, author of Vitals

Data: Gallup; Chart: Axios Visuals


The number of Americans who worry about bankruptcy if they have a serious health issue has spiked over the last year and a half — particularly among men, people of color and young adults, according to a new survey from West Health and Gallup.

Between the lines: Health care costs were a huge issue even when the economy was good and we weren't in a global pandemic. Now, millions of people have gotten sick, lost their jobs, lost their health insurance, or all three.

Details: 15% of adults said that at least one person in their household has medical debt that they won't be able to repay within the next year, including 20% of adults of color and 12% of white adults.
Unsurprisingly, a much larger percentage of lower-income households say the same, compared to higher-income households.
A quarter of adults say that they'd have to borrow money to pay a $500 medical bill.

The bottom line: The pandemic is making all of our existing health care problems worse.

Trump says Black Lives Matter is "discriminatory" and "bad for Black people"

President Trump during a news conference at the White House on Monday. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Trump again denounced Black Lives Matter as a "Marxist organization" and said it was "discriminatory" during an interview with Fox News that aired Monday night.

What he's saying: "The first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, I said, 'That’s a terrible name.' It's so discriminatory," Trump told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "It's bad for Black people. It's bad for everybody."

Here comes the real recession

Dion Rabouin, author of Markets AXIOS

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

Economists are warning that the economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic is now creating another recession: mass job losses, business failures and declines in spending even in industries not directly impacted by the virus.

Why it matters: The looming recession — a possible recession within a recession — is less severe than the coronavirus-driven downturn. But it's more likely to permanently push millions out of the labor force, lower wages and leave long-lasting scars on the economy.

What we're hearing: "As the recovery has slowed down we’ve seen a couple of metrics transform from something that was extraordinary and unique and that we’d only seen in this COVID recession to something that is much more in line with our historic experience with typical recessions," Ernie Tedeschi, a managing director and policy economist for Evercore ISI, tells Axios.

The warning signs he sees:

• The increasing number of layoffs that have gone from classified as temporary to classified as permanent.
• The increasing number of men who have lost jobs in recent months, a traditional recession dynamic and reversal of the trend that saw more women being laid off in early months.
• The rising rate of long-term unemployment, an unfortunate hallmark of the 2008 Great Recession.

"The longer this weakness persists the harder it is to recover later on," Tedeschi adds.

• Darius Dale, managing director at Hedgeye Risk Management, tells Axios: "Our view is that the U.S. economy is transitioning from a depression to a recession and not a recovery."

But, but, but: It will be hard to see the recession in most data, because third quarter economic growth will be compared to the second quarter, which was the worst downturn in history.

• Absent another wave of lockdowns, Q3 GDP growth should be the highest ever — but largely because of pent-up demand and the simple fact that most U.S. business are allowed to operate.

Be smart: The new recession is exactly what policymakers were trying to avoid by passing the $2 trillion CARES Act in March.

• Congress has allowed enhanced benefits for the 27 million Americans receiving unemployment to lapse, and leading members of the Federal Reserve, conservative and liberal think tanks and economists of all stripes have been pounding the table, calling on legislators to pass more fiscal stimulus.
• Former Fed chair Janet Yellen wrote in in the New York Times: "The Senate is on vacation while Americans starve."

How it happened: "We had an uneven shutdown around the country and what that allowed the virus to do is really take hold and remain a force for economic outcomes," Constance Hunter, chief economist at consulting firm KPMG, tells Axios.

• Hunter also serves as president of the historically right-leaning National Association for Business Economics, which recently released a poll of its members that found two-thirds believe the economy is still in a recession.
• More than a third (37%) see a one-in-two chance of a double-dip recession — an occurrence that Hunter notes is "extremely rare."

The bottom line: The recession within a recession is giving economists flashbacks of 2008 and the long recovery needed to get many of the country's lower-income citizens back on their feet.

• The difference this time is that it follows an economic shock that caused at least three times the number of job losses as 2008, and has put four times as many people on government unemployment insurance

Biden-Harris campaign releases 'Animal Crossing' yard signs in digital push to young voters

According to Nintendo's latest earnings report, the game has sold over 22.4 million copies as of August.

By Lucas Manfredi | Fox News

The Biden-Harris campaign is stepping up its digital outreach to younger voters ahead of the November presidential election with new yard signs available to players of the hit Nintendo video game "Animal Crossing: New Horizons."

“Animal Crossing is a dynamic, diverse, and powerful platform that brings communities together from across the world. It is an exciting new opportunity for our campaign to engage and connect Biden-Harris supporters as they build and decorate their islands," Christian Tom, director of digital partnerships for the Biden campaign, told FOX News in a statement.

"Since today marks the start of fall in the game and the leaves start to change color, we are introducing a staple for the season: Team Joe yard signs. As we enter the final campaign stretch toward November, this is one way we are finding new creative and innovative ways to meet voters where they are and bring our supporters together."



Image 1 of 4
Photo courtesy of Biden campaign

The campaign has released four sign designs for players to download that they can place around their virtual island homes, including the official Biden-Harris logo, the Team Joe logo, the “Joe” Pride logo, and an image of aviator sunglasses shaded in red, white, and blue.

