Mediaboss Marketing

An Air Force veteran from Southern California and ardent conspiracy theorist bent on war against the government. An Army psychological operations officer at Ft. Bragg, N.C. A decorated, retired Air Force officer of 18 years from Texas who served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The deadly riot in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 attracted a variety of far-right extremists who shared a devotion to President Trump and his insistence on a false belief that the November election had been stolen from him through fraud.

Many rioters also had something else in common as they sought to upend the American government in an insurrection that bristled with Confederate flags, racist symbols and conspiracy theories: They were ex-members of the military and police or actively employed by the armed services and law enforcement.

"It's an incredibly disturbing trend," retired U.S. Army Col. Jeffrey D. McCausland, a professor of national security at Dickinson College and former dean at the U.S. Army War College, said in an interview. "These are people who are supposed to uphold the Constitution and the law, yet they were doing the exact opposite."

Since the Capitol attack, which left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer and an Air Force veteran turned QAnon extremist, law enforcement authorities, journalists and amateur internet sleuths have scoured images, videos and arrest reports to identify those who were in the pro-Trump crowd.

The participants included members of the Oath Keepers, which recruits from ex-police and veterans, and Three Percenters, who wear patches and carry flags with the Roman numeral III. Photos show that another anti-government group, the Boogaloo Bois, was also in D.C.

The military and law enforcement ties among some rioters rattled U.S. officials ahead of more possible violence.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff this week issued a memo to the military condemning the attack as "a direct assault on the U.S. Congress, the Capitol building and our Constitutional process."

The Joint Chiefs, which is made up of the eight top branch generals, told service members that their jobs were to "support and defend the Constitution. Any act to disrupt the Constitutional process is not only against our traditions, values and oath; it is against the law."

The letter was addressed to the joint force, which covers the 1.3 million active-duty service members. It also includes 811,000 National Guard members and reservists.

Thousands of people took part in the violent insurrection at the Capitol as Congress certified electoral college votes confirming a November election victory for President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office next week. Federal officials have pressed dozens of charges and said they will file more bfore planned armed rallies in Washington and state capitols during the weekend.

One flier shared in right-wing message threads on social media after the Capitol attack instructs Trump supporters to "come armed" in front of legislative houses on Sunday, saying, "When democracy is destroyed, refuse to be silenced."

Those calls for action have grown after the U.S. House of Representatives voted 232-197 on Wednesday to impeach Trump for the second time.

People associated with the right-wing groups "are like dogs backed into a corner and have no option but to fight," said Joe Biggs, an Army veteran and Florida-based organizer for the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group that counts white supremacists among its members and encourages violence.

Biggs was in Washington on Jan. 6, but he said he did not enter the Capitol and planned to avoid weekend rallies. But the military and police training shared by many on the far-right present a dangerous dilemma for law enforcement seeking to quell riots and protests, especially since many followers invoke the Revolutionary War and see themselves as patriots.

"We take three months to plan an event," Biggs said on a podcast last month. "It's like, you're literally planning to go into a combat zone. It's not just like, 'Hey man, we're going to D.C., we're going to Portland.' It's like: 'All right, we're going to Portland. I need satellite imagery. I need to talk to people on the ground. I need them to scout out these alleyways when we have an escape route, we have four or five ways in and out, in case police close things off or whatever.' "

Those in the Washington mob included 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran from San Diego whom police shot dead as she was among armed rioters forcing their way through the Capitol.

Another retired member of the Air Force, Larry Rendall Brock Jr., was arrested Sunday in Texas and charged with unlawfully entering a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct in federal court in Washington, D.C., after photographs showed him on the Senate floor in a military-style helmet, black-and-green camouflage vest and tactical vest while holding zip-tie handcuffs.

Video now removed from social media also showed 45-year-old Adam Newbold, who the Navy confirmed as a retired Navy SEAL, saying how proud he was of what happened in the nation's capital. He posted the video from a car as he returned to Lisbon, Ohio.

Police officers from Los Angeles, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington state, and the police chief of Troy, N.H., were in Washington on Jan. 6, as was a firefighter from Sanford, Fla. On Wednesday, federal officials arrested and charged two Rocky Mount, Va., officers with unlawfully entering a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct.

