ali alex2 bak
SEE THREE
capt 2/21 no lnx
crazy pending 1 23
SEE TIMELINE ON JAN 6 TWO
alialex122
orange beanie jan 5?
two
bad code format see bak
primary 1/21 on insurrection
see ali akbar for older
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he's catholic now (mea culpa redemptin tour after jan 6 hiding? --> xian nat'list
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jan 6 hearing #7
1/5 rally (wackos shunted to) flynn soil fight; trump had dr open to hear; asked staffers how to fight dem win?; AA 1776 always an option" -->? JNZ chant; roger good god vs dark 1k yrs
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beast
A key figure in the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” campaign has apologized after being accused of asking teenage boys for sexual pictures.
Ali Alexander has become one of the most ubiquitous figures in the MAGA movement.
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[
Media Matters for America
"Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander celebrates Trump's January 6 pardons: "I would storm the Capitol again for Donald Trump. I would start a militia for Donald Trump."
Ali Alexander celebrates Trump's January 6 pardons: "I would storm the Capitol again for Donald Trump. I would start a militia for Donald Trump."
.
Jan 21, 2025](https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/stop-steal-organizer-ali-alexander-celebrates-trumps-january-6-pardons-i)
[
CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/24/politics/stop-the-steal-ali-alexander-testifies-january-6-grand-jury)
---
constant lie puffery? mma 1 23
CHRISSIE MAYR (HOST): When the “Twitter Files" came out and they -- you could see them languishing over how to justify --
ALI ALEXANDER (“STOP THE STEAL" ORGANIZER): Oh yeah.
MAYR: -- how to suspend Trump. They're like, “Oh, well, he could have meant this. This all could have been a dog whistle." This was like, so they'll force anything they need to to fit their motive. I've got a couple questions --
ALEXANDER: Which, by the way, Elon [Musk] told me about those files. He --
MAYR: Oh really?
ALEXANDER: He was like, he's like, “There are pages and pages and pages of confessions, Ali."
MAYR: Really? From the ex-employees or --
ALEXANDER: Yeah, and current.
MAYR: Current?
ALEXANDER: In the Slack channel.
MAYR: Why? Because they were, like, were they scared or something? And they felt like they had to talk about it.
ALEXANDER: Elon's trying to figure out -- he's like, “How could they be so stupid as to think no one would ever read this?" But that's how high on the hog all these people were. That's how institutionalized they all were. And to some degree, it makes me mad that Jack [Dorsey] -- Jack wanted me to know some things, but there's clearly some things he didn't want to tell me. And he shouldn't have told me. But it's worse than everyone -- it's worse than the Twitter Files.
MAYR: So there are things that were discovered that they could put in the Twitter Files that are -- that they're not going to --
ALEXANDER: They're not public yet.
MAYR: Do you think they will be?
ALEXANDER: I think so.
MAYR: Because I know there's -- there's still one that's due to come out about [Anthony] Fauci. I don't know if that's coming out or not yet.
ALEXANDER: Yeah, yeah, it's meeting legal. There's a researcher that Elon's flying in -- I think can't fly in until mid-February.
MAYR: Cool.
---
rs 1 23
tHE FOUNDER OF “Stop the Steal” delivered an early warning about the violence soon to overwhelm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 in a text to the chief of staff of Rep. Paul Gosar, according to a deposition released by the Jan. 6 Committee.
Ali Alexander is a far-right agitator who was one of the key mobilizers of the protest that morphed into the insurgency of Jan. 6, 2021. After making an early exit from the Ellipse rally he’d helped organize — at which Donald Trump demanded his backers march on the Capitol — Alexander became an eyewitness to the chaos unfolding as insurrectionists breached the Capitol perimeter.
“People were scaling the wall like Spiderman,” Alexander testified to the Jan. 6 committee. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
But Alexander didn’t just stop and gawk. He took time to sound the alarm to Gosar, one of his top House allies. “I think you and your staff should maybe leave,” Alexander texted Gosar’s chief of staff, Thomas Van Flein. “This is hell out here.”
This partisan early warning is cited in the Jan. 6 committee’s 236-page deposition of Alexander, and has not previously been reported. That message, and other details from Alexander’s and related depositions, offer new clarity into the Stop the Steal movement’s links to both far-right paramilitary groups and far-right MAGA lawmakers, including Gosar, Lauren Boebert, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
The committee questioners pressed Alexander about his relationship to the Arizona congressman/dentist. “Dr. Paul Gosar and I share political beliefs about election irregularities,” Alexander responded, citing the baseless conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump. Alexander then added that Gosar is “a friend to the movement” and “a stellar dude.”
A questioner for the committee sought to clarify Alexander’s warning text: “So you thought Mr. Gosar and Mr. Gosar’s staff was in danger?” Alexander responded: “I thought that they could potentially be in danger … if this escalated.” He added, “I knew a lot of people in Congress. I wouldn’t want them hurt. So I said ‘I think you and your staff should maybe leave.’ Now in retrospect,” Alexander conceded, “that’s stupid because where were they going to go?” There was, of course, no safe exit from the Capitol on Jan. 6. — as it was soon overwhelmed on all sides by the dead-end Trump supporters Alexander had summoned to the Capitol.
the timestamp of the text Alexander sent is 1:10 p.m., according to additional evidence released by the committee. The warning was delivered just two minutes before Gosar rose on the floor of the House t
of the Electoral College votes from his home state of Arizona. “I rise up for myself and 60 of my colleagues to object,” Gosar said with an American flag Covid mask pulled down under his chin, “to the counting of the electoral ballots from Arizona.”
Ali Alexander is a protégé of Roger Stone, the Trump-pardoned felon who has been a dirty trickster in American politics for decades. Stone coined the phrase “Stop the Steal” in 2016, but Alexander testified that the two have a “gentleman’s agreement” for him to use it politically. Alexander is a top ally of the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as well, whom he accompanied during the chaos of Jan. 6.
Alexander, who bears a passing resemblance to Sammy Davis Jr.. is also known to Trump, who always greets him, Alexander testified, by pretending to mistake him for the member of the Rat Pack: “Whenever we see each other, he makes the comment to say, ‘Sammy?’”
In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Alexander organized a roving series of Stop the Stealrallies that brought together far-right extremists, toughs, and militants — including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and “Groypers” (or followers of the white-supremacist Nick Fuentes). Oath Keepers former general counsel Kellye SoRelle testified to the Jan. 6 committee that Alexander, Jones, and Stone were “the center point for everything” having to do with the Stop the Steal movement.
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In addition to his connections with extremist groups, Alexander also had forged connections with far-right members on Capitol Hill. Alexander’s relationship with Gosar appears the most extensive. Alexander testified that in the runup to Jan. 6, Gosar would share messages from Trump with him. “Representative Gosar, if he would talk to the President or meet with the President, might relay some good news back to me,” Alexander told the committee.
When specific plans for Jan. 6 were in development, Alexander testified, he initially sought to hold a morning rally in the shadow of the Capitol — at which Gosar was confirmed to be a speaker.
But planning for the events surrounding Jan. 6 fluctuated as the date neared. The original time slot for Alexander’s Capitol event was pushed back to the afternoon, when Congress would be in session, making Gosar’s participation impossible. Alexander, in turn, got roped into planning for the primary event at the Ellipse, where Trump would address the day’s rabid throng.
Alexander’s participation in that Ellipse rally was not fully welcome. Kylie Kremer, a lead organizer of the Ellipse rally, told the Jan. 6 committee that “Ali is a shady character.” But she said she chose to keep him in the loop because he was “the devil that you know,” and she “would rather keep him close” than risk having him turn on her.
Caroline Wren was another key organizer and fundraiser for the Jan. 6 rally. Alexander testified that Wren was “my main point of contact with what I’m calling Trump world.” Wren testified that Alexander’s participation was needed because he was a better organizer than Kremer and her mother, Amy, who ran the group Women For America First.
“His website, at the end, had 50,000-plus RSVPs,” Wren testified to the committee. “The Kremers had somewhere around 20,000, and that was after the President of the United States had tweeted it multiple times, the Kremers had promoted it. They had less than half the number of RSVPs that Ali Alexander did.”
As part of his planning for the Ellipse event, according to text messages cited by the Jan 6. committee, Alexander hosted a Jan. 3 conference call about logistics for the event. On the call and afterward, Alexander touted that it was joined by several, high-profile right-wing members of Congress.
Wren, who had to drop off the call early, texted Alexander soon after with the query: “Who are the Members of Congress that were on…?” Alexander responded: “Gosar, Lance Goodman, Lauren B, Marjorie, and maybe Congressman Kelleyat a minimum were on.” In his testimony Alexander said he could not recall the specifics of the call but that “Lauren B” referred to Lauren Boebert and “Marjorie” meant Marjorie Taylor Greene, of whom Alexander said, “she’s awesome.”
If Alexander anticipated a peaceful day on Jan. 6, it’s hard to square with his rhetoric leading up to the event. At a rally in D.C. on Jan. 5 he led a crowd in a chant of “Victory or death!” And in the predawn hours of Jan. 6 he tweeted that it was the “first official day of the rebellion.”
First official day of the rebellion.
— Ali Alexander (@ali) January 6, 2021
Alexander was originally slated to be a speaker at the Ellipse rally, but was ultimately boxed out from a turn at the mic. He was, instead, given VIP access for the president’s speech, which Alexander attended along with Alex Jones.
Alexander testified that he did not stay for the duration of Trump’s speech.Instead, he and Jones were tapped (by either Wren or her aide, he said) to lead protesters from the overflow area listening to Trump’s speech in a march toward the Capitol.
Alexander recalled that he traveled with Jones, accompanied by Jones’ security detail, and that they walked toward the Capitol after Jones first made an impromptu speech.Alexander insisted that he and Jones had the intention of reaching the staging area on the north side of the Capitol where Alexander’s separate Stop the Steal event was permitted to begin that afternoon.
But the agitator told the committee that as chaos began to unfold, he quickly realized that his event wasn’t going to happen. He claimed that he tried to “deescalate” the crowd, but the committee questioner was incredulous. “Can you help me understand that assertion with the fact that you were walking to the Capitol, chanting things such as ‘Stop the Steal’?” (Alexander claimed that by chanting he was “gathering people to us … so that we can then move people where they belong.”)
Alexander wasn’t the only one offering text-message warnings to flee the scene that day. As the violence began to unfold, Wren texted Alexander, warning him that this outcome spelled trouble for him. “I think you should leave,” Wren wrote in a text cited by the committee. “This will come down on you hard.”
Alexander has not been charged for any crime in relation to Jan. 6, nor was he referred for prosecution by the Jan. 6 committee. He did reveal that he’s communicated with the FBI through an attorney. In an opening statement, Alexander told the committee: “I had nothing to do with any violence or law breaking that happened on January 6th. I had nothing to do with the planning of violence. I had nothing to do with the preparation of violence. I had nothing to do with the execution of violence. Any suggestion to the contrary is factually false.”
Neither Alexander, Thomas Van Flein (on behalf of Gosar), nor Wren replied to requests for comment for this story.
Alexander is in the news this week because Elon Musk overturned the permanent Twitter ban he received in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6. Alexander has shown no signs of being chastened by his close encounter with the insurrection, or of reforming his inflammatory rhetoric. In fact, his reinstatement to Twitter came just hours after he’d cheered on the insurrection by far right Brazialians who stormed key government buildings in Brasilia on Sunday.
For his part, Alexander made clear to the Jan. 6 committee that one social media platform wasmore important than all others as a tool he’d used to whip up the crowds who stormed the Capitol. “Which social media platforms did you use to promote the events on Jan. 6?” a committee questioner asked. Alexander responded: “Primarily Twitter.”
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REVEAL
Behind the Tweet That Became the Rallying Cry for the Insurrection
by Stan AlcornNovember 24, 2021
*This story is a collaboration withMother Jones.
On the evening of Monday, Nov. 2, 2020, the 35-year-old attorney who would jump-start the #StopTheSteal hashtag says he was meeting with Trump campaign officials in Philadelphia.
The city was a Democratic stronghold in a state Donald Trump won to secure the presidency in 2016 and needed to win again to remain in the White House. It was also a city long dogged by Republican accusations of election fraud. Will Chamberlain had driven up from Washington, D.C., to chase these allegations as a last-minute volunteer with the group Lawyers for Trump.
But Chamberlain wasn’t merely a lawyer. Although he had briefly worked at a commercial litigation firm in Los Angeles after passing the bar, he left that job in the spring of 2016, moved to D.C. and spent the Trump years running MAGA Meetups, relaunching a right-wing magazine and generally reinventing himself as a pro-Trump social media figure. When the campaign realized he had roughly 150,000 followers on Twitter, his role changed. “They figured out I’d be more useful doing stuff that wasn’t just legal,” Chamberlain told me.
He would still be on the lookout for “irregularities” – broken machines, verbal abuse of Republican officials, violations of law – but he wouldn’t be collecting affidavits or filing legal briefs. “If anything bad happened,” Chamberlain recalled, “we would put it out on social media.”
The next morning, at 8:19 a.m. on Election Day, he tweeted a video of a confrontation outside a polling place that would succeed beyond his wildest dreams. He wasn’t the first to make use of the #StopTheSteal hashtag, but according to an analysis conducted for Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting by the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, his tweet was the first to go viral. When it did, it took a little-known slogan of far-right activists and, in a matter of hours, transformed it into a ubiquitous rallying cry of what would become a nationwide movement to overturn the 2020 election.
Looking back, Chamberlain calls the movement that led to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 “disappointing,” “frustrating,” and “scary,” but he is also quick to disown any personal responsibility.
“We weren’t thinking we were setting the stage for this massive campaign. All we were thinking was, like, this is a catchy hashtag,” he recalls. “I guess I underestimated how crazy certain people could get.”
It’s now clear that the ramifications of what’s become known as the Big Lie didn’t end with the events of Jan. 6. Far from it. A year later, a persistent, overwhelming majority of Republicans continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. That false belief has been used to justify a wave of new voting restrictions, with the Brennan Center for Justice documenting 33 laws in 19 states, many of which experts say disproportionately disenfranchise people of color, college students, elderly voters and disabled voters. At least 10 Republicans who questioned the election results are seeking to oversee future elections in battleground states as candidates for secretary of state. A recent CNN poll found that a majority of Americans believe it is at least somewhat likely that an elected official will overturn an upcoming election to favor their political party. Only 6% say our democracy is not in danger.
This state of affairs wasn’t created by a single tweet. The edifice of #StopTheSteal was constructed on a foundation of false claims of widespread election fraud that predates Trump’s candidacy. But by tracing the convoluted journey of the tweet that started #StopTheSteal, you can see exactly how these long-standing beliefs, the singular rhetoric of Trump, and the evolving online and offline organizing tactics of the far right came together to create an unprecedented misinformation cascade. The dynamics that made this possible haven’t gone away. In fact, in some ways, the prospects for our upcoming elections are even worse.
On Election Day in Philadelphia, Will Chamberlain was paired with another volunteer, a local GOP activist and former state Senate candidate named Gary Feldman. As a Philadelphia resident, Feldman was able to register as an official Republican poll watcher, allowing him to legally enter voting locations to observe the process firsthand – he’d later say he was “the eyes and the ears of the president.” The plan was for the two of them to spend the day driving around Philadelphia, looking for what Chamberlain calls “shenanigans.” Should they see anything that fit that description, Feldman would investigate while Chamberlain would wait outside, taking pictures and videos and broadcasting his findings on Twitter.
Philadelphia has a long history of this kind of semi-official partisan videography. In 2008, when Barack Obama was running against John McCain, a recent college graduate working for the local GOP shot a video of a member of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense standing outside a polling place holding a nightstick. No voter claimed to be intimidated and no criminal charges were filed, but the video was endlessly replayed on Fox News after right-wing operative Mike Roman posted it to his Election Journal website. The idea of reviving this approach at the Philadelphia polls in 2020 came directly from Trump himself.
It happened at the end of the first presidential debate in September, when moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News tried to pin Trump down on a question he’d been publicly evading: “Will you urge your supporters to stay calm during this extended period, not to engage in any civil unrest?” Wallace asked. “And will you pledge tonight that you will not declare victory until the election has been independently certified?”
Instead of encouraging calm and making the pledge, Trump famously replied: “I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully because that’s what has to happen. I am urging them to do it. As you know, today there was a big problem. In Philadelphia, they went in to watch. They’re called poll watchers, a very safe, very nice thing. They were thrown out. They weren’t allowed to watch. You know why? Because bad things happen in Philadelphia.”
While Trump had been summoning the specter of fraud in Philadelphia since his first campaign, the “big problem” he was referring to happened that morning. It was opening day for a number of satellite election offices the city of Philadelphia had created to help its residents register and turn in ballots as part of a newly expanded mail-in voting program. Someone had walked into one of these offices, camera rolling, seeking to “observe,” and been politely turned away.
Andrew Wellbrock, now deputy attorney general in New Jersey and recently assistant district attorney in Philadelphia and leader of the city’s Election Task Force, says this was clearly the right move. Under Pennsylvania law, poll watching is something that only credentialed observers do, and only on Election Day at polling locations set up to ensure voter privacy. The video showed someone with no relevant credentials showing up at an office neither logistically nor legally set up to accommodate them. “It would be like someone saying they have a poll watcher certificate to come watch me do my work in my office,” Wellbrock says. “It’s just not how the law works.”
The video was tweeted out by Roman, who was Trump’s Election Day operations director. He offered a very different analysis. “TRUMP observers are being blocked entry to all of the satellite voting locations in Philly!! What are they hiding?” he tweeted. Trump and his two adult sons’ retweets went further. “This is Biden’s only hope to cheat you out of an election by preventing a fair and honest election,” tweeted Donald Trump Jr.
The Trump campaign followed up the tweets and debate complaints with a lawsuit, but it was thrown out eight days later. But the courtroom loss did nothing to extinguish the excluded-poll-watcher narrative, as the reaction to Chamberlain’s tweet would soon make spectacularly clear.
Chamberlain told me that the first tip he and Feldman got on Election Day was that a polling site at a funeral home in South Philadelphia wasn’t admitting Republican poll watchers. Chamberlain and Feldman raced to the scene.
When they arrived, Feldman walked inside, only to be promptly ejected while Chamberlain recorded video on his phone. “I have a citywide watcher’s certificate,” Feldman says in the video, holding up the slip of yellow paper. “Not for this location,” one of the poll workers responds.
As it turned out, Feldman was right, and the poll workers were wrong. “It was all a mistake,” the election judge who denied Feldman’s entry told me when I reached him by phone. (Reached by email, Feldman declined to answer my questions.)
It was the kind of misunderstanding that happens at every election without affecting the outcome and that the Philadelphia district attorney’s Election Task Force typically resolves over the phone. Feldman and Chamberlain needed only to call the Election Task Force’s hotline, and one of the more than 90 lawyers on call could have directed the poll workers to let Feldman in. But, as Chamberlain told me and the Election Task Force confirmed, they didn’t call.
“That’s not what they wanted,” Wellbrock says. “They wanted a show. They wanted that headline.”
Or more to the point: They wanted that tweet.
The tweet went out at 8:19 a.m.
Two minutes later, its viral journey began, with a retweet from Jack Posobiec.
Posobiec was a correspondent and host at the pro-Trump cable network One America News, but his real power came from Twitter, where he regularly posted hundreds of times a day.
“I would argue that Jack is the worst actor in the history of that website,” says Michael Edison Hayden, an investigative reporter at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who wrote a series of articles on how Posobiec built an audience by spreading conspiracy theories, inspiring harassment campaigns and working with White supremacists. Posobiec is “very good at setting the right-wing media agenda,” says Joan Donovan, research director at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. “He tends to have a very loyal and dedicated fan base that knows what to do when he tweets something.”
By the 2020 election, Posobiec had amassed a Twitter following of 1.2 million that included right-wing influencers such as Trump himself – a fact that Posobiec leveraged to maximum effect. “Remember, folks, the President watches this space closely,” Posobiec tweeted months before the election. “That’s right Jack,” Trump tweeted in response. “Keep up the good work!”
When Posobiec tweeted Chamberlain’s video, his pro-Trump Twitter network sprang into action, with immediate retweets from a Trump campaign staffer and from Paul Joseph Watson, aka @PrisonPlanet, the British protege of Trump ally and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
Kate Starbird, faculty director of the University of Washington Center for an Informed Public, says in an email that this was a typical beginning for viral election misinformation. “We’ve talked about that kind of effect as a ‘spotlight’ tweet (where a user with a larger following casts a spotlight on a tweet/user with a smaller following and helps it take off).”
If Posobiec’s followers missed his initial tweet, no matter; he would spotlight the poll-watching video three more times in the space of three minutes. After the last of these, at 8:32 a.m., Donald Trump Jr. took notice and tweeted it, twice, to his 6 million followers.
Thanks to these prominent retweets, by 20 minutes after its release, Chamberlain’s video had been viewed nearly 200,000 times; in an hour, it was approaching half a million. In their analysis for the Election Integrity Partnership, researchers at the Center for an Informed Public documented more than 600,000 tweets related to Chamberlain’s video. That doesn’t include posts on other platforms where it was quickly reproduced, such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
The engine powering this viral spread was what the Center for an Informed Public calls “repeat spreaders”: a small number of influencers with large follower counts who disseminated not one but many false or misleading narratives about the 2020 election. Their analysis ranked Posobiec, Trump Jr. and Roman among the 21 most prominent, alongside right-wing media figures like @BreitbartNews and Sean Hannity, as well as Twitter-specific influencers like “Cat Turd” and the QAnon account @prayingmedic.
Throughout the 2020 election season, these accounts acted as misinformation tastemakers, taking tweets from more obscure accounts like Chamberlain’s and then broadcasting them to their larger followings. While Posobiec happened to be the first to find Chamberlain’s tweet, it was their collective action that made them potent. One researcher I spoke with compared the swarm of influencers retweeting a new nugget of conspiratorial content to a flock of crows descending on a single french fry.
“You just need to hit one person in this network of right-wing influencers, and then it will spread to all the others,” says Center for an Informed Public graduate researcher Andrew Beers.
As Chamberlain’s video spread, the claims attached to it grew increasingly detached from the mundane reality it depicted. The first of Trump Jr.’s tweets amplified a quote tweet that prefaced it by saying, “Look, we don’t need any pesky poll-watchers interfering with the result that has already been preordained by Democrat officials.” The second: “They’re straight up stealing Philadelphia.” The front page of Breitbart News soon read: “ ‘The Steal Is On’ in Pennsylvania: Poll watchers denied access.”
It’s a pattern Starbird calls “participatory disinformation,” and it would occur again and again all across the country on Election Day and in the days and weeks and months thereafter. Trump voters who’d been primed for months with MAGA-world narratives of hacked voting machines, dead voters and rampant mail fraud, while being urged by the president to “watch very carefully,” ventured out to collect “evidence” that appeared to support their suspicions. Influencers, in turn, found these fragments and repackaged them into more compelling posts, which they then spread to their much larger audiences. If you were glued to far-right media, you saw not just scattered anecdotes, but a ubiquitous, consistent narrative repeated across social media, TV and radio. “(It) starts to take on the character of something that must be true because a lot of people are saying it,” Donovan says. “And that’s really what media manipulators and disinformers bank on. That’s what their strategic advantage is.”
The ultimate manifestation of this shows up at the end of Chamberlain’s tweet in the form of a hashtag.
“Stop the Steal” was not invented by Chamberlain. Its first incarnation was in 2016 when longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone picked up on Trump’s talk of a “rigged election” and founded an organization called Stop the Steal to prevent Ted Cruz from “stealing” the Republican primary. In the general election, Stop the Steal turned its attention to Hillary Clinton, signing up activists to monitor “key precincts” to thwart an alleged Democratic plot to hack voting machines and “flood the polls with illegals.” Posobiec was Stone’s point person in Philadelphia, where, in a haphazard premonition of 2020, he drove around the city with a local GOP staffer while telling his livestream followers that he was documenting “voter fraud.” (A Reveal producer was riding shotgun, so you can hear this play out firsthand.) The stunt had limited reach, and when Trump won the election, it was quickly forgotten.
Viral lies LINK
From wild anti-vaccine conspiracy theories to “Stop the Steal” and QAnon, we examine how misinformation swiftly spreads online – and the lives it disrupts.
June 5, 2021
The name and strategy were revived in 2018 by associates of Stone, including Posobiec and future Stop the Steal protest ringleader Ali Alexander, to claim election fraud in Broward County, Florida. In September 2020, Alexander said on a livestream, “I’m thinking of bringing ‘Stop the Steal’ out of retirement.” (He also insisted, “Every precinct in the country needs a Republican poll watcher. Every precinct in the country needs a Republican poll watcher.”) That same day, Posobiec sent a tweet (later deleted) that said simply, “#StopTheSteal 2020 is coming …” In a brief phone conversation, Posobiec said of this and other tweets about #StopTheSteal and false election fraud allegations, “I share things for my followers that they might find interesting,” before declining to comment further.
For his part, Chamberlain admits that he had discussed using the hashtag in advance of the 2020 election with other right-wing Twitter users, including Posobiec. But he claims that when he employed #StopTheSteal, he didn’t mean to imply that the election was actually being stolen. “In that context,” he explains, “the ‘steal’ is shenanigans. Basically Election Day shenanigans.”
This is, needless to say, not how it was understood online.
The handful of #StopTheSteal tweets that preceded Chamberlain’s hadn’t gotten any traction, but as soon as his caught fire, people borrowed its hashtag and attached it to a rapidly multiplying mass of conspiracy theories, from dead people voting to ballots invalidated by Sharpies.
“(Chamberlain’s) one original tweet pretty much sets the “#StopTheSteal” hashtag into motion,” Starbird says. “Where it begins with that one incident and then starts to snowball and pick up/incorporate other incidents/narratives as it goes.”
In a brief, punchy, alliterative phrase, it grouped these disparate stories together, implied they were proof of a plot to “steal” the election and called Twitter users to action to “stop the steal.”
At its Election Day peak, tweets tagged #StopTheSteal were posted more than 10,000 times an hour. Riding the wave of the hashtag’s viral success, the next day, Alexander would launch a #StopTheSteal website – StopTheSteal.us – and Women for America First would launch a Stop the Steal Facebook group to organize on-the-ground protests. The last of these protests would take place at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. “To use a favorite term that all of you people really came up with: We will stop the steal,” Trump told the crowd. And the crowd roared.
While the Stop the Steal movement mutated and metastasized, Chamberlain’s tweet and the narrative attached to it continued to shape right-wing election-related discourse and policy.
As the vote totals in key swing states began to favor Joe Biden, the real-world protests that sprung up in Phoenix, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta and elsewhere focused their “Stop the Steal” chants on those doing the counting. The story of wrongfully excluded Republican election observers lived on – only now, it was the tabulation of ballots they claimed to be unable to witness.
Two days after the election, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) went on Fox News and falsely claimed, “By throwing the observers out, by clouding the vote-counting in a shroud of darkness, they are setting the stage to potentially steal an election.”
“THE OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED INTO THE COUNTING ROOMS,” Trump tweeted that Saturday, after the Associated Press declared him the loser in Pennsylvania and the nation as a whole. “BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE.”
Even after the votes had been fully counted and certified in Pennsylvania (with Republican poll watchers observing), Republican legislators held a hearing at a Wyndham hotel in Gettysburg that used the stories of poll watchers to hint at more elaborate conspiracies. “The issues are galore,” Doug Mastriano, a Republican state senator representing south-central Pennsylvania, said in a lengthy opening statement that compared the election to the Civil War. “You’re going to hear about poll watchers being denied access, where election software vendors refuse to testify before the General Assembly. What do they got to hide?” Among the witnesses called were Republican observers of both Election Day voting and the subsequent counting of votes. One of those witnesses was Gary Feldman.
Feldman’s appearance was brief, and news coverage of the event focused instead on the rambling false claims made by Rudy Giuliani and Trump himself, who participated by phone. But on the conspiratorial fringe, the hearing was treated as a pivotal event, with Trump’s recently indicted ex-adviser Steve Bannon referencing it repeatedly on his podcast, and Mastriano capitalizing on it to elevate his own profile.
Mastriano would gain infamy as an early champion of so-called private “audits” of election results, like the Cyber Ninjas in Arizona, hunting for fake ballots with telltale “bamboo fibers” (and still finding that Biden won the election). On Jan. 6, Mastriano joined the pro-Trump mob on the Capitol grounds and even chartered buses for his constituents.
By April 2021, Mastriano went on to co-sponsor all four Pennsylvania Senate bills on the Brennan Center’s list of restrictive voting bills, as well as the Poll Watcher Empowerment Act, which, among other provisions, seeks to penalize “any election officials who block, impede, or otherwise intimidate a poll watcher while performing his or her official duties on Election Day.” If passed, it would mean that an election judge could be jailed for months for making the same mistake that briefly kept Feldman out of a polling place.
The Pennsylvania bill is one of more than 40 pieces of proposed legislation in 20 statesseeking to give poll watchers more power. The most infamous was the omnibus voting bill in Texas, which was delayed but not defeated when Democratic lawmakers took the dramatic step of fleeing the state.
The Texas bill was signed into law in September, and its poll-watching provisions go further than anything proposed in Pennsylvania. It explicitly grants watchers “free movement” at voting sites, specifying they should be able to get close enough to “see and hear” election workers’ actions. It not only makes it a crime for election workers to obstruct watchers, but it also prohibits them from removing watchers who violate the law, unless they personally witness the violation. Multiple federal lawsuits have challenged these provisions as unconstitutional and discriminatory, saying they will increase voter intimidation and curtail election officials’ ability to keep voters safe and their ballots secret. “That is a recipe for making elections more chaotic and less secure,” says Tommy Buser-Clancy of the ACLU of Texas.
The centering of partisan watchers also underlies even seemingly unrelated voting restrictions. The Texas law rolls back the drive-thru and 24-hour voting that boosted turnout in heavily Democratic Harris County in 2020. Those forms of voting were explicitly attacked as insecure because they couldn’t easily be observed by partisan poll watchers.
“Taking that argument to its logical conclusion, you can only have in-person Election Day voting,” says Alex Gulotta, All Voting Is Local Arizona state director. “It’s not about observing voting; it’s about stopping voting.”
There’s a certain historical irony to Republican legislators casting partisan poll watchers as election integrity’s last line of defense.
Two hundred years ago, poll watchers were called “party agents” and were anything but neutral referees. In a time before lists of registered voters, opposing party agents actively debated and horse traded their fellow citizens’ voting rights, according to Cornell University professor Richard Bensel, author of “The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.” “Poll watching in the sense that the Republicans mean it today didn’t exist,” Bensel says.
In the modern era, partisan poll watching evolved to serve a different function. Republican “ballot security programs” enlisted poll watchers to show up in the 1960s to enforce state literacy requirements, challenging voters standing in line to read aloud passages from the Constitution and demanding they leave the voting line if they could not. In 1982, the Democratic National Committee filed a lawsuit alleging that Republicans in the 1981 elections had hired local law enforcement officers to patrol Black and Latino districts in New Jersey and question prospective voters about their qualifications. The lawsuit resulted in a consent decree that enjoined the Republican National Committee from similar activities until the decree expired in 2017. This meant the 2020 presidential election was the first in 40 years in which the Republican National Committee could openly sponsor and promote efforts to monitor the polls.
