IREH inst res ed hu rights
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Oregon's GOP Candidate For Governor Is Tying Herself To Violent Extremists
Christine Drazan is campaigning with a far-right militia leader and taking money from a guy who bankrolled one of the main organizers of the Jan. 6 rally.
Jennifer Bendery
Oct 6, 2022 As the polls tighten in Oregon’s gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Christine Drazan appears to be tightening her ties to right-wing extremists, too.
Drazan, who served in the state legislature from 2019 to 2022 and was also the House minority leader, has taken a total of $70,000 this year from conservative megadonor David Gore and his wife, per a review of Drazan’s campaign finance records.
That includes their $20,000 campaign donation from a couple of weeks ago.
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Who is Gore? The Oregon libertarian has been a major funder of the far-right Tea Party Patriots, which helped organize the Jan. 6, 2021, rally in support of former President Donald Trump that led to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Gore has given a total of $449,000 to the Tea Party Patriots’ three sub-organizations in recent years, according to The Intercept. Between 2018 and 2021, he gave $50,000 to Tea Party Patriot Action, $275,000 to Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund and $124,000 to the Tea Party Patriot Foundation.
Among those donations, Gore gave $100,000 to the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund in January 2020. That contribution more than doubled all of his previous federal donations since 2007, and it was a major infusion of cash for the group, which started that year with just $11,200 cash in reserves.
And curiously, about a week after the insurrection at the Capitol, Gore gave $150,000 to the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund, according to FEC filings.
Oregon Republican gubernatorial nominee Christine Drazan appears to be tying herself to violent extremists in the final weeks of her campaign.
Beyond her financial ties to Gore, Drazan recently featured B.J. Soper, a far-right, anti-government militia leader, as a speaker at one of her campaign events.
Soper issued “a rousing call to arms” to Drazan’s supporters at her Sept. 1 campaign event in Terrebonne, Oregon, as one local website put it. He tied his support for GOP candidates like Drazan to the mission of his organization, People’s Rights, which he said is to defend people against federal government intrusion at all costs.
“We do that physically if everything else fails,” Soper said during his remarks. “That’s our motto at this point.”
He also compared central Oregon to a military fort, and warned Drazan’s supporters of “an assault coming our way — a socialist, communist assault” aimed at stripping people of their way of life. “It is time that we stand up and we take hold of this redoubt here,” he said.
Here’s video footage of Soper speaking at Drazan’s campaign event.
Soper has a long history of far-right militia organizing. The Washington Post described him in 2016 as “an emerging leader in a growing national movement rooted in distrust of the federal government, one that increasingly finds itself in armed conflicts with authorities.” Law enforcement officials see people like Soper as “dangerous, delusional and sometimes violent,” the article notes.
Soper founded the Pacific Patriot Network in 2015, “a far-right paramilitary network under the direction of Oath Keepers,” per the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, an organization that unmasks movements that threaten democracy. Soper’s network included members of Oath Keepers, the leaders of which are currently on trial for seditious conspiracy, and Three Percenters, a militia movement that backs the idea of a small number of dedicated “patriots” protecting Americans from government tyranny.
Soper also founded the Central Oregon Constitutional Guard, a group that practices “basic infantry tactics” and trains with concealed handguns and combat-style rifles, per The Washington Post. In April 2015, he put on paramilitary camouflage fatigues, carried his AR-15 rifle and spent a couple of weeks “standing guard” at the Sugar Pine Mine in Oregon, where miners were having a dispute with the federal Bureau of Land Management.
Soper’s stump speech for Drazan comes at a time when she has refused, twice, to say if she supports Jo Rae Perkins, a QAnon supporter running for U.S. Senate in Oregon. QAnon conspiracy theorists believe that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic sexual abusers of children operating a global child sex trafficking ring conspired against Trump when he was president. (Yeah.)
Perkins also attended the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. She called the attempted coup “the American Revolution.”
Asked in August if she supports Perkins, Drazan simply wished her “the best.”
