A Justice Department investigation into conservative operative James O’Keefe and his Project Veritas group includes a review of O’Keefe’s ties to a member of the far-right Proud Boys, according to a federal search warrant. On Nov. 6, FBI agents carried out an early-morning raid on O’Keefe’s home. The search came as part of a year-long investigation involving Project Veritas’s purchase of a diary purportedly belonging to Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, and the diary’s subsequent publication on a right-wing website. As part of the raid, according to the warrant, FBI agents were looking for communications with a self-described “third degree” Proud […]
Will Sommer
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Right-wing personality Candace Owens is urging her fans to consume a quack medical cure known for turning users’ skin blue. In an Instagram video posted on Thursday, Owens praised the use of colloidal silver as a daily supplement, a treatment that comes with no valid medical use and plenty of health risks. “Yes, colloidal silver!” Owens said in the video. “I take colloidal silver every single day, I love colloidal silver. That is a great one. That is another one that people probably know nothing about.” While Owens and others have praised preventative use of colloidal silver as a way to […]
Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn has embraced his position as a hero to QAnon conspiracy theorists. He took the QAnon oath, sold QAnon T-shirts, and even auctioned off a QAnon quilt. He appeared at a QAnon convention and signed books with a QAnon slogan. Some QAnon followers even believe that Flynn is “Q,” the mysterious figure behind QAnon. But a recording released late Saturday night by a one-time Flynn ally suggests that the retired three-star general privately believes QAnon to be “total nonsense.” On Saturday night, pro-Trump lawyer and QAnon booster Lin Wood released a recording of what purports […]
Fox News edited an article Sunday to downplay the presence of white nationalists at an anti-vaccine protest over the weekend, removing references to the racist activists after an initial article describing their role organizing the event prompted pushback from far-right critics. On Saturday afternoon, followers of white-nationalist leader Nick Fuentes rallied near New York City’s Gracie Mansion to protest the city’s vaccine mandate. That night, Fox News writer Adam Sabes wrote an article about Fuentes’ group facing off with left-wing, anti-fascist activists. The article’s original headline read “Antifa members clash with White nationalists over COVID vaccine mandate outside NYC’s Gracie Mansion.” […]
Singer Demi Lovato has become a paid promoter for a New Age conspiracy-theory website, directing their fans to a video platform filled with hoaxes about sinister aliens, vaccines, world-spanning cabals, and reptilian overlords. Lovato, who uses they/them pronouns, announced last week that they had become an “ambassador” for streaming video site Gaia. While Gaia’s video collections also include yoga videos, Lovato made clear that their focus was on the site’s conspiratorial content. “Thrilled to be a @WeAreGaia ambassador,” Lovato wrote in an Instagram post to their 118 million followers. “Understanding the world around us (the known and the unknown) is so […]
When Georgia gubernatorial candidate Vernon Jones appeared last month on an internet show hosted by right-wing personality Stew Peters, Jones could have reasonably expected a softball interview. Jones, a former Democratic state representative, became a darling on the right after he endorsed Donald Trump’s re-election bid. Now he’s the leading primary challenger to Gov. Brian Kemp (R), with endorsements from Michael Flynn and Rudy Giuliani. But Peters tore into Jones, citing a 2010 discrimination judgment against a Georgia county Jones once ran to accuse the candidate, who is Black, of discriminating against white employees. The interview grew heated. After Peters muted […]
A key piece of voting equipment has gone missing while under the supervision of a pro-QAnon clerk, prompting a Michigan State Police investigation. The equipment’s disappearance came after a week of controversy for Stephanie Scott, a clerk in rural Adams Township who has clashed with Michigan’s Secretary of State over Scott’s bogus election fraud claims. It also marks the second time a piece of elections equipment under the control of a QAnon-tied elections official has been compromised. Ahead of a special election on Tuesday, Scott refused to allow maintenance to be carried out on voting equipment. Instead, Scott told Michigan news […]
The writer of Tucker Carlson’s controversial documentary series on the Jan. 6 Capitol riot previously directed films made by far-right figures, including a leading promoter of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a virulent anti-refugee activist, and an alt-right comic book writer whose lead superhero’s outfit resembles a Confederate flag. Los Angeles-based filmmaker Scooter Downey will likely reach his biggest stage yet on Monday, when Fox Nation plans to air the first part of Carlson’s three-part Patriot Purge movie. A series trailer, which aired Wednesday evening on Fox News, included the false claim that the riot was a “false flag” meant to attack […]
Actor Jim Caviezel stepped up his embrace of the QAnon conspiracy theory last weekend, appearing at a casino-themed QAnon convention called the “Patriot Double Down” in Las Vegas to deliver a speech drenched in religious and QAnon references. In what had been billed to QAnon believers as a historic event, the actor best known for playing Jesus in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ reenacted a speech from Braveheart, then urged the audience to send “Lucifer and his henchmen straight back to hell.” “The storm is upon us,” Caviezel said, alluding to a QAnon slogan about an impending fascist takeover led […]
In her bid to be California’s Secretary of State, Republican candidate Rachel Hamm has the backing of some of the leading lights in the Trump movement. She has the endorsement of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon called her part of a “rising generation of superstars.” But Hamm’s new allies often fail to mention her role battling in what she imagines as a ceaseless war with Satanists and witches. Hamm has claimed that devil-worshippers sacrificed animals and performed other occult rituals in front of her house. But she isn’t without her defenses, saying […]
Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has been on a relentless media tour since his pardon last year, sitting for interviews with even the most obscure right-wing media outlets to promote the MAGA agenda. But on Tuesday, Flynn appeared on a little-known YouTube channel called Truth Unveiled TV for a very different reason: rebutting the idea that he led a church congregation in a Satanic ritual borrowed from a nuclear doomsday cult. In a video entitled “Some Have Said That General Flynn Prayed to Satan in a Recent Prayer,” host Paul Oebel gave Flynn a chance to rebut the growing […]
Supporters of Republicans’ controversial “audit” of 2020 presidential election ballots have turned on each other after the partisan investigation failed to find proof of election malfeasance, with disaffected backers even circulating a fabricated rival report they claim shows interference by the “deep state.” The audit report landed with a thud on Friday, only proving, if anything, that Joe Biden won Arizona by more votes than previously realized. On this week’s episode of The Daily Beast’s Fever Dreams podcast, hosts Asawin Suebsaeng and Will Sommer are joined by Arizona Mirror reporter Jerod MacDonald-Evoy to discuss the audit’s fractious aftermath. “Some people who […]
The Arizona Senate’s conspiracy-theory-driven “audit” of 2.1 million presidential ballots in Maricopa County ended in an anti-climax Friday, with an official report declaring that Joe Biden received more ballots than Donald Trump. But while the much-hyped investigation failed to uncover evidence of fraud, Republican lawmakers nonetheless doubled down on unsubstantiated claims that its recount had uncovered voting irregularities, as Republican lawmakers across the country back restrictive new voting laws. “What you have not seen and not heard is about the statutes that were broken,” said Arizona Sen. President Karen Fann (R), after conceding that the audit found no significant difference between […]
Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump will give the keynote speech next month at an anti-vaccine conference, marking the latest alliance between the Trump family and the GOP’s fringiest elements. Trump is set to speak at the Truth About Cancer Live! convention between Oct. 22 and 24 in Nashville, joining a speakers’ lineup that includes some of the most prominent promoters of disinformation about vaccines, as well as leading figures in the QAnon conspiracy theory movement. The conference is the brainchild of Ty and Charlene Bollinger, two major promoters of anti-vaccine disinformation who have made tens of millions of dollars promoting both […]
For Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters, the Republican-led Arizona Senate’s “forensic audit” of more than 2 million ballots last November offered a chance to prove election fraud, or even overturn Joe Biden’s victory. Right-wing media were enthralled by the ballot counters’ often bizarre practices, including hunts for ballots made of bamboo fibers and suspicious ballot folds that would supposedly indicate Democratic election theft. But more than four months have passed since the initial date the report on the 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County was first promised, and the audit’s supporters are getting restless. The ballot count ended this summer […]
The fugitive Chinese billionaire and Steve Bannon ally behind a pro-Trump social media network now owes owes hundreds of millions of dollars to the federal government, after a new settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Companies owned by billionaire and aspiring media mogul Guo Wengui agreed to pay the SEC $539 million as part of a settlement over illegal stock and cryptocurrency sales, the agency announced Monday. The agreement includes a condition preventing Wengui’s companies from selling future digital currencies. Lawyers for Wengui didn’t respond to an immediate request for comment. The settlement represents a significant financial blow to Wengui, […]
Glenn Youngkin thought he was talking to two fellow Republicans at a campaign stop last June when he laid out what he really wanted to do about abortion. Convinced he was talking to anti-abortion voters, the Republican pick for Virginia governor started laying out ideas that he said he couldn’t campaign on for fear of alienating independent voters. As two anti-abortion voters at the event pressed him on why his campaign wasn’t taking a stronger stance against abortion, Youngkin praised their ideas for anti-abortion measures like a heartbeat bill and defunding Planned Parenthood as “on the right track.” “Can we take […]
The recording is barely discernible, but amid the clangs and scratches it’s possible to make out a few male voices singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Despite its poor quality, it’s become an object of veneration on the far-right: a recording of imprisoned Capitol riot suspects singing the national anthem. “This breaks my heart,” tweeted Amy Kremer, the leader of Women for America First and a key organizer of the Jan. 6 Trump rally at the Washington Monument that preceded the U.S. Capitol riot. The recording, published earlier this month on a conservative blog, has become the latest totem in an effort to […]
The pro-Trump internet went wild on Wednesday for the Freedom Phone, a $500 smartphone that comes stocked with conservative apps and promises to liberate anyone else who buys it from Silicon Valley censorship. The American flag-branded phone was immediately promoted by a wide range of right-wing figures, including former Trump adviser Roger Stone, Jan. 6 rally organizer Ali Alexander, and pundit Dinesh D’Souza. “I’m holding a freaking phone that is not controlled by Apple or Google,” conservative personality Candace Owens told her fans in an Instagram video. “We made the switch immediately.” Despite being lauded by some of the right-wing media’s […]
Democratic campaign worker Michael Kolenc’s love life was finally looking up. It was July 2018, and Kolenc had just been interviewed in Houston by an amateur politics podcaster named Hope Higgins. After the interview, Higgins invited him to get drinks with her, writing in an email that she would “enjoy the company.” “She was very flirty, she would touch my arm,” Kolenc told The Daily Beast. “I was definitely picking up a more romantic feeling than a quote-unquote journalist.” Weeks of text messaging ensued after Higgins returned home to Brooklyn. Kolenc, smitten, flew to New York to see her. “I’m usually […]