Players will be able to access the designs in-game by scanning the design QR codes through the Nintendo Switch Online app.

"This is just the start of how we plan to engage players ahead of November as we’re already looking forward to rolling out more digital swag, voter education tools, and organizing efforts on Animal Crossing and other platforms,” Tom added. 

Some users have taken to social media to complain about the campaign's latest tactic, arguing that they just want health care, affordable education and transparency and accountability from the DNC

A political campaign reaching out to voters through mobile apps is not entirely unheard of.




Back in 2016, then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign held an event at a Pokestop in Ohio, where Pokemon Go players could collect a free item within the game.

Clinton mentioned the app during a campaign rally, saying "I don't know who created Pokemon Go, but I'd try to figure out how to get them to have Pokemon go to the polls."

The Trump 2020 Campaign also put out an ad against Clinton at the time that utilized the game.

"Often found lying to the American people, rigging the system, and sharing TOP SECRET emails," the advertisement read. "Next evolution: unemployed."

The Trump campaign is not currently offering yard signs within Animal Crossing. However, supporters of President Trump can still customize their own campaign signs in the game if they wish to do so.
“This explains everything: Joe Biden thinks he’s campaigning for President of Animal Crossing from his basement," Samantha Zager, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told FOX News in a statement. "The Trump campaign will continue to spend its resources campaigning in the real world with real Americans.”

Trump 2020 Communications Director Tim Murtaugh added that Trump yard signs, banners, and flags are "proudly displayed in abundance by real people in the real world," a measure of enthusiasm which he says Biden "can't touch."

According to Nintendo's latest earnings report, the game has sold over 22.4 million copies as of August. The game was released on March 20 and has surged in popularity as Americans stuck inside due to the coronavirus pandemic began downloading the game.

In Pictures: Anti-government protests in Beirut turn violent

Activists denounced security forces for beating protesters, alleged that French tear gas used to disperse crowds.


Hundreds of people gathered in Martyrs' Square to mark the centennial and protest the governing class. ARWA IBRAHIM/AL JAZEERA

Protesters in Beirut attempted to storm the Parliament of Lebanon on Tuesday, the same day the country celebrated the passage of 100 years since the declaration of Greater Lebanon by the French mandate authorities.

Some protesters attempted to smash down walls around the building while others managed to break through one gate before they were forced back by police with tear gas.

Activists have blamed the country's entrenched political class for the August 4 explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate that had languished in the port for years.

Violent clashes erupted, with protesters throwing tear gas canisters back at officers. Activists condemned police actions, saying protesters were beaten.

A military vehicle was also called in to deal with the crowds.

Protesters called for a "new Lebanon" without its reviled leaders, urging visiting French President Emmanuel Macron not to cooperate with them.

In the capital's Martyrs' Square, not far from the port, demonstrators one by one took to a stage to make their demands: a secular state, civil marriage, a productive economy.

Waving Lebanese flags and denouncing "corrupt" politicians, others nearby demanded the birth of a new secular state and the end of what they view as a broken political power-sharing system.

"The first century has been nothing but wars, foreign occupation, poverty, corruption, emigration, sectarian divisions, and now this explosion that killed and wounded thousands," said 21-year-old port worker Omar.

"We urgently need to revamp this system," he said, referring to a political arrangement that seeks to share power between Lebanon's myriad religious communities but instead often leads to an endless deadlock.



Anti-government protesters shout slogans during a protest near Parliament Square in Beirut. BILAL HUSSEIN/AP PHOTO

Demonstrators confront security forces during the protests in downtown Beirut. MOHAMED AZAKIR/REUTERS

The protests coincided with a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Beirut for the second time since the explosion that killed at least 190 people, injured thousands, and left 300,000 others homeless. AFP

Protesters use metal frames to climb over steel walls surrounding Lebanon's heavily fortified Parliament complex. AFP

A protester uses a badminton racket to send back a tear gas canister fired by security forces amid the anti-government demonstration in the centre of Beirut. AFP

Riot police clash with anti-government protesters near Parliament Square. HASSAN AMMAR/AP PHOTO

An anti-government protester throws stones towards riot police. BILAL HUSSEIN/AP PHOTO

An armoured vehicle was called in to deal with the crowds. AFP

Lebanon turns 100 amid upheaval and crises

Facing potential bankruptcy and total collapse, many Lebanese mark the centennial feeling their nation has failed.

Demonstrations have taken place in Lebanon against multiples crises, including the deadly Beirut blast [Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu]

It was a century ago on September 1, 1920, that a French general, Henri Gouraud, stood on the porch of a Beirut palace surrounded by local politicians and religious leaders and declared the State of Greater Lebanon - the precursor of the modern state of Lebanon.

The current French president, Emmanuel Macron, is visiting Lebanon to mark the occasion, 100 years later. But the mood could not be more sombre.

Lebanon has been hit by a series of catastrophes, including a financial crash. On August 4, a massive explosion at Beirut's port killed at least 190 people and injured thousands - the culmination of decades of accumulated crises, endemic corruption, and mismanagement by an entrenched governing class.

Facing potential bankruptcy and total collapse, many Lebanese are marking the centennial with a feeling that their experiment as a nation has failed and questioning their willingness to stay in the crisis-riddled country.