In the attack's aftermath, researchers and federal investigators have raised questions about how and why so many of those sworn to uphold the Constitution have become involved with dangerous extremist groups.

Kurt Braddock, a professor at American University who has written extensively on extremist groups said that, in recent years, greater numbers of ex-military and law enforcement are becoming involved with extremist groups, which he said provide "a sense of identity and direction."

"Their past experiences were almost entirely based on being part of a collective unit designed to protect something. The propaganda of the far-right makes this same promise that you can find brotherhood and belonging in a group with a purpose," Braddock said.

There are 19.5 million veterans in the country, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. The federal government has not done a comprehensive study of how many have joined extremist causes, though experts said the vast majority do not.

The history of extremism, law enforcement and the military goes deep in the U.S. Former Confederate officers founded the Ku Klux Klan in the 19th century. In the 1970s, the Klan operated openly at Camp Pendleton. In 1995, Gulf War veteran Timothy McVeigh and accomplice Terry Nichols bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

Analysts say extremist elements have ebbed and flowed in policing and the armed services as more Americans have embraced or moved away from violent ideologies, in part influenced by economic downtowns and political changes, such as racist resistance to the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the first Black president in the U.S.

Many in law enforcement have seen a rise in caustic rhetoric by current and former colleagues.

Caesar Alvarez, a former sheriff's deputy in rural New Mexico, said that in the past four years he's seen increased vitriol being spewed among current and former law enforcement on social media.

"Statewide, like in most places, law enforcement is pro-Trump, pro right-wing," Alvarez said. "There are moments in reading some of this stuff, you stop and think: 'Are these guys committed to upholding the law or Trump?'"

In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security apologized to veterans groups after releasing a controversial report that said extreme right-wing groups could be recruiting from disgruntled veterans who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Civil rights groups have since criticized screening measures in the military that do not outright ban white supremacists. ("Mere membership in a white supremacist group is not prohibited," deputy director of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations Robert Grabosky said at February hearing of the Subcommittee on Military Personnel of the House Armed Services Committee.)

Some militias recruit specifically among veterans and ex-police. The Oath Keepers is one of them. Its name comes from the oaths its members took as law enforcement and military. The group's founder, former Army paratrooper Steward Rhodes, joined the pro-Trump rally last week but has said he did not enter the Capitol or confront police.

Rhodes did not respond to calls from The Times for this article. In an interview last week with The Times, he called the presidential election a "sham" and said there were "pissed-off patriots that are not going to accept their form of government being stolen."

The Oath Keepers, which also encouraged its members to patrol polling sites in November, has been tied to several "stop the steal" pro-Trump rallies since then. Ahead of one of those demonstrations last month in D.C., Rhodes boasted about those with law enforcement backgrounds in his group.

"The leftist terrorists know our police go armed and they don't know which among the Oath Keepers they are looking at are police," he wrote on the Oath Keepers website, which has since gone offline. "We always mix in our police with our military members."

Before the Capitol attack, another attempt on a legislative building took place in the spring in Michigan when armed anti-lockdown groups converged in the Michigan capital to protest coronavirus-related businesses restrictions.

While several men and women entered the state house in Lansing, including members of the Michigan Home Guard militia, there were no deaths or major violence. Months later, state and federal law enforcement charged 13 men in a plot to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and put her on trial for the lockdown measures. Several were members of group called the Wolverine Watchmen.

After Twitter, Facebook and other major social media companies banned and suspended right-wing accounts this week for inciting violence, including Trump's, many militias have migrated to alternative networks such as Gab, Zello, CloutHub and MeWe. Another, Parler, has effectively shut down after Apple, Google and Amazon banned it.

Jim Murphy, a 73-year-old Green Bay, Wis.,-based county commissioner and Army veteran, is among those who has begun to migrate his accounts. He runs a chapter of the Black Robe Regiment, an armed Christian offshoot of the Tea Party that's named after clergy who joined the American revolution. Its 300 members, mostly in Wisconsin, used to talk on a Facebook group before the platform banned groups spreading false information about the presidential election.

Now, Murphy, who served in the Korean War, uses MeWe, a Culver City-based social media network. On a MeWe group called "Fight Smart Wisconsin," Murphy this week posted about going beyond "spiritual warfare" in a battle against liberals.