Many Democrats feared the result would be widespread voter intimidation, particularly after the Trump campaign claimed it would deploy a 50,000-strong Army for Trump led by Roman. When this “army” failed to materialize, voting rights historian J. Morgan Kousser was not surprised. He says the expense and challenging logistics, not to mention the possibility of a backlash, meant the rhetoric was always “puffery,” aimed more at fashioning a narrative than a genuine effort to recruit volunteers to do the boring work of observing the functioning of the country’s hundreds of thousands of voting locations. “For a long time, there has been a feeling in the election law community that these laws (allowing partisan poll watchers) had two purposes,” Kousser says. “One was to intimidate people, particularly Blacks and Latinos, from voting by giving them the idea that it is going to be difficult and may be dangerous to vote. And the other is that it’s simply one of the things that they’re doing to play to their base, to play up the idea that there is a lack of voter integrity.”
The RNC’s election integrity director, Josh Findlay, recently claimed the party would be stepping up its official poll-watching efforts in 2022. Even if this promise proves to be more “puffery,” as long as there are large numbers of Republican voters who believe election fraud is widespread, there will likely be some who will do their own unofficial poll watching. And if nothing else changes, there will also be a network of activists ready to transform their efforts into viral narratives on social media. Only five of the top 20 “repeat spreaders” of 2020 election misinformation identified by the Center for an Informed Public have been kicked off Twitter. The other 16 – including Posobiec, Trump Jr. and Roman – remain active and have millions more followers than they did last November.
In a recent report, the Center for an Informed Public pointed out that researchers and journalists have repeatedly found that a small number of influential “superspreaders” drive the spread of misinformation on social media. They suggested a solution could be for social media platforms to hold influential accounts to a higher standard, instead of doing the opposite. “It’s an incredibly obvious solution that they don’t want to do,” says Andrew Beers, a graduate researcher at Center for an Informed Public, “for I think very obvious political reasons.”
*This story was edited by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, Nina Martin and Andrew Donohue.
*Stan Alcorn can be reached at salcorn@revealnews.org. Follow him on Twitter:@stan_alcorn.
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rww Tags: Ali Alexander Gary Bauer Jack Posobiec Jenna Ellis Marjorie Taylor Greene Tom Fitton Capitol Insurrection House select committee on Jan. 6 Jan. 6 Judicial Watch
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https://www.mediamatters.org/ali-alexander/stop-steal-organizer-ali-alexander-brags-j6-narrative-has-influenced-other-countries
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Alexander—the far-right leader of the so-called “Stop the Steal” campaign—had his Twitter account restored Monday.
Alexander’s account had been banned just days after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. A spokesperson for Twitter told Newsweek that his account was permanently suspended for violating rules on banning evasion.
But under Elon Musk’s leadership, Twitter has restored Alexander’s account. Many of the tweets including disinformation regarding the 2020 election remain on his account’s timeline at the time of writing.
Alexander and other “Stop the Steal” activists largely organized their campaign to keep then President Trump in power on the social media platform. They spread disinformation, claiming that voter fraud had stolen the election from Trump, and increasingly called for physical—and sometimes violent—action. That culminated on Jan. 6.
On Jan. 6, 2021, Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol. As they broke down police barriers, battled police, and stormed up the Capitol steps, Alexander surveyed the scene from a terrace overlooking the Capitol.
“I don’t disavow this. I do not denounce this,” he said, pointing to the insurrectionists, in a video posted to Twitter and first reported by Right Wing Watch.
Claiming that the attack was “completely peaceful” and that he did not endorse the “couple of agitators,” Alexander went on to call for rebellion. “Stop the Steal,” he said, “is going to be the home of the rebellion against an illegitimate government.”
[twt]
the day before, Alexander had organized a “Stop the Steal” rally outside of the White House. Alexander led chants of “Victory or death!” while other speakers called for civil war and revolution.
And according to the Daily Beast, on Dec. 30, 2020, he took to Twitter and said that if Congress certified the 2020 election, “everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building. … 1776 is *always* an option.”
After the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Alexander was banned from a host of platforms. He moved his incessant Twitter posts and disinformation campaign to Telegram, where he’s been unable to recreate the sizeable following he had on Twitter. But he hasn’t let up on the extremism.
In just the past few months, Alexander has called for Republicans to “jail Democrats,” telling Jan. 6 insurrectionist Tim Gionet, “We’ve got to make them hurt.”
He also made his stance on democratic elections very clear, stating in a video, “Any election I don’t like is stolen. … If I don’t like it, it’s stolen. If I like it, it’s not stolen. If you win, it’s stolen.”
And when the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack shut down without Alexander facing any charges stemming from the insurrection, Alexander bragged that he had “raped the January 6 Select Committee.” In a rant, he claimed to have beaten the Jan. 6 committee by being a time traveler, and compared himself to Jesus.
In a voice message to his supporters on Telegram Monday, he said that he’d eventually tweet today. He later posted that his account “will be dedicated to Jesus Christ, Love, @J6Families, YE, and beating up naughty Republicans.”
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As 2022 came to an end, the House select committee shut down its investigation into the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that violently sought to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. In addition to recommending that criminal charges be filed against former President Donald Trump for his role in fomenting the insurrection, the select committee released a score of transcripts from interviews it had conducted with various government officials and right-wing activists about what had transpired that day.
Among the transcripts released was an interview with far-right activist Ali Alexander, who played a central role in organizing the so-called “Stop The Steal” movement that eventually gave rise to the insurrection. Alexander, who was on hand as far-right activists fought with police and forced their way inside the Capitol that day, refused to denounce the insurrection and then spent the next two years battling the select committee set up to investigate it.
When the select committee shut down without Alexander facing any charges stemming from the insurrection, he unleashed a wildly egotistical rant during a Telegram livestream, bragging that he had “raped the January 6 Select Committee.”
“You cannot kill me and separate me from my movement,” Ali
on the livestream, which was simulcast by the “Cancel Proof” channel on white nationalist Nick Fuentes’ Cozy.TV platform. “I am the father of dragons. The father of dragons! I red-pill celebrities. I create nationwide movements. I make members of Congress shake.”
“Now, I just want everyone in the world to dare me,” he continued. “Just dare me. Because for the first time in a 15-year career, I owe no one nothing. Nothing. And I have access to everything. They thought that they could contain my power level. I am playing dumb. I am playing crazy, a lot like Jesus did. People will come to learn the truth. And guess what? Frankly, that’s what I need to crucify me. That’s why you’re gonna see both sides try to come together to crucify me. Here’s the difference: Jesus was a carpenter, and I’ve got motherfucking machine gun.”
Alexander then claimed that he was able to best the select committee during his interview because he is a time traveler.
“These motherfuckers thought I would talk to them,” Alexander said. “I was talking to the future because I’m a fucking time traveler! I wasn’t talking to the fucking committee; they’re dead. They’re like, whoosh. These people died a while ago. I came back in time to talk to dead people. So, here I am talking to the future, and they didn’t even realize I knew how to talk into the transcript. I knew how to talk into the transcript. I knew when to talk over them. I knew when it would frustrate the court reporter. I knew when not to talk over them. I knew when to wait. I knew when to say something they thought that they can lick their lips on, and then finish the sentence with, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘that’s the best of my recollection,’ or start a sentence, ‘I don’t know.’ But thinking about it, if I had to form an opinion today it would be: brrrraattta ta ta ta ta ta ta ba boom!”
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House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection released a 150-page summary of its findings and voted Monday to send the Justice Department criminal referrals for former President Donald Trump and others who assisted his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Right-wing political groups and leaders generally responded either by ignoring the historic action altogether or by dismissing it as a partisan move without engaging substantively with the committee’s extensively documented findings.
Far-right activist Ali Alexander, who was a leader of the so-called “Stop the Steal” effort to overturn the 2020 election and keep Trump in power, called the committee’s criminal referrals “a coup against the voters.” Alexander, who participated in the recent disastrous Kanye West and Nick Fuentes appearance on Alex Jones’ show that turned into a festival of praise for Adolph Hitler, also released a statement purportedly on behalf of “Team Ye,” accusing Democrats and the “Republican Establishment” of working together “to rig our GOP primary or choose which candidates can be in the ballot before the American Voter.”
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton took to Twitter to charge that “’January 6’ is all about Biden/Left seeking to suppress/jail political opponents who blow the whistle on their election misconduct — and suppressing political opponents in 2024…” Fitton shared a video of himself claiming that “The left has decided that if you are challenging results they like in elections, you’re breaking the law and you should be jailed and prosecuted.”
Fitton also retweeted Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Jeremy Carl’s suggestion that the threat to democracy was somehow not Trump’s effort to overthrow the election or the violent effort to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, but the committee’s investigation: “A completely partisan House panel is trying to work hand-in-glove with a completely partisan DOJ to bring criminal charges against the previous U.S. President. If you still think we live in a functional democracy you need to wake up and realize what time it is.”
Former Trump attorney and self-styled “America’s lawyer” Jenna Ellis claimed, “It’s all a political pretext with zero basis in fact or law”—a ridiculous statement given the committee’s meticulous gathering of evidence, including testimony from many Trump administration officials.
Not to be outdone, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene dismissed the House committee as “communist.”
Writing in his daily email newsletter, longtime religious-right activist Gary Bauercalled the committee a “kangaroo court” and referred to the criminal referrals as outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi “seeking to extract one last act of revenge against Donald Trump.” Bauer was similarly grumpy about the committee referring four Republican congressmen to the House ethics committee for refusing to comply with committee subpoenas. Bauer didn’t defend their defiance of the law but railed against what he called a “despicable precedent established by petulant progressives.”
Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec greeted the conclusion of the committee’s final public meeting with a message on Telegram: “Bring it, demons.” Posobiec didn’t pass up the chance to raise money, urging his readers Monday night to buy Christmas presents from MyPillow using a code that would presumably give Posobiec a cut: “Jan 6 wasn’t an insurrection to overthrow the govt but promocode Poso is an insurrection to overthrow prices this Christmas!”
The committee is reportedly set to release a massive amount of additional documentation Wednesday.
Tags: Ali Alexander Gary Bauer Jack Posobiec Jenna Ellis Marjorie Taylor Greene Tom Fitton Capitol Insurrection House select committee on Jan. 6 Jan. 6 Judicial Watch
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/weve-got-to-make-them-hurt-ali-alexander-says-republicans-must-be-willing-to-jail-democrats/
make them hurt ; BA with army google sunglasses
far-right activist and so-called “Stop the Steal” leader Ali Alexander appeared Tuesday on a program hosted by far-right streamer Anthime “Tim” Gionet, where he declared that conservatives have to be willing to do whatever it takes to gain political control and then start putting Democrats in jail.
Alexander, who recently openly advocated for Christian fascism and “a violent Christian crusade” against his perceived political opponents, said that the next three months are likely going to be among the top five most important moments in American history.
“It’s all about willpower,” Alexander said. “Are you willing to set yourself on fire for what you want? To win? And our side has got to be a higher concentration of ‘yes.’ Right now, [Democrats are] willing to break the Constitution, break the law, imprison prison political prisoners, act like Soviet punks, and do all of that. We have to plus-one that. We have to jail Democrats. We have to censor their asses. We have to make them beg for a peace treaty with us, for an understanding. There’s no point in coming to an understanding before we have buy-in from them, so we’ve got to make them hurt.”
Gionet, who goes by the moniker Baked Alaska and faces a variety of legal issues in addition to charges stemming from his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, readily agreed.
“That’s right,” Gionet responded. “You said that so well. We have literally gone through hell in these last few years. The political persecution; how the Jan. 6 people have been treated like absolute terrorists—I mean, they literally call us terrorists.Wow, I mean, I’m just looking forward to when I get my bag right, suing the fuck out of CNN and all those pieces of shit, dude. It’s terrible what they’ve done to us,all the income we’ve lost from being banned from social media, all the relationships. Like, I am ready to go ham on them, but you know, I gotta get my money right, got to finish my legal shit and all that.”
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vid
Far-right activist and so-called “Stop the Steal” founder Ali Alexander went on a manic rant during his podcast Monday in which openly advocated for Christian fascism and “a violent Christian crusade” against his perceived political opponents.
Buoyed by reports that Elon Musk will purchase Twitter and that Kanye West was photographed wearing a “White Lives Matter” shirt, Alexander expressed his conviction that his far-right worldview is gaining power and popularity, prompting him to lay out his vision for afascist Christian nationalist theocracy.
“I refuse to walk into a future where it is commonplace to have sexual perversion in public,” Alexander
. “It’s just not going to be the norm, not where we’re going. OK? You can call that whatever the hell you want. You can call that Americana, you can call that America First, you could call it fascism, you could call it a theocracy, you could call it Christian nationalism. You could call it age appropriate. How about that’s what we call it?I don’t give a crap what you call it.”
“We will not live in a future where violence doesn’t meet widespread perversion. Period,” he continued. “I am aligned with God that we will not march quietly into a future where you got all kinds of things hanging out at public eateries, restaurants, libraries, with or without children. It’s just not acceptable. That’s over. And I will train tens of millions of Americans to not denounce, to not flinch, when they see evil coming upon evil, destruction coming upon evil.”
“All the good faith that we have allowed our oppressorsto be assigned, it’s gone,” Alexander said. “I’m not gonna bomb an abortion clinic, but if somebody did, I’m not denouncing it. I’m not calling for violence. I’m not calling for death. I’m explicitly saying, ‘Don’t do that,’ but if it happens, c’est la [vie]. OK? C’est la [vie]. You know, if they can poll a bunch of moderate Muslims and they don’t feel the urge to denounce radical Islam, guess what? This guy—Ali Alexander and Ali Alexander alone—but guess what? I’m going to be joined by tens of millions, maybe a couple hundred million Americans; we’re done. I’m going to finally teach people what is the moral allowable line that we can walk up to? What does the Bible allow us to get away with? ‘Oh, no. Ali’s going to show them the loopholes.’ You’re damn right I am.”
“I’m not gonna get beatified for this,” Alexander asserted. “I’m not going to reach sainthood, but I am here to say, ‘Fuck them.’ Fuck their nuclear war. Fuck their World War III. Fuck their rejection of peace. And if they don’t deal with the middle—the Elons and the Kanyes—then they should meet—I’m talking about the whole world—they should meet a violent Christian crusade. I mean it,100 percent. … And we’ve got to start conditioning each other for these mental models.”
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timeline
January 5, 2021
Trump supporters descend on D.C., hosting a roughly eight-hour event at Freedom Plaza. That evening, Trump tweets and posts to Facebook, “I hope the Democrats, and even more importantly, the weak and ineffective RINO section of the Republican Party, are looking at the thousands of people pouring into D.C. They won’t stand fora landslide election victory to be stolen.”His message is addressed to Republican Senators Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, and John Thune.
(Source: Facebook)
Reuters reports that Pence will not block the certification of Biden’s Electoral College victory.
White supremacist Anthime “Tim” Gionet, known by his online persona “Baked Alaska,” films a man in D.C. who tells him that Trump supporters “need to go into the Capitol.”
The likelihood that someone dies on stream tomorrow and that it's Baked Alaska or that he's filming it or that he's simply in proximity to it feels strong https://t.co/6yWXyAOxH5
— Tedward B Wang (@TedwardWang) January 6, 2021
(Source: Twitter)
Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox tells rally-goers at Freedom Plaza that America is on the brink of a revolution and that he would “take the first bullet.” Other speakers invoke rhetoric about civil war, dying for Trump, and acting as an “army.”
(Source: Right Wing Watch)
Trump supporters Jason Phillips and Joshua Allen Fulfer of California broadcast other Trump supporters defacing Black Lives Matter Plaza, which is directly north of the White House and was dedicated earlier in the summer as result of the racial justice protests across the United States.
(Source: Facebook)
That same day, the FBI field office in Norfolk, Virginia, circulates an internal document warning of extremist violence at the Jan. 6 protests. The Anti-Defamation League also publishes a warning that social media organizing was happening around an event titled “Operation Occupy the Capitol.”
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department makes five arrests, and Park Police make one arrest, on charges related to possession of unlawful arms and assault.
Meanwhile, Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander tweets about considering an order for protesters to occupy D.C., pitching tents and shutting down the city until a “negotiated settlement” is reached.
(Source: Twitter)
Alexander also reports that he spoke with former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, an outspoken supporter of Trump’s campaign and the girlfriend of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.
On Facebook, some of the political posts with the highest engagement contain hyperbolic language about the upcoming protest. The posts include Rep. Madison Carthorn’s campaign page stating that Jan. 6 would determine “the fate of a nation.”
(Source: Facebook)
Charisma News, a Pentecostal publishing outlet, shares an article with the caption: “’There are but two parties right now, traitors and patriots.’ #StopTheSteal.”
(Source: Facebook)
Elsewhere on Facebook, Nancy Campbell of Above Rubies, a website encouraging women to serve as homemakers, posts a note about arriving in D.C. with her husband. She tells her followers, “[W]e must take action when the soul of our nation is at stake! We cannot sit idly by and allow the TREASON of a stolen election to go forward. We will no longer be the USA but another Venezuela. #stopthesteal”
(Source: Facebook)
Back in Texas, politician Sid Miller posts an image with the text, “Legal gun owners have 300 million guns and probably a trillion rounds of ammo. If we were the problem, you’d know it.” He adds the comment, “Don’t make us be the problem. #StopTheSteal”
(Source: Facebook)
On Twitter, BuzzFeed tech reporter Ryan Mac notes that users in a Facebook group called “Red State Succession” had encouraged one another to engage in violence while circulating “addresses of perceived ‘enemies’ in the nation’s capital.”
(Source: Twitter)
Around 10:33 p.m. ET that evening, John Strand of California, who would later be charged by authorities, tweets: “There’s no doubt about the truth of the 2020 election. The only question is: will you act upon that truth? WILL YOU STAND FIRM? This moment will define our country, our generation, & our national destiny. It’s now, or never.”
(Source: Twitter)
January 6, 2021: day of the insurrection
At 8:17 a.m., Trump tweets encouragement to Pence, urging him to overturn the election.
(Source: Twitter)
At 8:30 a.m.,Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado tweets, “Today is 1776.”
Almost an hour later, the Trump campaign posts to Facebook: “STOP THE STEAL!”
(Source: Facebook)
In a MeWe group chat containingunlawful militia members and supporters, a user reports that “some militia boots on the group” in D.C. told them they hadn’t seen so many people carrying weapons in one place before. “He said the police are scared. You can see it in their eyes. DC laws don’t allow guns, but the cops are so outnumbered they don’t dare try to start any shit!” the user wrote.
(Source: MeWe)
During the event held at the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6, organizers play a propaganda video, which asserts that the United States is descending into chaos due to the corruption and greed of government and corporate elites,and that the only way to preserve the American way of life is to restore Trump as president.
(Source: JustSecurity.org/Vimeo)
Speaking at the event, Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama tells attendees that Jan. 6 is “the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass.” He asks the crowd, “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?”
During his remarks,Donald Trump Jr. tells the crowd, “The people who did nothing to stop the steal. This gathering should send a message to them: This isn’t their Republican party any more. This is Donald Trump’s.” He adds, “If you’re gonna be the zero and not the hero, we’re coming for you and we’re going to have a good time doing it!”
Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani also addresses the crowd. “If we’re wrong, we will be made fools of,” he says. “But if we’re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So let’s have trial by combat.”
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no lnx [twt bad code]
amy kremer bus tour ends DC dec 12
https://twitter.com/**capitolhunters**/status/1489008554455416834
impromptu fuentes sp gets him into inner circle? am 1st flags
...dec 12 DC rally is a bigger success even than Nov 14. Everyone is there. Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio jets in on a private plane and gets a White House tour.Michael Flynn makes a grand entrance flanked by representatives from many groups who’ll make a mark on Jan 6. 31/
...there’s more violence too - 4 stabbed in DC, one shot in WA. In CA Alan Hostetter calls for executing lawmakers. Meanwhile election lawsuits keep failing. The gambit of fraudulent electors fails too, at least for now. On Dec. 14 the electoral college votes for Biden. 32/
byrne, ed martin CNP 1ap...josh macias v4t
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FKoIP7SVkAQbqU0?format=jpg&name=small
crazy WH mtg be wild twt
is a late night for many: the MillionMAGAMarch account promotes Jan 6 after 3 AM, and Dan Scavino, Trump’s comms guy, Tweets a warlike video.In the morning: Cindy Chafian requests a permit date change to Jan 6.The next day, the website http://WildProtest.com is created. 37/
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Feb 2
Influencers start passing around a Serbian video about overthrowing Milosevic: “Police and military aligned with the people after few hours [sic] of fist-fight…when they see that sea of people..” Within hours it’s quoted by AZ GOP chair Kelli Ward. 38/
... next week(Dec. 21-27) sees a stealth power grab by Cindy Chafian & Ali Alexander.Cindy changes the WFAF rally permit to her name. Ali’s group snaps up space close to the Capitol, using a fake organization. Fliers appear for “Operation Occupy the Capitol”. 39/
capitolhunters
·
Feb 2
Militias book their travel, with others picking up their costs. QAnon’s Ron Watkins calls for “overwhelming numbers”, says he’s aiming for “max ppl for my budget”. Trump signs 41 pardons, incl. fixers Paul Manafort & Roger Stone and Blackwater contractors convicted of murder. 40/
...
on Dec. 28, the Kremers of WFAF realize they’ve been double-crossed, and an epic power struggle begins:email from Dec. 28-29 alone takes up 166 pages of the NPS FOIA. When the dust settles, the Kremers have the Ellipse, with Manafort’s support, & Chafian is bumped to Jan 5. 41/
...
Feb 2
Organizers have to scramble too after Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio is arrested - here's Funes, Couch, & Hughes strategizing. Ex-Marine Charles Donohoe thought he should command instead: “I need to be put in charge of whatever new thing is created…” 45/
On Jan 4 AM in DC, Hughes & Couch met up with other rightwing figures. Couch then got a call from Proud Boy leader Joe Biggs about the arrest of Enrique Tarrio, meant to have had ‘war powers’ on Jan 6. By evening, Couch & Hughes were in a hotel room working on damage control 37/
the night of the 4th, MO Senator Josh Hawley again pushes the Antifa theme, falsely claiming "Antifa scumbags came to our place in DC & threatened my wife and newborn daughter.." Charlie Kirk amplifies. But it's really a small polite protest - watch 46/
the 5th, Trump has a meeting with staff, asks how to "convince Congress" to "do the right thing tomorrow". He also issues a memo directing the State Department to assess whether “Antifa” should be classified as a terrorist organization, claiming horrific violence. 47/
moms for am
first rallies start (new IL Congresswoman Mary Miller: Hitler had some good points!) NPS makes last heroic efforts (same-day permit for tomorrow, sure!) Trump may still think Congress can hand him power, but logistics for an attack are proceeding. 48/
By the 5th evening, Cindy’s rally is in full swing; Ali Alexander shouts “Victory or Death!” Josh Hawley hammers his theme again: “If the Antifa scumbags can terrorize my family, they can do it to any family in America”. Posobiec warns of DC danger. 50/
Quote Tweet
capitolhunters
@capitolhunters
- Jul 20, 2021
#SeditionHunters - events in DC required planning. Cindy Chafian organized the fiery Jan 5 rally where Ali Alexander led the crowd in “Victory or Death!” On Jan 6 she marched up the WestCapitol steps with bullhorn & entourage and cheered during the assault on Officer Fanone. 1/
poso, influencers many blondes https://twitter.com/i/status/1489023152898203649 straka chris cox; jnx, roger ali in orange beanie
Listen to the VIPs and influencers at Cindy Chafian’s rally, chatting about what is to come. Alex Jones says “God will fulfill his destiny and will reward the righteous”. They expected to be rewarded the next day. (Video from “Carterrocks”) 51/
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Tq3S_jSYf_k
And then the 6th: Joe Biggs, ex-Army, ex-InfoWars, leads over 200 plainclothes Proud Boys to initiate the attack.Total militia members may be 1000 or more. 52/
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big ariz gp: [coudry cowboy] gosar biggs inside ; jones east side trump rally pt?]
https://www.azmirror.com/2021/05/05/where-was-anthony-kern-on-jan-6/
Newly reviewed footage by Arizona Mirror raises new questions about former Republican lawmaker Anthony Kern’s activities around the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 as the lawmaker continues to participate in a recount of Maricopa County’s ballots from the 2020 general election.
Kern has continually insisted that he did not breach the Capitol and no footage or other evidence suggested otherwise. Photos show Kern on the front steps.
However, footage reviewed by the Mirror shows that Kern was present at other parts of the Capitol breached by protesters.
:{In a }
:{ by a Virginia House of Delegates candidate who attended the protest turned riot, Kern can be seen walking along the West Front area of the Capitol as well. }:
The Mirror analyzed videos archived by ProPublica to determine around what time the video may have been taken and when Kern may have been in this particular area of the Capitol on Jan. 6.
In the video posted on YouTube, a large Trump flag is draped over part of the Capitol building that isn’t seen in many of the videos posted by rioters on the social media platform Parler until shortly after 3 p.m.
By this time in the day, protests in this area of the Capitol had already been violent for some time and protesters had already broken in or were in the process of breaking into the Capitol.
They had been violently clashing with police, throwing water bottles, pushing, punching and finding ways past the D.C. Metro Police, who eventually fell back.
“Come straight, go this way,” an unidentified man in a blue suit says to Kern, leading him through the area seen in the video. The man can be seen in photos with Kern on the Capitol steps holding a sign that reads “Save America” with the url “TrumpMarch.com” which now redirects to Women for America First.
Kern, a Republican from Glendale, did not respond to the Mirror’s questions about the video, who the man in the suit was or provide further details about his activities on Jan. 6 and whether he was aware of the scope of the violence that had occurred by that point.
Kern has been a proponent of the “#StopTheSteal” movement since the election, using the hashtag 17 times on Twitter from November through Jan. 6.
“D-Day in DC to support Arizona’s and America’s duly elected President Donald Trump! #StoptheSteal,” Kern tweeted on Jan. 6 around 10 a.m. with a picture of the stage where Trump would soon speak.
Both Kern and state Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, have come under fire for their presence in D.C. on Jan. 6 with Arizona Democrats asking the Department of Justice and FBI to investigate their roles in the violence that occurred.
Kern would later say he agreed with Republican Congressman Andy Biggs that those who broke the law should be prosecuted and that he condemned the violence that occurred that day.
The day before, Kern rallied outside the Capitol with a who’s who of Stop the Steal personas, including the movement’s ringleader, Ali Alexander, and election fraud conspiracy promoter, Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow.
“In Arizona there is a brave man that I am trying to convince to run for state senate or Congress, Anthony Kern,” Alexander saidbefore Kern took the stage as rain poured down on Jan. 5.
“Mitch McConnell, I am not worried about optics here today,” Kern told the crowd before speaking about abortion and comparing the situation to the invasion of Normandy in World War II. “We will not allow the vote to be stolen from our duly elected president.”
There is no evidence that fraud or malfeasance affected the outcome of the presidential election.
On Jan. 6, Kern tweeted in the morning before Trump’s speech and did not tweet again until 3 p.m. That tweet was an image of the Capitol steps, overtaken by protesters.
Images circulated online showing Kern among those protesters on the steps and he later mocked some of his critics on Twitter.
“You ok @AzHouseDems? Want me to call the police?” he tweeted on April 19, responding to criticism by the Arizona House Democratic caucus after news broke that Kern was working on the Arizona audit .
After Kern announced on Twitter that he would participate in the audit, former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a spokesman for the audit, told theMirrorthat the ex-lawmaker would only be serving as a volunteer observer, not counting ballots. Reporters later spotted Kern counting ballots at Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Bennett said he’d seen Kern’s name on a list of volunteer observers but didn’t realize that he had also applied to work as a counter.
Kern, who was still a lawmaker the day of the riot, has fought the release of his phone records related to the events of the day. Finchem has released some of the messages that were requested by the Arizona Republic which show that he and Alexander coordinated on some Stop the Steal-related events in Arizona and D.C. Kern has yet to release any records.
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Ali Alexander Claims Capitol Insurrection Was a Deep State ‘Psyop’
- after months of hosting ralliespeddling the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and calling for “rebellion” and“revolution” against the government, Ali Alexander is now claiming that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a government “psyop.”
- :{:{}:
}:
Alexander, the far-right Republican operative leading the so-called Stop the Steal campaign,joined “The Pete Santilli” show last Thursday to peddle the conspiracy theory concocted by right-wing activists that the Capitol insurrection was the product of “agent provocateurs,” who in Alexander’s telling, were conducting a psychological operation.
Pete Santilli, whoseshow has become a stomping ground for conspiracy theorists and the hard right of the Republican Party, began the interview byintroducing Alexander as “a skilled internet operative … in the crosshairs of the Deep State.”
“Do you think they reverse engineered this conspiracy charge that [they] are now going to bring down upon a whole bunch of people?” Santilli asked.
“They reverse engineered this as soon as we decided that we were going to, in fact, go to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6,” Alexander said.
Lanyards, Alexander said, were the key clue to discovering this Deep State conspiracy. (Yes, lanyards.) Here’s how Alexander explained this alleged conspiracy:
And what it turns out is that there are photographs of people who have lanyards of unauthorized graphics that were in the early stages of the December announcement of Jan. 6. So what I knew basically, at the end of January, beginning of February, was that what you just said, that some agent provocateurs were funded, that there is a D.C. printer that has a work order for these lanyards, and that this had to be in the plot the day that we announced that we were going … to go to D.C. Jan. 6. Three days later, the president endorsed the idea of Jan. 6, this is when whether it’s the Deep State, or it’s the private security state, somebody chose to start interfering immediately with our plans. …
As we reverse engineer this, a lot of people are coming to find out that there weren’t just agent provocateurs there, there was an actual psyop that intended to, um, to agitate and cite and incentivize a large crowd to then turn into a mob that would not have been possible had Speaker Pelosi done her job and FBI done their job. So the question becomes is: Is this a coincidence? Or is this a conspiracy of both state actors and nonstate actors?
The two then discussed the case of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right paramilitary group the Oath Keepers who wasarrested last Thursday and charged with seditious conspiracy, along with 10 others. Santilli suggested that the government had targeted Rhodes before the attack on the Capitol even occurred.
Seeming to acknowledge the right-wingconspiracy theory that Rhodes was a government informant, Alexander said, “There’s been a lot of questions surrounding Stewart Rhodes, you know, and I think that those questions should be answered.” But, he said, the Oath Keepers were cosplaying, not committingsedition.
“I do not believe that Stewart Rhodes or the Oath Keepers committed sedition,” Alexander said. “I think that they had some larpy conversations, I believe that they are playing cosplay. I believe they had some inappropriate conversations, but nothing that rises up to what the government’s alleging.”
Eventually, Santilli got around to asking Alexander why hetestified in front of Congress when so many others who received subpoenas from the Jan. 6 select committee refused to cooperate.
“I’m really smart,” Alexander replied. “And I’ve been on the stand before. So I’m not just somebody who has an academic understanding or structural understanding of this.”
Fighting a subpoena, he added, is a “$250,000 litigation bill.”
“Alex [Jones] can afford that, Trump can afford that. I can’t, I just can’t, OK,” Alexander complained. “I’m also in a multimillion dollar civil suit, where eight police officers who failed us are actually suing me and Trump and Roger. So I have like five legal cases going on. I can’t afford to spend a quarter million dollars on one.”