"I am 53 years old and I don't feel I had one stable year in this country," said prominent Lebanese writer Alexandre Najjar.

Like others from his generation, Najjar lived through the 1975-1990 civil war, when Beirut's name became synonymous with hostages, car bombings and chaos.

He was a teenager when Israel invaded Beirut in the summer of 1982, imposing a suffocating siege of the capital for three months, and a young man when Christian militias turned their guns on each other in 1989. When former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in an enormous Beirut truck bombing in 2005, Najjar was in his late 30s.

The following year, Israel and Hezbollah engaged in a month-long war. In between, countless other conflicts, bouts of sectarian fighting and other disasters plagued one generation after another, leading to waves of Lebanese emigration.

But the August 4 explosion, says Najjar, was the "peak of a failed state" - proof that authorities cannot even provide basic public safety.

It was not supposed to be that way.
Model of pluralism

Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Lebanon fell under the French mandate, starting in 1920. France governed for 23 years until the country gained independence as the Lebanese Republic.

Home to 18 different religious sects, it was hailed as a model of pluralism and coexistence. The nation settled on an unwritten sectarian arrangement, initially seen as the guarantee of stability, but which many Lebanese now consider a curse: the president would always be Christian, the prime minister Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker Shia Muslim, with other posts similarly divvied up.

In the 1950s, under pro-Western President Camille Chamoun, the economy flourished thanks to booming tourism and cash from oil-rich Arab nations. But his presidency ended with the outbreak of Lebanon's first civil war in 1958, which lasted for several months and saw US troops land to help Chamoun.

A Lebanese flag is pictured in the aftermath of the enormous explosion in Beirut's damaged port area [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

Lebanon saw its heyday in the 1960s and early '70s, when the country became a regional centre for the rich and famous who flew from around the world to gamble at the Casino Du Liban, or to attend concerts in the ancient northeastern city of Baalbek by international artists such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Soviet ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev, American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, as well as famous Arab singers like Egypt's Umm Kalthoum and Lebanon's own Fairouz.

Palestinian fighters during this time began launching attacks against Israel from Lebanese territory, splitting the Lebanese. Disaster struck again in 1975, with the start of the 15-year civil war, eventually pitting Lebanon's sects against each other.

That conflict killed nearly 150,000 people. Syrian troops moved in, and Israel invaded twice - once in 1978, then again in 1982, in an assault that forced late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and his fighters to leave Lebanon.

US interests were repeatedly attacked, most notably two bombings of the American embassy and the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed 241 US service members, the deadliest attack on the Marines since the battle of Iwo Jima in 1945. On the same day, 58 French paratroopers were killed by a second attacker who struck their installation in Beirut.

The country also had two presidents and two prime ministers assassinated, in addition to dozens of other politicians, legislators, journalists and activists who were killed.

Hundreds of protesters injured as anger simmers in Beirut (3:20)

Rise of Hezbollah

Israel's 1982 invasion and the attacks on the Americans marked the rise of what later became the armed group Hezbollah.

After the civil war ended in 1990, the Iranian-backed Shia militia was the only one allowed to keep its weapons because it was fighting Israeli occupation forces in southern Lebanon.

When Israel withdrew from the south in 2000, Hezbollah kept its powerful fighting force, depicting itself as Lebanon's defender. It fought Israeli forces to a draw in 2006, and tensions remain high along the border.

Today, Hezbollah and its allies, led by President Michel Aoun, dominate Lebanese politics and control a majority in parliament.

But the Lebanese are deeply divided over Hezbollah. While many in the Shia community are fiercely loyal to the group, and many non-Shia sympathise with its anti-Israel stance, others increasingly see it as imposing Iran's will on the country.

Many civil war-era warlords today head political factions, holding onto posts for themselves or their families and controlling powerful local business interests. The factions pass out positions in government ministries and public institutions to followers or carve out business sectors for them, ensuring their backing.

Corruption has soared during the past two decades, and the sectarian-based patronage system has left Lebanon with crumbling infrastructure, a bloated public sector and one of the world's highest debt ratios, at 170 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) - topped by a governing class that amassed fortunes.

Last October, nationwide protests erupted against the worsening economy, and the financial juggling act that had been the basis of Lebanon's prosperity since 1990 collapsed into the most severe economic crisis of the country's modern history, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.

"Lebanon is in its worst period over the past 100 years," said legislator Marwan Hamadeh. "We are in the worst stage, economically, politically and even when it comes to national unity."

"We are currently occupied by Iran and its missiles," added Hamadeh, who was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in 2004 that he blames on Hezbollah.

Supporters of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri wave Lebanese flags outside the Lebanon Tribunal on August 18 [Pierre Crom/Getty Images]

Historian Johnny Mezher said to solve its problems, Lebanon could start by adopting a law that boosts national identity rather than loyalty to one's sect and helps ensure qualifications determine who gets state posts, rather than sectarian connections.

"Religious figures should be prevented from meddling in politics," he said.

Even after seven decades of Lebanese independence, France still wields strong influence on the tiny Mediterranean nation.

Two days after the port blast - with Lebanese leaders totally absent - Macron visited Beirut and toured one of the most heavily damaged neighbourhoods to a hero's welcome, with some chanting "Vive La France."