[Oregon Democratic gubernatorial nominee Tina Kotek, on the right, appears skeptical of whatever GOP nominee Christine Drazan is saying in this image from their July 2022 debate.
Drazan spokesperson John Burke did not respond to a request for comment on why Drazan appears to be tying herself to right-wing extremists in the final weeks of her campaign.
Instead, Burke attacked Drazan’s Democratic opponent, Tina Kotek, and said that she and random HuffPost editors are the only ones who believe that Drazan is a right-wing extremist. (There is no evidence that any HuffPost editors believe that Drazan is a right-wing extremist or even know who she is.)
Burke requested that his entire statement be shared, so here it is:
“The only people who believe Christine Drazan is a quote ‘right-wing extremist’ are the editors at Huffpost and the Kotek campaign. Oregonians know that this line of questioning is complete nonsense and a desperate attempt to use pitched opposition research to save a governorship that Democrats have held for nearly 40 years. Unlike Tina Kotek, who is focused on spreading laughable conspiracy theories like this one, Christine Drazan is focused on the issues that matter most to the people of our state.”
Kotek spokesperson Katie Wertheimer also did not say that Kotek believes Drazan is a right-wing extremist. Instead, she said what Drazan is doing is appealing to extremists to try to win their votes ahead of the election.
“The threats to our democracy are very real and they are here in Oregon,” said Wertheimer. “Instead of standing up for what’s right, Christine Drazan is courting the support of election deniers, insurrectionists and MAGA loyalists.”
Drazan currently holds a slight lead in the polls in her three-way race against Kotek, who served in the state legislature from 2007 to 2022 and was House speaker from 2013 to 2022, and independent Betsy Johnson, who served in the state legislature for 20 years as a Democrat.
Oregon hasn’t elected a Republican governor since 1982. But The Cook Political Report recently shifted this race to a toss-up, citing Johnson’s influence as a well-funded independent and a potential spoiler.
RELATED
EXTREMISM
OREGON
2022 ELECTIONS
Jennifer Bendery - Senior Politics Reporter, HuffPost
https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7wvj/lions-of-liberty-oath-keepers-midterm-ballot-boxes
Armed Fringe Groups Are Gearing Up to ‘Protect’ Midterm Ballot Dropboxes
The groups, inspired by conspiracy theories and the Big Lie about the 2020 election, could deter some voters, experts warn.
TO
By Tess Owen
October 6, 2022Screenshot of a YCPT meeting in August led by Jim Arroyo
A “patriot group” in Arizona called Lions of Liberty—which is closely tied to the Oath Keepers—is organizing their supporters to go out and conduct round-the-clock surveillance of ballot dropboxes during the midterm elections. It’s the latest sign that groups with clear ties to extremists, galvanized by conspiracy theories, are seeking to take matters into their own hands this election season.
Ballot dropboxes have become the central focus of election fraud conspiracy theorists, thanks to the debunked documentary 2,000 Mules, by right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza.
That film claims that a shadowy network of hired “mules” in contested states were hired by nonprofits as part of a giant ballot trafficking operation to stuff dropboxes with fake absentee ballots, all with the goal of stealing the 2020 election from Donald Trump. The film was released in May, six months before the midterms, reinvigorated the “Stop the Steal” movement and inspired vigilante efforts around the country—in some cases spearheaded by innocuous-sounding groups that obscure the known ideologues and extremists behind them.
Lions of Liberty is the “political arm” of a newly-formed nonprofit called Yavapai County Preparedness Team (YCPT), led by the former vice president of Arizona’s Oath Keeper chapter, Jim Arroyo. At a meeting in August that was posted to YouTube, Arroyo explained that they had turned the Oath Keeper chapter into a corporate nonprofit under the name of YCPT, which in turn gave them the ability to get a bank account.
In an email to VICE News, Arroyo said that the Arizona chapter officially broke ties with the national leadership of the notorious militia group after it was implicated in the violent riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6. (Five members are currently standing trial for seditious conspiracy charges, including the group’s leader Stewart Rhodes. Prosecutors allege that Rhodes and his cohort plotted an “armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of American democracy.”) However, they had been operating more or less independently from the national organization for about four years, said Arroyo; Rhodes broke ties with the Arizona contingent after they declined to assist in armed vigilante activities at the border, out of respect for Border Patrol.