Alexander, who has complained of being in exile since Jan. 6 and of “losing everything” thanks to avideo of his own words during the insurrection, explained that he was in fact the victim.“This was an operation from the jump, and we are victims of it.”
Of course, such claims segued nicely into his plea for money at the end of the interview, pointing listeners to Give Send Go, a Christian fundraising platform that has hosted the campaigns of right-wing extremists, including his own.
Tags: Ali Alexander Pete Santilli Capitol Insurrection conspiracy theories Disinformation Jan. 6 Stop the Steal
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https://www.azmirror.com/2021/02/10/there-wouldnt-have-been-a-stopthesteal-campaign-in-arizona-without-mark-finchem/
there wouldn’t have been a #StopTheSteal campaign in Arizona without Mark Finchem
BY: JEROD MACDONALD-EVOY - FEBRUARY 10, 2021
The lead organizer of the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., that turned into a deadly coup attempt based on the false idea that Donald Trump failed to win a second term as president because of massive voter fraud said Arizona’s #StopTheSteal movement started with one man: Mark Finchem.
“Arizona started with one man, State Representative Mark Finchem,”Alexander said to an interviewer
Church Militant* on Jan. 10. “I’m very confident that the Stop The Steal movement has taken over Arizona.” no twt
Finchem frequently spouted misinformation about the 2020 elections, much of which was flagged by Twitter as being incorrect, and was the driving force in Arizona for an event at a Phoenix hotel in late November.At that event, Trump’s lead attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other pro-Trump figures gathered with state GOP lawmakers and the president’s supporters to discuss baseless theories that Joe Biden won Arizona’s election by fraud.
In the same video clip,Alexander claims that only nine prominent Arizona Republicans were involved in the movement before that meeting, but that the number had swelled to 50 afterward.
Finchem was present at the Jan. 6 rally and marched to the Capitol, and he praised the rioters on Twitter.
the Oro Valley Republican first publicly mentioned Alexander in a December tweet, thanking the activist and saying there wouldn’t be an audit of the Maricopa County election without his help.
“I would like to thank@ali and @MichaelCoudrey for coming to fight for Arizona. #StopTheSteal has been instrumental in fighting the election fraud we’ve discovered! Without your 2000+ patriots we wouldn’t be auditing Maricopa County,” Finchem wrote on December 5.
The tweet garnered over 2,100 likes and over 480 retweets.
The tweet also mentioned Michael Coudrey,an investor and far-right internet personality who has spread false election information and led #StopTheSteal rallies across the country.
Finchem deleted his twitter account after the Capitol insurrection, but the Arizona Mirror was able to obtain copies of his tweets going to 2012. Finchem did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Alexander, a right-wing personality and former felon, started the “Stop the Steal” movement. In a since deleted video, he said the Jan. 6 rally was planned with Arizona Republican Congressmen Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, as well as Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks. Biggs has since denied the allegations.
But Arizona lawmakers Biggs and Gosar seem to not be the only lawmakers with a connection to the man who is now allegedly in hiding after the events of Jan. 6.
On December 11, Finchem tweeted at Alexander about the Jan. 6 event.
“@ali I’ll be there! #stopthesteal #jerichomarch,” Finchem wrote.
The second hashtag relates to a separate march that was happening on the same day that consisted of Christians praying, fasting and blowing ritual Jewish horns called shofars before circling the Capitol building seven times like the siege of the City of Jericho described in the Bible.
In the biblical story, the Israelites’s god caused the walls of the city to fall, allowing the army to enter the city and slaughter every man, woman and child. The organizers of the Jericho March have denounced the violence that took place Jan. 6, saying their goal was for peaceful prayer.
In the time leading up to Jan. 6, Finchem also tweeted at Alexander and others about his desire to convert his colleagues over to the “#StopTheSteal” movement.
“The ‘protests not events’, as @ali puts it, that #stopthesteal has thrown around the U.S., but particularly here in Arizona, has empowered me to fight for Trump and convert my colleagues,” Finchem said on Dec. 20 beforethanking Coudrey and Brandon Straka,who has been arrested for his connections to the Jan. 6 riot.
The Republican legislator also promoted the hashtag prominently on his Twitter, with tweets featuring it often garnering hundreds of retweets and thousands of likes.
“With the People dug in demanding a forensic audit, and the establishment asserting its oligarchy-based power, a lot of establishment types are now outing themselves. If you don’t stand for the Constitution and your oath, we’ve already lost our republic. #stopthesteal,” he wrote on Dec. 9.
In total, Finchem used the hashtag 62 times from Nov. 19 to Jan. 6. After the violence of Jan. 6, Finchem stopped using the hashtag.
On Jan. 2, Finchem wrote that he would be heading to the nation’s capital.
“I will be in Washington DC on January 6 to #StopTheSteal and fight for President @realDonaldTrump,” Finchem said. “This is one of the most important days our republic has ever seen. We need all hands on deck.”
The tweet included a location and time for the event as well as a link to RSVP. The location was the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats are trying to expel Finchem from the legislature.
finchem has since said that he was in D.C. “to deliver an evidence book and letter to Vice President (Mike) Pence” to persuade him to delay presiding over the certification of the presidential election. He said he was scheduled to speak at a press conference on the Capitol steps while Congress was certifying the election,but was delayed in arriving because he attended Trump’s speech at the Ellipse and joined the march to the Capitol “at the rear of the crowd.”
Finchem was at the Capitol when Trump supporters engaged in a violent coup attempt, in the hopes of stopping Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory, that left five people dead, including a Capitol police officer. On his Twitter page, Finchem posted a photo he took of the Capitol after rioters and protesters had breached the inner areas of the Capitol grounds.
“What happens when the People feel they have been ignored, and Congress refuses to acknowledge rampant fraud,” he wrote, praising the rioters.
Finchem has claimed that “antifa” was behind the violence — something federal investigators have said is untrue. He also has said that he did not get within 500 yards of the building, andwas unaware the Capitol was breached until later that day.
On Jan. 18, twelve days after the violence in D.C., Finchem told his followers he would be leaving Twitter in favor of Gab— a social media platform most famous for it’s far-right user base, including the Tree of Life shooter, who posted to the site before murdering 11 people — where he posts under the username AzHoneyBadger.
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empty whl has much det info eg
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/07/16/what-doj-was-doing-while-everyone-was-whinging-doj-wasnt-doing-anything/
ALEX JONES
April 13, 2021: Jones videographer Sam Montoya arrested on trespassing charges related to January 6.
August 19, 2021: Jones sidekick and January 5 speaker Owen Shroyer arrested for violating a non-prosecution agreement by trespassing; Shroyer did not enter the Capitol.
January 20, 2022: Judge Tim Kelly denies Shroyer’s motion to dismiss, effectively agreeing with DOJ that Shroyer (and so Alexander and Jones) weren’t invited by cops to the East steps and didn’t de-escalate the crowd. According to his pre-released testimony, Alexander had claimed they were de-escalating in his sworn testimony to the January 6 Committee.
May 5, 2022: Montoya asks for 60 day extension to discuss plea deal.
May 9, 2022: At status hearing, Shroyer attorney Norm Pattis describes talks of a plea deal.
June 14, 2022: Long-time Jones attorney Norm Pattis, who is representing Owen Shroyer, joins Joe Biggs’ defense team.
June 23, 2022: DOJ provides Shroyer unscoped contents of his phone, to provide scoped contents later.
ALI ALEXANDER
January 25, 2021: Brandon Straka arrested for trespassing and civil disorder. Straka was a key player in the Stop the Steal movement, playing a key role at the riot at the TCF vote counting center in Michigan after the election, spoke at the January 5 rally, sat next to Mike Flynn at Trump’s speech, and stopped at the Willard before heading to the riot. Straka was also on Alexander’s Stop the Steal LISTSERV.
February 17, 2021: First FBI interview with Straka.
March 25, 2021: Second interview with Straka.
December 8, 2021: In released testimony for an appearance before J6C, Alexander told a story that DOJ had already debunked in the Owen Shroyer case. For this and other appearances, Alexander was represented by Paul Kamenar, the same attorney that guided Andrew Miller through stalling the Mueller investigation for a year.
January 5, 2022: Third interview with Straka.
January 13, 2022: DOJ includes sealed cooperation memo in Straka’s sentencing memo.
April 19, 2022: After 15 months of continuations, Anthime “Baked Alaska” Gionet charged with a single trespassing charge, a charge understood to have required some cooperation in advance.
May 11, 2022: Anthime “Baked Alaska” Gionet balks at a plea hearing for a cooperative misdemeanor plea. It is understood that Gionet shared certain materials to avoid a felony indictment. Gionet was given two months (until July 22) to plead to the misdemeanor or face the prospect of felony charges relying on his cooperation.
June 24, 2022: Ali Alexander testifies before grand jury.
June 28, 2022: Alexander returns to DC....
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Beclowning Themselves: The Far-Right Reacts to the Jan. 6 Committee Hearings | Right Wing Watch
rww 7 22
beclowning themselves...
the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol has been holding public hearings for two weeks now, but take a look at right-wing media and its personalities and you’d hardly know it.
Right-wing and far-right activists have largely ignored the hearings or, when they have addressed it, painted the hearings as “propaganda” or a “partisan witch hunt.” Others, still, haven’t been able to resist criticizing those Republicans they feel betrayed by.
Here’s how a few right-wing activists, many of whom have been subpoenaed for their role in the efforts to overturn the 2020 election, have responded.
Mike Cernovich—a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist with the so-called Stop the Steal campaign—had this to say about the Jan. 6 hearings: “Nobody cares, dude!”
Cernovich had joined former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon a day before the opening hearing on the June 8episode of Bannon’s “War Room” podcast. Asked how right-wing media, including the “War Room,” should respond to the Jan. 6 hearings—whether or not they should mention it or launch counterprogramming—Cernovich offered some counterintuitive advice.
“Whatever we can do to get Democrats to talk more about Jan. 6 we should do, so whatever gets them hyperventilating, crying—oh, seven people died that day? Yeah, they were Trump supporters,” Cernovich said.
In fact, five police officersdied and about 150 were injured as a result of Trump loyalists’ attack on the Capitol. Another four in the crowd died.
“But what we don’t want to lose sight of is that they are beclowning themselves, so the key for us is to stay on message. Yeah, a woman was shot in the neck and bled out,” he said. “The key to keep in mind is the Democrats look like unserious people, unfit to govern because they’re hyperventilating over an event they compare to 9/11.”
Cernovich has since called the hearings “propaganda.”
Bannon—who was indicted for refusing to respond to a Jan. 6 committee subpoena—referred to the Jan. 6 hearings as a “show trial” and lambasted Fox News for its coverage.
While major news networks carried the first primetime hearing live on June 9, Fox airedcounterprogramming by Tucker Carlson, who took no commercial breaks less his viewers be tempted to tune into the hearing.
But since then, the network hascovered the Jan. 6 hearings held in non primetime hours, and network analysts were so moved by Republican testimonies during Tuesday’s hearing that one said it suggestsTrump “may be guilty of a crime” and that it “shows his unfitness” for office. And that Bannon finds to be sinful.
“Fox News shows their hand—all in on taking down President Trump—now it’s out in the open—IF YOU WATCH FOX U ARE ONLY AIDING AND ABETTING THEIR ANTI-TRUMP HATE,” Bannon wrote in a June 21post on GETTR.
[pix]
“If this was a real committee, they would have another panel of witnesses like me!” said Trump lawyerCleta Mitchell—who was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee for her role in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Last Tuesday, Bannon had Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell onhis show. Mitchell—who was on the infamous call on which Trump asked Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find votes for him—lashed out at Raffensperger. Raffensperger had testified to the Jan. 6 committee that same day aboutTrump’s efforts to pressure him to overturn the election results.
“All Raffensperger cared about was getting good press from the liberal media and having all of the left-wing reporters fawning over him, and that’s why they were there today, because that’s his number one priority,” Mitchell claimed.
“If this was a real committee, they would have another panel of witnesses like me!” said Mitchell—who was subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee for her role in Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. She went on to call the Jan. 6 committee a “kangaroo committee.”
Other political operatives involved in the so-called Stop the Steal disinformation campaign to keep Trump in power were clearly watching.
Ed Martin—a mentor to Ali Alexanderwho was subpoenaed for his role in the so-called Stop the Steal campaign—portrayed the hearings as “pure propaganda,” held “just to destroy Donald Trump.”
Ali Alexander—theleader of the so-called Stop the Steal campaign with a penchant for violent rhetoric—doubled down on his criticism of former Vice President Mike Pence. “Pence betrayed us,” he declared on June 16, the day after the committee detailed Trump and his allies’ pressure campaign on Pence to illegally overturn the election. The committee also illustrated how this pressure campaign led rioters to call for Pence’s hanging on Jan. 6 when he refused to do Trump’s bidding.
“Mike Pence is WRONG,” Alexanderwrote in the June 16 Telegram post. “No one asked him to overturn the election.”
“Pence was the presiding officer,” Alexander continued. “He could do nearly anything he could justify. The body could overrule him with a 2/3rds vote but that’s it. Pence betrayed us and is lying about the law and the rule.”
[twt]the second hearing featured prominent Republican voices, like former Attorney General Bill Barr, who said that Trump’s claims of voter fraud were false, as was Dinesh D’Souza’s“2000 Mules” video, whose claims of voter fraud were so preposterous it elicited laughter from Barr during his testimony.
D’Souza fumed. “Bill Barr is the stereotypical small-town sheriff, overweight and largely immobile, whose rank incompetence results in the whole town being robbed from under his nose,” he wrote onTwitter, adding, “Fatso.”
Trump confidant Roger Stone, meanwhile,slammedfellow Trump ally Jason Miller, calling him a “lying scumbag” for his testimony. Miller testified that Trump lawyer RudyGiuliani encouraged Trump to falsely declare victory on election night and that he was intoxicated while doing so.
“What a backstabbing asshole,” Stone wrote in a June 13 Telegrampost. Stone has beensubpoenaed by the select committee.
Some, like Alexander, made it clear they stood by their actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
As Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol behind him, Ali Alexander pointed to the unfolding scene and said, “I do not denounce this.” While he once tried to claim the video published on his campaign’s page (and captured by Right Wing Watch) was a “deep fake,” he reversed his stance this week and said he stood by his comments on the roof that day.
“If I had stood on this rooftop and denounced our movement instead of doubling down on it, I would’ve saved myself a lifetime of grief and $100,000 in legal bills,” Alexander wrote in a June 20 post. “And I would’ve lost my soul. I have no regrets. … a government for and by the people.”
That didn’t stop him from claiming persecution. After the June 23 hearing, which revealed the lengths to which Trump and Republican members of Congress went to corrupt the DOJ, Alexander took to Telegram. “We’re being persecuted by the Security State (SS) and our ‘team’ doesn’t even have a response,” Alexander wrote.
When on Monday, reporters briefly speculated that Alexander might be the select committee’s “surprise witness” for Tuesday’s hearing, Alexander released a statement that he would not be testifying publicly but that he would like to do so. Alexander—who spread disinformation about the 2020 election and Jan. 6—then had the gall to declare that “Misinformation is polluting the January 6th narratives.”
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[twt]
during Tuesday’s hearing, Cassidy Hutchinson, the top aide of White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, presented damning testimony about Trump’s knowledge of the potential for violence on Jan. 6 and painted an unhinged portrait of the president who went so far as to lunge at his own Secret Service detail.Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene urged Trump to sue her, while white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who has been subpoenaed by the select committee, applauded Trump’s alleged violence, declaring “choking a guard and throwing food at the wall” an “EPIC REACTION.”
Tags: Ali Alexander Cleta Mitchell Dinesh D'Souza Ed Martin Jason Miller Marjorie Taylor Greene Mike Cernovich Mike Pence Nick Fuentes Roger Stone Stephen K. Bannon William Barr Capitol Insurrection conspiracy theories House select committee on Jan. 6 Jan. 6
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foia permit
...SPEAKERS LINEUP
TUESDAY, JANUARY 5TH
TIMING SPEAKER/PROGRAMING LEAD SPEAKERS EMCEE
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM March to Save America
Katrina Pierson, Dr. Gina Loudon, Chris Cox, TBD,
TBD. TBD, TBD (5-7) Katrina Pierson
(b)(6)• (b)(7)(E)
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM Stop the Steal TBD (15-20) All Alexander
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM Peaceably Gather Prayer Virgil. TBD (2-3) TBD
5:00 PM - 6:30 PM Eighty Percent Coalition Alex Jones, Roger Stone, TBD (8-10) TBD
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM Eighty Percent Coalition TBD (10-15) TBD
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 6TH
TIMING SPEAKER/PROGRAMING POC SPEAKERS EMCEE
8:30 AM - 9:00 AM N/A
Pastor Mark Burns, Julio Gonzalez, Sherriff, Alex
Jones. TBD (5-7) TBD
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Stop the Steal
Ali Alexander. TBD, TBD, TBD, TBD, TBD, TBD (8-
10) Ali Alexander
10:00 AM - 10:45 AM March to Save America Roger Stone, Rudy Giuliani. TBD, TBD (4-5) TBD
10:45 AM - 11:00 AM Videos Rule of Law Defense Fund, Turning Point Action N/A
10:55 AM - 11:00 AM Women for America First Amy Kremer Amy Kremer
11:00 AM - 11:08 AM Rule of Law Defense Fund
(b)(6) (b)(7)(C)
Attorney General Ken PaxtonAmy Kremer
11:08 AM - 11:15 AM Congressman XCongressman TBD Amy Kremer
11:15 AM - 11:30 AM Senator X Senator TBD Amy Kremer
11:30 AM - 11:40 AM Videos Women for America First, Stop the Steal, TBD N/A
11:40 AM - 12:00 PM Hold Music N/A N/A
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM POTUS N/A N/A
...
Organizers
Stop The Steal (NRID), Million MAGA March (NRID), Women for America First (NRID), March for Trump
(NRID), Proud Boys (RID), and other pro-Trump groups, along with private citizens, have promoted event
pages for the event.
Stop The Stealis a loosely organized group which emerged on November 7, 2020, with the belief the
election is being stolen from President Trump due to election fraud. The group began organizing
demonstrations nationwide called "Stop The Steal." According to the website,invited speakersand
featured guests for the January 6, 2021 event include Rep. Paul Gosar, Ali Alexander, Roger Stone, Rep-Elect Marjorie Greene,
Rep. Lance Gooden, Rep-Elect Lauren Boebert, State Rep. Vernon Jones, State Rep.
Mark Finchem,State Sen. Doug Mastriano, State Rep. Anthony Kern, and several others.
One
spokesperson from Stop The Steal, Ali Alexander (NRID), has encouraged followers to bring tents, sleeping
bags, food, and water. Alexander claimed,"if DC escalates...so do we. Do not wear a mask. Stand with
others bullied by staff." Twitter removed this tweet as it violated the spread of COVID-19 harmful
information.
The Million MAGA March has been involved in organizing both large protests in November and December.
The website was created early November prior to the first Million MAGA March, which spurred several
social media groups and pages supporting this movement.
Women for America First is a pro-Trump, female led group. The group was the center of organization for
both the November and December protests. The group plans to host a "March for Trump" bus tour from
California to Washington, DC, arriving on the January 6, 2021.
Although March for Trump is listed as a group, several different smaller factions are listed under this
name. The group name is considered more of a movement than an organization.
Proud Boys is a right-wing group founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes as a "pro-Western fraternal
organization." They are of record with USSS for demonstration activity since 2017; no civil disobedience
or arrests have been recorded. For more information on the Proud Boys, please see the Protective
Intelligence Brief Proud Boys Talking Points.
Hotel Harrington, an alleged hangout/hotel for the Proud Boys, made a statement on December 28, 2020,
announcing their closure from January 4-6, 2021, for "safety of visitors and employees." According to
news media, four individuals were stabbed outside the hotel during the protests on December 12, 2020,
when Proud Boys members clashed with counter protesters. Proud Boys' self-proclaimed chairman,
Enrique Tarrio (NRID), made a statement on Parler regarding the closing of Hotel Harrington, claiming the
Proud Boys outgrew the hotel and are planning on protesting during the January 4-6, 2021, time frame
and will be staying at various other locations
https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/January-6-Clearinghouse-US-Secret-Service-FOIA-CREW-June-29-2021-2.pdf
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/ali-alexander-and-stop-the-steal-were-central-to-jan-6-heres-what-you-need-to-know/
no lnx twt pix
"I was the person that came up with the Jan. 6 idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks, and then Congressman Andy Biggs,” GOP operative Ali Alexander said in a Dec. 28, 2020, Periscope video. “We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting, so that who we couldn’t lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud roar from outside.”
The video, which was captured by investigative reporter Jason Paladino before it was deleted, highlights the role played by Alexander, his so-called “Stop the Steal” campaign, and far-right members of Congress in the failed insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack launches its first public hearings June 9, and Alexander and “Stop the Steal” are likely to figure prominently in its findings. Alexander sat for eight hours of testimony in front of the committee on Dec. 9, and in April, a lawyer for Alexander said he would cooperate with the Department of Justice’s Jan. 6 investigation—a claim on which Alexander promptly threw cold water.
Right Wing Watch extensively covered Ali Alexander and the so-called Stop the Steal movement ahead of Jan. 6. Here’s what you need to know.
Who is Ali Alexander? What is “Stop the Steal”?
On Nov. 4, 2020, as mail-in ballots began to be counted and shifted the election in favor of Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump falsely declared that the ongoing efforts to count millions of outstanding ballots were an indication of fraud and that he had in fact won.
Hours later, Alexander publicly launched “Stop the Steal,” a campaign to get right-wing activists to discredit mail-in voting, disrupt vote-counting, and falsely accuse Democrats of stealing the presidential election. The campaign held its first rally outside Arizona’s state capitol building in Phoenix that evening, featuring Rep. Paul Gosar, who with a bullhorn in hand, addressed the crowd before introducing “Pizzagate” booster Mike Cernovich, who threatened imaginary anti-fascist activists.
And so began months of “Stop the Steal” rallies featuring far-right members of Congress, QAnon and election conspiracy theorists, Christian nationalists, and far-right anti-government groups, all under the MAGA banner.
Ali Alexander and Roger Stone (Image Source: Twitter)]
Alexander, née Ali Akbar, has long worked in Republican politics, coming up under the tutelage of “dirty trickster” Roger Stone. He has connections to deep pockets, too: a PAC advised byAlexander received a $60,000 donation in 2016 from pro-Trump billionaire Robert Mercer. These Republican connections have persisted despite his habit of noting when members of the media he criticizes are Jewish and despite associating with far-right figures like Unite the Right white supremacist attendee Matt Colligan and members of the neo-fascist Proud Boys.
Alexander’s “Stop the Steal” campaign wasn’t the first to go by that name. Longtime GOP operative and Trump confidant Roger Stone first popularized the phrase “Stop the Steal” during the 2016 presidential election. In 2018, Alexander, Stone, and far-right commentator Jack Posobiec launched a “Stop the Steal” campaign during a ballot recount for Florida’s Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson. Pro-Trump activists from around the country descended on Florida to protest and spread misinformation, insisting that Democrats were trying to “steal” the election from Scott. It served as a dry run for the 2020 presidential election. Sure enough, in September 2020, Posobiec and Alexander discussed rebooting the campaign.
What was their role in the lead up to Jan. 6?
Alexander served as the lead organizer for “Stop the Steal.” The campaign targeted Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia—battleground states won by Joe Biden and whose cities are home to predominantly Black and brown voters—holding rallies and spreading election disinformation on social media.
He called on figures he knew from his time as a member of the highly secretive Council for National Policy and through his years in Republican politics to join the effort, including activistsAmy and Kylie Kremer, Jack Posobiec, Brandon Straka, Scott Presler, Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, Ed Martin of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. He brought into the fold Trump’s short-lived national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump team attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood—who have since been disciplined for bringing false lawsuits alleging election fraud. Most joined the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement in a public capacity; others promoted the same messaging through their own organizations and organized behind the scenes.
Ali Alexander and other “Stop the Steal” activists at Dec. 15, 2020 press conference (Image from NTD livestream posted on Epoch Times YouTube channel.)]
Alexander welcomed extremists into the campaign’s ranks. Male supremacist Mike Cernovich, white nationalist Nick Fuentes, and far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones were among the first to answer Alexander’s call. Alongside white nationalist Patrick Casey, Vincent James, and Baked Alaska, Fuentes galvanized crowds of white men to attend “Stop the Steal” rallies across the county, while Jones spread disinformation through his Infowars network, raised funds for the Jan. 6 rally, and brought a caravan of supporters to rallies.
On Nov. 14, “Stop the Steal” came to the nation’s capital. Thousands of Trump loyalists, conspiracy theorists, and members of far-right groups took to the streets. Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, and Madison Cawthorn—all recently elected to Congress—addressed the crowd alongside organizers. Radical conspiracy theorist Alex Jones yelled unintelligibly into a bullhorn. Members of the Proud Boys hate group roamed the streets looking for fights and found them late in the evening.Fuentes’ America First group, a youth-focused white-nationalist outfit, commanded the crowd’s attention with chants of “America First.”
A second Dec. 12 rally was deeply steeped in Christian nationalist and violent rhetoric. Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes called on Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law, threatening a “much more bloody war”should he fail to do so.
While rallies brought the whole of the MAGA movement together, Alexander held regular Periscopes to spread disinformation and provide action items to Trump supporters.
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Alexander called on “Stop the Steal” activists to lobby the state legislatures of battleground states won by Joe Biden to ignore the election results andsend Republican electors to the electoral collegeto give Trump enough electoral votes.He called on state Republican legislators to declare the election fraudulent and threatened them with a primary challenger should they not.
By mid-December, right-wing activists and lawyers were focused on Jan. 6, the day Congress would certify the electoral votes. More than 100 House members and a dozen Senators committed to voting against certifying the election. Trump and the apparatus around him began to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to use his ceremonial duty to block or delay Biden’s certification. “Stop the Steal” fed into that pressure, with “Stop the Steal” friend Lin Wood going as far as to call for the vice president’s execution.
On Dec. 19, Trump declared it “[s]tatistically impossible to have lost the 2020 Election.” [ his own # guy 1/6 hearing] He encouraged his followers to come to D.C.: “Big protest in DC on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”
Alexander had already planned a Jan. 6 D.C. protest, but he began fighting his one-time fellow activists Kylie and Amy Kremer for control of the big Jan. 6 rally. The Kremers had used the “Stop the Steal” banner for their cross country bus tour and a competing December rally, much to Alexander’s chagrin. ProPublica reported that Katrina Pierson, whom the White House put in charge of the rally planning, “helped arrange a deal where those organizers deemed too extreme to speak at the Ellipse could do so on the night of Jan. 5.” That meant Alexander and his cohort were relegated to speaking on the evening of Jan. 5, while the Kremers took the lead on the Jan. 6 event held at the Ellipse.Alexander held that Jan. 5 rally and planned his own separate “wild” Jan. 6 protest on the east side of the Capitolbuilding to follow the main “Save America” rally.
Alexander spent weeks in the lead up to the Capitol insurrection calling for “rebellion,” starting chants of “victory or death,” and using rhetoric of the American Revolution and spiritual warfare to call for action should Congress certify the election of President Joe Biden. He engaged in violent rhetoric, appearing to even advocate for physical attacks against members of Congress who he said stole the election.
The Jan. 5 rally served as the penultimate event of those calls. Speakers delivered Christian nationalist messages and veiled threats of violenceif Congress failed to reject Biden electors. Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox told rally-goers that the United States was on the brink of a revolution and that he would “take the first bullet.” Right Wing Watch reported at the time:
Standing in front of a sign declaring “MARTIAL LAW NOW,” so-called Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander led the crowd in chants of “Victory or death!” Alexander told activists, “Our government is only our government if it is legitimate” and declared, “1776 is always an option.” [new boogaloo? less racist?] He said Stop the Steal activists were starting “a rebellion against the Deep State.”
What was Ali Alexander and the campaign’s role on Jan. 6?
On the day of the insurrection, Alexander took to Twitter early in the morning to declare it the “First official day of the rebellion.” Alexander was supposed to hold his “wild” protest by the Capitol, but it would never materialize.
Trump loyalists packed into the Ellipse, eager to stop what they saw as a fraudulent election. Speaking from the stage and wearing a bulletproof vest, Rep. Mo Brooks, whom Alexander had recently called a friend, told attendees that Jan. 6 is “the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. … Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?”
“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” Trump told the crowd. He urged activists to march to the Capitol to make their voices heard. They did as they were told.
Leaving the rally at the Ellipse after Trump’s speech, where he was a VIP guest with far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, Alexander followed Jones through the Capitol grounds, past barricades, and up the Capitol steps. At that point—around 2 p.m.—the Capitol had already been breached.
“Democrats and Media ended the Republic and the people responded. Welcome to ‘duhhh’,” he tweeted an hour later.
Alexander emerged on One America News Network’s terrace overlooking the Capitol to record a video, posted on the “Stop the Steal” Twitter account by his associate Michael Coudrey at 4:26 p.m.—well after the violence had begun.
“I don’t disavow this. I do not denounce this,” Alexander said, gesturing to the scene behind him. Trump loyalists were descending on the Capitol and up the Capitol steps. “This is completely peaceful, looks like, so far. And there are a couple of agitators that I obviously don’t endorse,” he claimed despite having seen what took place on the steps not long before. By the end of the video, Alexander was back to encouraging rebellion. “StoptheSteal.us is going to be the home of the rebellion against an illegitimate government.”
Right Wing Watch captured the video, which was later deleted.
Where is Ali Alexander now?
Ali Alexander went into hiding following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.In February, he briefly reappeared and said he had been plotting to restart rallies in March,abolish the media, and build a separate society for Trump supporters. He declared that “civil war” was the only outcome available to those who opposed Biden’s presidency.
But Alexander was kicked off Twitter and most mainstream social media platforms. He lost access to his Venmo, Cashapp, and Paypal. He turned to alternative social media platforms and briefly became a Bitcoin influencer.
In October 2021, the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack issued three subpoenas to Alexander, the Stop the Steal organization, and Nathan Martin, who worked with Alexander and reserved the Jan. 6 rally space. Alexander accused the government of “gaslighting” and blamed the violence on “agitators dressed in militant outfits.” Jan. 6, he said, was a government “psyop.”
In December 2021, Alexander testified for eight hours in a closed-door hearing andasked the House select committee to suspend reality. In a draft of his opening statement, which was leaked to the New York Times, he denied wrongdoing and passed the buck, placing blame for the violence on Katrina Pierson, Kylie Kremer, and Amy Kremer.
In a lawsuit seeking to prevent the select committee from obtaining his phone records, Alexander confirmed to congressional investigators that ahead of Jan. 6, he had communicated with several GOP congressmen—Reps. Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, and Andy Biggs—as well as with Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s girlfriend and member of Trump’s inner circle.
In April, a lawyer for Alexander said he would cooperate with the Department of Justice’s Jan. 6 investigation. The following day, Alexander joined Alex Jones’ show to suggest he wouldn’t cooperate.He went on to call the effort to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol a conspiracy to “stop Trump from running in 2024” and “usher in a New World Order.”
A few days later, Alexander joined Alex Jones’ show again. He mused that “there is a time for legitimate violence when there is legitimate tyranny.”