More than 60,000 signed a petition to place Lebanon under French mandate for 10 years, an idea Macron firmly dismissed. "It's up to you to write your history," he told the crowds.

On his return trip, Macron will plant a tree in Beirut on Tuesday to mark the centenary and meet with Lebanese officials to push them towards forming a government and enacting reforms.

"There is no doubt we were expecting the 100th anniversary to be different. We did not expect this year to be catastrophic to this level," said Najjar, who is a lawyer, poet and author of about 30 books in French, including one that tells the story of Beirut during the 20th century.

"There is still hope," he said. "We have hit rock bottom and things cannot get worse."

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How will Lebanon ever recover? | Start Here

SOURCE: AP NEWS AGENCY

Portland And Kenosha Could Be America's Violent Future

“What happened in Kenosha was entirely predictable. Unfortunately, I think we’ll see more of it.”

Last updated on August 30, 2020

Adam Rogan / AP
Kyle Rittenhouse (left), with backward cap, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Aug. 25, with another armed civilian.

The violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin this week — in which a teenage Trump supporter allegedly shot and killed two people at a Black Lives Matter rally and wounded a third — has raised a terrifying prospect: What if it is not a horrific one-off but a preview of what's to come?

What if the bitter presidential election is not decided on Election Day — a scenario many experts say is likely — and people from both sides take to the streets? What if Trump appears to lose the election but claims that the outcome was rigged and refuses to concede, a possibility that he has already floated? What if Trump loses the popular vote again but still wins the election, and protesters fill the streets, met by counterprotesters? What if it turns violent?


With the election two months away, the country’s divides have grown increasingly dangerous. Speakers at the Republican National Convention, led by the president, warned that the country is spiraling into disorder and chaos. Self-proclaimed militia members have taken to the streets across the country with guns to defend property amid protests against police brutality. An online ecosystem quickly connects and radicalizes like-minded “patriots,” as social media industry executives struggle to contain the consequences.

Now, elected leaders, police officials, and political observers are looking out at their streets and public plazas with trepidation: Could violent clashes erupt out there on Nov. 4? How bad could it get?

“It’s extremely concerning,” said Howard Graves, a senior policy analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. “There’s a brewing climate of hostility. Far-right groups have stated their intent to publicly demonstrate with firearms around polling locations or anywhere there is civil strife.”

“What happened in Kenosha was entirely predictable,” he added. “Unfortunately, I think we’ll see more of it.”

This spring and summer, as protests against police brutality have reached towns where no one thought they would ever come, Americans have taken to the streets like never before. The majority of these protests have been peaceful, but increasingly, in small cities and big ones, there has also been violence, or the dark threat of it. Many on the right have grown terrified by what they see on the news every night, especially on conservative media.


Armed groups of people wielding baseball bats, or machetes, or even long guns and assault weapons have begun appearing, sometimes on the fringes and sometimes in the center of the action. The reasons have varied. Sometimes, as in Richmond, Virginia, and Lansing, Michigan, it was to protest shelter-in-place orders or mask requirements. Sometimes, as in Dallas and Provo, Utah, and Douglas County, Nevada, it was to gather a show of force to counteract the perceived threat of Black Lives Matter protests and the destruction of property and burning of businesses that sometimes trailed in its wake.

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Jeff Kowalsky / Getty Images
An armed group at the Michigan State Capitol, on April 15, 2020, protests the governor's stay-at-home orders aimed at containing coronavirus spread.

People from both ends of the political spectrum have appeared on the streets in the last few months with guns, but right-wing protesters have made a spectacle of showing up with military-grade weapons, such as when throngs of largely white protesters, many conspicuously toting assault weapons, marched into the state capitol in Michigan. Gun ownership in America tilts heavily Republican; according to a 2017 study from the Pew Research Center, “Republican and Republican leading independents are more than twice as likely as Democrats and Democrat leaning independents to say they own a gun.”

President Donald Trump has at times condoned people who take the law into their own hands. At the Republican National Convention this week, his campaign gave a primetime speaking slot to the Missouri couple who stood on their front porch brandishing guns while Black Lives Matters protesters marched peacefully by on the way to demonstrate in front of the St. Louis mayor’s home.

In recent months, left-wing militia groups have sprouted up to protect protesters. Marq Claxton, a retired NYPD detective and director of the Black Law Enforcement Alliance, said he worries about the peril of heavily armed civilians squaring off at this tense, emotional moment.

Already, armed groups have shot or threatened protesters and even law enforcement officials. In Oakland, California, a suspected member of the "boogaloo boys," an extremist, right-wing, anti-government group — a fact that Vice President Mike Pence pointedly ignored — was arrested on charges of fatally shooting a federal officer. In Bethel, Ohio, hundreds of counterprotesters, some of them armed, confronted around 80 Black Lives Matter protesters on a peaceful summer afternoon; a melee ensued. In Bedford County, Pennsylvania, a white man allegedly shot a protester marching with a group from Wisconsin to Washington, DC.