QAnon conspiracy theorists often talk about protecting children from pedophiles and sex traffickers. They accuse top figures in the Democratic Party and Hollywood of abusing children in pizzerias, and unite around hashtags with names like “Save the Children” even after genuine anti-trafficking groups beg them to stop. It’s hard to find a more dedicated booster of QAnon’s promises to save the children and bring the deep state to justice than Pennsylvania resident Philip Godlewski, who has amassed more than 48,000 followers on YouTube and Telegram. In a representative video from June, Godlewski warned his audience that nefarious global forces practice “Satanic […]
PHOENIX—The head of Arizona Republicans’ controversial “audit” of 2020 presidential ballots was revealed Saturday as the anonymous star of a new movie claiming the election was stolen, raising questions about how credible any upcoming report from the supposed audit could be. The revelation of Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan’s involvement in the conspiracy theory movie The Deep Rig came at the film’s premiere in a church on the outskirts of Phoenix, as Arizona Republicans gathered to celebrate the count’s end. The Deep Rig, which is based on a book by former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, features an array of discredited voter-fraud […]
The world of UFO conspiracy theorists has been torn apart by dueling lawsuits, pitting a prominent UFO influencer against a conspiracy-minded streaming video company valued at more than $200 million over who has the right to discuss their experiences with a benevolent species of blue alien. The battle taking place in a federal courthouse in Colorado centers on Corey Goode, a UFO promoter and self-proclaimed deep-space traveler who consorts with benevolent aliens, and his former employer, Gaia, a publicly traded streaming platform whose videos blend yoga instruction with stories about “deep state” villains and benevolent aliens. After leaving his Gaia show […]
The FBI arrested a notorious white supremacist livestreamer in an early morning raid in Florida on Tuesday. FBI agents, working with Fort Lauderdale police and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, arrested Paul N. Miller, 32, on one charge of being a “convicted felon in possession of a firearm.” The FBI said in a press release that Miller was arrested without incident. Miller’s neighbors in Fort Lauderdale’s Riverside neighborhood reported hearing flashbangs during the raid, which took place around 5 a.m. ET, local TV station NBC 6 reported. One neighbor described seeing law enforcement officers carrying out a box that appeared […]
A speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory from the event’s main stage on Sunday, shortly before Donald Trump was scheduled to appear at the conservative movement’s premiere annual event. Former congressional candidate Angela Stanton King, who has frequently boosted the conspiracy theory on social media, called for an investigation into whether QAnon’s bizarre claims about a cabal of cannibal-pedophiles controlling the world and a mysterious figure named Q giving hidden messages to Trump supporters are real. “Let’s address it,” King said. “So we know in this election, there were some things going on in […]
MyPillow magnate Mike Lindell has barely slept as he worked on an opus meant to prove the election was stolen. But Lindell’s claims—and his movie—don’t hold up. Updated Feb. 05, 2021 6:12PM ET / Published Feb. 05, 2021 5:17PM ET BEAST INSIDE Source link
Editors and reporters at the staunchly pro-Trump conservative outlet Breitbart News privately clashed over whether President Donald Trump was to blame for last week’s deadly Capitol riot, according to internal messages reviewed by The Daily Beast. “I am just not feeling charitable AT ALL,” international news editor Frances Martel posted to Slack the morning after the rioting that left five people dead, including a police officer. “Destroy Trump.” Martel lamented that Trump’s support for the MAGA mob had undone a decade’s worth of conservative politics, leaving the Republican Party “in shambles” and dimming the right-wing movement’s prospects. “He set us back […]
Two weeks before thousands of Trump rioters breached Congress, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander said his group wasn’t violent—“yet.” “One of our organizers in one state said, ‘We’re nice patriots, we don’t throw bricks,’” Alexander told a crowd at a Dec. 19 rally at Arizona’s state capitol. “I leaned over and I said, ‘Not yet. Not yet!’ Haven’t you read about a little tar-and-feathering? Those were second-degree burns!” Alexander, who has described himself as one of the “official originators” of the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, went on to use “yet” as a code word for violence. Then Alexander told […]
Trump allies eager to deflect blame for Wednesday’s attack on the presidential vote count have claimed that the rioters were “antifa” infiltrators, citing a Washington Times report on evidence compiled by a little-known facial recognition company associated with a far-right blog. But the company at the center of the story says the Times article is a hoax, and wants a retraction and apology. As Capitol Police struggled to clear the congressional complex on Wednesday evening, Times reporter Rowan Scarborough published a story claiming that obscure facial recognition company XRVision had proof that some of the rioters were in fact left-wing antifa […]
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Hordes of Trump supporters rallied across this city on Wednesday morning in a doomed effort to somehow negate President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, hours before Congress was set to certify the results and make Biden’s win even more fully irreversible. The rally marked the most desperate effort yet from disappointed and enraged Trump supporters, who have been leading a months-long campaign of disinformation and violence in tandem with a president who refuses to concede to reality. Thousands of Trump supporters headed to the Ellipse, a park near the White House, in the early morning for a chance to see the president […]
Former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn is going all in on the QAnon conspiracy theory, promoting an online store to sell QAnon hats and T-shirts, the proceeds of which will benefit his partnership with a prominent QAnon booster. Flynn’s drawn-out legal battle with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller turned him into a hero for QAnon believers. Many QAnon supporters, who rely on mysterious online clues to construct a worldview where the Democratic Party and other institutions are controlled by a cabal of pedophile-cannibals, claim that Flynn is “Q”, the anonymous figure behind the conspiracy theory. They also took a previously […]