Tags: Alex Jones Ali Alexander Jack Posobiec
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Ali Alexander, an organizer with the so-called Stop the Steal campaign, told radical conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Wednesday that “there is a time for legitimate violence when there is legitimate tyranny.” The two agreed that now is not the time but began to discuss what would constitute “legitimate tyranny.”
Alexander and Jones are people of interest to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Alexander organized the rallies and strategy of the Stop the Steal campaign, which perpetuated the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump and worked desperately to keep him in power, while Jones and his InfoWars’ crew spoke at the rallies and advertised the campaign on their networks.
In December, Alexander sat for eight hours of testimony in front of the House select committee and threw fellow rally organizers, Amy and Kylie Kremer and Katrina Pierson, under the bus;Jones says he pled the Fifth when he met with the committee. Last Friday, Alexander told the New York Times through a lawyer that he would cooperate with the Department of Justice in its investigation of the attack. But by Tuesday, Alexander joined Jones on “InfoWars” to suggest he would never do so.
On the Wednesday edition of “InfoWars,” Alexander repeated part of his conspiracy theory that he shared with Jones the day prior: that the Jan. 6 investigations were part of a “deep state” plot to get rid of elections, the Republican Party, and Christians, with the goal to usher in a “stateless New World Order.” A civil war orchestrated by the deep state would be central to this effort, according to Alexander. In response to Jones asking how to avoid such a civil war, Alexander suggested viewers pray, before discussing “legitimate violence.”
“The second byproduct of prayer is that it makes us sane,” Alexander said. “So when we’re getting this deluge of persecution, we’re not saying, in our gut primal level, ‘We need to go bomb something, we need to go shoot something’; it’s ‘I will not give them an inch or become the monster they want us to become.’”
“Now, folks, I’m going to say something really crazy,” Alexander continued. “I’m not going to deny that the people have the right of revolution. I’m not going to deny 1776. I’m not going to deny there is a time for legitimate violence when there is legitimate tyranny. And by the way, the Declaration of Independence even outlines—”
“Says it’s your right and duty,” Jones interrupted. “But they are just losing right now, we’re winning politically. We don’t want to do it yet, but you’re not denying we have the right.”
“Right,” Alexander replied. “I’m not denying the—I’m saying it’s not the time now, that’s for sure.”
“But it’s definitely a card we have in our hand we’re allowed to play,” Jones said.
“Right! Right,” Alexander said.
“When all else is lost you gotta do it,” Jones said.
“If they start ripping your children from your home and doing reassignment surgeries—” Alexander began.
“Everyone knows when the time is,” Jones interrupted. “The point is,anybody trying to lure you into plots to kidnap governors, anybody who wants you tooffensively attack, that’s not what we do.”
“Frankly, a discerning mind and a mind in prayer, frankly, would not punch cops at the Capitol, would not kidnap governors,” Alexander said.
“You know it makes us look bad!” Jones said
“And it won’t be successful,” Alexander said.
“Not only do I not want to randomly punch cops, it’s dumb!” Jones exclaimed.
“It’s very dumb,” Alexander agreed. “It’s dumb, and it displeases God I think. But you know, these cops need to stop complying with COVID orders and lockdowns and stealing.”
“Yeah, no, they’re putting themselves in that position,” Jones said.
Alexander regularlyuses violent rhetoric and has called for civil war and rebellion. On the eve of the insurrection, Alexander led a Stop the Steal crowd in chants of “Victory or death!” and declared “1776 is always an option.”
As Luke O’Brien reported in HuffPost, Alexander considers violence a “natural right”:
On Twitter, Alexander had called violence a “natural right.” He was a prominent influencer on the platform, with almost 200,000 followers. “I am a sincere advocate for violence and war, when justified,” he tweeted in 2019. “I recognize no law above what is natural and good.” A militant Christianity has permeated his extremism; he has spoken often about being an agent of God.
Tags: Alex Jones Ali Alexander Capitol Insurrection conspiracy theories Jan. 6 violent rhetoric InfoWars
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https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/jan-6-christian-nationalism/
In the midst of the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Jacob Chansley, the bare-chested man in Viking horns who's come to be known as the QAnon Shaman, stopped his fellow marauders in the Senate chamber to pray. "Thank you Heavenly Father for gracing us with this opportunity … to send a message to all the tyrants, the communists and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs," he said. "Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and that love Christ. Thank you for allowing the United States of America to be reborn."
The prayer, caught on video by New Yorker reporter Luke Mogelson, was just one moment among hundreds that day illustrating how deeply the insurrection was intertwined with Christian nationalism. Across the sea of protesters in and outside the building, t-shirt and ball-cap slogans proclaimed it: "Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president"; "God, Guns, Trump"; or, on the sweatshirt of a man helping construct the rough gallows erected on the Capitol lawn, "Faith, Family, Freedom." (The gallows itself was quickly covered in handwritten notes — "as if it were a yearbook," observed lawyer and author Andrew Seidel — reading "Hang them high" and "In God We Trust.")
Elsewhere, protesters carried gigantic portraits of Jesus and replica statues of the Infant of Prague, or chanted about the blood of Jesus washing Congress clean. A long-haired blond man sang praise songs into a microphone plugged into a stack of amplifiers he was wheeling on a hand-truck. A Nebraska priest performed an exorcism on the Capitol building to banish the demon Baphomet, who he claimed was "dissolving the country" in order to "bring it back as something different." One rioter later indicted for breaking into the Capitol was actually a cast member in a touring production of "Jesus Christ Superstar." Another, Leo Brent Bozell IV, came from a long line of Christian right activists: His father, L. Brent Bozell III, founded the right-wing Media Research Center and his grandfather, L. Brent Bozell Jr., wrote speeches for Joseph McCarthy and a manifesto for Barry Goldwater.
"It was evident to anyone watching that there was this religious character to what was going on, both in the Trump movement writ large but particularly in the leadership of the 'Stop the Steal' movement," said religious studies scholar Jerome Copulsky, co-director of a new website, Uncivil Religion, dedicated to collecting "digital artifacts" of Jan. 6 religiosity and exploring what it means for, say, violent protesters to dress up like Captain Moroni — a legendary warrior from the Book of Mormon — or sing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" alongside fellow protesters carrying Confederate flags. "It wasn't just the Stop the Steal rally, then the assault," Copulsky continued. "People really wanted to display their religious commitments, literally wearing them on their sleeves."
The Uncivil Religion project developed from a Twitter hashtag, #CapitolSiegeReligion, created by author and religious historian Peter Manseau and based on his sense that the religious subtext (and text, and blaring headline) were "*the* story of what happened" on Jan. 6. In Manseau's view, religion wasn't an incidental element, but had been the driving motivation that had brought many people to the Capitol. Much of that had begun much earlier, with Christian right leaders — both official and self-declared — framing the 2020 election, and the rest of America's polarized conflicts, as an all-or-nothing showdown between good and evil.
Some were national names, like Samaritan's Purse president Franklin Graham, who in August 2020 warned in a Christian Broadcasting Network interview that if Trump lost, churches would close down and Christians would be attacked. But that message was echoed so widely, in both religious and secular conservative media and across numerous niche religious right communities, that allegations about the "stolen" election became nearly inseparable from messages of apocalyptic faith.
Much of that was on display on Dec. 12, 2020, in Washington, when a large-scale interfaith prayer protest, the Jericho March — widely seen as a forerunner to Jan. 6 — brought together a number of religious right factions to pantomime the biblical Battle of Jericho in praying to "bring down the walls of the Deep State." The carnivalesque full-day rally — organized, as journalist Sarah Posner reported, by two then-current employees of the federal government — featured an odd fusion of charismatic evangelicalism, Christian Zionism and right-wing Catholicism. There was contemporary Christian praise music and Virgin of Guadalupe iconography; a rendition of "Ave Maria" that concluded with the singer whooping "Giddy up"; and the female pastor of a New England pro-cannabis church wearing Catholic vestments while blowing on a Jewish shofar.
Emceeing the event was evangelical radio host Eric Metaxas, author of a bestselling biography of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and a key figure in building an alliance between conservative evangelicals and Roman Catholics. Metaxas had become increasingly extreme throughout the Trump era. The week of the Jericho March rally, he told TurningPoint USA founder Charlie Kirk that the 2020 election was like "somebody is being raped or murdered … times a thousand," and that conservatives would need "to fight to the death, to the last drop of blood" to keep Trump in office.
That December rally featured several notable names on the Catholic right, including a bishop from Texas who refused to acknowledge Biden as president-elect, a nun who had delivered a fiery pro-Trump address at the 2020 Republican National Convention and, most prominently, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a dissident Catholic figure who had once been the Vatican ambassador to the U.S. but fell into disgrace after calling for Pope Francis' resignation in 2018. Since then, Viganò has turned into a sort of alternative pope for disaffected Catholic traditionalists at odds with their more moderate pope, and in 2020, he published an open letter to Trump warning that a "deep church" was working with the "deep state" to use the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests to undermine his presidency. After Trump tweeted a link to the letter, Viganò attracted so much support on the broader right that when he appeared, via video, at the Jericho March — praying "for the conversion of public officials who have become accomplices in public fraud" — an audience largely composed of evangelical Protestants cheered alongside his Catholic fans.
Evangelical speaker Lance Wallnau, who in 2016 famously compared Trump to the biblical figure of Cyrus — a "heathen" king who nonetheless served as the instrument of God — also sounded the theme of intra-religious conflict. "This is the beginning of a Christian populist uprising. There is a backlash coming," he said. "And you're going to see this wrecking ball of a reformation hit the church as well … because it's going to divide between those who are awake and those that are asleep. … There is a great awakening coming, and this is the spark that is starting it right now."
Not all speakers at the Jericho March were religious leaders in the traditional sense. Stewart Rhodes, the devoutly Christian founder of the militia group the Oath Keepers, was on hand to urge police and military members to prepare to fight Chinese "proxies" in the U.S., who he claimed were working to install Joe Biden as their "puppet."
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn, freshly pardoned by Trump for lying to federal investigators, appeared in a flag bandana to talk about spiritual war and lead the crowd in an "Our Father." And conspiracy-theory talk-show host Alex Jones delivered a barn-burning near-sermon, proclaiming, "This is the beginning of the great revival before the Antichrist comes. World government, implantable microchips, Satanism — it's out in the open. The Bible is fulfilled, Revelation is fulfilled."...And there was Ali Alexander, the bombastic founder of the Stop the Steal movement, who appeared frequently on stage alongside Metaxas, vowing that if Biden was installed as president, Alexander and his supporters would return to "occupy D.C. full of patriots," adding, "We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us."
In the following weeks, Alexander repeatedly underscored the religious dimensions of his mission. In late December, he...https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/stop-steal-organizer-ali-alexanders-pre-january-6-calls-violence-weve-got...told the Epoch Times-affiliated NTD television network, "We are in a fight of good versus evil, of light versus the darkness, and a global order over sovereign citizens. … I believe that this is a metaphysical fight and we are channeling all energy in heaven and on earth towards a favorable outcome."
On New Year's Eve in 2020, Alexander announced on Twitter that he was converting to Catholicism, in part, he explained, because he'd become convinced that the Catholic Church had been "infiltrated" by an "earthy [sic] order that works in concert withSatan himself against the Church," and that he had been personally called to join the battle. And when the Jericho March returned to Washington on Jan. 5, for a slate of protest events leading up to the following day's MAGA march, Alexander spoke again, whipping the crowd into a ...
"The Jericho March put a definite religious imprimatur on Jan. 6," said Posner. "After Jan. 6, the organization put a note on their website that they condemned violence. But they held multiple rallies in which they talked repeatedly about the election being stolen, that God told them they must have the church 'roar,' and that they were going to be like Joshua's army in the Bible and the walls of the Deep State would fall."
...But no matter how explicit — and violent — the religious rhetoric swirling around Stop the Steal was, it was little recognized before the Jan. 6 attack. "We have gotten so used to religious language used by evangelicals and other religiously-affiliated officials that the danger that was there — whether at the Jericho March or the Jan. 6 rally that led up to the attack on the Capitol — was really just noise to some people," said Anthea Butler, chair of the religious studies department at the University of Pennsylvania. "And then it happened, and everyone pretended to be shocked. But that's willful ignorance about the role religion has played in the last 40 or 50 years in the Republican Party. It hasn't just been this alliance of how to get people elected, but has had this element of things that have fed upon each other to create a monster that threatens democracy."...https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1351180665904111619...of" victory="Victory" or="or" death="death"
That has remained central to the legacy of Jan. 6, as religious leaders have used the rhetoric of faith to minimize and redirect responsibility for the violence of that day: whether it's people like... Wallnau or South Carolina televangelis...Mark Burns blaming "antifa soldiers" for perpetrating a false-flag operation to smear Trump supporters [huckabee ...suggesting, in email newsletters over the last six months, that Nancy Pelosi may have orchestrated the attack, and casting indicted Jan. 6 protesters as political prisoners; or former Vice President Mike Pence, in a December interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, downplaying the very attack in which an angry mob called for his execution.
The rest of its legacy is more diffuse, but no less troubling: Metaxas suggesting that the creation of COVID-19 vaccines is akin to experimenting "with the bodies of Jews we murdered in the concentration camps," or Viganò writing that COVID exists merely as a "psycho-pandemic"; Wallnau calling "wokeness" the religion of the Antichristand, on the eve of the Jan. 6 anniversary...that if America is to be one nation under God, it must have only one religion. More systematically, there's the fact that much of the religious organizing energy that went into Stop the Steal has now transferred itself, as Posner... , into mobilizing the Christian right on behalf of voter suppression initiatives.
A year later, none of the religious fervor that helped drive Jan. 6 has vanished, says Copulsky. "It's built into the fabric of American life. There's a radicality to it, but this didn't come out of thin air. And it's not going to go away. It's incumbent on religious leaders and organizations to think about what that means....
https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/confrontational-christian-nationalists-are-pushing-anti-vaxxer-extremism-report
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the former president’s chief of staff Mark Meadows may have reneged on his promise to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee, but Ali Alexander, the leader of the so-called Stop the Steal movement, has followed through, spending eight hours in a closed-door hearing Thursday. ... which was leaked to the...https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/us/politics/ali-alexander-jan-6-house-testimony.html... he denied having anything to “do with any violence or lawbreaking that happened on January 6”—a statement that flies in the face of his own comments and declarations ahead of the insurrection calling for rebellion, including leading chants of...https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/christian-nationalism-and-threats-of-violence-at-pro-trump-rally-on-eve-of-electoral-college-certification/...The findings of the closed-door hearing have not been made public, but based on his planned opening and public statements, it appears the far-right organizer is attempting to simply deny wrongdoing and pass the buck. Alexander claims he did not foment violence and that on the day of the rally, he attempted to deescalate the violence with calls of “peace,” while other organizers were nowhere to be found. Such claims ask the House select committee to suspend reality and ignore Alexander’s real-time... approval of Trump loyalists descending on and breaching the Capitol as well as the role of...https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/christian-nationalism-and-threats-of-violence-at-pro-trump-rally-on-eve-of-electoral-college-certification/...Even Alexander’s prayers for “peace” on Jan. 6 suggested that violence is what the government brought upon itself for not declaring Donald Trump the winner of the 2020 election. He may have not explicitly told rallygoers to violently attack the Capitol and members of Congress, but his violent rhetoric, leading role in perpetuating the conspiracy theory that the election was stolen from Trump, and verbal attacks on officials in charge of U.S. elections smack of stochastic terrorism.
Alexander emerged from the hearing Thursday evening, telling reporters that the meeting was “adversarial” and that he was “truthful.” (The Daily Beast’s Zachary Petrizzo reported that Alexander was also served with a civil lawsuit related to Jan. 6 as he left the building.)
“Yesterday was one of the toughest days of MY LIFE,” Alexander wrote on Telegram Friday morning. “8 hours of accusations, lies, and conspiracy theories digging into my First Amendment rights.”
Alexander posted a video to Telegram of an interview he conducted before he went in, claiming he would “cooperate” where he could and lashing out against his critics.
“There’s this left-wing Blue Anon conspiracy theory that me and members of Congress worked to jeopardize the safety of their colleagues. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Alexander declared. “This evidence actually exonerates those members, this evidence exonerates me, and this evidence is actually going to exonerate President Donald J. Trump.”...;Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks “to put maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting” to certify the election on Jan. 6....The draft of his opening statement echoes his denial of wrongdoing and suggests he has been made into a “bogeyman” and treated differently because he is a Black and Arab man.... I had nothing to do with any violence or lawbreaking that happened on January 6,” Alexander said. “I had nothing to do with the planning. I had nothing to do with the preparation. And I had nothing to do with the execution.”... alerted the New York Times, Alexander spent weeks in the lead up to the Capitol insurrection calling for “rebellion,” starting chants of “victory or death,” and using rhetoric of the American Revolution and spiritual warfare to call for action should Congress certify the election of President Joe Biden.... “Victory or death!” Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander tells Trump rally the day before the Capitol insurrection that “1776 is always an option” and “our government should be afraid.... https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1351180665904111619?...On the day of the insurrection, Alexander took to Twitter early in the morning to declare it the “First official day of the rebellion.” Leaving the Stop the Steal rally at the Ellipse after Trump’s speech, where he was a VIP guest, Alexander far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones through the Capitol grounds and up the Capitol steps. At that point—around 2 p.m.—the Capitol had already been breached.
“Democrats and Media ended the Republic and the people responded. Welcome to ‘duhhh’,” he tweeted an hour later.
Alexander emerged on a terrace overlooking the Capitol to record a video, posted on the Stop the Steal Twitter account by his associate Michael Coudrey at 4:26 p.m.—well after the violence had begun. “I don’t disavow this. I do not denounce this,” he said as Trump loyalists continued to descend on the Capitol behind him. He added later in the video, “This is completely peaceful, looks like, so far. And there are a couple of agitators that I obviously don’t endorse.”
This is Ali Alexander, leader of the so-called Stop the Steal campaign, saying: “I don’t disavow this. I do not denounce this.” pic.twitter.com/0mP0xThAYP
— Kristen Doerer (@k2doe) January 6, 2021
In the prepared draft of his opening statement, Alexander also threw under the bus three other organizers of the Stop the Steal event that preceded the insurrection: Amy Kremer and Kyle Kremer, the mother-daughter duo of Women for America First, and Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign adviser whom the White House assigned to take charge of the rally planning.
“While I was actively trying to de-escalate events at the Capitol and end the violence and lawlessness, it’s important to note that certain people were nowhere to be found, including Amy Kremer, Kylie Kremer, and Katrina Pierson,” Alexander’s draft statement reads. “Press reports suggest they may have had their feet up drinking donor funded champagne in a War Room in the Willard.”
Infighting between the two camps had already begun months before. When Alexander relaunched the Stop the Steal campaign in early November as Biden’s victory was becoming more apparent, he had called on the Kremers (who started a popular Stop the Steal Facebook page) to join him. Soon after, the mother-daughter duo began a bus tour with the Stop the Steal branding, which angered Alexander. The two camps publicly sparred on Twitter ahead of two competing December events. The Kremers made it known that they found Alexander to be incendiary, and ProPublica reported that with Pierson’s help, they kept him and the radical conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from taking the stage at the Jan. 6 Ellipse rally. Alexander blamed the Women for America First leadership for taking instructions out of the program “ to provide clarity on exactly where to go following the Ellipse event,” which he said would have prevented the chaos that followed.
In his statement on Telegram Friday morning, Alexander suggested that he would not turn on anyone else, offering his support to those who are refusing to cooperate with the House select committee.
“Many others are using their constitutional rights to stop the Democrat Select Committee from violating those rights. I support those people using their right to not testify too,” Alexander said. “I chose to testify after the advice of counsel and with the thought: I fear nothing but God. I told the truth.”
Tags: Ali AkbarAli AlexanderCapitol InsurrectionHouse select committee on Jan. 6Jan. 6Stop the StealStop the Steal
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badash n c r m
an 10 21
stuart Stevens is calling out News Corp founder and chief Rupert Murdoch as a "domestic threat" in response to a stunning preview clip from Fox News' top personality, Tucker Carlson, that falsely paints Donald Trump's January 6 insurrection as a false flag operation by Democrats.
"If Rupert Murdoch were applying for American citizenship today, there would be ample evidence to classify him as a domestic threat and deny citizenship," Stevens says of Murdoch, an Australian-born naturalized U.S. citizen. "He's a dangerous man who should be treated as the anti-democratic propagandist he is."
Stevens is known as one of the top Republican strategists who became a never-Trumper and co-founded The Lincoln Project. Murdoch owns News Corp, the parent company of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and numerous other outlets across the globe. He became a U.S. citizen in 1985 to meet the requirements to purchase and own TV stations.
The clip of Tucker Carlson's three-part series on the January 6 insurrection (below) is being called "fucking insane" by fellow never-Trumper Tim Miller, a former GOP strategist.
"I'd like to focus in on the fact that Fox is hosting one of the main architects of the Stop The Steal insurrection Ali Akbar Alexander for this 1/6 special," Miller adds. "Going full Newsmax."
In a scathing strike against Carlson, former Obama HUD deputy assistant secretary Brandon Friedman compared the Fox News personality to a radio station known for helping to incite the Rwandan genocide in which more than one million people died and up to half a million women were raped.
Here's the clip, which is loaded with falsehoods and anti-American, anti-democracy propaganda:
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/stop-the-steal-organizer-ali-alexander-is-selling-merchandise-with-his-mugshot-on-gumroad/
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/bitclout-the-dystopian-crypto-based-social-app-popularized-by-stop-the-steal-leader-ali-alexander/
bitClout: The Dystopian Crypto-Based Social App Popularized by ‘Stop The Steal’ Leader Ali Alexander
By Karim Zidan | April 21, 2021 12:49 pm
Website of the BitClout social media network with sing up button on the smartphone screen. (Viktollio / Shutterstock.com)]
“The future of social media just got a lifeline.”
These were the words spoken by Ali Alexander, the far-right organizer behind the so-called Stop the Steal movement, during a recent interview on ”The Reality Operating System” YouTube show. Dressed in his signature plain orange sweater and seated against a beige backdrop that gave no hints as to his whereabouts, Alexander spoke about BitClout, a decentralized social media platform developed on blockchain technology that allows users to buy and sell tokens based on people’s reputations or “clout.” Creators and celebrities can monetize their internet presence by allowing their fans to invest in their “creator coins,” while general users can speculate and invest in people and posts to drive up their value as they would on the stock market.
In a nutshell, BitClout is a combination of Twitter, Patreon, and Robinhood—a one-stop shop that provides a social media platform and crypto-exchange for influencers and content creators.
Alexander’s fascination with BitClout is unsurprising. The application serves as an alternative to mainstream social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, both of which have banned his accounts after the events of Jan. 6. And while sites such as Parler and Gab have fashioned themselves as censorship-free alternatives to Twitter, BitClout stands out because of its decentralized nature. According to BitClout’s official website, the application has “no company behind it—just coins and code.”
“It is the most exciting thing I have seen on the internet—ever,” Alexander, who refers to himself as “The BitClout Oracle,” explained during the interview. “This is going places.”
While BitClout has excited users clamoring for a censorship-resistant social media platform, the application has already courted plenty of controversy since its launch in March 2021. The start-up has been criticized for prepopulating its network with some 15,000 accounts created around popular Twitter profiles without their account-holder’s permission, allowing users to invest in coins for people like Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kim Kardashian, YouTube sensation Mr. Beast, and Ariana Grande.
BitClout’s commodification of individuals is eerily dystopian. It also raises questions about the future of decentralized social media and the people who profit off it.
A Decentralized, Dystopian Social Space
When a Twitter user informed William Shatner, the renowned Canadian actor best known icon for his portrayal of Captain James T. Kirk in the original “Star Trek” series, that he had an account on BitClout, the actor was not impressed.
“It’s a scam and I’ve not authorized my name or likeness to be used,” Shatner wrote on Twitter in March. “So if you see my name or photo there it’s not been authorized.”
Shatner, whose coin price is currently valued at $553 despite never signing up for an account, is not the only public figure to complain about BitClout’s controversial tactics. Other celebrities have complained about having their likeness monetized without their permission, while prominent crypto law firm Anderson Kill P.C. sent a cease-and-desist letter to the BitClout’s alleged founder on behalf of their client Brandon Curtis, the chief research officer at decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Radar Relay, for using his private information without his consent.
“Adopting Bitcoin’s aesthetic to raise VC funding to carry out unethical and blatantly illegal schemes like BitClout: not cool,” Curtis tweeted.
Curtis and Shatner were among the 15,000 profiles (the figure is taken from the project’s whitepaper) that BitClout uploaded to its system ahead of the official launch in March 2021. Users who sign up for the site are then able to purchase BitClout’s native cryptocurrency, BTCLT, which can then be used to invest in tokenized accounts belonging to celebrities and creators, thereby increasing their commercial value. Beyond the ethical implications, BitClout has also been criticized for having no internal mechanism to withdraw funds from the site. While users use Bitcoin to purchase BTCLT to use on BitClout, the platform does not offer users a mechanism to trade that BTCLT back to Bitcoin, meaning there is no official way to cash out—a red flag for experienced crypto users. (At present, the only way to exchange BTCLT is to use Peer-to-Peer transfers, or a new website called BitSwap, which allows you to exchange the coins for Ethereum at 60% of its official listed price on bitclout.com).
Bitcoin gold coins with wallet, close-up.
Diamondhands, BitClout’s anonymous founder who is believed to be crypto entrepreneur and Princeton alumni Nader Al-Naji, dismissed critics who called BitClout a scam, stating that such fears were misplaced but failing to offer a clear answer to justify the platform’s tactics. It is worth noting that Al-Naji’s previous venture, Basis—a cryptocurrency designed to serve anyone around the world with unreliable central banks—was forced to shutter after failing to meet regulatory requirements.
Despite the controversy surrounding BitClout, the platform is rumored to have attracted some major venture capitalist firms, including Sequoia, Social Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Reddit co-founder Alex Ohanian. By March 2021, the social media network had accumulated more than 3,200 Bitcoins (worth approximately $176.364 million at the time of writing) from its big-name investors.
Outside of marquee investors, BitClout has also attracted celebrities such as YouTube sensation Jake Paul (whose coin is currently valued at $15,764) and former “Baywatch” star Pamela Anderson, who quit social media in January 2021 before joining BitClout in March, adding that it is “important to be free.” Since then, she has become an active participant in the site and regularly engages with her investors by auctioning off signed copies of her final Playboy cover to the top three accounts that hold her coin. Anderson has since accumulated 2,596 followers while her coin is currently valued at $6,428.66.
For many prospective celebrities and content creators, BitClout is an application that allows users to monetize their social media presence in a way that is not possible on mainstream social media platforms such as Twitter. Others are attracted to the platform’s potential, especially since anyone can build applications onto BitClout once the platform releases its open source code. This could lead to increased innovation and user input within the social network, thus allowing the application to evolve according to user demand rather than relying on a centralized organization. “Thus, in some sense, BitClout is decentralizing social media in much the same way as Bitcoin is decentralizing the financial system,” read BitClout’s whitepaper.
Once BitClout is fully decentralized, it will become independent of its developers, making it next to impossible to litigate against or shut down.
Ali Alexander’s Crypto Grift
Since discovering BitClout, Ali Alexander claims he has not slept more than four hours a night. No longer prioritizing politics, the Texas native now spends upwards of 12 hours a day on Clubhouse, the exclusive audio-chat iPhone app that is accessible only by invitation, where he promotes BitClout to anyone who will listen.
“I have never been so well-behaved as I have been on Clubhouse talking about BitClout,” Alexander told the hosts of ”The Reality Operating System.”
While Alexander’s Clubhouse chats attract people from across the political spectrum, he is best known as the organizer behind the so-called Stop the Steal movement, which promoted the baseless conspiracy theory that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election. Alexander pushed unfounded election fraud conspiracy theories and embraced adherents of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory as well as the neo-fascist Proud Boys hate group during his rallies.
Among those rallies were several in Washington, D.C., organized by Alexander in the ramp-up to the Jan. 6 Capito insurrection, including one held a short distance away from the White House the day before the insurrection, at which he led those gathered in a chant of “Victory or death!”
Ali Alexander dressed in his trademark orange sweater.]
In the aftermath of the Capitol insurrection, Alexander went into hiding while the FBI and Justice Department began investigating his connection to the Jan. 6 rioters. He was also banned from major social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which forced him to turn to alternatives such as Telegram, Clubhouse, and now BitClout. Though Alexander primarily discusses cryptocurrency on Clubhouse, he has participated in chats with other notable far-right figures, including dirty trickster Jacob Wohl. He argued during a chat on March 7 that a dictatorship was preferable to a democracy and that white nationalists were mostly “peaceful.” However, the vast majority of his interactions monitored by Right Wing Watch on these alternative platforms since Jan. 6 have been specific to cryptocurrency, and more recently, BitClout.
“It is slower than politics, but the same amount of adrenaline is pumping through your veins,” Alexander explained during his ”The Reality Operating System” appearance. “It is just so fascinating.”
Alexander’s interest in cryptocurrency makes sense given his limited avenues to raise funds in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. The far-right activist has been booted from major payment apps and processors, including PayPal, Venmo, and Patreon. He was previously using GiveSendGo, a Christian crowdfunding site used to raise money for the Proud Boys among others, before his page was deactivated because the site’s payment processor wouldn’t support Alexander. Cryptocurrency remains one of the few potential avenues for raising funds, which Alexander confirmed during the chatroom when he reportedly told listeners that he was able to make “passive income” from “small donations.”
After discovering BitClout, Alexander was able to expand his income opportunities. Not only was he able to monetize his own brand by promoting his creator coin, he then founded BitClout Analysis, a subscription-based analytics website dedicated to disseminating BitClout data for users. While the official website is still under development, several posts can be accessed by members who hold at least 0.5 of the BitClout Analysis coin (one coin is valued at $1,295.47 at the time of writing).
Alexander also funded a second BitClout project called CloutMembers, which allows creators to publish “exclusive content for their top coin holders.” The aim is for creators to monetize their content while incentivizing BitClout users to invest in their coin. The website is also subscription-based, though the pricing will not be released until the platform is fully functional. Alexander also holds exclusive conference calls where he discusses “high-level topics” with CloutMembers subscribers who hold at least one-seventh of one of his creator coins (currently valued at $3,429.17).
“Can’t wait for this conference call with @alialexander and his coin holders tomorrow. So happy I own his coin #CloutMembers #BitCloutOracle,” one BitClout user wrote on the platform on April 18.
[img twt?]
With more than 3,000 followers on BitClout, Alexander is one of the most followed users on the website. Despite amassing an impressive following in a matter of months, Alexander has not used his newfound platform to spread the far-right politics for which he is best known. Instead, he acts as an ombudsman for the BitClout community while occasionally sprinkling in Hallmark-esque inspirational quotes.
While Alexander has seen fit to tailor his BitClout persona, his politics are on display in his Telegram channel. On April 13, he forwarded a message (Telegram’s equivalent to retweeting) from Jacob Wohl which read: “We’ve still never been told the name of the black Capitol Police Officer who shot and killed Ashli Babbitt,” as well as another from white supremacist Nick Fuentes which called on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to “strengthen the Florida tech censorship bill with the amendments proposed by the America First Coalition,” a reference to a far-right group founded by Fuentes He also expressed his distaste for former Vice President Mike Pence, and voiced support for fellow far-right organizer Roger Stone after reports emerged that the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit alleging that Stone owes more than $2 million in unpaid taxes. “The government is always trying to kill Roger Stone,” Alexander told his 21,000 Telegram subscribers on April 17. “I rebuke their efforts in the name of Jesus Christ and summon His Angels.”