News
The Oath Keepers’ Jan. 6 Texts Sure Do Look Damning
GREG WALTERS
10.05.22
Arroyo, who insists YCPT is not a militia, led that August meeting in an Oath Keepers hat and T-shirt. He explained to the crowd that he would need volunteers to monitor ballot drop boxes, and that he was particularly concerned about the period between midnight and 6 a.m. “If you saw the movie 2,000 Mules” he said, that timeframe was “when the bulk of the problems happen, that’s when we will be on scene with a camera and flashlight.” Arroyo told VICE News that some volunteers might be armed. “This is Arizona; almost everyone is armed, all the time,” he said. “That's not a big deal here.”
Arroyo said he will likely pick up a couple of shifts to monitor dropboxes.
In the August meeting, Arroyo assured members of the crowd that they’d be welcome to continue wearing their Oath Keepers merch, even while conducting ballot dropbox surveillance. “Your shirts and hats are what tell the world you’re not ashamed to be an Oath Keeper, or afraid of the government just because of that crap that happened on January the 6th, which was completely staged. It was a setup,” Arroyo said, before acknowledging, “Yeah, they did something stupid beyond all belief.”
During the meeting, Arroyo also stoked fears of an imminent civil war. “This is not the same as (Black Lives Matter) and George Floyd or antifa. This is a direct confrontation with the federal government,” he said. “This is now the federal government of the United States of America in direct conflict with its own citizenry.”
The Lions of Liberty describe themselves as a “resolute nucleus of concerned, passionate conservative patriots who are determined to correct the course for our country which has been hijacked and undermined by global elites, communists, leftists, deep state bureaucrats, and fake news.” Their goal? “To bring God back to our leadership and win this spiritual battle for the soul of our nation.”
The Lions of Liberty aren’t the only ones calling for and coordinating vigilante activity around the midterm elections.
Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a Seattle-based nonprofit, has been closely tracking this trend.
“The threat of groups of far-right vigilantes, some potentially armed, fueled by Big Lie misinformation, lurking near ballot dropboxes, could potentially deter some from casting their votes,” warned Burghart. “The possibility of conflict in such a scenario is real.”
Burghart added that “dropbox vigilantism” perpetuates unsubstantiated claims of rampant voter fraud that “keep the Big Lie alive and further erodes confidence in elections and democracy.”
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Former Washington state Rep. Matt Shea runs On Fire Ministries, an apocalyptic Christian nationalist church in Spokane, and has been leading “training sessions” for prospective volunteers to monitor dropboxes.
“We are doing something for the community. How many of you watched 2,000 Mules? Raise your hands,” said Shea during a service in September. “I think it would be good if we had some folks who were certified, trained, dropbox observers, in Spokane County.” The training took place on Sept. 30.
Shea is a particularly controversial character; a 2019 investigation by the Washington Legislature concluded that he’d “participated in an act of domestic terrorism” for his involvement in three armed conflicts against the federal government between 2014 and 2016, including the Bundys’ armed standoffs in Nevada and Oregon and an armed conflict with the U.S. Veterans Affairs Department in Priest River, Idaho.
And a group called True the Vote, which was involved in the 2,000 Mules documentary, is also teaming up with the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) to monitor dropboxes nationwide. CSPOA is headed by Richard Mack, who has long-standing ties to the militia movement, including to the Oath Keepers.
“The plan from national Big Lie groups, like True the Vote, is to use those “voter fraud” claims to get sympathetic sheriffs to intervene in elections,” said Burghart.
Dropbox surveillance efforts started getting underway earlier this summer, during the primaries, described then by the New York Times as a “nascent” movement. In some places, like in Arizona, groups were planning dropbox “tailgate parties.” One person with a handle referencing QAnon posted a photo of their party to Trump’s platform Truth Social, and credited Seth Keshel, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and conspiracy theorist, for the idea.