At a pro-Trump rally in Washington D.C. earlier this month, conspiracy theory magnate Alex Jones came face-to-face with a star of the pro-Trump far-right: former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn hasn’t shied away from the Republican Party’s fringes after the president gave him a November pardon, appearing on QAnon podcasts and calling for Donald Trump to impose martial law. But palling around with Jones, apparently, was too much for the former lieutenant general. “Crazy day, huh?” Jones said as he approached Flynn backstage at the Dec. 12 rally, in an awkward exchange captured on video. “It is a crazy […]
On Saturday morning, aggrieved Trump supporters are set to rally outside the Supreme Court, Congress, and the Department of Justice’s headquarters. Their plan: to simultaneously march around and blow shofar horns in the hopes that the building’s walls will collapse, just like the biblical walls of Jericho. Taking tricks from the Old Testament is not the usual playbook for those engaged in piqued political fights. But desperate times call for desperate measures and there are few more desperate situations than the one Trump is facing as he seeks to reverse the results of the 2020 elections. For the second time since […]
Pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood urged Georgia Republicans at a rally on Wednesday to sit out the state’s upcoming Senate runoff elections, arguing that the two Republicans in the running first needed to back demands for a special legislative session to investigate Donald Trump’s defeat in the state. “They have not earned your vote,” Wood said of Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. “Don’t you give it to them. Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election, for god’s sake! Fix it! You gotta fix it!” The two January 5 runoffs will decide which party ends up controlling power […]
Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne left behind a cloud of confusion when he resigned in 2019 from the internet retailer he’d founded after panicking investors with his bizarre claims that he had romanced a Russian agent at the behest of “Men in Black” working for the United States government. Now he’s back, with what he has described as his own personal “army,” touting what he claims is proof that Democrats stole the election from Donald Trump. “I’ve funded a team of hackers and cybersleuths, other people with odd skills,” Byrne said in a Tuesday interview at One America News, where OAN […]
Joe Biden isn’t president yet. But his incoming White House already has its first conspiracy theory to deal with. It goes by the tag the “Great Reset” and under its construct a wild dystopian future is in store. The coronavirus pandemic is merely a means to enslave humanity and end capitalism. Biden’s “Build Back Better” slogan is really a cover for nefarious plotting of a global cabal from Davos, Switzerland, intent on abolishing private property and building prison camps for the dissenters who refuse to accept microchips that will read their thoughts. Even Grover from Sesame Street might be involved. The […]
A once murky alliance forged in a world of internet conspiracy theories appears to have ended in murder this past Sunday, with an infamous QAnon mom accused of having shot a fringe legal theorist. Neely Petrie-Blanchard, a Kentucky resident, had long ago lost custody of her daughters for reasons that are unclear. And to help in that task, she turned to Chris Hallett, an amateur legal expert who offered bogus court services through a company called “E-Clause,” and who promised Petrie-Blanchard she could win her daughters back through ludicrous courtroom tactics he borrowed from the anti-government sovereign citizen’s movement. Petrie-Blanchard went […]
Donald Trump’s last-ditch campaign legal efforts have centered on witnesses who allege that they witnessed voter fraud and other suspicious activity in battleground states across the country. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has brandished stacks of papers detailing what she said were hundreds of affidavits from allegedly aggrieved voters or poll-watchers in TV appearances, and the MAGA faithful have seized on the allegations as proof that Trump secretly won the election. But when those claims actually reach a judge, the allegations collapse in often spectacular fashion—putting one more roadblock in Trump’s attempts to wrestle the election away from President-elect Joe […]
As Donald Trump refuses to concede the election, some of his most loyal allies have become obsessed with a bizarre new conspiracy theory about the race, insisting that Trump only lost the election because a deep-state supercomputer named “Hammer” and a computer program named “Scorecard” were used to change the ballot count. The head of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has called the claim about supercomputer election fraud “nonsense,” and urged Americans not to promote it. But the mythical supercomputer claim has been embraced by prominent Trump backers, including former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, former NYPD commissioner Bernie Kerik, […]
Hundreds of Trump supporters gathered Wednesday night outside the Maricopa County elections office in Arizona as election counters inside tabulated the county’s ballots. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) rallied the Trump hardcore before introducing the next speaker. But rather than hand his megaphone to another Republican official or a Trump campaign lawyer, Gosar introduced former Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich. In his speech, Cernovich complained that no left-wing “antifa” activists were there to face off with his group, saying he would be “kicking their fucking asses” if they showed up. And then, Cernovich offered to take selfies with the crowd. The protest […]
Rep. Greg Gianforte (R-MT) made headlines in 2017 when he attacked a reporter on the campaign trail during a special election for the seat he now holds. Now one of Gianforte’s top campaign staffers in Gianforte’s bid for Montana’s governorship has allegedly committed a violent incident of his own, attacking a parked car, according to a police report. An incident report filed by the Montana police says that Daniel Duffey, Gianforte’s political director and spokesman, bashed a parked car next to his pickup truck on Oct. 26, repeatedly slamming his truck’s door into the other vehicle. Duffey “opened his car door […]