Though Alexander still uses his Telegram sporadically, his primary focus over the past couple of months has been BitClout, where he has created several potential revenue streams while monetizing his brand. BitClout, and its promise of a decentralized social media space, is Alexander’s latest, if not desperate, attempt to prosper in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“I just think I’m done,” Alexander told ”The Reality Operating System.” “The next level of worse for me is assassination or jail time. It can’t actually get worse for me … then you transcend, and now I’m on BitClout.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/paul-gosar/
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Meet Rep. Paul Gosar: The GOP's leading ambassador to white supremacy
Igor Derysh and Salon March 03, 2021
Former Republican lawmakers slammed the GOP for its silence after Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., spoke at a conference organized by a white nationalist who praised the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, weeks after being linked to the rally that sparked the deadly attack
Gosar skipped Friday's vote on a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package approved by the House to attend the America First Political Action Conference, which was organized by white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who mused about killing members of Congress days before the riot. Gosar later condemned "white racism" during an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference ahead of former President Donald Trump's speech over the weekend — and then met with Fuentes again after the event.
Former Rep. Joe Walsh, an Illinois Republican who was elected alongside Gosar during the 2010 Tea Party wave before rejecting far-right extremism after Trump's rise to power, said he was "stunned" by Gosar's extremist turn and expressed frustration that Republican leaders have stayed silent on his appearance at AFPAC.
"It's beyond disappointing," Walsh said in an interview with Salon. "This is where the party is now. The fact that this party— and we all contributed to it — but here we are in 2021, and one of their members keynotes a white nationalist event and the party can't condemn it. The party is telling the country that they're OK with white supremacy."
Former Rep. Denver Riggleman, R-Va., also slammed the party for failing to condemn Gosar for getting cozy with white nationalists, noting that Fuentes is a Holocaust denier who has pushed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. (Fuentes has denied this.)
"This is what @RepGosar supports: Unambiguous anti-Semitism," Riggleman tweeted. "He should be condemned by the full House for speaking at AFPAC."
The Anti-Defamation League's Arizona chapter said in a statement that Gosar's appearance at AFPAC was "deeply disturbing."
"A member of Congress should never share a stage with Fuentes," the group said.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said it was "unimaginable" that Gosar would not be held accountable by his colleagues.
"Less than two months after the violent attack on the Capitol, Rep. Paul Gosar participated in a gathering of white nationalists at the beckoning of one of the movement's most notorious and hateful leaders who glorified the events of that day," Susan Corke, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said in a statement to Salon. "While his colleagues were holding hearings to ensure that another violent insurrection will never again disgrace the halls of Congress, Gosar provided these extremists a mainstream platform and further stoked the hate that drives their movement."
Gosar, who was described by "Stop the Steal" organizer Ali Alexander as a key ally in organizing the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the riot, and who has extensive ties to extremist groups, skipped Friday's House vote, citing the coronavirus pandemic — although he previously joining a lawsuit arguing that voting by proxy in Congress is unconstitutional. "I continue to be unable to physically attend proceedings in the House Chamber due to the ongoing public health emergency," he said in a letter justifying his absence.
Gosar, who led Republican objections to the counting of Arizona's electoral votes, and later reportedly asked Donald Trump for a pardon related to his involvement with the rally, spoke at AFPAC after former Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who was denounced by the GOP in 2019 for comments defending white nationalism and white supremacy.
The event was organized by Fuentes, a 22-year-old white nationalist agitator who promoted the Jan. 6 rally and originally gained prominence after the deadly 2017 "Unite the Right" march in Charlottesville. Fuentes, who has been banned by some social networks for making racist and anti-Semitic comments, called on the AFPAC audience to help America protect its "white demographic core" and accused Black Lives Matter activists of trying to create "a new racial caste system in this country, with whites at the bottom," The Washington Post first reported.
"If America ceases to retain that English cultural framework and the influence of European civilization, if it loses its White demographic core and if it loses its faith in Jesus Christ, then this is not America anymore," Fuentes said.
Fuentes, who attended the Jan. 6 rally but says he did not enter the Capitol, later praised the rioters as "patriots."
"I saw the police retreating and we heard that the politicians voting on the fraudulent election had scurried to their underground tunnels away from the Capitol," Fuentes said. "I said to myself: 'This is awesome!'"
Fuentes went on to mock Gosar's Republican colleagues and made fun of Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., for using a wheelchair.
Gosar did not mention AFPAC or Fuentes on Saturday during an appearance at the Trump-headlined CPAC but abruptly interrupted a panel discussion to note that he disavows racism, with no apparent context. "I want to tell you, I denounce . . . white racism," he said. "That's not appropriate."
Gosar acknowledged to the Washington Post after the panel that he was referring to Fuentes' comments. He told the outlet that he accepted the invitation because "you don't accomplish anything by isolating" certain audiences.
"We thought about it, and we thought: There is a group of young people that are becoming part of the election process, and becoming a bigger force," Gosar said. "So why not take that energy and listen to what they've got to say?"
CPAC organizers did not comment on Gosar's appearance but blocked Fuentes from entering the conference with a group of maskless supporters.
Despite Gosar's comments, Fuentes posted a photo of the two sharing drinks on Saturday.
"Great meeting today with Congressman Gosar!" he wrote. "America is truly uncancelled."
Walsh, who like many Tea Party-backed Republicans pushed racist conspiracy theories to win elections, said the appearance made clear how far Gosar had drifted to the extremist fringe from their time in Congress together in 2011 and 2012.
"Gosar was sort of nuts back then," Walsh said, "but we were all sort of part of the same Tea Party wave. Even though some of us were kind of nuts, it was all about the issues. I don't recognize these guys now. I mean, this crazy shit was fringe — now it's like the base of the party."
Walsh noted that just two years ago the Republican Party stripped King of his committee assignments after he questioned why the term "white supremacy "was deemed offensive.
"Maybe I'm naive, but back in 2010, if Gosar pulled something like this I got to believe [former House Speaker John] Boehner and leadership would have come down on him like a ton of bricks," he said. "It's amazing. He blew off a COVID relief vote to fire up a bunch of white supremacists, and the fucking party, they're not going to do a damn thing to him."
Republicans were recently forced to reckon with freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has made comments pushing conspiracy theories and calling for Democrats to be executed. The party ultimately decided not to punish Greene, but Walsh predicted it won't even have the same conversation about Gosar.
In the pre-Trump era, Walsh said, the situation was quite different: Republican leaders would "bounce his ass off of committees, immediately the party censures him, and the party goes out of their way to condemn this Nick Fuentes and this white nationalist group." Now, he added, "I didn't see one Republican in the conference who condemned what Gosar did. … I don't think they'll even bring it up."
Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., has been one of the most vocal Republicans in opposing the racism and conspiracy theories pushed by his party's fringe, but like the rest of his colleagues has stayed silent on Gosar's speech. Kinzinger's office did not respond to Salon's request for comment.
Fuentes is understood as the leader of the "groypers," a fringe far-right group fueled by supposedly ironic memes, including specific Pepe the Frog poses. The ADL describes them as a "white supremacist group" who believe they are defending the country against "demographic and cultural changes that are destroying the 'true America' — a white, Christian nation." The FBI is currently investigating a $250,000 bitcoin payment Fuentes received ahead of the Jan. 6 riot, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Alexander, the "Stop the Steal" organizer, praised Fuentes' "hugely successful" AFPAC event over the weekend. Last week, Alexander hosted Gosar's chief of staff, Tom Van Flein, a former top aide to ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, in a Clubhouse chatroom that also included indicted right-wing fraudster Jacob Wohl.
Alexander said after the Capitol riot, in a now-deleted video, that he had "schemed up" the Jan. 6 rally to put "maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting" to certify the election, in collaboration with Gosar and Reps. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and Mo Brooks, R-Ala. Biggs and Brooks have both denied involvement with Alexander. Gosar, notably, has not.
Gosar previously appeared at a rally organized by Alexander in December, where he told supporters they planned to "conquer the Hill" to return Trump to the White House.
Gosar's office did not respond to questions from Salon.
Gosar has also come under scrutiny for his ties to extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, some of whose members now face conspiracy charges after they were seen in videos leading the invasion of the Capitol.
The New York Times reported after the riot that Jim Arroyo, who leads an Arizona chapter of the Oath Keepers, promoted a "coming civil war," citing Gosar's appearance at an event held by the group several years earlier.
"We had Congressman Paul Gosar come to a meeting, he is the elected representative here in Northern Arizona," Arroyo said. "And we asked him, flat out — Do you think we are headed towards a Civil War? And he said, 'We are in a Civil War, we just haven't started shooting yet' ... So that is about to change."
The group has used that kind of civil war rhetoric as a recruiting tool, according to KNXV.
Gosar came under criticism last summer after posing for a photo with a member of the Proud Boys. In 2018, he met with the jailed leader of a far-right anti-immigrant extremist group and made comments about Muslim immigrants that were widely seen as Islamophobic. In 2014, he traveled with Arizona Republican Party chairwoman Kelli Ward to support the Bundy militia in its Nevada standoff with federal law enforcement, after rancher Cliven Bundy refused to pay grazing fees and stop trespassing on federal land.
"He's been involved with anti-Muslim groups and hate groups," his brother, Dave Gosar, told the Times. "He's made anti-Semitic diatribes. He's twisted up so tight with the Oath Keepers it's not even funny."
Dave Gosar and other siblings of the congressman bought ads to campaign against their brother in 2018 after he falsely suggested that the deadly Charlottesvile neo-Nazi rally was "created by the left" and carried out by an "Obama sympathizer." He also falsely claimed that billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, the target of countless anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, had bankrolled the event.
"We warned everybody how dangerous he was," Dave Gosar said after the riot.
Gosar condemned the rioters on Twitter, urging them to "not get carried away" while posting a photo of the mob scaling a Capitol wall. But he posted the same photo to the far-right social network Parler, which was used by some rioters to coordinate the attack, without any such criticism. "Americans are upset," he wrote in response to the image.
In the days following the riot, Arizona Democrats called for the FBI and Justice Department to investigate Gosar and other state lawmakers "directly involved, as well as those who, through words and conduct, aided and abetted sedition, treason or any other federal crimes."
"The events of January 6 were not spontaneous, nor were they the random acts of a diffuse handful of unconnected individuals," the state Democratic party said in a letter to federal law enforcement officials. "For weeks prior to the breach, a group of Republican Arizona legislators and legislators-elect publicly advocated for the overthrow of the election results which encouraged precisely the kind of violent conduct that we witnessed."
CNN has reported that Gosar and Biggs asked Trump for a pardon related to their involvement with the rally that preceded the riot in January, but were denied.
Gosar's siblings have launched a new campaign to remove their brother from Congress in the wake of the riot.
"We feel it's our moral obligation," Dave Gosar told the Los Angeles Times, adding that his brother is "in my opinion, about as despicable a politician as I have ever seen."
"He started at an extreme place, he started at a bigoted place ... and he's gone even further into that," added sister Jennifer Gosar.
"Paul has no character, no integrity, no honor," agreed brother Tim Gosar, "and is absolutely as close as you get to a pathological liar."
Walsh predicted that despite calls for Gosar to be punished, the Republican Party will stay silent because of the effect Trump has had on the party over the last five years.
"This is one of Trump's impacts on the party," he said. "The party follows a lot of Trump's signals. Trump makes signals to a lot of these white supremacists and white nationalists. I mean, Donald Trump didn't go out of his way to condemn them. They're more welcomed now in the coalition, and I think the party gets that. So the party is much, much more loath to condemn people like this."
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/stop-the-steal/
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Ali Alexander, the lead organizer of the so-called Stop the Steal campaign, has resurfaced after going into hiding following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Streaming on Trovo Wednesday night, Alexander claimed that while he has been licking his wounds, he has been plotting to restart rallies in March, abolish the media, and build a separate society for Trump supporters.
As former President Donald Trump faces an impeachment trial this week for inciting an insurrection with his speech at the Stop the Steal rally the morning of Jan. 6, it appears Alexander has yet to face charges for his role. Alexander rebooted the so-called Stop the Steal campaign the day after Election Day, when Trump's lead began to slip as mail-in ballots began to be counted. He pushed voter fraud conspiracy theories, embraced QAnon conspiracy theorists and far-right activists in his campaign, claimed to be doing God's work, and organized three massive rallies in Washington, D.C., that featured the Proud Boys hate group, paramilitary groups like the Oath Keepers, and other extremists.
Following Jan. 6, Alexander was booted off most major social media platforms and, as a result, is now streaming on Trovo, a gaming platform that appears to be growing in popularity among far-right actors kicked off other platforms. On Wednesday night, Alexander lamented the “racist, bigoted, anti-Christian, anti-Southern, anti-Republican, anti-conservative, anti-human smear machine" that he says targeted him, and he promised to create chaos. “We've got to get back in the driver's seat," he added.
“They've done a great number on my life, they've cost me tens of thousands of dollars, they've really destroyed parts of my life, but in a lot of ways, I have no other choice but to announce that I'm building the future, so I'm making strategic investments in tools that fight deplatforming and to create chaos on existing platforms," Alexander claimed.
“America is going to have a choice, and I promise you that, between going onto this dystopian future or fighting in what I'm calling the American sovereignty movement," he said. “And I'm gonna get back, and I'm going to do rallies again starting in March, I'm gonna have indoor gatherings in March, in Michigan, in Arizona, in Georgia, in Texas. I'm going to do a media tour."
Alexander said he had been plotting how to do away with the free press and other “systems that control us": “So I want you guys to know that I've been licking my wounds, but I've been plotting, I've been planning, I've been scheming because we have to do away with this whole system. The free press is not free, and they're not the press, they need to be abolished. The systems that control us have to be abolished."
“I'm going to create a society, and a community, and a culture, and a language for [Trump supporters], and there are tens of millions of us. … Winning can just be 10 million people creating a new megacity," he mused. “Let's build our own city, let's seriously build our own city, let's build a back-up city in South America."
Alexander also didn't miss the opportunity to push the claim that the insurrection was a “premeditated psyop."
“Like everyone is saying the impeachment trial is proving that there was a premeditated psyop against both Trump and Stop the Steal, so how could we incite an insurrection that was premeditated by people we don't know?" he said. “And yet, are there big platforms welcoming me back saying we treated a Black man wrong because we wanted to pretend he was leading a white supremacy movement? No. These people are evil. And we will make lists of them, and they will not be welcome in this new society, they won't be welcomed on new platforms, those people who have tried to force Marxism and thought control on us."
Alexander said that if the “deep state" charges him with a fake crime, he'd be prepared to fight: “If they want to charge me with a fake crime, if they want to martyr me, then I will meet them on that battlefield. I'm not somebody, I'm not somebody that talks a talk or tweets a tweet."
“I've licked my wounds, I'm pissed off. I'm more pissed off than I was the night of the election I created Stop the Steal. We win. They lose. To God be the glory," he said in closing.
Ahead of the Capitol insurrection, Alexander embraced increasingly violent rhetoric, calling for revolution and rebellion. A short distance away from the White House the day before the insurrection, Alexander started a “Victory or death!" chant at a Stop the Steal rally. “Our government is only our government if it is legitimate," he declared at that rally. “1776 is always an option."
After the violence at the Capitol, Alexander posted a since-deleted video of himself saying “I don't disavow this. I do not denounce this." He encouraged viewers to tune into his Stop the Steal website, which he called “the home of the rebellion against an illegitimate government."
This article was originally published at Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/stop-the-steal/
In January 2013, a 26-year-old right-wing blogger named Ali Akbar joined the campaign of Curtis Bostic, a former Charleston, South Carolina, city councilman and Tea Party conservative who was running against disgraced former governor Mark Sanford in a Republican congressional primary. Bostic narrowly lost to Sanford (who served two more terms in the House before getting primaried out in 2018), and the campaign disassociated itself from Akbar, whose history as a convicted felon and hack political operative had caught up with him once again.
But over those first three months of 2013, Akbar — now known to the world as Ali Alexander, architect of the 2020 Stop the Steal movement — befriended the candidate's son, Daniel Bostic, then a 20-year-old aspiring model and actor who over the next eight years would partner with Ali in a number of failed ventures, including a cryptocurrency project, a listless consulting agency, a defunct MAGA gossip blog, and a scam donation project created with right-wing trolls Jacob Wohl and Laura Loomer. The partnership's lasting contribution to the world, however, came earlier this month, when the massive pro-Trump rally they organized on the National Mall on Jan. 6 turned into a violent siege of the U.S. Capitol, defiling the seat of American democracy and leaving half a dozen people dead, including two police officers.
Back in 2013, Akbar (as he was then known), a fast-talking aspiring strategist from the Dallas-Fort Worth region, had been casting about for a new gig after Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential bid failed, taking with it his own efforts to make inroads with mainstream Republicans. Conservatives had grown increasingly wary of Akbar's felony fraud convictions and other allegations of improper conduct, such as asking donors for personal information. Akbar's political journalism project, known as National Bloggers Club, was struggling, too, after its founder's history and conduct created complications for top advisers to the Romney campaign. (Akbar was first anti-Romney and then pro-Romney.) He claimed the site was a nonprofit but apparently never registered it as such with the IRS. Its current status is "revoked," according to federal tax records.
"Akbar was a Libertarian, a Reagan conservative, and a Tea Party journo all at the same time," said freelance reporter Ron Brynaert, whose complicated history with Akbar/Alexander stretches back more than a decade. "He's always been a delusional liar with a messiah complex, who talks out of both sides of his mouth and contradicts himself."
Akbar's work with the Bostic campaign focused on boosting name recognition through social media, including creating a hashtag that got a shout-out from former Republican senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who had co-sponsored Akbar's CPAC "Blog Bash" parties two years in a row and flew in to campaign with Bostic for a day. Bostic did see a surge, but it was too little too late — Slate awarded the campaign its "social media fail of the week" during the primary, specifically citing one of Akbar's sites, ViralRead.com, as having become "a one-stop shop for #SC01 news, with a jaundiced view of Sanford."
Notably, Akbar also created a since-deleted donations landing page "paid for by the committee to elect Curtis Bostic," which was quite likely illegal, since the campaign denied ever officially hiring the convicted felon. After Bostic's primary defeat, the campaign dismissed Akbar in the press as an overzealous volunteer.
But Akbar had grown close with Daniel Bostic, who had a certificate in theology from Appalachian Bible College and a few months experience as staff assistant to then-Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., now the state's junior senator. Bostic yearned to be a professional actor, but had landed only done a few regional ads for American Eagle and Nokia and some local short films, along with an extra role in an episode of "Army Wives," which he described as something of a formative experience.
Akbar's online footprint dries up a bit after Curtis Bostic's defeat, but he re-entered the political sphere in 2014, with a hybrid PAC called the Black Conservatives Fund, which took in $150,000 from right-wing financier Robert Mercer. But for much of that spring and summer, it seems that Akbar devoted much of his time to helping Daniel Bostic convince people that he was a celebrity with a rabid, obsessive fan base.
Operation Bostic involved a coordinated lineup of fake Twitter fan accounts promoting a number of blog sites, interviews and press releases with Bostic fan content, which Bostic and Akbar most likely either commissioned or created themselves. The profile of one Twitter account, "Daniel's Lover," links out to a Wordpress site called Daniel Bostic Daily, which the account would regularly promote in hundreds of tweets at a time, drawing hardly any response from the larger world. One tweet from May 29, 2013 ("Fans are CRAZY about Daniel's Twitter!") tags Akbar's Twitter account and links to a Daniel Bostic Daily entry that itself quotes a since-deleted tweet from Akbar:
Few folks have the honest joy that @debostic has. It's fun to watch happy positive people online.
— Ali A. Akbar (@ali) May 28, 2013
Three days later, the same blog published another entry titled, "Euphoria for Ladies — Daniel Bostic posted a shirtless picture and became an Instagram sensation," which features said shirtless selfie and a quote about it from a website called Viral Read.
The news site VIRAL READ had this to say:
Walking the fine line between #hotmess and #hotness, Bostic wins the day and lands gracefully in the hotness column. Who knew this skinny kid had this hiding under his bro-tanks? He's the eventual celebrity you'll love to hate and we intend on watching him closely. All of him.
The now-defunct Viral Read was one of Akbar's blog sites, which named controversial right-wing blogger Robert Stacy McCain as editor-in-chief on March 13, 2013, while Akbar was working in South Carolina. The Viral Read article on Bostic from May is similarly titled "Daniel Bostic, Hotness or Hotmess?" and begins like this:
ViralRead was first introduced to the young actor, Daniel Bostic, during a special election run-off in April where his father, Curtis Bostic was up against now-Congressman Mark Sanford. Our Publisher and Editor even traveled down to the lowcountry district. Sadly, they came back with zero pictures of him. Epic fail.
Other Bostic fan sites include "Bostiholics," which migrated from the "allwewantisdaniel" blogspot site. "We are here for one reason and one reason alone," reads the Bostiholics tag line. "We are OBSESSED with Daniel Bostic." Other Twitter accounts include Dan Bostic Is Life and Dan Bostic Daily. It also seems that Akbar helped place Daniel-centric content in other outlets around that same time. In March 2013 alone, as Curtis Bostic was waging a vigorous campaign, posts about his fake celebrity son appeared on sites called Jakes Take, Daily Entertainment News and Entertainment Worlds, as well as in a Newswire press release titled, "Born To Be Distinguished, Daniel Bostic Has Made A Huge Difference In The World Of Acting."
"Being young has not deterred this young actor from climbing heights in this intricate acting career," the release says, then lists "exciting films" in which he has "made headlines": "From Darkness into Light," "Gone for the Day," "Crash" (no, not that "Crash"), "Secrets in the Fall." The release also says Bostic "is much into politics" and "a proud certified black belt Tae-Kwon-Do." His LinkedIn and IMDb pages boast of the 2008 black belt, but for the art of karate.
Two months later, Bostic featured in another Newswire press release, titled, "Bostic Calls on His Fans to Support Oklahoma Tornado Victims." The release is attributed to Marti Youngue, and gives a phone number and address. The address is Curtis Bostic's law firm, but the phone number belongs to Marti Young, former owner of a Nashville agency called Illuminating Talent, which at one point represented Daniel Bostic. Presented with the press release, Young told Salon in a text message, "Wow that's the first time I ever saw this."
While the extent of Akbar's involvement in Bostic content creation is unclear, his prints appear to be on some of the self-promoting replies, including those aimed Dana Loesch and Michelle Malkin, who were relatively obscure at the time but would go on to become big names in right-wing political circles.
By 2014, however, Akbar had moved on from South Carolina's low country, landing himself a consulting gig in Louisiana with his new Mercer-backed PAC, the Black Conservatives Fund. According to investigative journalist Lamar White Jr., this PAC was mostly a proxy for former Louisiana State Sen. Elbert Guillory, who at the time was putting together an ultimately unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor. CNBC reported the PAC distributed money that year to a handful of successful Black conservative candidates, including Rep. Mia Love of Utah, as well as Bostic's former boss Tim Scott, who won South Carolina's special election to the Senate in 2014.
Bostic in the meantime attended Anderson University, a private Christian school with both online and in-person degrees, eventually earning a BS in international business, according to his LinkedIn page. He appears to have done some political blogging, identifying as a never-Trumper in 2016 and becoming one of the few donors to former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's ill-fated presidential campaign.
Politico reported in 2018 that a PAC advised by Akbar had accepted $60,000 from Mercer just before the 2016 presidential election. After Trump's victory, Akbar popped up again amid the Unite the Right controversy, and in 2018 tried to help kickstart a Trump-centric alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) called the American Priority Conference, which collapsed in short order.
After that defeat, Alexander (having dumped his original surname at some point) teamed up with longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, who first conceived of the Stop the Steal movement — which, believe it or not, did not originate with the 2020 election. The name and the "movement" began with the 2018 midterms, and specifically with the Florida U.S. Senate campaign in which then-Gov. Rick Scott narrowly defeated incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. That was when Roger Stone launched the group as a kind of tribute or coda to his infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" during the Florida recount of 2000.
Alexander signed on to work for the "Stop the Steal" campaign, which was aimed at locking down Scott's victory over Nelson. In a Periscope video, as reported in Right Wing Watch, Alexander said he hoped to motivate not just Republicans, but QAnon followers, Democrats and "homeless people in all the adjacent counties" to keep an eye on the vote count in Broward County.
"Ali Alexander is a noxious political activist who often animates extremist groups and individuals to fulfill his activism goals," Jared Holt, journalist and expert in domestic extremism, told Salon. "Political groups and organizations that have turned to him for his work should be embarrassed and ashamed. The fact that he has a molecule of influence in GOP organizing is a damning indictment of the priorities of pro-Trump politics."
Alexander has associated with a number of young pro-Trump flunkies who would also seem to fit Holt's description, as with his aforementioned ill-fated 2019 joint venture in Minneapolis with right-wing personality Laura Loomer and the recently-indicted Jacob Wohl.
That scam also involved Daniel Bostic. Alexander, Loomer and Wohl directed donations to a company called Cystra Ventures Ltd., which had been created in Bostic's name just three weeks before the group met up in Minnesota. Cystra Ventures is apparently held under Cystra LLC, Bostic's "consulting company," whose website doesn't work (this archived version does) but which received $14,477 in federal coronavirus small business loans this spring — after much apparent consternation on Bostic's part.
Cystra appears to have been designed to get Bostic and Alexander in the cryptocurrency game. In late June 2017, less than two months before Unite the Right in Charlottesville, Alexander and Bostic teamed up to pitch a new cryptocurrency "focused heavily on free speech." According to the pitch, the coin would be "a medium of exchange for individuals who value free speech above all else," and would be exchanged on the Crown platform, based on the Dash network. "Our project will feature no pre-mine and a decentralized governance with the sole goal of promoting free speech," they claimed.
Nothing came of this venture, shockingly, but the duo were back at it in 2018, cranking out a series of videos pitching the Crown crypto platform, whose "overarching goal is to build a community of dedicated users who maintain a free, legally compliant, open-access and decentralized sandbox economy." Nothing came of that, either.
Then in 2019, Alexander launched a tabloid called Culttture, a right-wing organ that employed a handful of writers to write breathless gossip about MAGA-world's second-string celebs, often plugging Alexander's tweets and videos in the course of the day. The site's homepage took a hiatus the next spring, however, citing the coronavirus pandemic ("China's virus") for the need to "simplify." Although the homepage still promises a steady stream of content, that promise appears not to have materialized. Twitter suspended Culttture's account when it suspended Alexander, on Jan. 10. Bostic had claimed on his Twitter profile to be a "lead at Culttture," but deleted that sometime after Jan. 9.
Alexander also still retains control over the Black Conservatives Fund, and the group regularly promoted Stop the Steal rallies to its more than 80,000 Facebook followers. One post ahead of the Jan. 6 riots read: "D.C. becomes FORT TRUMP starting today. Fight to #StopTheSteal with President Trump." It then listed rally locations, including at the Capitol building. That post disappeared from the Facebook page after an inquiry from CNBC.
That PAC's treasurer, Patrick Krason, also happens to be treasurer for Stop the Steal PAC — the group that initially registered in November with Bostic as designated agent. During the two months prior to the riot, Bostic, who also listed himself as the media contact for Stop the Steal, helped organize rallies and sometimes addressed crowds briefly himself.
On Jan. 6, Bostic was in Washington with Alexander. The two can be clearly identified in video clips climbing the Capitol steps with Alex Jones. After the violence, Bostic tweeted, "This could've all been avoided if we were shown signatures and allowed to audit our elections. You cannot expect elections to be conducted in secret without repercussions. I do not in any way endorse violence, but path has been traversed time and time again throughout history."
Two days after the attack, Bostic's name was removed from the Stop the Steal PAC's statement of organization. Bostic told Salon that "some answers are too long for Twitter," adding that "you have slandered me, my friends, all to meet your monthly ad revenue quota."
Salon then asked Krason, the PAC's treasurer who manages compliance for a number of political committees, why Bostic was no longer a listed agent. Krason outlined a complex but somewhat plausible scenario in which he had to change bank accounts. Krason would not say what role, if any, Bostic had played in that well-timed change, and would not say whether Bostic had asked to remove his name, or why he had been listed as an agent to begin with.
After Alexander went into hiding, apparently concerned about the authorities, Bostic at first made his Twitter account private. He reopened it again this past Friday, having deleted all tweets prior to Jan. 5 (except for a New Year's Eve post), as well as a number of tweets from Jan. 6, the day of the riot, including one that called Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer "evil" for posting an image of a Stacey Abrams votive candle. Bostic has also removed two tweets that appeared to show live-streamed video which he had captioned "Storming the Capitol." Those tweets are archived here and here, but the media files appear inaccessible. He did, however post that the chants of "Stop the Steal" that day were "indescribable."
That refrain, believe it or not, can be traced all the way back to the apparent ears beginning of Bostic and Alexander's relationship. One of the first tweets from the "Daniel's Lover" fan account is a retweet of an uncannily prescient post from Curtis Bostic, Daniel's dad, whose underdog campaign had just hired Akbar, perhaps unofficially.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin
10:47 AM · Jan 22, 2013·Twitter for iPhone
Alexander could not immediately be reached for comment.
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https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/stop-steal-organizer-ali-alexander-still-making-money-using-online
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mma
Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander’s pre-January 6 calls for violence: “We've got to punch the left in the nose.” “You must fight. … They will kill us.”
01/15/21 11:22 AM EST
==
ginni ali hubs?
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/how-ginni-thomas-and-the-shadowy-council-of-national-policy-advanced-a-disinformation-campaign/
before Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol building on Jan. 6, Virginia “Ginni” Thomas took to Facebook in the early morning hours that Wednesday; there she urged people to tune into the so-called Stop the Steal rally held on the grounds of the White House. “LOVE MAGA people!!!!” she posted, adding minutes later, “GOD BLESS EACH OF YOU STANDING UP or PRAYING.”
Though her affinity for caps-lock commentary may suggest otherwise, Ginni Thomas is an influential right-wing activist respected in conservative politics. The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, she has made her own mark on the Republican Party with lofty positions at Turning Point USA, the Heritage Foundation, The Daily Caller, and the Council for National Policy,a highly secretive organization whose members include some of the most powerful conservatives and right-wing players in the country.
Respected though she may be in conservative circles, Ginni Thomas’ connection to extremists is nothing new. In 2010, she led Liberty Central, a think tank she founded to appeal to Tea Party supporters and to serve as the connective tissue between “Tea Party groups and the new citizen activists,” as she claimed in a 2010 interview. That group’s sponsors included the Gun Owners of America—a radical alternative to the NRA—and its gun-rights extremist leader Larry Pratt, who addressed white supremacists at a 1992 gathering in Colorado and appeared to call for war against the U.S. government in 2010. The far-right Catholic group Tradition, Family and Property, known for being virulently anti-LGBTQ, anti-woman, and anti-democratic, was also linked to Ginni Thomas’ think tank from its inception.