Murphy, who said he did not attend the riot in D.C., declined to comment when reached for an interview. In posts on his MeWe group, he described his views as an extension of his Army oath:

"'We the people' have a responsibility to be the masters of our courts and Congress and not their servants as we've been lately. They are there to serve us and maintain our liberties and if they fail to do so, they need to be removed."

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

See the original post here:
Why veterans of the military and law enforcement joined the Capitol insurrection - The Union Leader

Today I am very sad and yes, even angry as a result of the activities that happened at our nations Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. I never thought I would see a mob of anarchists siege our sacred halls.

I have volunteered in Kenya, the Ukraine and Belarus where this type of mob action might be expected, but I was always proud to share how our nation handles differences. Now we are just like these countries and others and no longer the example to the world. We never will be an example for nations again.

The most surprising was to see this incited by our president. He asked for this action. I am also very disappointed in Wisconsins Sen. Ron Johnson who was one of the Senate leaders encouraging this action by supporting the presidents lies and conspiracies. He should be censured, and he needs to be replaced at the next election.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ADVERTISEMENT

The Tea Party takeover of the Republican Party allowed for President Trump to be elected. The party no longer believes in democracy. It is time for it to turn back to the Eisenhower Republican Party era beliefs when I was proud to volunteer for the Army and serve. If not, it should disappear and be replaced by a party that believes in democracy.

I encourage this paper that publishes editorial columns to comment about lies like that this election was filled with fraud when columnists continue these conspiracies. Written word conspiracies matter.

See the original post here:
Letter: Republicans must rethink core of party | Opinion - telegraphherald.com

A slow-simmering conflict among Republicans has burst into open hostilities at a perilous time for the party, as it seeks unity heading into Tuesdays crucial Senate election in Georgia and prepares to confront a new Democratic president.

As President Trump has refused to admit defeat in the November presidential election, his resistance to moving offstage has driven a wedge between his staunchest loyalists and many Republican party leaders.

The tensions are growing in the aftermath of legislative battles that pitted much of the GOP against Trump on key policies, last week producing the first veto override of his presidency, on a defense bill, and a blunt rejection of his 11th-hour demand for increased COVID-19 relief payments.

The through-line on those battles leads to the question of how Trump-dominated the Republican Party will remain after he leaves the White House. Two momentous political events this week Georgias special election for its two Senate seats and Wednesdays debate in Congress over ratifying President-elect Joe Bidens electoral college victory will be early tests of the strengths of the opposing GOP factions and will help define the partys future path.

If the Democrats win the Senate seats, which started out as Republicans to lose, Trump will surely get much of the blame for sowing division within the party, in part with his extraordinary call over the weekend pressuring Georgias secretary of State, a Republican, to overthrow Bidens win in the state. Democratic victories in Tuesdays election would produce a 50-50 Senate, making Vice President-elect Kamala Harris the tiebreaker and giving Democrats control of both houses of Congress and the White House.

If Republicans narrowly lose the GA Senate run-off elections to give Democrats unified control of the federal government, it will be the greatest self-own in politics in modern history, Michael McDonald, a nonpartisan election expert at the University of Florida, said on Twitter.

Conversely, if Georgias incumbent Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler win, after going to extraordinary lengths to stay in the presidents good graces, it will likely strengthen Trumps hand as a continuing force to be reckoned with in the party.

The battle between Trump and the party establishment raged intensely during his first campaign, went mostly underground during his presidency and has once again burst to the surface.

The presidents allies believe the establishment is clinging to an outdated view of a Republican electorate that has been transformed by Trump to include more blue-collar workers.

Are there tensions? Yeah. But Trump has realigned the Republican party, said Ken Blackwell, a conservative activist and Trump supporter in Ohio. If the party wants to remain the majority party, they have to accept that the party is realigned. These are growing pains.

But many other Republicans, including some who have largely supported the president, say he risks tarnishing his legacy with extreme measures to overturn an election result that has been certified by a bipartisan array of state and local officials, after courts all the way to the conservative-dominated Supreme Court rejected dozens of Trumps lawsuits alleging fraud and other irregularities.

The recording of Trump demanding that Georgias secretary of State find additional votes to overturn Bidens victory was the most blunt measure to become public.