And then there is Kenosha, where armed militia members patrolled the streets with the stated purpose of defending property and backing up law enforcement amid protests sparked by the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The militia members were organized on Facebook by a group calling itself the “Kenosha Guard” and invited “any patriots willing to take up arms” against “evil thugs.” Facebook received more than 450 reports about the page — far more than for any other event that day — but left it up. On Tuesday night, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly opened fire with an AR-15, killing one man. Then, after appearing to run away, he fell down, and prosecutors say he opened fire again, killing a second man and wounding a third.

Rittenhouse was arrested Thursday and charged with murder. But not before his actions were defended by prominent figures on the right: Tucker Carlson described Rittenhouse as acting to “defend order when no one else would.” Online fundraisers sought money for his legal bills — his lawyers have said he was acting in self-defense — and hashtags called him a hero.

“We’re seeing this cultural embrace of vigilantism,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.


Joseph Prezioso / Getty Images
A man wears a shirt calling for freedom for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who allegedly shot protesters in Wisconsin, during a Donald Trump campaign rally in Londonderry, New Hampshire, Aug. 28.

Vigilante groups on the right have begun to organize online this summer: quickly, passionately, and in direct response to Black Lives Matter protests or public health mandates to wear masks or stay at home. Social media giants have typically been slow to take down pages, such as the Kenosha Guard page, that appear to incite mayhem.

“There are a lot of new groups on the scene,” said Carolyn Gallaher, a professor at American University’s School of International Service who studies militia groups. “If we have an election that's contested and these groups come out in the streets, it’s going to be really hard to police because a lot of cities aren't used to dealing with this,” Gallaher added. “As a country we've allowed these groups to brazenly walk around with military-grade weapons, and we haven't policed them or reined them in.”

In some cities, many rank-and-file officers appear to tacitly support armed militia members.

In Kenosha this week, officers were captured on video praising armed militia members and thanking them for coming into the city. Some also provided them with bottles of water. Rittenhouse reportedly received one himself from police before the shooting. During the first week of protests following the police killing of George Floyd, the Oath Keepers militia in Texas and the Three Percenters militia in Utah both announced that they were collaborating with local law enforcement to help provide security services.

Some officers “sympathize with those groups, and they almost treat them as an auxiliary of the department,” said Jody Armour, a professor at the University of Southern California Law School. “The people who are tasked with maintaining order and keeping the peace in the event of a contested election and an outbreak of violence are themselves partisan.” Indeed, police unions and leaders across the country have endorsed Trump, who has lashed out at the Black Lives Matter movement and directed federal agents to crack down on protests.

Widespread election protests, in which pro-Trump officers stand between protesters who share their affinity for the incumbent and protesters who don’t, could “really test the fabric of the nation's democracy, and what it’s real relationship is with law enforcement,” Armour said.

Gallaher, the scholar who studies militias, said the vigilantes on patrol at this summer’s protests bear little resemblance to the libertarian militias operating around the US in the 1990s and 2000s, which sometimes clashed with law enforcement in high-profile stand-offs over land or tax issues. Instead, they are more akin to the pro-government paramilitary groups of recent history in Iraq, Colombia, Northern Ireland, or the Jim Crow South, “where they are formally not of the state but they have similar overlap and aims,” she said. “Paramilitaries can often do the dirty work of the state, and the state can have plausible deniability because they're not connected to them.”

And then there are the politics of the presidential election itself. As the economy sputters and COVID cases climb, President Trump has campaigned on framing cities controlled by Democrats as lawless cauldrons of chaos while painting the suburbs — and the crucial bloc of voters who live there — as communities under seige. Many of his supporters are terrified by what they see on the news every night, especially on conservative media. His campaign has made “law and order” a centerpiece, and he threatened to send federal troops into cities from Philadelphia to Chicago to Oakland.

In that sense, if Kenosha offers one future scenario, Portland, Oregon, offers another. There, mass demonstrations in the streets have been aggravated by partisan politics in a presidential election, and a conflict between local control and federal intervention ordered by President Trump.

Amid ongoing Black Lives Matter demonstrations, officers from the Department of Homeland Security moved into Portland in July and began detaining protesters in unmarked vans and shooting tear gas nightly into crowds of demonstrators, including long lines of women who proclaimed themselves a “wall of moms.”



Nathan Howard / Getty Images
A Portland police officer rips a bike from the hands of a protester while dispersing a crowd from in front of the Multnomah County Sheriffs Office in Portland, Oregon, Aug. 22.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler took to the streets with protesters, where he was teargassed by law enforcement and then donned goggles in front of the media while denouncing federal tactics. But despite his show of support for protesters, Wheeler has been pilloried by the left, who call him “Tear Gas Teddy,” for his apparent helplessness to control law enforcement actions in his city. Last weekend, armed protesters from both the left and the right faced off on the downtown streets, scuffling for hours while wielding weapons including paintball guns, actual guns, and metal rods. Police officers watched but made no arrests.

Wheeler, Portland’s mayor, crystallized a key problem: The city was “at a critical place where police officers are needed to intervene in protests where police officers themselves are the flashpoint.”

On Friday, Wheeler released an open letter to Donald Trump in which he blamed the president for some of the violence on the streets. “We know you’ve reached the conclusion that images of violence or vandalism are your only ticket to reelection,” he wrote. “When you sent the Feds to Portland last month, you made the situation far worse.”