Ginni Thomas’ zeal for the Stop the Steal campaign and its followers, a mob of whom would later storm the Capitol in an act of domestic terrorism, is notable in and of itself—her husband sits on the highest court, after all—but it’s also disconcerting for another reason: She is the latest in a string of Council for National Policy members—and an authoritative voice at that—who has supported the Stop the Steal movement.'[twt]
since the inception of this latest incarnation of the Stop the Steal campaign on Nov. 4 by lead organizer Ali Alexander, who himself was a member as recently as 2017, according to membership rolls obtained by the watchdog group Documented, it has received support from CNP members. In fact, the tacit support of key CNP members for challenging the 2020 presidential election results may have been the impetus for Alexander’s decision to begin the campaign to overturn the results of the presidential election by peddling disinformation.
Formed during the Reagan administration, CNP holds closed-door meetings and instructs members to not discuss the council’s work or its membership, though, over the years, membership rolls have been leaked to the press. Those rolls have shown the organization to be home to a couple hundredmarquee names in the conservative movement, Christian right, and right-wing fringe: Current members include Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch and Tony Perkins of the religious-right Family Research Council; former members include Trump’s former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
The CNP has a close relationship with the Trump White House—so much so, that at the superspreader Rose Garden event to celebrate the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, “there were more Council for National Policy members present there than there were members of the White House staff and members of Congress combined,” said Anne Nelson, author of the “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,” a book about the CNP. And on the eve of the Republican National Convention, Trump gave a big speech to the Council for National Policy, calling it as his “flagship address,” a rare public event for the council, Nelson said.
Nelson describes the CNP’s main role as providing “coordination, rather than direction” to its members, which include executives of such right-wing outlets the Salem Media Group and The Daily Caller. Ginni Thomas, Nelson points out, is on the board of governors of CNP Action, the lobbying arm of the secretive organization. In May 2019, Thomas and Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell provided an update on the Conservative Action Project, CNP’s 501(c)(4) arm that holds weekly meetings, and laid out their strategy for the coming year with a slide presentation to CNP members, which included messaging about building a robust infrastructure on the right and protecting Trump.
In the days leading up to the Jan. 6 mayhem, and on the day itself, the connection between CNP and Stop the Steal—and the campaign’s influence on the White House—became more apparent.
On Dec. 30, Right Wing Watch posted a report about a letter sent by the Conservative Action Project to Senate Republicans urging them to “contest the electoral votes” from “Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona”—the battleground states Biden won. That letter may have not mentioned Stop the Steal by name, but it asked senators to do exactly what Stop the Steal was demanding of Republican members of Congress: to reject electoral votes in favor of Biden.
Those signees included Cleta Mitchell, Trump’s lawyer (who was on the infamous phone call when Trump asked that Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes”); Tom Fitton, an CNP executive committee member whose Judicial Watch group constantly spouts voter fraud conspiracy theories; Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots and columnist for The Washington Times; Tony Perkins, former CNP president and leader of the Family Research Council; Kenneth Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state and member of CNP Action’s board of directors; and William L. Walton, current CNP president. All were revealed as CNP members in a leak of CNP’s September 2020 membership directory.
A Dec. 10 letter posted on the Conservative Action Project website, reported by Alex Kotch at Exposed by CMD, asked state legislatures in battleground states to “exercise their plenary power under the Constitution and appoint clean slates of electors to the Electoral College to support President Trump,” and that the House and Senate only recognize the electors of those states that do so. Again, this was the same demand state legislators and Congress members were hearing from Stop the Steal activists. Kotch reports that the letter links to a document that, according to metadata embedded in the file, was created by none other than Cleta Mitchell, calling for a “constitutional remedy” to reject votes for Biden. The signatories included some of the same names that appeared on the Dec. 30 letter, in addition to Ed Martin, a leading Stop the Steal organizer and CNP member whom Alexander has thanked for his “mentorship” in organizing the Stop the Steal campaign.
Two days before the Jan. 6 rally, CNP member Charlie Kirk, who leads the youth-oriented group Turning Point USA, shared a video from Women for America First’s Kylie Jane Kremer advertising the rally and told his followers that his organizations, TPUSA and Students for Trump, had funded more than 80 buses to attend the rally. “The historic event will likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history,” Kirk wrote. “The team at @TrumpStudents & Turning Point Action are honored to help make this happen, sending 80+ buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president,” he said in the since deleted tweet, uncovered by Daily Dot. Kirk’s Students for Trump co-chair is Ryan Fournier, a Stop the Steal organizer who spoke at the Jan. 5 rally on the same stage where speakers advocated rebellion.
While a viral claim that Ginni Thomas funded the buses herself appears to be false, Ginni Thomas has been linked to the group in the recent past, serving on Turning Point USA’s advisory council in 2019, along with fellow CNP members Foster Friess, Adam Brandon, and former Ohio congressman Bob McEwen.
On Jan. 5, speakers took to Freedom Plaza for a Stop the Steal rally designed to prime attendees for the big day. Among the speakers was Peter Navarro, a fringe right-wing economist who spoke at the May 2019 CNP meeting. and who serves as an assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. On the stage at Freedom Plaza, Navarro peddled voter fraud conspiracy theories and urged activists to stay angry, declaring to the assembled crowd, “We will take this back.”
On Jan. 6, Ginni Thomas told her Facebook followers to watch the event convened by groups working in concert with the Stop the Steal campaign, dubbed the “Save America Rally,” on the right-wing Right Side Broadcasting, one of the few networks to cover the gathering. The massive rally, at which Trump would incite his supporters to bring their wrath to the Capitol, was led by the groups March for Trump and the Kremers’ Women for America First.
Amy Kremer, who was listed as a member in a 2014 CNP membership directory obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center, was among the first speakers. Jenny Beth Martin, the CNP executive committee secretary whom Trump thanked in his speech to CNP this summer, was another. She brought with her Simone Gold, who is now sought by the FBI after she appeared to be part of the crowd that stormed the Capitol following her speech on the main stage, as seen on social media.
After the Capitol insurrection, Ginni Thomas either deactivated or deleted her Facebook account, likely unhappy that reporters noted her enthusiasm for a movement what would launch a riot. Josh Hawley, one of the senators who led the charge to contest electors’ votes in the Senate, charged ahead even as other lawmakers backed off in light of the violent consequences wrought by the disinformation campaign designed to delegitimize the outcome of the presidential election. “Shadow Network” author Nelson noted that, throughout his career, Hawley was groomed by CNP affiliates.
[pix
Ali Alexander and other “Stop the Steal” activists at Dec. 15, 2020 press conference (Image from NTD livestream posted on Epoch Times YouTube channel.)
The Stop the Steal disinformation campaign wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without CNP support. When on Nov. 4, Ali Alexander floated the idea of rebooting the Stop the Steal campaign, which in its prior iteration was focused on the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections, baselessly claiming that the election had been stolen from Trump, he called on key CNP members including Tom Fitton, Amy Kremer, Ed Martin, and Charlie Kirk.
“Because Ali Alexander is a fairly veteran operative, he managed to get a lot of people on board very quickly,” ?said Stephanie Lamy, a French information warfare researcher with the advocacy group Danaides. “Although he was a fairly marginal actor, he managed to have a big reach because he knew which people to rely on. And that was a lot of the CNP.”
Once he began to be successful, Lamy said, the White House seemed to have taken note.
Right Wing Watch reported about CNP members’ connection to Stop the Steal on Nov. 13—the same day Vice President Mike Pence was set to address CNP attendees in Virginia. CNP convened that meeting, Nov. 12-14, “to strategize on how to challenge the election results,” according to Exposed by CMD reporter David Armiak. At the meeting, a panel dedicated to the election results and the ensuing legal battles featured Cleta Mitchell, J. Christian Adams, a known voter suppressor who leads the Public Interest Legal Foundation, and the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, a leading proponent of the voter fraud myth.
The following day, Stop the Steal organizers held the first of three major rallies in Washington, D.C., with speakers peddling disinformation and violent rhetoric on the main stage—a day that ended in violent skirmishes between Proud Boys and counterprotesters, foreshadowing the violence to come.
“Most people don’t realize that disinformation has an aim, and that aim is to have real life impact. So what we saw with Stop the Steal, it had a real-life impact as of the 6th of November [the date of one of the first Stop the Steal rallies], and it kind of culminated with these terrorist threats and a breach of the Capitol,” said Lamy, the French disinformation researcher. “And it’s still ongoing,” she continued. “The CNP hasn’t finished manipulating anger and personal grievances.”
Tags: Ali Akbar Ali Alexander Amy Kremer Charlie Kirk Clarence Thomas Cleta Mitchell Ed Martin Ginni Thomas Hans von Spakovsky J Christian Adams Jenny Beth Martin Kellyanne Conway Ken Blackwell Kylie Jane Kremer Peter Navarro Ryan Fournier Steve Bannon Tom Fitton Tony Perkins William Walton Capitol Insurrection Disinformation Stop the Steal Council for National Policy Gun Owners of America tea party Women for America First
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/capitol-riot-2649927261/
no lnx twt
https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/capitol-riot-2649927261/
These Republican representatives are accused of helping to plan January 6 insurrection
U.S. Congressman Paul Gosar speaking with supporters at the 2018 election eve rally hosted by the Arizona Republican Party at the Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott, Arizona, photo via Gage Skidmore.
Mark Sumner and Daily Kos January 13, 2021
It's obvious that many Republicans—including Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz in the Senate, and dozens in the House, including minority leader Kevin McCarthy—actively inflamed Donald Trump's white supremacist mob and encouraged their deadly assault on the Capitol. However, it now seems that some Republicans in Congress may have done more than knowingly fan the flames. In the days since the rotunda was cleared of debris and the halls were cleaned of the literal human excrement smeared there by Trump's biggest fans, information has appeared that indicates some Republicans may have actively been involved in planning or carrying out the assault.
On Tuesday evening, Democratic Rep. Mikie Sherrill conducted a Facebook live session for her constituents during which explained her support resulting in calling on Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment. During that webcast, Sherrill made an astounding accusation. She claimed to have witnessed Republican members of Congress leading Trump supporters on, not a tour, but a "reconnaissance" of the Capitol. "We can't have a democracy," said Sherrill, "if members of Congress are actively helping the president overturn the elections results."
As reported by USA Today's northerjersey.com, Sherrill's accusation was as astounding as it was direct.
“Not only do I intend to see that the president is removed and never runs for office again and doesn't have access to classified material, I also intend to see that those members of Congress who abetted him; those members of Congress who had groups coming through the Capitol that I saw on Jan. 5—a reconnaissance for the next day; those members of Congress that incited this violent crowd; those members of Congress that attempted to help our president undermine our democracy; I'm going to see they are held accountable, and if necessary, ensure that they don't serve in Congress."
Sherrill has not so far detailed what she means by this reconnaissance, or given names of Republicans who were involved. However, it's become increasingly clear in the days since the insurrection that the situation at the Capitol was much more dire than was originally reported.
The accusations of involvement by Republican members of Congress aren't just coming from Democrats, they're coming from those who were involved in the assault.
As The Washington Post reports, Ali Alexander, the right-wing activist who formed the "Stop the Steal" movement, did so with the help of three Republican members of Congress: Andy Biggs, Mo Brooks, and Paul Gosar. "We four schemed up of putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting," said Alexander. Biggs' staff has denied any contact with Alexander—but the involvement of all three Republicans is certainly worthy of investigation.
Completely disowning Alexander's claims could be difficult. He and Gosar appeared together at a "Stop the Steal" rally in Phoenix on December 19. At that same rally, Alexander played a recorded message from Biggs, who he described as a "friend." In both the live and recorded messages, Gosar and Biggs singled out January 6 for action.
Gosar would go on to promote other "Stop the Steal" events more than a dozen times, as well as pumping out tweets and emails promoting the January 6 gathering in D.C. Typical of Gosar's statements was an op-ed on the site Revolver, Gosar called simply counting the legal electoral vote a "Third World coup d'etat." According to Gosar, Biden's win involved "statistically impossible" spikes in the voting and "We will not tolerate this." Far from distancing himself from Alexander's group, Gosar claimed ownership. "As many of you know, I helped organize the very first 'Stop the Steal' rally," he wrote. "… Patriotic warriors joined together to gather evidence and tell the Left we will not accept a coup and a usurper in the White House."
All three Republicans continued to be involved in "Stop the Steal." As The New York Times reports, In the hours immediately before the assault on the Capitol, Brooks addressed the "Stop the Steal" rally in D.C. "Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass," said Brooks. "Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? Louder! Will you fight for America?"
Gosar, Biggs, and Brooks are far from the only Republicans connected to Alexander's group, or the only ones who both inflamed Trump supporters through lies about the election and demands to attend the January 6 event.
On December 30, Alexander tweeted what would happen if Congress voted to approve the count of the Electoral College vote. "If they do this, everyone can guess what me and 500,000 others will do to that building. 1776 is always an option." The use of "1776" appeared in a number of statements from hard-line Trump representatives right up to the insurrection. Both Q-supporting Reps Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert directly called the insurrection an "1776 moment."
On Tuesday evening, The Washington Post reports that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she feared some of her Republican colleagues would not only open the doors to rioters, but direct them straight to her. "I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die," she said. "I did not know if I was going to make it to the end of that day alive." According to Ocasio-Cortez, she can't go into specifics because of security concerns. But it's clear there were very good reasons to be concerned. And it's clear that multiple Republicans in both the House and Senate did more than enough to justify removing them from the halls of Congress. In fact, several of them may well deserve a new office—in very small room surrounded by bars.
Wednesday, Jan 13, 2021 · 9:27:10 AM Eastern Standard Time · Mark Sumner
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called himself one of 12 orig organiz of insurrection, after in hiding w/ 2k$/day bodyguard saying god told him to wear orange; witches and wicca hunt him
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// bannon and freedom cocks going ~ gop est'b?
livestream so basically a TV station?
[ali Alexander and other "Stop the Steal" activists at Dec. 15, 2020 press conference (Image from NTD livestream posted on Epoch Times YouTube channel.)
Right-wing activists who falsely insist that President Donald Trump won reelection held a press conference Tuesday to talk about their path forward after Electoral College votes cast in every state Monday formally affirmed Joe Biden’s presidential win. The activists threatened to unseat congressional Republicans who do not go along with their demands to object to certification of Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.
“Stop the Steal” organizers Ali Alexander and Ed Martin were joined by Arizona state Sen. Anthony Kern, political strategist Alexander Bruesewitz (who is also working with the Stop the Steal campaign), and two Republican electors from Michigan who unsuccessfully attempted to crash the official count at their state capitol on Monday.
“Trump did win this election,” said Kern, claiming that it is being “stolen from the American people.” He said that if Republican members of Congress do their jobs, Trump will serve for another four years.
“We are being gaslit,” Alexander said. “This is a psychological operation on the American people, and patriots are standing up to say, ‘Enough of this.’”
“The constitutional process has not been exhausted,” said Alexander, who had previously announced that Rep. Mo Brooks, R-AL, would object to House certification of the Electoral College vote in January. On Tuesday, he said six other members of the House had agreed to join Brooks and that Stop the Steal activists are pressuring the 126 House Republicans who supported the Texas attorney general’s failed lawsuit to join the effort to disrupt the certification.
Alexander has previously threatened that pro-Trump activists would “burn it all down” if the Republican Party fails to stand with Trump in his effort to stay in power. That threat was a major theme of Tuesday’s press conference. Speakers slammed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for referring to Joe Biden as the president-elect and for reportedly urging Republican senators not to support the effort to challenge the election outcome.
Brusewitz, identified as CEO of X Strategies, called McConnell’s remarks a “disgrace” and was blunt about plans to go after Senate Republicans who fail to stand with Trump until the bitter end. He claimed to have spoken with “many billionaires” who he said are willing to fund primary challenges in 2022. He warned McConnell—who Republican incumbents will be relying on for campaign cash—that the 2022 primary season would be “very expensive.”
“We are going to primary everyone who has said anything awful about exercising our constitutional options,” Alexander said. And he said grassroots pro-Trump activists will “take on” the Republican National Committee by seeking to replace party officials, beginning with upcoming state conventions.
Martin, who also heads the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, warned that the GOP would ignore the grassroots at its own peril, a remark seconded by one of the Michigan activists, who declared, “This is Trump’s party.”
In response to a reporter’s question about whether Trump had been undermined by members of his own team, Alexander said that one day a book will be written about the betrayals of Trump from within the White House and the RNC.
Alexander, who combined forces with right-wing religious leaders and activists to host last Saturday’s pro-Trump “prayer rally” on the National Mall, declared that Stop the Steal is “a spiritual movement.”
“Our hope is in Christ. Our hope is in God. And our hope is in the founding documents, the Constitution that we must continue to exhaust,” he said.
Tags: Alex Bruesewitz Ali Alexander Anthony Kern Ed Martin Christian Nation Disinformation Election 2020 Republican Party Stop the Steal Phyllis Schlafly Eagles
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/stop-the-steal-activists-demand-congressional-republicans-give-election-to-trump-threaten-retaliation-if-they-dont/
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rww
...That’s the environment in which the Proud Boys took the streets of Washington Saturday. By night’s end, the founder of Stop the Steal, Ali Alexander, was applauding the hate group, claiming, “Brave patriots defended the helpless last night. Thank you. Dinner’s on me. Proud of my dudes.”
Tags: Alex Jones Ali Alexander
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/million-maga-march-draws-thousands-in-gathering-of-%e2%80%8bpro-trump-conspiracy-theorists/
someone had determined that the man wearing all black with a red bandana around his mouth was “antifa.” Pro-Trump supporters swarmed the man, who put his hands in the air and refused to budge, ?even as a large man wearing a camo hat but no mask began yelling for him to leave?, his finger pointing in the bandana-wearer’s face. ?A man in the crowd shouted repeatedly, “You’re destroying America!” while a Trump supporter chased off a member of the press who tried to tape the incident.
The confrontation outside of the Supreme Court Saturday erupted out of thin air; just minutes before, the crowd seemed slightly tired, ready for lunch and a nap. This scene ended with the alleged anti-fascist demonstrator leaving the scene with the help of police, followed down the street by Trump supporters carrying flags ?emblazoned with the name of their hero, chanting “U?-S?-A!” But later that evening, ?real brawls would break out between counterprotesters and the Proud Boys hate group?—whose members President Donald Trump famously told to “stand by” during his Sept. 30 debate with now President-elect Joe Biden. Police reported 21 people were arrested, and one man who was stabbed in the back was taken to the hospital. [3x/ gay? kpfa interview]
Going by “Million MAGA March,” “Stop the Steal,” and “March for Trump,” the ?Nov. 14 rally-march event was portrayed by GOP political operative Ali Alexander as an organic uprising of Americans who believe the presidential election was “stolen” from President Donald Trump. In reality, it was an astroturfed campaign pulled together by Alexander, who has ties to Roger Stone and Steve Bannon, to push a false narrative of voter fraud and cast doubt on integrity of the election.
On display Saturday was how much the right—and Republican Party under Trump?—has embraced ?what in the past would have been considered its most fringe elements?. In addition to the far-right street fighting Proud Boys, gathered in the nation’s capital were members of the QAnon conspiracy?-theory movement, white nationalists, and militia groups?, brought together by their common reverence of Trump.
Trump repaid them ?in the morning by driving past the rally in his motorcade on his way to play golf, waving from his limousine window at the throngs of MAGA-hat wearing supporters. By noon, the official start time of the rally, Freedom Plaza, which sits just east of the White House, was packed with thousands of supporters?, their flags waving high in the sky?. The banners featured such slogans as “All aboard the Trump train,” “Trump 2020,” “Blue Lives Matter?;” and images of Trump as an action hero?, his head superimposed on the body of the then-buff Sylvester Stallone in Rambo mode.
As he walked into the plaza, a man wearing an InfoWars T-shirt unfurled his Trump-Pence flag. ?(Alex Jones, the leader of the conspiracy-theory outlet, had led a caravan from Austin, Texas, to the nation’s capital, picking up followers along the way.) Another man attached his “I See Dead People Voting,” sign to his backpack; the sign was in reference to a conspiracy theory pushed by Alexander’s “Stop the Steal” campaign ?positing that the identities of dead people were used to vote in the election. Epoch News, a leading purveyor of right-wing disinformation that has peddled the QAnon conspiracy theory, handed out free newspapers that explained why they wouldn’t call the race for Biden even though every major news outlet has.
With one visible loudspeaker and a stage that wasn’t high enough off the ground, most speakers couldn’t be heard or seen, unless one wanted to shove their way past maskless rallygoers to make it close to the stage. As a result, the main event took a backseat at times to the general commotion, of which there was plenty.
Competing for attention was Nick Fuentes’ America First group, ?a youth-focused white-nationalist outfit whose members refer to themselves as “groypers?.” Fuentes stood on an elevated area of the plaza ?with his followers, waving America First flags ?leading ?rally-goers in a? chant of “Fox News sucks!”? Contempt for Fox News has become a primary fixture of the Stop the Steal campaign, having fallen out of favor among right-wing audiences for ?being the first major news outlet to call Arizona for Joe Biden.
When they tired of the Fox News chant, the group then began chanting, “Nick,? Nick, Nick,” prompting Fuentes to take the ?bullhorn. ?But by the time Fuentes stepped up to address his acolytes, the next speaker on the main stage drowned him out. His speech still garnered cheers from the crowd before his followers launched into an “America First” chant. Fuentes took part in the 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist gathering, where a counterdemonstrator was murdered, and he has said that he had similar political complaints as those of the El Paso shooter, who published a white nationalist manifesto before he killed 22 people in a massacre at a Walmart[twt vid]
nick Fuentes’ white nationalist “groypers” commanded the crowds attention at Freedom Plaza with chants of “America First.” pic.twitter.com/KPXjENFHz3
— Kristen Doerer (@k2doe) November 14, 2020
Fuentes and his America First group were welcomed with open arms by Alexander, who tends to point out whenever someone is Jewish and has joined Fuentes on his podcast. Alexander eventually took ?the main stage and offered rally-goers a way Trump could stay in power.
“Next week, start lobbying the state legislatures of Pennsylvania, of Wisconsin, of Michigan, of Arizona, and of Georgia. We’re going to tell them to ignore the rigged elections and send Republican electors to the electoral college, or we’re going to deprive both candidates of 270?,”?Fuentes said, referring to the number of electoral votes a candidate needs to accumulate in order to win the presidency. ?”Then we’ll send it to the House of Representatives where Donald J. Trump will win,” he continued, adding, “Let’s terrify this town.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-supporting Republican from Georgia who will be walking the halls of Congress come January, closed out the rally at Freedom Plaza ?with a torrent of falsehoods, offering a sense of what kind of colleague she’ll be on Capitol Hill.
“This is only the beginning,” she said. “The Democrat Party is the party of socialism, the party of riots, the party that wants to murder babies up until birth and make taxpayers pay for it, they’re the party that wants to take away your guns.”
With that, the rally blasted the song “YMCA” unironically, and the march to the Supreme Court began.
***
[clothes code interesting blk yel polo] Dozens of members of the Proud Boys hate group march by the Capitol building on Nov. 14, 2020. The far-right fight club gathered in the nation’s capital for the “Million MAGA March.” (Photo: Kristen Doerer)]
?Running down Pennsylvania Avenue in an apparent effort to get to the front of the procession, Jack Posobiec, the far-right activist and One America News Network figure, slipped and fell in front of the Justice Department before getting up and continuing his quest. The night before, Posobiec had called for rally-goers to “Police the crowd,” claiming that “Anarchists wait to strike” and “know how to blend in.” ?Passing him by was a man wearing a Hawaiian?-style shirt?; its bright print featured both flowers and machine guns. The Hawaiian shirt has become the uniform of the Boogaloo movement, a militia-style movement whose members believe that a race war or civil war is ?inevitable, and see it as their charge to accelerate its commencement.
?Near the Dirksen Senate office building on Constitution Ave, dozens of Proud Boys in their signature black-and-yellow polos walked in the opposite direction of the crowd, making the “OK” hand gesture, which has become a symbol of white power, high in the air.
The Proud Boys are known to instigate fights and then claim self-defense, as they did in the melee that took place after a talk by the group’s founder Gavin McInnes at the Metropolitan Republican Club in New York City in 2018. ?That incident led to two Proud Boys members? being sentenced to four years in prison for kicking and punching protesters?.
The Oath Keepers militia group, whose leader Stewart Rhodes promised to place his armed men outside of the District borders should Trump call on them, were also in attendance, as were ?members of the Three Percenters militia group. ?(Across the border between D.C. and Virginia, the law allows for the open carrying of firearms, which is prohibited in the nation’s capital.)
?By the Capitol building, ?Trump supporters closed in around a counterprotester shouting at the Trump fans from his bike. A man ?employing a bullhorn tried to keep the peace: “Let him leave. Stop! We are not those types of people.”
A woman looked on. “Shit’s getting real. It’s about time!” she yelled.
In this strange gathering were also families and strollers, which may be one reason why—despite the confrontations and handful of scuffles—things did not turn more violent until the evening. The other may be that counterprotesters appeared to mostly give up any plans to ?gather at the rally site for a demonstration, so those looking for a fight had no one to turn on.
[A man wears a QAnon pin on his hat at the “Million MAGA March” by the Supreme Court on Nov. 14, 2020. (Photo: Kristen Doerer)
The far-right QAnon conspiracy theory also made a showing, with the QAnon slogan, “Where we go one, we go all,” abbreviated to “WWG1WGA,” on T-shirts, “Q” pins on hats, and posters about child-sex?-trafficking. One man wore a sweatshirt that read, “Investigate Pizzagate,” referring to the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory that preceded QAnon and ended with a gunman showing up to a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. Meanwhile, Alex Jones, who pushed that theory, was given the microphone on the same stage at which recent electeds Lauren Boebert and Madison Cawthorn, who both have dabbled in QAnon, would later speak.
After claiming that “globalists are making their move against us,” Jones led the crowd in a prayer. “We absolutely commit to you on your holy altar to never submit to Satan and these globalist pedophiles, and we will defeat their new world order. Amen!” he yelled before starting the crowd on a “U-S-A!” chant.
Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union, took the stage ?outside the Supreme Court?. His organization hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest gathering of conservatives in the world. “I want you to know your president loves you?,” he said, ?flaunting his access to the commander-in-chief. He then led the crowd in a chant of “We love Trump.” ?And by all appearances, indeed they do.
Tags: Alex Jones Ali Akbar Ali AlexanderDonald Trump Jack Posobiec Lauren Boebert Madison Cawthorn Marjorie Taylor Greene Matt Schlapp Nick Fuentes Roger Stone Steve Bannon Stewart Rhodes Disinformation groypers Million MAGA March QAnon Stop the Steal American Conservative Union InfoWars Oath Keepers Proud Boys Three Percenters
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/stop-the-steal/
The right-wing trolls behind the baseless "Stop the Steal" election fraud movement have launched a political action committee (PAC) to cash in on the false claim that the election was rigged against President Donald Trump, according to a filing posted this weekend on the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) website.
The organization, called Stop the Steal PAC, shows signs of being what campaign finance watchdogs know as a "scam PAC" — a for-profit fundraising vehicle that professes to support a cause but in reality ends up pocketing most of the money for its members, or shuffles it off to contracted firms.
Stop the Steal PAC's treasurer, Patrick Krason, and his wife Crystal are affiliated with a number of these small-time PACs. For instance, Krason also launched the Draft Sarah Huckabee Sanders for Arkansas PAC, but lives in West Virginia, had never visited Arkansas and had no connection to the former White House press secretary or her family.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sanders' father, warned prospective donors away from Krason in 2019.
"[Neither] Sarah nor anyone connected to her has ANYTHING to do with it," Huckabee told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "The person who launched it is unknown to everyone in Sarah's family, her political orbit, or her circle of friends."
Earlier this year a conservative watchdog group filed an FEC complaint against a Krason-led "social welfare" charity called the Stronger America Fund, alleging that he had unlawfully coordinated with a congressional campaign he was working on at the time.
Several of Krason's other PACs say they aim to legalize marijuana, and others — such as Make Virginia Great Again and MAGA Coalition — draw on familiar-sounding Trump-world phraseology. He also appears to have chiefly paid his own firms through campaigns, FEC filings show.
While Stop the Steal's FEC filing lists an address in Washington, D.C., it's only a drop box — Krason's actual office is in Charleston, West Virginia. The group's phone number is different from the one listed on Krason's own website, and directs calls to a Google subscriber mailbox after one ring.
Krason told Salon in a phone interview that while he had handled federal compliance for Stop the Steal, it was not his PAC, but would not disclose the client.
In addition to Krason, the PAC's registration with the FEC lists a man named Daniel Bostic as a designated agent.
Bostic's 54,000-follower verified Twitter profile says he is a former model and congressional staffer, a reference to his "full-time" work as a homeschooled South Carolina 17-year-old in the Washington office of then-Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C. (Scott is now a U.S. senator.) The 20-something activist also claims a producer credit on a recent documentary about the widely-mocked efforts of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to discredit the Russia investigation. Bostic is an active member of the Stop the Steal movement, which he heavily promotes on social media.
But Bostic is just one of a number of MAGA-world second-stringers who appear to see Stop the Steal as a way to ride the fantasy of a stolen election into a future of relevance, influence and income after Trump departs the White House.
While the movement's name may suggest a reaction to the 2020 election, its roots trace to the 2018 midterms — and specifically Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott's 2018 narrow victory over then-incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. That was when Roger Stone launched the group as a coda to the "Brooks Brothers riot" of 2000.
At the time, Stone had the help of a far-right operative and conspiracy theorist named Ali Alexander, an itinerant provocateur who signed on to recruit for the "Stop the Steal" campaign and appears to be the organizing force behind this year's post-Trump iteration.
Alexander's current approach echoes the eclectic appeal he envisioned in a Periscope video in 2018, as reported in Right Wing Watch, where he hoped to motivate not just Republicans, but QAnon followers, Democrats and "homeless people in all the adjacent counties" to keep an eye on the vote count.
But Alexander, formerly known as Ali Akbar, has a checkered history even by the loose standards of the alt-right movement, and today he does not have the full confidence of MAGA-world, some of whom suspect him of being a disingenuous grifter.
As Ali Akbar, he was convicted of theft and credit card fraud in 2007 and 2008. He entered national politics as a John McCain campaign staffer in 2007, when he was apparently reprimanded — ironically enough — for discussing opportunities to committing voter fraud during the Republican primary campaign. (Former McCain campaign officials contacted by Salon did not recall him, or the alleged incident.)
More recently, in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, a PAC affiliated with Alexander got a $60,000 injection from billionaire far-right financier Robert Mercer. The next year he popped up amid the Unite the Right controversy, and in 2018 tried to help kickstart a short-lived Trump-centric alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), called the American Priority Conference. He followed that up with an ill-fated joint troll operation in Minneapolis with right-wing personality Laura Loomer and indicted felon Jacob Wohl.
Today, Alexander is the organizing force behind Stop the Steal, which last weekend organized demonstrations in several U.S. cities to protest President Trump's defeat.The demonstrations served a dual role as promotional platforms for a hodgepodge of conservative and alt-right media personalities — e.g., Jack Posobiec, Mike Cernovich, Scott Presler and Amy Kremer — described in a Mother Jones profile of the event as "a collection of disgraced right-wing internet figures."
Their rhetoric and messaging has been amplified by Trump himself and his high-profile allies, who have repeatedly peddled baseless claims that Democrats have "stolen" the election, making unfounded allegations about "missing" military ballots, "illegal ballots" and chicanery in vote-counting sites in multiple key battleground states.