With less than three weeks before Election Day and the coronavirus pandemic still raging, Donald Trump wants voters to consider some very important things. Like did Osama bin Laden survive the 2011 Navy SEAL raid on his compound by using a body double, and did former Vice President Joe Biden then order the murder of Navy SEALs to cover that fact up? Did Biden then order the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya to cover that up? Trump boosted that convoluted conspiracy theory twice on Twitter this week, in one case retweeting a QAnon believer and in another retweeting a […]
Donald Trump refused to denounce the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory at his town hall on Thursday, instead praising the dangerous movement as people who “are very much against pedophilia.” NBC host Savannah Guthrie pressed Trump on previous praise for QAnon believers as “people who love our country,” and asked him to disavow QAnon believers’ claims that the world is controlled by a cabal of Satanic pedophiles in the Democratic Party that he is on the verge of destroying. “[C]an you,” Guthrie asked, “just once and for all state that that is completely not true and disavow QAnon in its entirety?” Trump, […]
YouTube launched a new crackdown on QAnon videos on Thursday, dealing another major setback to the pro-Trump conspiracy movement one week after Facebook launched its own purge of QAnon accounts. In its announcement, YouTube said it would delete “content that targets an individual or group with conspiracy theories that have been used to justify real-world violence.” That description, the site notes, would apply to QAnon, which the FBI considers a source of potential domestic terrorism. QAnon believers have been charged with a number of crimes that appear to be inspired by their support of the conspiracy theory, including two murders, a […]
President Donald Trump backed a budding conspiracy theory on Tuesday that four Americans were killed in the 2012 Benghazi attack to cover up the blood-sacrifice of Navy SEALs and the “fact” that Osama Bin Laden is still alive, marking what is perhaps the president’s strangest brush yet with far-right conspiracy theories. Trump’s promotion of the new Benghazi conspiracy theory, which is fast gaining traction on the far right, came in the form of a retweet of a QAnon believer pushing the claim. The president’s backing helped push the tweet about Benghazi above 14,000 retweets. The bizarre theory, which is outre even […]
This is a preview of Right Richter, our newsletter about the extreme right wing. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox, sign up for it here. It’s hard to stress how much effort the pro-Trump media has devoted over the last year-and-half to John Durham. The top federal prosecutor in Connecticut with a bushy, meme-ready goatee, Durham was appointed by Bill Barr in May 2019 to investigate the origins of the 2016 Russia probe. Or, in other words, to try to make something of what the president hears every night on Sean Hannity’s show. Durham’s much-awaited report was supposed to […]
Donald Trump hosted hundreds of people outside the White House on Saturday for his first in-person event since contracting COVID-19—but his administration wouldn’t say whether he’s still infected with the virus. “We gotta vote these people into oblivion,” Trump told the crowd of supporters in a brief 18 minute speech from a White House balcony. The in-person event marked Trump’s return to the campaign spotlight after announcing his COVID-19 diagnosis on Oct. 2 and being hospitalized at Maryland’s Walter Reed hospital. Trump appeared on several conservative media outlets, and plans to hold rallies in Florida on Monday, Pennsylvania on Tuesday and […]
QAnon followers are scrambling for a new digital home after Facebook issued a blanket ban on the movement’s pages on Tuesday, in what looks likely to be the most significant social media crackdown in the history of the pro-Trump conspiracy movement. Faced with a wide-ranging purge, QAnon followers dreaming of the day Donald Trump orders the mass arrests of his opponents are faced with a choice: flee to another, more Trumpian, social network, or try to go underground on Facebook by disassociating their QAnon groups from the increasingly toxic QAnon brand. Facebook was uniquely valuable to QAnon believers, according to Travis […]
Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis early Friday morning presented his most loyal supporters with a challenge: how to square the president’s frequent claims that the pandemic would “disappear” with the fact that he ended up being hospitalized because of it. After more than six months of Trump downplaying the virus and a death toll that’s passed 200,000, Trump supporters have already developed some ways of rationalizing away the disease, including fixating on the uncertain value of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment and claiming that masks can’t stop the spread. But the coronavirus outbreak in Trump’s inner circle—which now includes Trump, first lady Melania […]
Seventeen Republican lawmakers declined on Friday to support a measure in the House of Representatives that condemned the pro-Trump QAnon movement as a “collection of unfounded conspiracy theories.” The resolution, which passed nearly unanimously, urged the FBI and intelligence agencies to focus on the threats from fringe conspiracy groups, which have grown in mass as the election has neared. All told, 371 members voted in favor of the resolution—including 225 Democrats and 146 Republicans—and 18 members voted against it. Of those 18, 17 were Republican and one was an independent: Rep. Justin Amash, a libertatrian from Michigan. The resolution, which doesn’t […]
Donald Trump paid just $750 in annual federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times. But even that low sum is more than Trump paid the government in other recent years, according to the Times. In 10 out of the last 15 years, Trump paid no federal income tax, citing mammoth losses. The bombshell report offers new insight into Trump’s tax returns, which Trump has bucked presidential candidate tradition by refusing to release. Trump called the Times report “fake news” at a Sunday press conference. “The New York Times has been doing […]