Some elected officials and police leaders, perhaps wary of the volatile politics, refused to even discuss the prospect of militia violence in their streets, declining interview requests with BuzzFeed News. But other officials, including mayors in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Missoula, Montana, have felt it necessary to publicly proclaim that they do not support armed civilians taking it upon themselves to act as police.

"We, as elected leaders from the Spokane community, declare that we oppose the presence of armed vigilantes roaming the streets of our city," read a public statement issued in June by elected leaders in that Washington state city after armed militia groups began patrolling the downtown area, alarming local business owners.

On the front lines, police officers around the country have privately told BuzzFeed News that they are growing increasingly fearful.

“It’s to the point now that we’re almost in too deep because we’ve allowed too many people to have these legitimate weapons during these riots and protests,” said an officer in Maryland, who asked not to be named for fear that speaking about the issue would put his safety at risk. “We have to toe the line very carefully because we’re up against equal firepower. Even though the police have more numbers, we aren’t trained like the military to be prepared to face shit like that on a daily basis.”

Albert Samaha is an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

Jessica Garrison is a senior investigative editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in San Francisco.

How Scotland's public sector pulled together to fight Covid through data

Covid-19 marked a fundamental shift in how real-time statistical information was discussed, shared and interpreted on a daily basis – and analysed for ­relevance by people who had shown little or no interest in data before.

By David Lee
Wednesday, 26th August 2020,

Picture: Shutterstock

“There is something quite powerful in the ability of any citizen to go online and see updated data on cases, fatalities and much more, for anywhere in the world,” says Professor Shannon Vallor, Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and AI at the University of Edinburgh.

“We have seen epidemiological modelling for many past outbreaks, but this is the first time the public was able to access data in such a usable form.”

Gillian Docherty, chief executive of Edinburgh-based innovation centre The Data Lab, agrees: “Every day, we were told, ‘We’re analysing the data, looking at the evidence – that’s informing what we are doing’. That’s been a fundamental change.”

So, how well geared up was Scotland in understanding the data, sharing it across different public bodies and analysing it at high speed to inform life-or-death decisions

Docherty has been impressed. She says: “I’ve been involved with the public sector for more than a decade and never seen the level of co-operation I’ve seen over the last five months. There has been a can-do attitude, a real willingness to support each other – and this includes handling, sharing and analysing data.

“If you had an important data review, you might have been doing it every three months; during the pandemic, it was, ‘OK, we’ll do that tomorrow’. The public sector proved it could move at speed to do what needed to be done while respecting governance and public privacy – and without ripping up the rule book. That’s really positive.”

Jason Leitch, a public face of the pandemic as Scotland’s National Clinical Director, says: “The pace and scale of development has been unprecedented. Data has played a critical role throughout the stages of the pandemic and been vital to modelling the potential impacts on demand for health and other services, to ensure they have sufficient capacity to respond to the surge in infection. It has also been used to inform the actions required to minimise impact and keep people safe.”

Dr Kenneth Meechan, head of information and data protection officer at Glasgow City Council, reports a similar picture. He says: “We have learned we can move really fast if we have to. At very short notice, there was a raft of data sharing with the NHS and other agencies that local authorities did not normally share data with, ­organising food and medical deliveries for people who were shielding and identifying those with social and financial vulnerabilities.

Despite challenges around privacy and data-sharing agreements between public bodies, Meechan maintains pragmatism prevailed with lives at risk. He says: “There was an element of necessity and a light touch in terms of governance in a crisis situation; sometimes you had to go ahead and complete data protection assessments later.

“No-one would have thanked me for saying that shielding didn’t start because we were waiting for technical paperwork to be signed.”

However, Meechan, also chair of a SOLAR group of Scottish councils’ lawyers on data protection and related issues, stresses: “Just because you’re in a crisis, you don’t throw out fundamental safeguards or violate anyone’s rights. We were conscious where we had to relax normal controls and tracked what we did – and why. We’ll examine that and ask questions.”

He says that lessons learned include working with the NHS to look at a “heat map” of positive tests in the event of further outbreaks. “This is fundamental stuff about people’s health and lives. We are not using personal data for anything ­other than making important and quick decisions to protect vulnerable people.”

And he says amid the crisis there have been positive developments: “In the space of four months, we’ve pushed forward IT and data sharing in a way that would have taken at least 18 months normally.

“We have learned valuable lessons, like using social work data beside other data in the NHS Safe Haven. It’s ‘under the bonnet’ so not obviously visible, but researchers can use it to draw conclusions. Through SOLAR and other professional networks like the Local Government Digital Office, local authorities have been able to respond on a more collective basis rather than have our partner agencies negotiate 32 times over, which is better for everyone.”

However, the coronavirus crisis also identified areas where improvements are needed. Leitch says there is “much to learn in terms of how we use data in future”, and there was fierce criticism in the media of the discharging of patients who hadn’t been tested for Covid-19 from hospitals to care homes in the early stages of the pandemic.

One “could do better” issue is the fact that local authorities and other public bodies use a variety of different platforms, which can make sharing data slower and clunkier than it should be.

Docherty says: “There is a big piece of work to do around common data standards and frameworks – it’s easier to share data [both ethically and legally] between public
bodies when everything is aligned. The Scottish Government understands that and is well down the road in addressing it.”