The Stop the Steal PAC was born on Saturday, the day of the scheduled protests. That also coincided with a change to the group's website, which appears to have removed its "donate" button after it was revealed that contributions went straight to Alexander's personal accounts, including his PayPal, CashApp and Amazon Wishlist.
Given the warring factions within TrumpWorld, Stop the Steal's future as a cohesive movement appears tenuous, especially without the bonding agent of Trump at the top of U.S. politics. Alexander's apparent cash grab has already begun to draw fire from inside the tent. While the movement may now have the imprimatur of an officially FEC-registered PAC, the name defines the mission, and there are two full years ahead with no steal to stop.
Bostic and Alexander did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-operative-ali-alexander-leads-stop-the-steal-campaign/
right-wing political operative Ali Alexander has brought back “Stop the Steal,” a campaign to get right-wing activists to discredit mail-in voting, disrupt vote-counting, and ?falsely accuse Democrats of stealing the presidential election—presumably because legally cast ballots are being counted in states that have yet to declare the winner of the 2020 presidential contest. (Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden appears to be prevailing among votes cast by mail-in ballots.)
The move comes after President Donald Trump declared a premature victory in the early morning hours Wednesday and accused Democrats of mass voter fraud, a false narrative he’s been pushing for months about mail-in voting. At a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Philadelphia, Trump’s legal team, including conspiracy theorist and Trump sycophant Rudy Giuliani, doubled down on those claims, as have right-wing activists. The race is still too close to call, but as more mail-in ballots have begun to be counted, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has taken the lead.
In a panicked Periscope broadcast Wednesday evening, Alexander said he was “busy organizing thousands and thousands and thousands of people” to join “voter integrity” rallies in Phoenix, Arizona, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Detroit, Michigan, Madison, Wisconsin, and Atlanta, Georgia, (and perhaps Nevada) to protest. Alexander said the first rally would feature “Pizzagate” booster Mike Cernovich at the capitol in Arizona at 7 p.m. Wednesday evening, claiming that they’d have hundreds there and 10,000 attendees there by Friday. A second rally took place Wednesday night in Las Vegas. Alexander encouraged viewers to go to a website where they could register with the campaign and explained how he hoped to draw attention to these rallies.
“We’re matching influencers with operatives, so every influencer will have an operative there also working with local media, capturing all the vehicles going in and out ‘dropping of ballots,’” Alexander said. “We’re gonna capture everything.”
“If you need a plane ticket, I’ll PayPal you money, because people have sent me money,” Alexander said, before clarifying, “We’re flying giant influencers. We’re flying those people who are offering to share their audiences.”
Earlier in the day, Ali had put out a call for right-wing political operatives to lead the campaign in a number of states where Trump and Biden are in tight races or where Biden has won by a slim margin.
He called on Scott Presler and far-right activist Jack Posobiec to join the effort in Pennsylvania; Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk and Cernovich in Arizona; Alex Bruesewitz in Wisconsin; and CJ Pearson and Daniel Bostic, a producer of “The Plot Against the President” in Georgia. He also called on Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, a right-wing legal outfit that doubles as a communications shop, to work the legal network and Amy Kremer of Women for Trump and Ed Martin of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles to work the campaign nationally. He also said that Ed Martin, Amy Kremer and Kyle Jane Kremer would be “running point” for a Washington, D.C. event 1 p.m. Thursday.
At Wednesday’s rally in Phoenix, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who has his own ties to far-right nationalists, introduced Cernovich to the assembled crowd waving Trump flags. Taking the megaphone, Cernovich claimed that 200 anti-fascist activists had planned to disrupt his rally, but he said they’d never show up because, “I’ll get sent to prison after kissing their asses—legally and lawfully under self-defense laws.”
Cernovich went on to attack Fox News. “Do you think Fox News is suppressing pro-Trump vote?” He asked the crowd. “Yes!” The crowd shouted back.
Alexander also lashed out at Fox News in his Periscope, saying the conservative, pro-Trump network’s coverage of the presidential election was why he launched the campaign. He asked his viewers to spend 15 to 20 minutes after his Periscope harassing Fox News reporters and producers.
“Fox News is about to call the election for Joe Biden. How does this happen? They called Arizona too early. … I think it’s going for Trump,” he said. “If they call Nevada for Biden, then they will accidentally be forced. You need to tweet the hell out of everyone at Fox News.”
In September, Alexander took to Periscope to float the idea of revamping “Stop the Steal” for the 2020 presidential election, Jared Holt reported for Right Wing Watch then. At that time, Alexander had said that the 2020 “Stop the Steal” campaign would bypass social media by collecting phone numbers from supporters.
The original “Stop the Steal” campaign was led by Alexander in 2018, along with convicted felon and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone, who Alexander said came up with the phrase, and his associates, including Posobiec. The campaign featured protests and misinformation against a ballot recount in Florida’s 2018 Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson. In that campaign, pro-Trump activists from around the country descended on Florida to protest and spread misinformation, a seeming reboot of the so-called “Brooks Brothers riot,” which broke out following Florida’s contested presidential election results in 2000. Stone was behind that riot, which shut down recount efforts in Miami-Dade.
For the 2018 “Stop the Steal” campaign, Alexander said that he had recruited QAnon followers as well as people experiencing homelessness to fill spots at the protest. Politico reported in 2016 that Alexander’s PAC had received a large donation from billionaire Robert Mercer; Ali claims to not be taking money from him for this campaign.
It appears the 2018 “Stop the Steal” campaign was an attempted dry run for the 2020 presidential election. On Twitter, Alexander claimed to have approached Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel about running the campaign and that she had mocked it. On Wednesday, Alexander lashed out at those around Trump and McDaniel, who he called “the dumbest woman in history.” He said that the RNC, McDaniel, and the Trump campaign were not doing the campaign. [twt forced errors in messaging and non-legal and non-protest actions coming out of the GOP right now is simply stunning. Trump may ruin his own efforts before they start. Why is no one around him doing this right?]
alexander claimed that his campaign of right-wing and far-right activists just want “a fair, predictive, determinative result” and that “This election is going to be conducted fairly where it produces a legitimate result that both sides can come together on.”
“I’m going to be here in Texas, just providing my friends with support,” Alexander said. “What I want to do is bring this country as much together as we can and have a certain outcome and ride off into the sunset.”
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gop-operative-says-hes-building-system-to-dispatch-protesters-where-ballots-are-counted/
republican political operative Ali Alexander, who previously went by the name ?Ali Akbar, is floating the possibility of revamping a 2018 effort to discredit mail-in and absentee voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
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2012
https://crooksandliars.com/matt-osborne/national-bloggers-club-and-their-supe
Ali Akbar, now President of the National Bloggers Club, is one of the conservative blogosphere's most infamous characters. He began his campaign of notoriety with a crime spree in 2006, blazing a six-year trail of fraud. That's him up there, in the mug shots. Akbar's story is as improbable as the Tea Party movement itself, and a lesson on the privileges of power in the age of Citizens United. How did a petty crook rise to these heights in such a short time? Why does he enjoy such influential connections today?
We ask these questions because we see an emerging bipartisan consensus that Akbar's National Bloggers Club (NBC) is entirely notional. Akbar has never applied to the IRS for 501(c)3 status -- despite having claimed as much on the NBC Facebook page. While the NBC requires an unusual amount of personal information from donors, they do not offer those donors an EIN (Employer ID Number) to make their contributions tax deductible.
An EIN is provided upon application for nonprofit status, and should be available if the National Bloggers Club has applied. It is an easy online process. Yet we have been unable to locate an EIN in any database, and inquiries by both liberal and conservative bloggers have been met with silence. When journalist Bill Schmalfeldt contacted the Internal Revenue Service, he was informed that no EIN existed in their database for a National Bloggers Club.
This would be less distressing if Akbar didn't have a long history of covering up his tracks and minimizing his criminal past. In 2006, he stole items from a woman's home; he later broke into a vehicle, stole a debit card, and withdrew money from the victim's account, earning a felony conviction. Yet this record did not keep Akbar out of Republican politics.
Barely a year later, Akbar was accused of discussing election fraud tactics. The accuser, Joey A. Dauben, was a former colleague. In coverage of the controversy, Akbar was frequently and mistakenly identified as a John McCain campaign staffer due to his involvement in Bloggers for McCain, a "cooperating" website independent from the campaign itself. Akbar also caught flak for “scrubbing the web” to cover the tracks of Michael Meissner, a former police chief who was charged with posing as a woman and soliciting photos of underaged boys.
In April 2008, Akbar pleaded guilty to the debit card fraud and was sentenced to four years probation and restitution of the stolen money. His probation ended in May of this year. In the meantime, Akbar has built quite a blog empire for himself -- and runs it from his mother's house.
By 2008 Akbar had linked up with Eric Odom's Don't Go movement. They likely met up when Akbar’s firm, Republic Modern, designed the old website of Sam Adams Alliance, for which Odom was the new media director. When Odom started American Liberty Alliance (ALA), a tea party website that was mainly in the business of monetizing other Tea Party sites with ads, he brought Akbar along with him. Starting off as ALA’s Technology Consultant, Akbar would eventually became Chairman of ALA's Board, spending much of his time collecting non-deductible donations.
Yes, despite claiming to be in the application process for 501(c) 4 status in August 2009, ALA eventually was embarrassed into posting the following caveat on their website (though not their donation page): “The American Liberty Alliance is not a 501c3, 501c4 or a PAC. We are not registered as a non-profit and we do not raise funds as such.” Yet they incorporated under the name “American Liberty Alliance - A Non-Profit Corporation.”
The most excoriating examination of the ALA came from Erick Erickson, who reported that ALA had eventually been rolled up into an Eric Odom PAC:
For a number of months I have had more than my share of phone calls from conservative donors, bloggers, activists, campaigns, and others wishing someone would speak out. Several tried pushing this story into the mainstream media, but we all know what would happen there ? we’d turn people into martyrs who shouldn’t be.
At best this conduct looks like ignorance of the complex bureaucracy and regulations surrounding the FEC. At its worst, it looks like . . . well, you decide. I’m sure even more will come out now that I’m willing to speak up and it does not look like a case of simple ignorance. If it were an isolated incident it’d be one thing, but it is a pattern.
Indeed, the pattern begins with a profitable deception. Although ALA was registered as a non-profit in Nevada, as far as we can determine they never actually applied for non-profit status with the IRS, despite always claiming they were "in the process" of doing so. The pattern repeats with NBC, which incorporated in Texas as a non-profit, and has collected donations as a non-profit, without ever applying for legal non-profit designation. (The NBC has scrubbed 501(c)3 language from its donations page at Rally.org.) Our attempts to reach the law firm listed as the NBC's registered agent have been rebuffed. (Update: the address appears to be a "virtual" office.)
These dubious credentials in the new Tea Party movement propelled Akbar into the upper echelons of conservative organizing, where he has apparently met Karl Rove. Yet Akbar seems to have done remarkably little real work during his ascension. Take the NBC's website, for example, which contains no content -- just a redirect to the group's Facebook page. There, you will find grassroots conservatives wondering how to join, and why the donation practices are so intrusive:
Like many of Akbar's websites, content doesn't seem to be key. For example, despite supposedly representing a robust movement, Akbar's Tea Party Brew.com has surprisingly few posts. Bill Murphy, now the Social Media Director for the Romney campaign, wrote the final post at that site in February. By then, he had been Akbar's venture partner since 2009.
Murphy (right) was Director of Strategic Initiatives for American Liberty Alliance, though the position does not appear on his LinkedIn resume. Murphy was also Akbar's partner in an organization called Vice & Victory, which put on the BlogBash party at CPAC in February. Akbar was listed as the Host Organizer and Murphy as the Event Coordinator. BlogBash’s director is usually identified as Devon Wills, but many of NBC’s announcements and press releases offer contact information for "Bill Murphy at director@blogbash.com." Yet the BlogBash website doesn't even mention the NBC, which supposedly organized the event.
When he appeared on the radio program of conservative Larry Sinclair in March, Murphy also identified himself as the Director of the NBC -- though that position also does not appear on his resume. Whenever he has been asked about such omissions, Murphy has responded by further scrubbing his LinkedIn profile. Sinclair now calls foul on Akbar and Murphy's notional blogging club for using Andrew Breitbart's name to raise money for a scholarship fund -- again, while claiming 501(3)c status was "pending:"
In March 2012 we received an email which came from Bill Murphy and Ali Akbar from BlogBash.org and Vice and Victory email addresses announcing the creation of an Andrew Breitbart Scholarship Fund. After receiving the email and because of our own personal encounters with Andrew Sinclair News decided we would do a feature story on the Scholarship fund. In preparing the story we sent an email to Joel Pollak who was the primary Breitbart.com principle since the untimely death of Andrew early the morning of March 1, 2012. In the email to Mr. Pollak we asked if Pollak would be interested in going on Through the Mirror w/Larry Sinclair to talk about the recently established Breitbart Scholarship Fund. Pollak responded almost immediately by telling us he knew nothing of any such fund; that anyone using Andrews name along with any such fund was doing so without authorization and Pollak even went to the point of saying that any such organization was in his opinion a scam.(Emphasis added)
Aside from Michelle Malkin, nobody knows who is on the board of the NBC, or how they were selected. NBC won't even say whether they have any bylaws, and has never applied for non-profit status. If the NBC was an ACORN office, Malkin would denounce it as a criminal organization. Instead, she is Akbar's public ally and defender.
These inconsistencies had already drawn criticism from conservatives when we began reporting on them. First was Paul Lemmen, a convicted con artist working out his redemption in his blog, "An Ex Con's View." As the details of Akbar's criminal record appeared on the website Breitbart Unmasked in May and June, Lemmen expressed disdain for the fact that "the other side" had been the one to reveal Akbar's criminal past. Citing the NBC's disturbing lack of transparency and its behavior with donors, Lemmen called for transparency and accountability.
As a result of his outspoken blogging, Lemmen received the close attention of NBC "enforcer" and Andrew Breitbart protege Lee Stranahan amid a series of attack posts by other bloggers. Lemmen fell silent for a while, reemerging later to write on more general topics. Today, he is a member of North American Conservative Bloggers United (NACBU), a new association of conservative indie bloggers opposed to the NBC and its opaque operations. In supporting Lemmen, David West called out Akbar for elitism:
See, Ali Akbar was the ‘technical guru’ for a while behind the Don’t Go Movement which I was a part of as Northwest Regional Coordinator. I, however, was ignored back then by Mr Ackbar. When he formed the NBC, I was ignored as well.
The NBC billed itself in part as an organization that could give bloggers desperately-needed press credentials. Those who have received credentials are unable to activate them as instructed. The NBC does not explain how to receive a credential, or even describe any standards for applicants. NACBU organizer "Impolite Canadian" just wanted to webcast an event; after being rebuffed in all attempts to learn more about how to obtain the privileges of membership, the pseudonymous blogger concluded that NBC was simply a club of Akbar's friends:
It's like they all of a sudden became part of the ''elites'', encouraging and defending the ''mastermind'', but when asked how does one join this ''elite'' club, you get the ''I dunno man, it just happened, u know?''.
There are only 340 "likes" on the NBC Facebook page at the time of this writing -- far fewer than one would expect for a popular netroots organization. Ladd Ehlinger, Jr., aka FilmLadd, questioned whether the NBC was even a real organization:
Screw Ali's political connections. You love him? Want to blacklist me? Be my guest. Won't be the first time that's happened. Been happening for two years now anyway. It's the sort of thing I think Ali likes to do to people who get crosswise with him - trash them, prevent them from getting work, and so on. I could regale you with first-hand stories I've heard, but this post is already too goddamn long.
Akbar did not prevent Ladd from getting work. In fact, Ehlinger received a plum new gig from Washington lobbyist Dan Backer of DB Capitol Strategies. He serves as Treasurer for many well-known PACs, including the Conservative Action Fund, which has already given Akbar's "Vice & Victory Fund" over $44,000 in 2012. Backer is also Treasurer for Stop This Insanity Inc PAC, which recently signed Ehlinger to a complex $10,000 contract. Ehlinger hasn't spoken out on the subject of Ali Akbar ever since. (CORRECTION: see below)
Backer (right) is the attorney who created "hybrid Super PACs" through his Carey v. FEC lawsuit in 2011. As part of his contract, Ehlinger agreed to be classified as an employee and then kick back $1,500 to Stop This Insanity Inc PAC, creating an opportunity to challenge federal limits on employee PAC contributions. Backer also wants to lift limits on contributions to federal candidates. True freedom, Backer argues, is American billionaires donating more hard political money every year than an average American family makes.
Dan Backer's other PAC products include Todd Cefaratti, who became infamous for fleecing PAC donors and using his for-profit JoinTheTeaParty.us website as a lead generator for spam. Cefaratti was found out by activists at Free Republic, who quickly discovered that his real estate sales lead business was named Glengary Inc. Despite grassroots revulsion at this character from a David Mamet play, Cefaratti spoke at CPAC in February. He and his Glengary LLC are also party to Dan Backer's FEC suit with Ehlinger. Stop This Insanity Inc. runs another one of Cefaratti's websites, TheTeaParty.net.
The "made men" of the Inner Party are never held accountable. Their revolution has been monetized: shirts, buttons, email addresses, and page views turn dedicated activists into revenue streams for "producers." Meanwhile, these same "producers" also get paid by billionaires and PAC lawyers who benefit from stoking the grassroots fires on behalf of their corporate agenda. It's a great job if you can get it. No wonder Akbar likes to throw big, exclusive parties at CPAC and the Republican National Convention.
In order to make the BlogBash party an instant institution this year, Akbar and Murphy took money from a host of the usual suspects in astroturf politics, including Americans For Prosperity, FreedomWorks, and the vote-suppressing True The Vote organization. Billionaire and megadonor Foster Friess also helped throw Akbar's party at CPAC, then cracked a terrible joke about aspirin as a form of birth control: "You know, back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Friess has vowed to spend a large chunk of his fortune through Karl Rove's American Crossroads this year.
We believe the National Bloggers Club encapsulates a problem common to Tea Party organizing since February 2009. As with Mark Meckler, the multilevel marketing billionaire who organized Tea Party Patriots, we see a disturbing pattern of grift in the National Bloggers Club. Sincere Americans have been organized to prevent corporate regulation and billionaire tax hikes; the organizers fleece them while also accepting money from representatives of these same corporations and billionaires.
This charade may be close to an end, however. Larry Sinclair has presented the National Bloggers Club with a demand they publish the following:
The names of every National Bloggers Club Board member including the date each became associated with the NBC
A complete financial report showing the amounts of all monies paid to in contributions; services; or sponsorships made to NBC or BlogBash.
A Complete financial reporting of all funds paid out by NBC or BlogBash including the names of those receiving said payments and the reasons for each.
A complete financial accounting of all funds paid out by NBC/Blogbash including an accounting of what the payments were for and if they were made for the personal benefit of Ali Akbar or any other member of the NBC Board.
A complete accounting of all contributions made to the Breitbart Scholarship Fund as well as an accounting of all disbursements of said funds as well as the name of the financial institution(s) where contributions are on deposit.
A statement as to Bill Murphy’s position with NBC and BlogBash; whether Murphy has been involved in any NBC/BlogBash activities and or promotions since becoming Mitt Romney for President Social Media Director?
The IRS 501(c)(3) documents confirming the below stated claim by NBC:
"National Bloggers Club is a new 501(c)(3) founded by top new media operatives, bloggers and journalists as a loose association of bloggers who are for free enterprise and limited government and to advocate on bloggers behalf."
In the spirit of nonpartisan opposition to criminal misbehavior and opaque political activity, we join these conservative voices in calling for accountability. Akbar has been dishonest about his criminal record. His organization has been dishonest about its non-profit status. The NBC did not ask Breitbart's family before asking for donations in his name. Their associations with powerful figures in the world of campaign finance have not been able to fully silence grassroots opposition to their questionable practices:
These aren’t unfair questions. They are very simple, basic questions spoken without malice or any agenda save that of telling the truth. And has already been noted, the truth has no agenda. It’s just the truth.
Conservative bloggers are asking for simple transparency -- and being refused. Liberal bloggers meet only scorn and harassment for asking the same legitimate questions. We believe it is time for "real" journalists to consider this information, as no mere blogger of any political persuasion will ever glean answers from the National Bloggers Club or their Super PAC friends. They are apparently a law unto themselves.
CORRECTION: Advised via Twitter that Ladd Ehlinger had recently denounced Ali Akbar on Twitter, we include the following items for your consideration:
Tags:
Ali Akbar, American Liberty Alliance, Andrew Breitbart Scholarship Fund, astroturfing, Bill Schmalfeldt, BlogBash, Dan Backer, Glengary Inc., Karl Rove, Ladd Ehlinger, Lee Stranahan, Michelle Malkin, National Bloggers Club, Paul Lemmen, Tea Party movement, Todd Cefaratti, Vice & Victory Fund
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https://observer.com/2018/10/robert-mercer-bankrolled-pac-ali-alexander/
Billionaire Robert Mercer gave money to a PAC advised by a self-proclaimed “interpreter of energy.”
The spiritualist in question is Ali Alexander, formerly known as Ali Akbar, a GOP political operative with a notorious reputation that allegedly includes fraud.
“On the eve of the 2016 election, Robert Mercer donated $60,000 to a PAC Alexander advises,” reported Politico on Monday. “Alexander, who identifies himself as black and Arab, brings a more new-age approach to the culture wars, calling himself an ‘interpreter of energy for this period.’”
Alexander is one of the many New Right media celebrities orbiting Trumpland who built a brand through livestreaming musings on political warfare. Like many New Right figures, he also has a history of dog whistling to the nationalist wing of the MAGA movement.
After the first “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Alexander interviewed the white nationalist Matt Colligan alongside former Gateway Pundit reporter Lucian Wintrich. Colligan was identified as a tiki-torch holding participant at the gathering of white nationalists which resulted in the murder of protester Heather Heyer.
“Nazi flags, ‘Hitler did nothing wrong’ memes, and attacks on mainstream media were displayed by Colligan during the livestream,” noted Right Wing Watch in its coverage of the since-deleted Periscope. “Akbar insisted that the conversation was ‘not a debate’ and that ‘there’s no winner, there’s no loser’ in the duo’s friendly discussion with Colligan.”
Alexander also claimed that white men have been caricatured as evil by “white fat bitches” in the media, a sentiment which resonated with Wintrich and Colligan.
Wintrich was fired from the Gateway Pundit this August after appearing on a podcast hosted by the white nationalist Nicholas Fuentes. Alexander also appeared on Fuentes’ program over the summer to discuss the far-right identitarianism movement, where he speculated that “a number of Jewish people do hate crimes against their own communities to get press.”
This year, Alexander has made it a habit to note members of the media who are Jewish.
“Jake Tapper, who is a Jewish left-leaning journalist who works at CNN, was obsessed with packages that could not detonate and the tragic Synagogue shooting but dismissed the FL GOP shooting today. Called it simple ‘vandalism,'” tweeted the operative on Monday, referring to an incident earlier in the day in which the windows of Volusia County’s GOP headquarters were shot with bullets.
Alexander isn’t the only fringe figure Mercer has bankrolled. After Milo Yiannopoulos was fired from Breitbart, the Republican megadonor bankrolled his independent media venture (Milo Inc.) before a Buzzfeed report exposed the provocateur’s ties to white supremacists and neo-Nazis. Mercer resigned from his hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, after the story’s publication.
Over the summer, PayPal suspended Yiannopoulos’ account over trolling a Jewish journalist with Nazi rhetoric through the company’s platform.
Alexander could not be reached for comment.
Filed Under: Politics, National Politics, Heather Heyer, Robert Mercer, Unite The Right, Lucian Wintrich, New Right, Ali Akbar, Matt Colligan
SEE ALSO: What the Koch Network’s Relaunch Tells Us About Their Battle Against Trumpism
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Ali Alexander, a longtime right-wing activist with ties to far-right figures in the pro-Trump movement, offered a $2,500 reward for anyone who could disprove his claim that a man who appeared at Saturday’s “Demand Free Speech” rally in Washington, D.C., carrying an anti-Semitic sign was planted there by antifascist activists. Although Alexander was offered proof he was wrong, he hasn’t paid.
In a video uploaded to Periscope yesterday, Alexander—who previously went by Ali Akbar—claimed that the man who appeared at Saturday’s rally with a sign that said “Jews Own USA” was an antifascist activist posing as a right-wing rally-goer in order to smear other rally attendees as anti-Semites. Later in the video, Alexander floated the possibility that the man had been placed in the rally as part of a plot to murder anti-Muslim speaker Laura Loomer, who is Jewish.
[jews own usa]
(Photo: Adele Stan, Right Wing Watch)
Alexander gave two pieces of information to support his claim: that the sign carried by the alleged provocateur was mounted on a wood stick, and that the man had a physical appearance that led Alexander to believe he was not right-wing. Placing a sign on a wooden stick is “actually a technique of the left that was given to them by the Russians,” Alexander claimed. Alexander also claimed the anti-Semitic man was friendly with antifascists after he was ejected from the rally—a claim that runs contrary to multiple eyewitness accounts, including that of reporter Rachel Kurzius, who tweeted she saw the man engaged in “a verbal altercation with antifa.”
“Anyone who can prove me wrong on this story—the first person who can prove that I’m telling a lie—I will give $2,500 to,” Alexander said.
Freelance journalist Molly Conger and a leftist who goes as “Goad Gatsby” online responded to Alexander on Twitter with the information they gathered that identified the man who showed up to the rally as a little-known person named Shawn Jones. Conger located Ohio court records showing Jones had been convicted for domestic violence twice and discovered Jones had been posting his anti-Semitic views online for at least the last five years. Right Wing Watch was unable to find details online that suggested Jones had ever been involved in antifascist organizing.
Rather, a review of his social media profiles, some of which have been archived, indicates that Jones expresses particularly alt-right viewpoints, and is vehemently anti-Semitic. In a video he uploaded to YouTube after the right-wing rally, he claimed he was kicked out of the rally in Washington after he began accusing organizers of being led by Jews and of not being “the real alt-right.” On Facebook, Jones wrote that he should have “been more agressive and tried to fight all the large groups” of both pro-Trump and antifascist activists who confronted him about his anti-Semitic signage. In other posts, he alleged that antifa and liberal groups were created by the government, and derided them for rejecting his anti-Semitic message.
While doubling down on his theory in a tweet, Alexander nonetheless recycled the information sent by Conger and Gatsby to counter his claim. Alexander did not pay them the promised reward, Conger and Gatsby told Right Wing Watch.
Right Wing Watch reached Alexander and asked whether he had more information to support his claim that Jones was planted in the rally by antifascists.
“That’s my educated guess since he was caught on and off camera paling around with violent left-wing Antifa. I’m glad I was the one who kicked out the anti-Semite who put us all at risk and rushed the stage to harm me, as the video shows,” Alexander said via Twitter direct message. He declined to comment further.
Alexander did not respond to Right Wing Watch’s request for the footage he claimed to have allegedly showing Jones interacting in a friendly manner with antifascists, and he did not answer whether he planned to pay those who debunked his claim.
Alexander is reportedly attending the White House’s Social Media Summit on Thursday. Recently, Alexander was implicated in a smear campaign against Democratic presidential hopeful Kamala Harris.
Tags: Ali Akbaranti-fascismsocial media
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https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-bots-ali-alexander-twitter-donald-trump-jr-conspiracy-race-1446523
A tweet claiming Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is "not an American black" went viral yesterday—and some believe it was given a boost by bots.
A mass of duplicate messages was pushed by accounts on Twitter after the senator commented on her race during the Democratic debate yesterday. The tweet, penned by a political commentator, said Harris is "half Indian and half Jamaican" and alluded that she was "robbing American Blacks... of our history."
The same evening, the surge of tweets was highlighted by Twitter user Caroline Orr—a behavioral scientist who regularly discusses the topic of online disinformation. Orr shared a series of images which appeared to be sharing Ali Alexander's viral tweet verbatim or pushing a similar narrative.
"What a weird coincidence that a group of accounts, starting with Ali, decided to tweet the exact same thing about Kamala Harris within minutes of each other tonight," Orr noted. "It's everywhere and it has all the signs of being a coordinated/artificial operation."
Alongside images of the tweets, which also went viral, she added: "Efforts to attack Kamala Harris' race have been around for a while but a huge volume of tweets pushing this manufactured narrative appeared tonight right after Kamala pointed out that she was the only black woman on stage."
[tweet]
...en. Harris appeared on stage beside some of the biggest rival candidates from her own party yesterday, including Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Kirsten Gillibrand.
On stage, in comments that sparked the viral tweet, she referenced herself as "the only black person on this stage" and attacked Biden's political record on race and segregation.
"I would like to speak on the issue of race," she said. "This is an issue that is still not being talked about truthfully and honestly. There is not a black man I know, be he a relative, a friend, or a co-worker who has not been the subject of some form of profiling or discrimination."
In a tweet yesterday, Harris wrote: "There was a little girl in California who was bussed to school. That little girl was me." Alexander responded: "Stop appropriating our history."
As reported by The Washington Post, Harris was previously forced to address her race after memes started to spread online about her heritage earlier this year.
They all largely focused on how the senator spent some high school years being educated in Canada while noting her father is a Jamaican immigrant and her mother is a Tamil Indian.
In March, during an interview on popular "The Breakfast Club" podcast, Harris directly took on the issue when talking about a meme which claimed she was "not African-American."
"I'm proud of being black," Harris told the hosts, as reported by CNN at the time. "I was born black. I will die black, and I'm not going to make excuses for anybody because they don't understand." She said similar tactics had previously been used by opponents against President Barack Obama.
At its core, it was the argument made by Alexander's viral tweet yesterday, which he said had spiked in popularity—and bot-like activity—after being noticed by Donald Trump Jr.
"Her conspiracy makes no sense," he wrote, referencing Orr.
"I tweet something. Don Jr retweets it. Bots following his account steal my content. Somehow... Russia! Now, I'm getting death threats. I'll be sharing these with the Twitter team." Alexander later published a video response in which he elaborated on his arguments about Harris.
The issue of bots—which are typically designed to amplify a message—dominated the political discourse in 2016 in the run-up to the presidential election as analysis increasingly suggested that Russia had been attempting to meddle in U.S. politics using social media platforms and co-ordinated leaking.
A January 2017 report published by the Director of National Intelligence suggested Russia not only used cyberattacks and espionage, but also "paid social media users or 'trolls.'" In January this year, Cnet reported that Twitter confirmed bots with links to Russian retweeted Donald Trump upwards of 470,000 times between September 1 and November 15, 2016.
Donald Trump Jr. did not immediately respond to request for comment. An email for comment sent to Sen. Harris was not immediately answered
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Harris, 54, was born in Oakland, California to a father from Jamaica and a mother from India. She spoke of her experience growing up black in the debate, recalling a story about neighbors who wouldn’t let their children play with Harris and her sister because of the color of their skin.
The attacks on Harris’s background started Thursday when Ali Alexander tweeted she is not an “American black.”
“She is half Indian and half Jamaican,” Alexander wrote. “I'm so sick of people robbing American Blacks (like myself) of our history. It's disgusting. Now using it for debate time at #DemDebate2? These are my people not her people. Freaking disgusting.”