The tape was a real threshold, and Trump crossed it, said Scott Reed, a GOP strategist. It moved a lot of people into the Enough! category. They just had enough.

Key members of the political establishment rallied against the electoral challenge Monday. The Business Roundtable, which represents major U.S. corporations, issued a statement saying that the peaceful transition of power is a hallmark of our democracy and should proceed unimpeded and that efforts to impede the transition threaten the economic recovery. The Republican-friendly U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Assn. of Manufacturers issued similar pronouncements.

While the current fight focuses on loyalty to Trump, it has deeper roots, going back at least to the populist anti-establishment forces of the Tea Party movement, which formed in opposition to the Obama presidency, then turned its energy to making the GOP into a more conservative, confrontational party.

The divisions were seeing now reflect those in the period of 2010 to 2016 between Tea Party conservatives and governing conservatives, said Republican pollster Whit Ayres. Donald Trump tapped into the populist elements of the Tea Party movement and expanded and exacerbated the division.

Its a split that has been hard for any Republican leader to straddle, Ayres said, because the populist wing doesnt necessarily want a specific policy agenda so much as it wants a party that visibly fights perceived enemies.

Thats what they got with the pugnacious Trump, who has commanded more loyalty than the party: An October Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that among Republican voters, 54% considered themselves to be more a supporter of Trump than of the GOP; just 38% said they were supporters of the party more than of Trump.

The Republican electorate is not what the establishment thought it was, said John J. Pitney, a former Republican Party official who is a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College.

Trump in some ways is an unlikely heir to the Tea Party, because he did not embrace the fiscal conservatism that was the movements original animating issue. But he built on its belief that the GOP establishment was complacent.

We dont love all his policies, but hes been willing to go to war for what he believes in, said Mark Meckler, a co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. Candidates who are starting to jockey for 2024 its going to take someone who has some serious fight in them to win in 2024.

Thats why many observers read 2024 politics into the spectacle of Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, a potential presidential candidate, last week becoming the first Republican senator to announce that he would challenge the certification of the electoral college vote. Hawley openly defied a plea from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to refrain from a challenge, which would delay but not prevent certification of Bidens victory.

McConnell, who spent much of the last decade trying to tame the Tea Party, wanted to avoid the roll-call vote on Trumps electoral fate that Hawleys challenge would require. The vote or multiple ones, if Republicans challenge more than one states slate of electors will force Republicans to vote up or down on Trumps false claims of election fraud.

That will be especially difficult for Republican senators facing tough reelection fights in 2022, forcing them to anger significant numbers of voters whichever way they go. It will amount to a referendum on one of the most controversial tenets of Trumpism: his willingness to break democratic norms and disrespect national political institutions in order to maintain power.

The prospect has split leading conservatives. Hawley got support from Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a conservative with Tea Party roots who is also considering a 2024 bid. But another possible presidential contender, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, criticized the effort.

Other opponents include a veritable reunion of Reagan Republicans, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz, a member of Congress from Wyoming and of the House GOP leadership; former House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin; and former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, a longtime home-state booster of Hawley.

The challenges are directly at odds with the Constitutions clear text and our core beliefs as Republicans, Liz Cheney wrote in a lengthy memo to fellow Republicans in the House, arguing that for Congress to second-guess state decisions on electors would be a power grab at states expense.

Democrats have long attempted, unconstitutionally, to federalize every element of our nation including elections, she wrote. Republicans should not embrace Democrats unconstitutional position on these issues.

On Monday, in the aftermath of Trumps call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, the list of Republican senators refusing to join the challenge to the electoral college grew, joined by Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Capito, fresh off a reelection victory in a state where Trump is wildly popular, said in a statement, The 2020 presidential election is over. Our country should unite.

Whatever happens in Georgia and in Congress, Trump is on track to keep one important part of the Republican Party machinery in his corner. The Republican National Committee is slated later this week to reelect his ally, Ronna McDaniel, as party chair defying the longstanding tradition of a party shaking up its leadership after a presidential loss.

Still, Trumps postelection campaign against members of his own party could undercut his efforts to continue to lead it.

If he had played this right and talked about his legacy and the good of the country, he could have been in a stronger position to lead the party post-White House or run again and win, said a Republican official who asked not to be named. But his exaggerated tales of election fraud are a bridge too far for many Republicans.