[Screenshot from the app TruthSocial showing a "dropbox tailgate party"
Brian Cates, a columnist for the fringe-right publication The Epoch Times, has long been a proponent of the “Big Lie” and has been riling up his more than 120,000 followers on Telegram around the idea of taking matters into their own hands this election season.
“The time for calling for people to just show up to vote is long past. We’re moving into another completely different era,” he wrote. “Citizens will be given the tools to monitor all the dropboxes and engage in massive real-time information operations in order to bring about election integrity.”
“Forewarned is forearmed,” he added. “An army of patriots is going to force compliance with the election laws in their states before these next elections are held.”
One of the primary examples of “evidence” of nefarious activity offered by 2,000 Mules was surveillance videos that appeared to show individuals posting multiple ballots into a dropbox, including in Georgia. Submitting multiple ballots on behalf of other people is known as “ballot harvesting,” and it is legal in several states, including Georgia.
However, the fact that submitting multiple ballots has been presented as a telltale sign of election fraud lays the groundwork for possible confrontations between dropbox “monitors” and people who are acting entirely within the law. (Right-wing political commentator Monica Matthews, from Clear Talk Media, even tried to remind her followers of this fact. “Before you all plan Dropbox tailgate parties to monitor the integrity of your elections- MAKE SURE you check your new state laws. Some states allow harvesting,” she wrote on Twitter in August. “Confronting people at dropboxes could land you in jail.”)
Earlier this summer, ahead of Washington’s August 2 primary, some signs began showing up near dropboxes near Seattle saying “This Ballot Dropbox is Under Surveillance” and warned of criminal penalties for ballot harvesting, the Seattle Times reported. However, it’s also legal in Washington to drop off multiple ballots at once on behalf of family members.
The signs also had a QR code that allowed passersby to report “suspicious activity” to the King County Republican Party(whose chair disavowed the vigilante activity). Amber Krabach, a GOP activist, QAnon conspiracy theorist and member of the Kings County Republicans’ “Election integrity Committee”, was behind the signs. The county elections office asked the sheriff’s department to investigate whether Krabach had broken a state law barring civilians from influencing someone’s vote within 25 feet of a ballot dropbox. They didn’t press charges, but they did refer the matter to the FBI.
All these vigilante efforts are taking place against a backdrop of increasingly incendiary rhetoric from GOP figures and far-right forums alike, about what will happen if they get even so much of a whiff of “voter fraud” this election season.
“If our election systems continue to be rigged and continue to be stolen, then it’s going to lead to one place—and it’s bloodshed,” said ex-Congressman Madison Cawthorn at a GOP event in North Carolina this summer.
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On Patriots.win, a pro-Trump forum, some have discussed the need to bring guns to monitor dropboxes. Someone shared an article from the right-wing Gateway Pundit claiming they’d found evidence of massive voter fraud in Detroit during the 2020 election. “We need people waiting for that shit this time and take that shit at gun point,” someone responded. “Use walkie-talkies and don't park anywhere near there or use fake plates and a vehicle wrap.”
Others, like Arroyo from YCPT, have stoked fears of an imminent civil war instigated by the Democrats. “Keep your powder dry until after the midterms,” one person wrote. “No matter what, they are going to try like hell to provoke a civil war before then.”
“Hold the line till Nov… then do whatever the fuck you gotta do,” another user on patriots.win wrote.
omfg hu rights orgs have to watchdog US?!
parasite = cockroaches = exterminate vermin carry disease dirty
https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/rittenhouse-2655770737/
no lnx pix req
Rittenhouse verdict championed on right-wing social media as green light for killing protesters
[Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally. Far-right Oath Keepers patrol Emancipation Park. Credit: Anthony Crider]
David Neiwertand Daily Kos November 21, 2021
The exultation on right-wing social media following Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal has been sickeningly predictable: Mainstream conservatives loudly valorize Rittenhouse as a "hero," while more extremist voices, applying the same logic, demand that more Americans follow his footsteps—urging the likeminded to take to the street now to begin using guns to "be like Kyle." They have even appropriated his name for their future plans, voiced in numerous celebratory threads: Any leftist protester shot by a right-wing "patriot" henceforth will have been "Rittenhoused."