Albert King, Scotland’s Chief Data Officer, says that real progress has been made before and during the pandemic, but accepts there are challenges, “because different
public services describe data in different ways”.

He says this is being addressed by creating “contemporary, digital, platform-based business models”, set out in Scotland’s Digital Strategy.

“This is reflected in the approach we are taking to digital identity and payments. Adoption of common data standards and platforms reduces the cost and time of delivering digital products and ­services.”

To help speed up this digital journey, two taskforces were set up. One connected councils, the Scottish Government, NHS, police, enterprise agencies and others “to assemble data from across the public sector for analysis”, says King.

Research Data Scotland also announced a new taskforce in May, chaired by Chief Statistician Roger Halliday.

It brought together existing and emerging data resources, expertise, capabilities and key data sets – healthcare services, testing, care home residents, vulnerable groups and school pupils, as well as census data – to advise ministers making vital decisions around Covid-19.

King says that collaboration was highly significant in the early months of the pandemic: “Bringing together health and local government data was really important in enabling us to work together to identify and support people who were shielding.”

He also highlights Connecting Scotland, which supports thousands of vulnerable people (those on low incomes and considered clinically at high risk) to get online to access services and connect with their friends and family during the pandemic.

King says: “Both examples meant co-operation between national and local government, health and social care and the voluntary sector, to understand who needed support and where.”

The Big Interview: Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre chief executive Heather Jones
Heather Jones champions innovation in an effort to ensure Scottish aquaculture is a world leader.

By Emma Newlands
Wednesday, 2nd September 2020
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Jones says her remit includes championing innovation in aquaculture. Picture: H Preston.

Heather Jones heads the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC), which last month announced it was looking to support the industry’s recovery from Covid-19 through a new innovation fund. The pandemic has been a significant challenge to the economy and aquaculture is no exception, with the centre looking to help the sector adapt to a “new commercial and operational reality in the months and years ahead”.Can you explain what your role entails and what you aim to achieve?

The CEO was also key in the formation of Women in Scottish Aquaculture. Picture: H Preston.


As the chief executive of SAIC, my role champions innovation in aquaculture and builds links at the interface between the sector and academia. A key aim is helping applied research from Scottish universities and institutions to have real-world impact, in Scotland and beyond.


Last year we set out our strategy for phase two of SAIC which includes working with SMEs, nurturing skills and talent, and continuing to drive innovation and share knowledge. The collaborative research projects we support have a notable economic impact and contribute to the sector’s overarching ambition for growth – the industry plans to sustainably double its economic contribution from £1.8 billion in 2016 to £3.6bn by 2030.


During our first five-year phase, we helped to turn an initial project funding package of £6.75m into an applied research portfolio valued at £42.6m, spread across 47 collaborative initiatives In the next phase we hope to do even more to establish a low-carbon, hi-tech, data-rich and cutting-edge sector that builds on the existing foundations.


The organisation recently launched a funding call to support Scotland’s growing aquaculture sector through the continuing impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Can you explain this?


The industry has been incredibly adaptable, continuing to produce healthy, nutritious protein throughout lockdown. It’s been a seminal example of organisations being flexible, creative and innovative. Changes to consumer eating habits and to international export markets have massively disrupted supply chains.


To build resilience for the future, there may be opportunities for Scottish businesses to service their local customers, not just in terms of the supply of food but also in terms of the infrastructure and hardware essential to run successful businesses.


As the population grows, the demand for protein-rich food sources will grow in tandem – how can seafood help meet that need?


Agriculturally-based protein supplies are finite and constrained by land available for farming. In contrast there is an untapped potential to increase farmed fish and shellfish production. Scotland has an abundance of marine and coastal resources, with the ideal conditions to farm Atlantic salmon in harmony with nature.


The “blue revolution” is about harnessing the power and potential of the world’s seas, rivers, lochs and oceans – for energy, for food and to harvest the organisms that grow there such as seaweed. The careful harvesting of natural resources, in a sustainable way, will help us not only to feed the world, but also to develop new biologically and ecologically sustainable ingredients.


You are doing an MSc in sustainable aquaculture – how rapidly has sustainability moved up the agenda, and what more needs to be done?


Sustainability has been on the agenda for decades but its importance is being recognised more and more. The issue of climate change is much better understood now, and there are ample opportunities for us to apply what we know to how we conserve and use global resources – of food, energy and water – sustainably.


For change to happen, though, political will and societal acceptability are crucial, as are practical steps to implement better ways of producing and consuming with less waste on both sides of that equation.

I firmly believe that aquaculture is a massive part of sustainable global food production. In developing countries, aquaculture can offer ways out of starvation and poverty for individuals and communities. And global trade in farmed seafood products supports the economic development of many emerging countries.


Sustainable aquaculture is all about farming responsibly. Over-exploitation in farming today harms the natural environment and the resources on which our ability to farm tomorrow depends. That’s why so much effort is being made to ensure Scottish aquaculture is one of the most sustainable forms of farming in the world.


Sharing knowledge is another big part of helping the sector to grow sustainably – transferring technical and technological know-how from company to company, country to country. I think better information supporting consumer choice can help deepen an understanding of what sustainability means in its broadest sense.


Tell us how your career progressed before your arrival at SAIC.