The FBI is investigating blundering conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for a series of possible crimes, according to a document filed by federal prosecutors. Ironically, the document revealing the investigation was filed just days after Wohl and Burkman staged a fake FBI raid on Burkman’s home in a bid for media attention. The FBI investigation centers on Wohl and Burkman’s February release of confidential juror questionnaires from the trial of Trump associate Roger Stone. The FBI is investigating the pair for potential witness harassment, criminal contempt, and obstruction of justice, according to the filing. The case could mark more […]
This is a preview of Right Richter, our newsletter about the extreme right wing. To receive the full newsletter in your inbox, sign up for it here. The election is less than 40 days away. Donald Trump is refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. And now the Trumpworld hunt is on for material that can be used to discredit any election results that show Joe Biden winning the election. On to this week’s newsletter! This week: James O’Keefe and associates circle voter registration groups. Bogus ballot “destruction” story blows up on the right Liberal groups fear election infiltration from […]
One-time QAnon supporter Lauren Witzke won the Republican Senate primary in Delaware on Tuesday, campaigning on a pledge to institute a decade-long moratorium on all immigration and beating a rival candidate endorsed by the state GOP by nearly 14 percentage points. Witzke’s win marks the second time a fan of the dangerous pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory has won a GOP Senate nomination this cycle, although Witzke said in January that she no longer promotes QAnon. But while Witzke has been photographed wearing a QAnon T-shirt and has repeatedly posted QAnon hashtags on social media, even as she now claims not to […]
Fox News star Sean Hannity was once his network’s most prominent booster of conspiracy theories about murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, only stopping the rumor-mongering after Rich’s grieving parents publicly begged him to knock it off. Now, Hannity will have to answer questions, under oath, about Fox’s coverage of Rich’s death. Hannity, along with Fox Business host Lou Dobbs and a host of Fox staffers, is set to be deposed in late October over the network’s debunked reporting on Rich, which falsely claimed that he had leaked thousands of Democratic emails to WikiLeaks—a leak, they suggested, that led to […]
A Portland activist who had traveled to Washington, D.C. to protest the Republican convention says he was punched in the head by one of Donald Trump’s most ardent evangelical Christian allies. Video of the attack appears to support his claim. On Thursday, pro-Trump writer and talk radio host Eric Metaxas was among the roughly 1,500 attendees at Trump’s Republican National Convention speech on the White House lawn. Afterwards, Metaxas left the White House grounds with a crowd of people, entering streets where protesters had been staging demonstrations throughout the night. Footage of that moment shows anti-Trump protester Anthony Harrington biking past […]
Michigan state officials are investigating a voter-suppression robocall allegedly tied to blundering conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman. The robocall was aimed at scaring Detroit voters away from using mail-in ballots, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson tweeted on Thursday. Benson announced that her office and Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel would investigate the call’s origins and “seek justice” against the people behind it. The robocall features a woman who says she works for the “Project 1599,” which she describes as “a civil rights organization founded by Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl.” While the call claims to have come from […]
Hours before she was set to speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night, Mary Ann Mendoza took to Twitter and urged her followers to investigate a supposed Jewish plot to enslave the world. “Do yourself a favor and read this thread,” Mendoza, who is a member of the Trump campaign’s advisory board, tweeted to her more than 40,000 followers early Tuesday morning. Mendoza, an “angel mom,” is scheduled to speak Tuesday about her son’s 2014 death at the hands of a drunk driver who was in the country illegally. Her tweet on Tuesday linked to a lengthy thread from […]
As Fox News scrambled to contain the damage from its discredited reporting on murdered Democratic staffer Seth Rich in 2017, a top editor at the network stuck by the retracted story, going so far as to predict that the baseless coverage of Rich’s murder would eventually be “vindicated.” That revelation comes via newly released emails from FoxNews.com’s then-deputy managing editor Greg Wilson, as well as others recently unsealed in litigation between Rich’s parents and Fox. Those emails offer a glimpse into the internal fallout from Fox’s story, as newsroom figures tried to figure out how groundless claims about the DNC hack […]
Facebook announced plans Wednesday to crack down on QAnon supporters on its site, making the platform the latest social-media giant to attempt to stop the online spread of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. The company plans to delete 790 Facebook groups and 100 pages devoted to spreading QAnon, while also taking steps to make it harder for QAnon supporters to spread their message on the platform. Facebook has also blocked more than 300 hashtags used by QAnon supporters on Facebook and Instagram, as well as adding new restrictions on nearly 2,000 Facebook groups and more than 10,000 Instagram accounts. The announcement comes […]
Part One of Two Parts: QAnon conspiracy theorist Alpalus Slyman pushed his Honda Odyssey past 110 mph while his five children screamed in the back of the minivan and police officers from two states pursued him down the highway. “Donald Trump, I need a miracle or something,” Slyman, a 29-year-old Boston man, said during his June 11 chase across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, in remarks captured on a livestream. “QAnon, help me. QAnon, help me!” It’s not clear what set off the police chase, but Slyman appears to have been convinced by QAnon theories that the government was out to kidnap […]