As we forecasted, the acquittal is now a beacon-like green light granting permission to violent right-wing extremists to openly wage the kind of "civil war" against "the left"—which ranges from liberal Democrats like Joe Biden to the "antifa" bogeyman they have concocted—that they have been fantasizing about for the past decade. In the words of Charlie Kirk's interlocutor, it's the signal that now they "get to use the guns."
The bloodlust has been palpable. Online trolls celebrated that "it's Open Season on pedo-commies" and boasted that the verdict means "there's nothing you can do about it." A neo-Nazi channel on Twitter urged readers to "let this win fuel your rage." A fan of pseudo-journalist Andy Ngo commented in a retweet: "Every one of these anarchist criminal thugs should be shot in the street like the worthless dogs they are."
Far-right maven Ann Coulter posted a meme showing a gantlet of [marvel nazi nerd wet dr] comic-book superheroes bowing to Rittenhouse. On Facebook, Ben Shapiro framed any future violence as being left-wing: "The Left accepting the verdict in a peaceable manner remains the sizable elephant in the room."
The white-nationalist site VDare also extolled Rittenhouse's heroism:
This much is true: Kyle Rittenhouse is the hero we've been waiting for throughout the turbulent summer of 2020, where a Black Lives Matter/Antifa/Bolshevik revolution has our country on the brink of total chaos.
[Coulter-RittenhouseMeme.jpeg]
Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire blamed the media for there even having been a trial:
The verdict is right and just but Kyle Rittenhouse never should have been on trial at all. Now themedia will go to work, like the demonsthey are, to ensure that Kenosha burns because they did not get their blood sacrifice.
Walsh then added:
I hope Rittenhouse bankrupts all of you dirtbags in media who smeared him as a white supremacist. [sue for libel based on verdict? // charlottesville ~ KKK case finished ] I hope he ruins your life. I want you to suffer. It's what you deserve. It's justice.
Idaho legislator Tammy Nichols, a Republican, posted a meme featuring the Gadsden-flag "Don't Tread On Me" design, but with a graphic of Rittenhouse firing from a seated position as he did in Kenosha.
The Gun Owners of America (GOA)—a gun-rights extremist group headed by far-right militia figure Larry Pratt—joined in the celebration by announcing it was giving Rittenhouse a new gun.
Alert: GOA will be awarding Kyle Rittenhouse with an AR-15 for his defense of gun rights in America. Join us in saying THANK YOU to Kyle Rittenhouse for being awarrior for gun rights and self defense rights across the country!
Other "Patriot" Movement extremists saw the verdict as vindication for vigilantism and militia organizing. The "Washougal Moms," a militia-friendly group from eastern Washington state, opined:
Today the jury and legal system has reaffirmed our rights as citizens. The second amendmentin all aspects, to form a well regulated militia, the right to bear arms in self defense, and against enemiesboth foreign and domestic!
Kurt Schlichter, the right-wing troll with over 380,000 followers, taunted MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan, who had expressed concern about the double racial standard that the verdict reflects, on Twitter.
Your pain delights me. Kyle Rittenhouse killed two leftistcatspawsand bisected the bicep of another and there's nothing you can do about it.
A white-nationalist Twitter account called "Based Teutonic" celebrated the verdict by posting a fantasy that Rittenhouse would now embark on an action-hero-like mission—with the help of Judge Bruce Schroeder, who oversaw the trial in markedly biased fashion.
About to exit court room
Judge yells from behind:
Rittenhouse turns around
You forgot this
Tosses him his AR15
Credits roll, Eye of the Tiger plays
"Based Teutonic" wasn't alone in celebrating Schroeder's role in the verdict. On Telegram, a commenter in a Proud Boys channel observed:
Kyle's case shows how important is to have your guys in power on a local level. One vaguely conservative boomer judge made all of the difference in a monumental trial.