I’ve had a varied career that started with the civil service graduate programme after university. I have also spent time working with the private sector in the US, as well as a stint in London working for a Scottish Office minister. Before I joined SAIC, I was a deputy director in the Scottish Government, where I had four fascinating roles – in one, I was responsible for aquaculture, freshwater fisheries, and marine licensing, which then led me to SAIC.


Across many of my roles, I’ve had amazing opportunities to work globally, particularly when I was responsible within the Scottish Government for international aid and “soft” diplomacy – using Scotland’s cultural assets to export our products, infused with Scottish provenance and values, and to attract overseas students and inward investment to come to Scotland.


You have extensive volunteering experience – what do you think the benefits of volunteering are?


I have enjoyed volunteering in several different contexts and have always found it to be a life-enriching experience. There is something special about engaging with others with no strings attached. It then becomes all about the relationships and the shared values and benefits of doing things with others who are also giving their time and energy too.


Voluntary work can sometimes be thought of as all about the “giving”, whether that’s time, energy or expertise. My reality has been that I’ve got so much more back in return. I’ve had some of the most fun, rewarding and memorable times in my life volunteering.


You were key in the formation of Women in Scottish Aquaculture, which launched on International Women’s Day last year – what is its purpose and what has it achieved?


WiSA is a networking group for women and men, all about promoting diversity. As well as encouraging more people to consider a career in aquaculture and targeting support to those at entry level, we also offer a range of services for women already working in the sector.


We want to celebrate the role of women, highlighting inspiring, positive role models for the next generation. We do lots of networking, in person and online, and recently ran our first mentoring scheme with 38 mentors and mentees involved.


At one of our first group meetings we were joined by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, which was a fantastic endorsement of the vibrant, lively community we’ve created.


Networks like WiSA can be invaluable in providing the tools and skills to help women build successful careers, while also helping to promote the range of rewarding opportunities to the next generation of talent.


What would you like the SAIC to look like by, say, the end of 2021?

I’d like to welcome some younger faces into the SAIC team. They will likely bring a fresh outlook and different perspective with them. If we start working with new talent today, then we can help to build and develop the leaders of tomorrow.

Scottish aquaculture sector to gain from research programme led by University of the West of Scotland

Plans are being hatched to set up a spin-out company in Scotland to develop a tool to improve fish health and boost the aquaculture sector.

By Perry Gourley
Saturday, 18th April 2020

A research programme being led by the University of the West of Scotland and backed by a number of industry players is working on a monitoring system to help seafood producers identify health concerns and take pre-emptive action.

A research programme being led by the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and backed by a number of industry players is working on a monitoring system to help seafood producers identify health concerns and take pre-emptive action.

The method – similar to approaches used in human and veterinary medicine – involves regular analysis of biomarkers such as mineral or electrolyte levels in blood samples.

The project was recently awarded a significant funding package as part of the UK Seafood Innovation Fund, with support from the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre (SAIC).

Businesses including The Scottish Salmon Company, Scottish Sea Farms, Mowi, Cooke Aquaculture, Loch Duart, Wester Ross Fisheries, Grieg Seafood and Kames Fish Farming are also supporting the research.

The UWS team is planning to set up a company in a year or so to harness the research through Scottish Enterprise’s high-growth spin-out programme.

The new tool could dramatically improve the speed and efficiency of the health monitoring process at fish farms.

As part of the project, researchers are now running tests on thousands of samples to develop a digital database that will allow future blood samples to be cross-referenced against a set of biomarkers that represent normal conditions.

Brian Quinn, professor of ecotoxicology at the UWS’s aquaculture health laboratory, said: “This type of proactive approach might seem a no-brainer, given that it’s already used widely in human medicine and agriculture.

“However, it’s a very complex process and we’re just scratching the surface when it comes to developing the system for fish health.”

Quinn said the project has received a “great deal of support” from the industry as companies recognise the potential impact and benefits.

“The system could trigger a fundamental change in fish farming’s approach to health management, based on proactive, informed interventions – it’s the first time we’ve been in a position to offer this,” he added.

Polly Douglas, aquaculture innovation manager at the Stirling-based SAIC, said: “Enhancing fish health and wellbeing continues to be one of the biggest priorities for the sector in Scotland. It’s great to be helping to facilitate partnerships between academia and the industry that can find new, more efficient methods for monitoring and diagnosis. When it comes to complex projects, collaboration is key to success.”

SAIC champions gender equality in our sector and I hope to see that continue – our team is around 85 per cent female, compared with only 9 per cent in the wider aquaculture sector. I’d love to see more women working in the industry. A 50:50 split among new entrants would be such a positive step.


Within SAIC, and the Innovation Centre programme as a whole, the Scottish Government has created a superb model for collaborative innovation – between industries, academia and public sector organisations. It’s a model that works. And there’s nothing like the flattery of other countries recognising that and wanting to copy our success.


In aquaculture, we’ve had interest from the US, Canada, New Zealand and England, wanting to learn how to do what we do. And I know the other Innovation Centres are also widely regarded internationally as dynamic powerhouses of innovation and economic growth. So, my biggest wish for SAIC is that the government’s big-picture, forward-thinking approach to economic growth through collaboration continues well beyond the 2020s.


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