The bizarre press conference Monday by self-identified doctors promoting hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment has become a campaign issue, with a congressman who attended the event at the steps of the Supreme Court being attacked for doing so. Footage of the event, which was organized by the Tea Party Patriots and starred a handful of doctors who have criticized prevailing views on the pandemic, went viral on Monday afternoon racking up more than 13 million views on Facebook after it was boosted by pro-Trump social media accounts. In it, Dr. Stella Immanuel declared that hydroxychloroquine cures COVID and that masks aren’t […]
A Houston doctor who praises hydroxychloroquine and says that face masks aren’t necessary to stop transmission of the highly contagious coronavirus has become a star on the right-wing internet, garnering tens of millions of views on Facebook on Monday alone. Donald Trump Jr. declared the video of Stella Immanuel a “must watch,” while Donald Trump himself retweeted the video. Before Trump and his supporters embrace Immanuel’s medical expertise, though, they should consider other medical claims Immanuel has made—including those about alien DNA and the physical effects of having sex with witches and demons in your dreams. Immanuel, a pediatrician and a […]
Republicans have erupted over overwrought fundraising appeals from House GOP’s campaign arm, with a spokesman for the group countering that critics of the strategy just need a hug. Dramatically phrased fundraising appeals are not new for either party. But pro-Trump pundits say the National Republican Congressional Committee has gone too far with “urgent” text message pitches warning that supporters are on the verge of letting the party down, saying the pitches talk down to the party’s potential donors. “Hey @NRCC – WTF is wrong with you?” right-wing columnist Kurt Schlichter tweeted on Sunday, as part of an ongoing series of complaints […]
Twitter announced Tuesday that it’s done letting the QAnon conspiracy theory run rampant on its site, setting the stage to ban 7,000 QAnon accounts and take moves to limit the voice of roughly 150,000 more. But Twitter’s crackdown comes too late to stop QAnon’s growth. While QAnon’s presence on Twitter will almost certainly shrink after the move, the movement it built on Twitter and other social media platforms has already moved into the real world—and established a foothold in the Republican Party. Ahead of the deletions, panicked QAnon believers have attempted to evade bans on Twitter by changing up their spelling—now […]
A top Trump campaign adviser recently appeared on the Russian-government funded TV network RT, which U.S. intelligence agencies have said plays a role in the Kremlin’s plans to undermine American democracy. Trump campaign senior legal adviser Jenna Ellis’s appearance on RT’s The Alex Salmond Show aired on July 9. She appears to be the first Trump campaign official to go on the Russian-funded network since the 2016 election. During her interview, Ellis defended Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and bashed the American media as “propagandist activist media.” Ellis also accused Fox News—the cable news network most friendly to the president—of […]
Pro-Trump cartoonist Ben Garrison is suing the Anti-Defamation League for… defamation. Garrison alleges in his suit that when the famed Jewish non-governmental organization called one of his cartoons about wealthy Democratic financier George Soros anti-Semitic, it cost him “embarrassment, humiliation, mental suffering, anguish, injury to his name and professional reputation,” as well as an invitation to a Trump White House event. The lawsuit is the latest foray into cultural and political wars for a cartoonist who has become notorious online for his adoring, elaborate drawings about the president and his enemies, many of which show a buff version of Trump easily […]
June was a grim month for Donald Trump supporters on Twitter. The social media giant was adding warning labels to some of the president’s tweets, and banned an internet-famous MAGA “meme-smith.” Fearful that more crackdowns would soon follow, Trump supporters began to flock to Parler, a budding social network that bills itself as the free-speech, conservative-friendly alternative to Twitter. Prominent Trump supporters joined the platform and urged their fans to follow, and the social media network surged on Apple’s App Store. Trash-talking Trump personality Dan Bongino took an ownership stake in Parler, and promoted it to his followers. Source link
The pro-Trump internet is abuzz about left-wing “antifa”activists’ nefarious plans for the Gettysburg National Cemetery on July 4—even if no one can quite agree on what’s actually going to happen. One theory holds that antifa will burn American flags at the Civil War graveyard, while another centers on a nonexistent plan to desecrate soldiers’ graves. In the most extreme version, antifa is plotting to massacre white people nearby after a celebratory flag-burning—a scheme they’ll supposedly pull off by distracting police with the fireworks that have become omnipresent this summer. Bizarrely, the only event that has actually been advertised is a ridiculously […]
YouTube banned several prominent far-right figures from its platform on Monday, including white nationalist leader Richard Spencer and right-wing internet personality Stefan Molyneux. The bans also include two accounts associated with white nationalist group American Renaissance, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, and NPI/Radix, an organization founded by Spencer. The crackdown comes after YouTube pushed other white nationalists off its platform earlier this year. The banned accounts repeatedly broke YouTube rules against alleging that certain groups are inherently worse than others, according to YouTube. “We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly […]
When federal prosecutors charged Jack Abramoff on Thursday with an illicit conspiracy to promote a cryptocurrency, they alleged that the disgraced lobbyist hired writers to help him with his scheme. The indictment did not name names. But new court documents point squarely to an employee of The Daily Caller and other conservative media outlets. Abramoff, who served almost four years in prison for his wide-ranging Washington influence peddling schemes, found himself in legal hot water again this week for his attempts to promote AML Bitcoin, a supposedly “anti-money laundering” cryptocurrency created by Texan businessman Marcus Andrade. As part of his duties, Abramoff […]