Other Proud Boys were more focused on their long-anticipated civil war. "There's still a chance for this country," wrote one. Another wrote: "The left wont stop until their bodies get stacked up like cord wood."
The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights monitored a number of far-right chat forums (particularly Telegram) following the verdict, and found an outpouring of extremist bile, much of it anticipating the ability to inflict lethal violence on "leftists," as well as Black "parasites" and, of course, Jewish people. A user called The Western Chauvinist commented: "The parasites are planning multiple 'protests' across the United States."
One user calling himself "Proud Boy To Fascist Pipeline" replied to one of these comments mocking Black leaders protesting the verdict as "parasites": "Your 17 year olds are already armed and terrorizing our neighborhoods, n----er."
Fittingly, Charlie Kirk fans—following the example of his Idaho audience member—were focused on the violence: "Arm up and tell them f**cking bring it!" one replied to predictions of leftist protests after the verdict. "Shoot these phukers," commented another.
Nick Fuentes' "Groypers" were also unbridled in their anticipation of gunning down their opponents. "The most American thing you can do is Killing Commies," opined one on the white-nationalist forum Gab.
Another Gab user exulted with a meme showing Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker, dancing: "When you find out it's officially Open Season on pedo-commies." Mocking "wannabe street thugs upset with the verdict," another Gab user replied, "you're gonna get Rittenhouse'd. Bitch."
Gab-OpenSeason.png
"Getting Rittenhoused" became a popular way of threatening leftists. After Ngo posted a handful of tweets from leftists angry about the verdict, hundreds of his fans piled on, making threats of violence against them. "Someone will Rittenhouse them too," one responded. Another replied: "I came here to say that!"
Antisemitism also was a common theme. Right-wing troll Keith Woods, who has 23,500 followers on Twitter, declared after the verdict: "Huge L for the Jews." His followers piled on; one responded with a GIF meme of Gollum and the text, "Curse you goyim." Another replied, "hopefully they take an L in Charlottsville trial too. WHITE BOY WINTER!"
White nationalist Eric Striker was more explicitly antisemitic, as well as strategic, in his commentary:
Beating the Jews to the narrative as incidents unfold is more important than anything that happens in court.
Once you frame a story with the facts (and the facts have to be 100% accurate) and disseminate it with an effective propaganda network, Jews will struggle to challenge it once it's cemented.
Notorious white nationalist and antisemite Mike "Enoch" Peinovich put out a statement through his National Justice Party: "This victory for Kyle Rittenhouse over the cosmopolitan elite forces that plague the nation isn't only a victory for the young man himself, it's a victory for justice and for all White people who take a stand," Peinovich said.
On Telegram, a white nationalist commented: "The victory of Kyle Rittenhouse over thejewish forces that plague the nation isn't just a victory for the man himself, it's a victory for justice, and for the masses of disenfranchised White people which populate the globe.
The neo-Nazi group White Lives Matter had this advice for its white-supremacist followers:
Don't let this one victory lull you back to sleep. That's what they want. They know small "victories" can placate the angry masses more than anything else. Instead let this win fuel your rage.Never forget the simple fact that this clear-cut self-defense should never have gone to trial in the first place. Muslim, Hispanic, and African invaders have raped millions of our women, WHITE women.Their time ofterrorizing our People with 0 consequences is coming to an end. The Rittenhouse verdict is a single tick in the scoreboard on our side. Our enemy doesn't have a scoreboard big enough for their victories. Fight harder, stronger, fiercer, and with the same remorse they have shown us. None. Get going, White man.
"This might be interpreted across the far right as a type of permission slip to do this kind of thing or to seek out altercations in this way, believing that there is a potential that they won't face serious consequences for it," Jared Holt of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council told NPR. "I worry that that might end up being interpreted by some people as a proof of concept of this idea that you can actually go out and seek a 'self-defense situation,' and you'll be cheered as a hero for it."