Read more:
Republicans splinter as they balance Trump's loyalty test - Los Angeles Times

ALBANY A new year is about to dawn, and the first big event for kids in 2021 will be at the Albany Museum of Art. The second annual American Girl Winter Tea Party is scheduled for 2-4 p.m. on Jan. 16 at the AMA.

The event is called American Girl, but it is for girls and boys and their best friends. The best friend can be any type of doll, stuffed animal or action figure that the child wants to bring. Because of health guidelines, the guest list will be limited to 12 kids, but each child also may bring a parent.

Brighten up your chilly new year with a cozy cup of tea and make new friends with us, AMA Director of Education and Public Programming Annie Vanoteghem said. This is a great opportunity to share your doll with friends and their dolls.

The first tea party in January 2020 was the kid social event of the season, and Vanoteghem says this one will be, too. Kids arent required to dress up for the occasion, but they are welcome to do so.

I always loved to dress up my doll and myself for a special tea party with friends; this will be a safe and fun afternoon for all, she said.

Tea will be served, as well as tasty treats. Party-goers will be able to play games and engage in three creative activities. Each also will take home a special gift for that best friend.

You will make special creations for you and your doll, enjoy a warm cup of tea and goodies, and play with old friends and new, Vanoteghem said.

The cost to attend is $20 for AMA members and $25 for non-members.

Of course, its free for the doll and the parent, Vanoteghem said.

On the Wall, murals by David Hale, Shanequa Gay, Amanda Jane Burk and Chris Johnson, and paintings by Sarah Emerson, is in the Haley Gallery through Feb. 20;

Midlands, works by Courtney McClellan, is in the East Gallery through Feb. 20;

Escape Plan, works by Elinor Saragoussi, is in the West Gallery through Feb. 20;

Georgia Artists Guild of Albanys 27th annual exhibition is in the McCormack Gallery.

See the article here:
Albany Museum of Art announces Winter Tea Party - The Albany Herald

In her 2016 book, Strangers in Their Own Land, Hochschild went to the Deep South to study an emerging conservative identity and came away with something like a Rosetta stone for the rise of Donald Trump. She offered a psychological allegory for the right-wing worldview, which she called the deep story.

Read: The lines that divide America

The deep story went like this: You are an older white man without a college degree standing in the middle of a line with hundreds of millions of Americans. The queue leads up a hill, toward a haven just over the ridge, which is the American dream. Behind you in line, you can see a train of woeful soulsmany poor, mostly nonwhite, born in America and abroad, young and old. Its scary to look back, Hochschild writes. There are so many behind you, and in principle you wish them well. Still, youve waited a long time. Now youre stuck in line, because the economy isnt working. And worse than stuck, youre stigmatized; liberals in the media say every traditional thing you believe is racist and sexist. And whats this? People are cutting in line in front of you! Something is wrong. The old line wasnt perfect, but at least it was a promise. There is order in the fact of a line. And if that order is coming apart, then so is America.

Hochschild tested this allegory with her Republican sources and heard that it struck a chord. Yes, they said, this captures how I feel. In the past few years, shes kept in touch with several of her connections from the Deep South and keenly tracked their philosophical evolution. Shes watched the locus of their anxiety move from budgets (They never talk about deficits anymore, she told me) to the entrenched and swampy political class. She also witnessed the Trumpification of everything. There used to be a Tea Party, she said. Now its all Trumpism.

If we want to understand this movement, Hochschild told me, we have to understand what happened in the past five years to the people in the line. I now see that the line metaphor in my book was only Chapter 1 of the deep story, she said. What Im seeing now is there are more chapters.

If Chapter 1 was The Line, Chapter 2 was The Arrival. When Trump appeared to the members of the broken line, Hochschild saw that he embodied the most ineffable aspects of the deep story. Trump might be a lifelong bullshitter, but one thing he has never had to bullshit is his grievance toward liberal elites and his antipathy for the groups whom Tea Party Republicans already knew they hated. He animated their distrust toward Barack Obama with his birtherism claims. He gave shape to their hatred for Hillary Clinton by leading Lock her up! chants. From his first rallies, Trumps basic message has always been I love you, and you love me, and we all hate the same people, Hochschild said.

The rest is here:
The Deep Story of Trumpism - The Atlantic