Donald Trump has been bleeding supporters among a variety of demographic groups since his election. Suburbanites have left him, evangelicals are showing signs of disillusionment, and working class whites are starting to jump ship. But even in times of distress, there is one group of Trump fans whose commitment seems absolute: boaters. Trump and the boat-owner class have a special relationship, forged through shared interests and a fair bit of TLC. His campaign has long been enamored with the visuals of Trump-adoring boaters flying their MAGA flags high as they make their way down various waterways. In just the past two […]
A former Gawker editor suing The Daily Beast is getting help from a set of right-wing trolls, including a Trumpy conspiracy site, white nationalist sympathizer Michelle Malkin, and a company tied to far-right agitator Charles Johnson. In 2019, The Daily Beast published a story about how the relaunch of Gawker collapsed after two full-time writers resigned in protest for what they claimed were offensive comments made by then-editorial director Carson Griffith. After Splinter published a story that included Griffith’s old tweets using gay slurs and racial stereotypes about Asians, the two writers, Maya Kosoff and Anna Breslaw, went to Bustle Digital […]
A believer in a conspiracy theory the FBI classifies as a possible domestic terrorist threat is in a prime position to soon be elected to Congress, after coming in first in a Republican primary in Georgia on Tuesday. QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has frequently posted messages about the bizarre pro-Trump conspiracy theory on social media, handily leads the primary field of Republicans in Georgia’s heavily Republican 14th district. Greene, who beat her closest opponent by more than 20 percent, will head to an August run-off after receiving 41 percent of the primary vote. Greene is an outspoken supporter […]
GoFundMe suspended pro-Trump personality Candace Owens from its fundraising platform on Sunday, after Owens raised more than $200,000 on the site for an Alabama cafe whose owner called George Floyd a “thug.” Owens has become one of the right’s most prominent critics of Floyd and the protests held after his killing, with one video she made highlighting his criminal record going viral on Facebook. Those same remarks appear to have prompted GoFundMe to ban Owens. She later repeated the same attacks on Floyd during a chat with right-wing star Glenn Beck, and that video was then boosted by President Donald Trump. […]
Right Richter See what’s happening with the extreme right wing from the safety of your inbox. This week: Surveying the George Floyd hoaxes. The Secret Service grapples with QAnon. How to convince anti-mask Trump supporters to buy $20 masks. George Floyd Hoaxes As the protests over George Floyd’s death increase, so too has the amount of internet nonsense on the right about Floyd’s death. Below are some of the biggest conspiracy theories that are attracting some of the most craven conspiracy-mongers. Source link
Donald Trump’s allies in conservative media have a new villain in the coronavirus fight: contact tracing, the rigorous efforts to track the virus’s spread that public health experts say is essential to safely restarting society. Fox News host Laura Ingraham devoted much of her show Thursday night to raising questions about contact tracing, the process where interviewers try to figure out who has been exposed to the virus by literally figuring out whom the infected had contact with. As a Fox News chyron warned that contact tracing should “concern all Americans,” Ingraham claimed that calls for more contact tracers were just […]
A QAnon conspiracy theorist won the GOP Senate primary in Oregon on Tuesday, giving a massive electoral stage to the bizarre pro-Trump movement that the FBI considers a potential domestic terror threat. Jo Rae Perkins, an insurance agent and avowed QAnon believer, handily won the contest to take on Sen. Jeff Merkley (D) in the general election. Perkins, who has launched unsuccessful Senate and House bids in the past, beat her nearest Republican primary opponent by nearly 20 percent on Tuesday. To celebrate, Perkins tweeted a video acknowledging the support she had received from QAnon believers. The victory speech included references […]
Right Richter See what’s happening with the extreme right wing from the safety of your inbox. This week: Dennis Prager has some genuinely terrible advice about coronavirus. Coronavirus truther cops and docs. Dennis Prager Praises the Wisdom of Dirty Forks Amid Pandemic On April 30, as the coronavirus death toll topped 60,000 in the U.S., mega-popular conservative talk radio and online video star Dennis Prager assured his YouTube audience not to worry too much about the disease and keep living their lives. To comfort his followers, Prager made a bizarre claim about his own commitment to joie de vivre, saying he […]
An aspiring militia leader plotted to kidnap or kill police officers to win over new recruits, and then steal their equipment to arm his budding anti-government revolt, the FBI said Tuesday. Christian Stanley Ferguson, a 20-year-old Cleveland man, faces an attempted kidnapping charge after an FBI informant infiltrated the chat room where he allegedly hatched his plot, the latest alleged violent anti-government scheme to emerge during the coronavirus pandemic. He sought out co-conspirators to help him murder police on a popular meme website, according to social media posts reviewed by The Daily Beast. In an FBI affidavit released Tuesday, Ferguson is […]
Roy “Captain Roy D” Davis has devoted much of the last three years to the QAnon conspiracy theory, writing books pitching the concept to new fans and getting his car repainted with an enormous “Q” on the hood. Through it all, he’s been utterly convinced that former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn—a central figure to much of the Q community—was the victim of an anti-Trump cabal orchestrated by the leaders of the deep state. He corresponded with other Flynn supporters following his legal case, and donated proceeds from one of his books to Flynn’s legal fund. So when Davis saw […]
Since the coronavirus emerged, the most visible clashes over the stay-at-home orders meant to combat the virus’ spread have played out at state capitols, with armed men trying to rush the Michigan state house or protesters clashing with California Highway Patrol officers in Sacramento. But last Saturday, the front lines of coronavirus culture wars began moving away from the epicenters of government and closer towards actual main street. Last weekend, the Bad “S” Icehouse in the small Gulf Coast town of Oyster Creek, Texas, became the scene of one such confrontation after owner Shauntae Johnston was set to reopen in defiance […]