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MAIN ONE
see ali alexander
renta-turban? nah, tom
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badash n c r m
an 10 21
stuart Stevens is calling out News Corp founder and chief Rupert Murdoch as a "domestic threat" in response to a stunning preview clip from Fox News' top personality, Tucker Carlson, that falsely paints Donald Trump's January 6 insurrection as a false flag operation by Democrats.
"If Rupert Murdoch were applying for American citizenship today, there would be ample evidence to classify him as a domestic threat and deny citizenship," Stevens says of Murdoch, an Australian-born naturalized U.S. citizen. "He's a dangerous man who should be treated as the anti-democratic propagandist he is."
Stevens is known as one of the top Republican strategists who became a never-Trumper and co-founded The Lincoln Project. Murdoch owns News Corp, the parent company of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and numerous other outlets across the globe. He became a U.S. citizen in 1985 to meet the requirements to purchase and own TV stations.
The clip of Tucker Carlson's three-part series on the January 6 insurrection (below) is being called "fucking insane" by fellow never-Trumper Tim Miller, a former GOP strategist.
"I'd like to focus in on the fact that Fox is hosting one of the main architects of the Stop The Steal insurrection Ali Akbar Alexander for this 1/6 special," Miller adds. "Going full Newsmax."
In a scathing strike against Carlson, former Obama HUD deputy assistant secretary Brandon Friedman compared the Fox News personality to a radio station known for helping to incite the Rwandan genocide in which more than one million people died and up to half a million women were raped.
Here's the clip, which is loaded with falsehoods and anti-American, anti-democracy propaganda:
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/stop-the-steal/
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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/stop-the-steal/
In January 2013, a 26-year-old right-wing blogger named Ali Akbar joined the campaign of Curtis Bostic, a former Charleston, South Carolina, city councilman and Tea Party conservative who was running against disgraced former governor Mark Sanford in a Republican congressional primary. Bostic narrowly lost to Sanford (who served two more terms in the House before getting primaried out in 2018), and the campaign disassociated itself from Akbar, whose history as a convicted felon and hack political operative had caught up with him once again.
But over those first three months of 2013, Akbar — now known to the world as Ali Alexander, architect of the 2020 Stop the Steal movement — befriended the candidate's son, Daniel Bostic, then a 20-year-old aspiring model and actor who over the next eight years would partner with Ali in a number of failed ventures, including a cryptocurrency project, a listless consulting agency, a defunct MAGA gossip blog, and a scam donation project created with right-wing trolls Jacob Wohl and Laura Loomer. The partnership's lasting contribution to the world, however, came earlier this month, when the massive pro-Trump rally they organized on the National Mall on Jan. 6 turned into a violent siege of the U.S. Capitol, defiling the seat of American democracy and leaving half a dozen people dead, including two police officers.
Back in 2013, Akbar (as he was then known), a fast-talking aspiring strategist from the Dallas-Fort Worth region, had been casting about for a new gig after Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential bid failed, taking with it his own efforts to make inroads with mainstream Republicans. Conservatives had grown increasingly wary of Akbar's felony fraud convictions and other allegations of improper conduct, such as asking donors for personal information. Akbar's political journalism project, known as National Bloggers Club, was struggling, too, after its founder's history and conduct created complications for top advisers to the Romney campaign. (Akbar was first anti-Romney and then pro-Romney.) He claimed the site was a nonprofit but apparently never registered it as such with the IRS. Its current status is "revoked," according to federal tax records.
"Akbar was a Libertarian, a Reagan conservative, and a Tea Party journo all at the same time," said freelance reporter Ron Brynaert, whose complicated history with Akbar/Alexander stretches back more than a decade. "He's always been a delusional liar with a messiah complex, who talks out of both sides of his mouth and contradicts himself."
Akbar's work with the Bostic campaign focused on boosting name recognition through social media, including creating a hashtag that got a shout-out from former Republican senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, who had co-sponsored Akbar's CPAC "Blog Bash" parties two years in a row and flew in to campaign with Bostic for a day. Bostic did see a surge, but it was too little too late — Slate awarded the campaign its "social media fail of the week" during the primary, specifically citing one of Akbar's sites, ViralRead.com, as having become "a one-stop shop for #SC01 news, with a jaundiced view of Sanford."
Notably, Akbar also created a since-deleted donations landing page "paid for by the committee to elect Curtis Bostic," which was quite likely illegal, since the campaign denied ever officially hiring the convicted felon. After Bostic's primary defeat, the campaign dismissed Akbar in the press as an overzealous volunteer.
But Akbar had grown close with Daniel Bostic, who had a certificate in theology from Appalachian Bible College and a few months experience as staff assistant to then-Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., now the state's junior senator. Bostic yearned to be a professional actor, but had landed only done a few regional ads for American Eagle and Nokia and some local short films, along with an extra role in an episode of "Army Wives," which he described as something of a formative experience.
Akbar's online footprint dries up a bit after Curtis Bostic's defeat, but he re-entered the political sphere in 2014, with a hybrid PAC called the Black Conservatives Fund, which took in $150,000 from right-wing financier Robert Mercer. But for much of that spring and summer, it seems that Akbar devoted much of his time to helping Daniel Bostic convince people that he was a celebrity with a rabid, obsessive fan base.
Operation Bostic involved a coordinated lineup of fake Twitter fan accounts promoting a number of blog sites, interviews and press releases with Bostic fan content, which Bostic and Akbar most likely either commissioned or created themselves. The profile of one Twitter account, "Daniel's Lover," links out to a Wordpress site called Daniel Bostic Daily, which the account would regularly promote in hundreds of tweets at a time, drawing hardly any response from the larger world. One tweet from May 29, 2013 ("Fans are CRAZY about Daniel's Twitter!") tags Akbar's Twitter account and links to a Daniel Bostic Daily entry that itself quotes a since-deleted tweet from Akbar:
Few folks have the honest joy that @debostic has. It's fun to watch happy positive people online.
— Ali A. Akbar (@ali) May 28, 2013
Three days later, the same blog published another entry titled, "Euphoria for Ladies — Daniel Bostic posted a shirtless picture and became an Instagram sensation," which features said shirtless selfie and a quote about it from a website called Viral Read.
The news site VIRAL READ had this to say:
Walking the fine line between #hotmess and #hotness, Bostic wins the day and lands gracefully in the hotness column. Who knew this skinny kid had this hiding under his bro-tanks? He's the eventual celebrity you'll love to hate and we intend on watching him closely. All of him.
The now-defunct Viral Read was one of Akbar's blog sites, which named controversial right-wing blogger Robert Stacy McCain as editor-in-chief on March 13, 2013, while Akbar was working in South Carolina. The Viral Read article on Bostic from May is similarly titled "Daniel Bostic, Hotness or Hotmess?" and begins like this:
ViralRead was first introduced to the young actor, Daniel Bostic, during a special election run-off in April where his father, Curtis Bostic was up against now-Congressman Mark Sanford. Our Publisher and Editor even traveled down to the lowcountry district. Sadly, they came back with zero pictures of him. Epic fail.
Other Bostic fan sites include "Bostiholics," which migrated from the "allwewantisdaniel" blogspot site. "We are here for one reason and one reason alone," reads the Bostiholics tag line. "We are OBSESSED with Daniel Bostic." Other Twitter accounts include Dan Bostic Is Life and Dan Bostic Daily. It also seems that Akbar helped place Daniel-centric content in other outlets around that same time. In March 2013 alone, as Curtis Bostic was waging a vigorous campaign, posts about his fake celebrity son appeared on sites called Jakes Take, Daily Entertainment News and Entertainment Worlds, as well as in a Newswire press release titled, "Born To Be Distinguished, Daniel Bostic Has Made A Huge Difference In The World Of Acting."
"Being young has not deterred this young actor from climbing heights in this intricate acting career," the release says, then lists "exciting films" in which he has "made headlines": "From Darkness into Light," "Gone for the Day," "Crash" (no, not that "Crash"), "Secrets in the Fall." The release also says Bostic "is much into politics" and "a proud certified black belt Tae-Kwon-Do." His LinkedIn and IMDb pages boast of the 2008 black belt, but for the art of karate.
Two months later, Bostic featured in another Newswire press release, titled, "Bostic Calls on His Fans to Support Oklahoma Tornado Victims." The release is attributed to Marti Youngue, and gives a phone number and address. The address is Curtis Bostic's law firm, but the phone number belongs to Marti Young, former owner of a Nashville agency called Illuminating Talent, which at one point represented Daniel Bostic. Presented with the press release, Young told Salon in a text message, "Wow that's the first time I ever saw this."
While the extent of Akbar's involvement in Bostic content creation is unclear, his prints appear to be on some of the self-promoting replies, including those aimed Dana Loesch and Michelle Malkin, who were relatively obscure at the time but would go on to become big names in right-wing political circles.
By 2014, however, Akbar had moved on from South Carolina's low country, landing himself a consulting gig in Louisiana with his new Mercer-backed PAC, the Black Conservatives Fund. According to investigative journalist Lamar White Jr., this PAC was mostly a proxy for former Louisiana State Sen. Elbert Guillory, who at the time was putting together an ultimately unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor. CNBC reported the PAC distributed money that year to a handful of successful Black conservative candidates, including Rep. Mia Love of Utah, as well as Bostic's former boss Tim Scott, who won South Carolina's special election to the Senate in 2014.
Bostic in the meantime attended Anderson University, a private Christian school with both online and in-person degrees, eventually earning a BS in international business, according to his LinkedIn page. He appears to have done some political blogging, identifying as a never-Trumper in 2016 and becoming one of the few donors to former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's ill-fated presidential campaign.
Politico reported in 2018 that a PAC advised by Akbar had accepted $60,000 from Mercer just before the 2016 presidential election. After Trump's victory, Akbar popped up again amid the Unite the Right controversy, and in 2018 tried to help kickstart a Trump-centric alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) called the American Priority Conference, which collapsed in short order.
After that defeat, Alexander (having dumped his original surname at some point) teamed up with longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, who first conceived of the Stop the Steal movement — which, believe it or not, did not originate with the 2020 election. The name and the "movement" began with the 2018 midterms, and specifically with the Florida U.S. Senate campaign in which then-Gov. Rick Scott narrowly defeated incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. That was when Roger Stone launched the group as a kind of tribute or coda to his infamous "Brooks Brothers riot" during the Florida recount of 2000.
Alexander signed on to work for the "Stop the Steal" campaign, which was aimed at locking down Scott's victory over Nelson. In a Periscope video, as reported in Right Wing Watch, Alexander said he hoped to motivate not just Republicans, but QAnon followers, Democrats and "homeless people in all the adjacent counties" to keep an eye on the vote count in Broward County.
"Ali Alexander is a noxious political activist who often animates extremist groups and individuals to fulfill his activism goals," Jared Holt, journalist and expert in domestic extremism, told Salon. "Political groups and organizations that have turned to him for his work should be embarrassed and ashamed. The fact that he has a molecule of influence in GOP organizing is a damning indictment of the priorities of pro-Trump politics."
Alexander has associated with a number of young pro-Trump flunkies who would also seem to fit Holt's description, as with his aforementioned ill-fated 2019 joint venture in Minneapolis with right-wing personality Laura Loomer and the recently-indicted Jacob Wohl.
That scam also involved Daniel Bostic. Alexander, Loomer and Wohl directed donations to a company called Cystra Ventures Ltd., which had been created in Bostic's name just three weeks before the group met up in Minnesota. Cystra Ventures is apparently held under Cystra LLC, Bostic's "consulting company," whose website doesn't work (this archived version does) but which received $14,477 in federal coronavirus small business loans this spring — after much apparent consternation on Bostic's part.
Cystra appears to have been designed to get Bostic and Alexander in the cryptocurrency game. In late June 2017, less than two months before Unite the Right in Charlottesville, Alexander and Bostic teamed up to pitch a new cryptocurrency "focused heavily on free speech." According to the pitch, the coin would be "a medium of exchange for individuals who value free speech above all else," and would be exchanged on the Crown platform, based on the Dash network. "Our project will feature no pre-mine and a decentralized governance with the sole goal of promoting free speech," they claimed.
Nothing came of this venture, shockingly, but the duo were back at it in 2018, cranking out a series of videos pitching the Crown crypto platform, whose "overarching goal is to build a community of dedicated users who maintain a free, legally compliant, open-access and decentralized sandbox economy." Nothing came of that, either.
Then in 2019, Alexander launched a tabloid called Culttture, a right-wing organ that employed a handful of writers to write breathless gossip about MAGA-world's second-string celebs, often plugging Alexander's tweets and videos in the course of the day. The site's homepage took a hiatus the next spring, however, citing the coronavirus pandemic ("China's virus") for the need to "simplify." Although the homepage still promises a steady stream of content, that promise appears not to have materialized. Twitter suspended Culttture's account when it suspended Alexander, on Jan. 10. Bostic had claimed on his Twitter profile to be a "lead at Culttture," but deleted that sometime after Jan. 9.
Alexander also still retains control over the Black Conservatives Fund, and the group regularly promoted Stop the Steal rallies to its more than 80,000 Facebook followers. One post ahead of the Jan. 6 riots read: "D.C. becomes FORT TRUMP starting today. Fight to #StopTheSteal with President Trump." It then listed rally locations, including at the Capitol building. That post disappeared from the Facebook page after an inquiry from CNBC.
That PAC's treasurer, Patrick Krason, also happens to be treasurer for Stop the Steal PAC — the group that initially registered in November with Bostic as designated agent. During the two months prior to the riot, Bostic, who also listed himself as the media contact for Stop the Steal, helped organize rallies and sometimes addressed crowds briefly himself.
On Jan. 6, Bostic was in Washington with Alexander. The two can be clearly identified in video clips climbing the Capitol steps with Alex Jones. After the violence, Bostic tweeted, "This could've all been avoided if we were shown signatures and allowed to audit our elections. You cannot expect elections to be conducted in secret without repercussions. I do not in any way endorse violence, but path has been traversed time and time again throughout history."
Two days after the attack, Bostic's name was removed from the Stop the Steal PAC's statement of organization. Bostic told Salon that "some answers are too long for Twitter," adding that "you have slandered me, my friends, all to meet your monthly ad revenue quota."
Salon then asked Krason, the PAC's treasurer who manages compliance for a number of political committees, why Bostic was no longer a listed agent. Krason outlined a complex but somewhat plausible scenario in which he had to change bank accounts. Krason would not say what role, if any, Bostic had played in that well-timed change, and would not say whether Bostic had asked to remove his name, or why he had been listed as an agent to begin with.
After Alexander went into hiding, apparently concerned about the authorities, Bostic at first made his Twitter account private. He reopened it again this past Friday, having deleted all tweets prior to Jan. 5 (except for a New Year's Eve post), as well as a number of tweets from Jan. 6, the day of the riot, including one that called Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer "evil" for posting an image of a Stacey Abrams votive candle. Bostic has also removed two tweets that appeared to show live-streamed video which he had captioned "Storming the Capitol." Those tweets are archived here and here, but the media files appear inaccessible. He did, however post that the chants of "Stop the Steal" that day were "indescribable."
That refrain, believe it or not, can be traced all the way back to the apparent ears beginning of Bostic and Alexander's relationship. One of the first tweets from the "Daniel's Lover" fan account is a retweet of an uncannily prescient post from Curtis Bostic, Daniel's dad, whose underdog campaign had just hired Akbar, perhaps unofficially.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin
10:47 AM · Jan 22, 2013·Twitter for iPhone
Alexander could not immediately be reached for comment.
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https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/stop-steal-organizer-ali-alexander-still-making-money-using-online
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/stop-the-steal/
The right-wing trolls behind the baseless "Stop the Steal" election fraud movement have launched a political action committee (PAC) to cash in on the false claim that the election was rigged against President Donald Trump, according to a filing posted this weekend on the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) website.
The organization, called Stop the Steal PAC, shows signs of being what campaign finance watchdogs know as a "scam PAC" — a for-profit fundraising vehicle that professes to support a cause but in reality ends up pocketing most of the money for its members, or shuffles it off to contracted firms.
Stop the Steal PAC's treasurer, Patrick Krason, and his wife Crystal are affiliated with a number of these small-time PACs. For instance, Krason also launched the Draft Sarah Huckabee Sanders for Arkansas PAC, but lives in West Virginia, had never visited Arkansas and had no connection to the former White House press secretary or her family.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Sanders' father, warned prospective donors away from Krason in 2019.
"[Neither] Sarah nor anyone connected to her has ANYTHING to do with it," Huckabee told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "The person who launched it is unknown to everyone in Sarah's family, her political orbit, or her circle of friends."
Earlier this year a conservative watchdog group filed an FEC complaint against a Krason-led "social welfare" charity called the Stronger America Fund, alleging that he had unlawfully coordinated with a congressional campaign he was working on at the time.
Several of Krason's other PACs say they aim to legalize marijuana, and others — such as Make Virginia Great Again and MAGA Coalition — draw on familiar-sounding Trump-world phraseology. He also appears to have chiefly paid his own firms through campaigns, FEC filings show.
While Stop the Steal's FEC filing lists an address in Washington, D.C., it's only a drop box — Krason's actual office is in Charleston, West Virginia. The group's phone number is different from the one listed on Krason's own website, and directs calls to a Google subscriber mailbox after one ring.
Krason told Salon in a phone interview that while he had handled federal compliance for Stop the Steal, it was not his PAC, but would not disclose the client.
In addition to Krason, the PAC's registration with the FEC lists a man named Daniel Bostic as a designated agent.
Bostic's 54,000-follower verified Twitter profile says he is a former model and congressional staffer, a reference to his "full-time" work as a homeschooled South Carolina 17-year-old in the Washington office of then-Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C. (Scott is now a U.S. senator.) The 20-something activist also claims a producer credit on a recent documentary about the widely-mocked efforts of Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to discredit the Russia investigation. Bostic is an active member of the Stop the Steal movement, which he heavily promotes on social media.
But Bostic is just one of a number of MAGA-world second-stringers who appear to see Stop the Steal as a way to ride the fantasy of a stolen election into a future of relevance, influence and income after Trump departs the White House.
While the movement's name may suggest a reaction to the 2020 election, its roots trace to the 2018 midterms — and specifically Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott's 2018 narrow victory over then-incumbent Democrat Bill Nelson. That was when Roger Stone launched the group as a coda to the "Brooks Brothers riot" of 2000.
At the time, Stone had the help of a far-right operative and conspiracy theorist named Ali Alexander, an itinerant provocateur who signed on to recruit for the "Stop the Steal" campaign and appears to be the organizing force behind this year's post-Trump iteration.
Alexander's current approach echoes the eclectic appeal he envisioned in a Periscope video in 2018, as reported in Right Wing Watch, where he hoped to motivate not just Republicans, but QAnon followers, Democrats and "homeless people in all the adjacent counties" to keep an eye on the vote count.
But Alexander, formerly known as Ali Akbar, has a checkered history even by the loose standards of the alt-right movement, and today he does not have the full confidence of MAGA-world, some of whom suspect him of being a disingenuous grifter.
As Ali Akbar, he was convicted of theft and credit card fraud in 2007 and 2008. He entered national politics as a John McCain campaign staffer in 2007, when he was apparently reprimanded — ironically enough — for discussing opportunities to committing voter fraud during the Republican primary campaign. (Former McCain campaign officials contacted by Salon did not recall him, or the alleged incident.)
More recently, in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, a PAC affiliated with Alexander got a $60,000 injection from billionaire far-right financier Robert Mercer. The next year he popped up amid the Unite the Right controversy, and in 2018 tried to help kickstart a short-lived Trump-centric alternative to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), called the American Priority Conference. He followed that up with an ill-fated joint troll operation in Minneapolis with right-wing personality Laura Loomer and indicted felon Jacob Wohl.
Today, Alexander is the organizing force behind Stop the Steal, which last weekend organized demonstrations in several U.S. cities to protest President Trump's defeat. The demonstrations served a dual role as promotional platforms for a hodgepodge of conservative and alt-right media personalities — e.g., Jack Posobiec, Mike Cernovich, Scott Presler and Amy Kremer — described in a Mother Jones profile of the event as "a collection of disgraced right-wing internet figures."
Their rhetoric and messaging has been amplified by Trump himself and his high-profile allies, who have repeatedly peddled baseless claims that Democrats have "stolen" the election, making unfounded allegations about "missing" military ballots, "illegal ballots" and chicanery in vote-counting sites in multiple key battleground states.
The Stop the Steal PAC was born on Saturday, the day of the scheduled protests. That also coincided with a change to the group's website, which appears to have removed its "donate" button after it was revealed that contributions went straight to Alexander's personal accounts, including his PayPal, CashApp and Amazon Wishlist.
Given the warring factions within TrumpWorld, Stop the Steal's future as a cohesive movement appears tenuous, especially without the bonding agent of Trump at the top of U.S. politics. Alexander's apparent cash grab has already begun to draw fire from inside the tent. While the movement may now have the imprimatur of an officially FEC-registered PAC, the name defines the mission, and there are two full years ahead with no steal to stop.
Bostic and Alexander did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/right-wing-operative-ali-alexander-leads-stop-the-steal-campaign/
right-wing political operative Ali Alexander has brought back “Stop the Steal,” a campaign to get right-wing activists to discredit mail-in voting, disrupt vote-counting, and ?falsely accuse Democrats of stealing the presidential election—presumably because legally cast ballots are being counted in states that have yet to declare the winner of the 2020 presidential contest. (Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden appears to be prevailing among votes cast by mail-in ballots.)
The move comes after President Donald Trump declared a premature victory in the early morning hours Wednesday and accused Democrats of mass voter fraud, a false narrative he’s been pushing for months about mail-in voting. At a Wednesday afternoon press conference in Philadelphia, Trump’s legal team, including conspiracy theorist and Trump sycophant Rudy Giuliani, doubled down on those claims, as have right-wing activists. The race is still too close to call, but as more mail-in ballots have begun to be counted, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has taken the lead.
In a panicked Periscope broadcast Wednesday evening, Alexander said he was “busy organizing thousands and thousands and thousands of people” to join “voter integrity” rallies in Phoenix, Arizona, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Detroit, Michigan, Madison, Wisconsin, and Atlanta, Georgia, (and perhaps Nevada) to protest. Alexander said the first rally would feature “Pizzagate” booster Mike Cernovich at the capitol in Arizona at 7 p.m. Wednesday evening, claiming that they’d have hundreds there and 10,000 attendees there by Friday. A second rally took place Wednesday night in Las Vegas. Alexander encouraged viewers to go to a website where they could register with the campaign and explained how he hoped to draw attention to these rallies.
“We’re matching influencers with operatives, so every influencer will have an operative there also working with local media, capturing all the vehicles going in and out ‘dropping of ballots,’” Alexander said. “We’re gonna capture everything.”
“If you need a plane ticket, I’ll PayPal you money, because people have sent me money,” Alexander said, before clarifying, “We’re flying giant influencers. We’re flying those people who are offering to share their audiences.”
Earlier in the day, Ali had put out a call for right-wing political operatives to lead the campaign in a number of states where Trump and Biden are in tight races or where Biden has won by a slim margin.
He called on Scott Presler and far-right activist Jack Posobiec to join the effort in Pennsylvania; Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk and Cernovich in Arizona; Alex Bruesewitz in Wisconsin; and CJ Pearson and Daniel Bostic, a producer of “The Plot Against the President” in Georgia. He also called on Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, a right-wing legal outfit that doubles as a communications shop, to work the legal network and Amy Kremer of Women for Trump and Ed Martin of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles to work the campaign nationally. He also said that Ed Martin, Amy Kremer and Kyle Jane Kremer would be “running point” for a Washington, D.C. event 1 p.m. Thursday.
At Wednesday’s rally in Phoenix, Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, who has his own ties to far-right nationalists, introduced Cernovich to the assembled crowd waving Trump flags. Taking the megaphone, Cernovich claimed that 200 anti-fascist activists had planned to disrupt his rally, but he said they’d never show up because, “I’ll get sent to prison after kissing their asses—legally and lawfully under self-defense laws.”
Cernovich went on to attack Fox News. “Do you think Fox News is suppressing pro-Trump vote?” He asked the crowd. “Yes!” The crowd shouted back.
Alexander also lashed out at Fox News in his Periscope, saying the conservative, pro-Trump network’s coverage of the presidential election was why he launched the campaign. He asked his viewers to spend 15 to 20 minutes after his Periscope harassing Fox News reporters and producers.
“Fox News is about to call the election for Joe Biden. How does this happen? They called Arizona too early. … I think it’s going for Trump,” he said. “If they call Nevada for Biden, then they will accidentally be forced. You need to tweet the hell out of everyone at Fox News.”
In September, Alexander took to Periscope to float the idea of revamping “Stop the Steal” for the 2020 presidential election, Jared Holt reported for Right Wing Watch then. At that time, Alexander had said that the 2020 “Stop the Steal” campaign would bypass social media by collecting phone numbers from supporters.
The original “Stop the Steal” campaign was led by Alexander in 2018, along with convicted felon and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone, who Alexander said came up with the phrase, and his associates, including Posobiec. The campaign featured protests and misinformation against a ballot recount in Florida’s 2018 Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson. In that campaign, pro-Trump activists from around the country descended on Florida to protest and spread misinformation, a seeming reboot of the so-called “Brooks Brothers riot,” which broke out following Florida’s contested presidential election results in 2000. Stone was behind that riot, which shut down recount efforts in Miami-Dade.
For the 2018 “Stop the Steal” campaign, Alexander said that he had recruited QAnon followers as well as people experiencing homelessness to fill spots at the protest. Politico reported in 2016 that Alexander’s PAC had received a large donation from billionaire Robert Mercer; Ali claims to not be taking money from him for this campaign.
It appears the 2018 “Stop the Steal” campaign was an attempted dry run for the 2020 presidential election. On Twitter, Alexander claimed to have approached Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel about running the campaign and that she had mocked it. On Wednesday, Alexander lashed out at those around Trump and McDaniel, who he called “the dumbest woman in history.” He said that the RNC, McDaniel, and the Trump campaign were not doing the campaign. [twt forced errors in messaging and non-legal and non-protest actions coming out of the GOP right now is simply stunning. Trump may ruin his own efforts before they start. Why is no one around him doing this right?]
alexander claimed that his campaign of right-wing and far-right activists just want “a fair, predictive, determinative result” and that “This election is going to be conducted fairly where it produces a legitimate result that both sides can come together on.”
“I’m going to be here in Texas, just providing my friends with support,” Alexander said. “What I want to do is bring this country as much together as we can and have a certain outcome and ride off into the sunset.”
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/gop-operative-says-hes-building-system-to-dispatch-protesters-where-ballots-are-counted/
republican political operative Ali Alexander, who previously went by the name ?Ali Akbar, is floating the possibility of revamping a 2018 effort to discredit mail-in and absentee voting ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
?According to a 2018 Politico report, the night before the 2016 election, ?a PAC advised by Alexander received a $60,000 donation from hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer?, the pro-Trump billionaire. Alexander has associated with far-right figures including Unite the Right white supremacist attendee Matt Colligan, and made a habit of noting when members of the media he criticizes are Jewish, ?according to The Observer.
In a Periscope broadcast uploaded Monday—viewed 51,000 times as of Friday morning?—Alexander claimed he planned to revamp a November 2018 effort called “Stop the Steal” and create a digital text-messaging database ?that would dispatch supporters of President Donald Trump to places where ballots are being counted? as well as ?the offices of state ?election officials around the country if their “physical presence is needed.” Alexander emphasized that his intention is that the protests would be peaceful and ?suggested that anyone who ?attend?s such protests with intentions of being violent would not be? considered part of his cause.
“In the next coming days, we’re going to build the infrastructure to stop the steal,” Alexander said. “What we are going to do is we’re going to bypass all of social media. In the coming days, we will launch an effort concentrating on the swing states, and we will map out where the votes are being counted and the secretary of states. We will map all of this out for everyone publicly and we will collect cell phone numbers so that way if you are within 100 mile radius of a bad secretary of state or someone who’s counting votes after the deadline or if there’s a federal court hearing, we will alert you of where to go. We’re going to bypass all of Twitter, all of Facebook, all of Instagram, OK? We’re going to bypass it all.”
“We will camp out if we need to?,” Alexander added. ?”We will have tents. We will have water. We will have electrolytes. We will have vitamin D, C, and A. We will have zinc. We will have sandwiches. We will have everything so that patriots can oversee the supposed people in our republic who are tasked with counting our votes, not making it. Counting our votes, not making new votes.”
Right Wing Watch attempted to reach Alexander by text message and Twitter direct message for comment on this story and in hopes Alexander would produce proof that his claimed database was being built. (Alexander has a history of making dubious claims.) We did not receive a response prior to publication.
One America News Network personality and far-right collaborator Jack Posobiec, who operates in the same digital space as Alexander, tweeted Monday: “#StopTheSteal 2020 is coming…”
Right Wing Watch reported in 2018 ?about an effort orchestrated against a ballot recount in the Florida race ?for U.S. Senate between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson by associates of GOP operative and self-described “dirty trickster” Roger Stone. In a burst of protests reminiscent of the chaos during the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida, pro-Trump activists from around the country descended into Florida to protest and spread disinformation alleging that recount procedures were part of a Democratic plot to commit voter fraud. That election ultimately triggered two recounts and a wave of legal battles; Scott narrowly defeated Nelson by a fraction of a percent. In 2018, Alexander said he was recruiting people experiencing homelessness and ?followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory to fill spots at protests.
In this week’s broadcast, Alexander claimed that the election is being “raped and raided” by Democrats?, and accused Republican leaders and pro-Trump voices ?of sitting idle.
“I’m watching a bunch of grifters, MAGA grifters, pretend like they’re going to stop the steal. Are they going to stop the steal?” Alexander said. “What are these grifters doing online, tweeting, to stop the steal? What have they done in the past? Not a damn thing.”
Alexander said his announcements were spurred by comments Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made to Axios about his platform’s policies to deter political candidates from declaring a premature election victory. Zuckerberg said that Americans may not know who the next president will be on election night, a likely scenario due to expected increases in mail-in and absentee voting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and that Facebook would try to moderate against the organizing of civil unrest on its platform.
“One of the things that I think we and other media need to start doing is preparing the American people that there’s nothing illegitimate about this election taking additional days, or even weeks to make sure that all of the votes are counted,” Zuckerberg told Axios. “In fact, that might be important to make sure that this is a legitimate and fair election.”
The new Facebook policy statement includes the following measure: “If any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the final results are in, we’ll add a label to their posts directing people to the official results from Reuters and the National Election Pool.” It also states that Facebook will label content “that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of the election or discuss the legitimacy of voting methods, for example, by claiming that lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud.”
Tags: Ali Akbar Election 2020
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/laura-loomers-victory-party-far-right-speakers-and-attendees/
a cast of far-right figures joined anti-Muslim provocateur and self-proclaimed “Islamophobe” Laura Loomer at a party celebrating her win of the Republican nomination to represent Florida’s 21st Congressional District in the U.S. House last night. Although Loomer faces a difficult challenge against incumbent Democrat Rep. Lois Frankel in a solidly blue district, her GOP nomination has invigorated far-right activists and media personalities, and excited figures notorious for spreading disinformation.
Right Wing Watch noted yesterday that Loomer, who was endorsed by a number of far-right personalities, was likely to win her primary. President Donald Trump congratulated Loomer on her win in a tweet last night.
[twt]
"great going Laura. You have a great chance against a Pelosi puppet!” Trump said.
A jubilant Loomer reacted in a video recorded after Trump’s tweet, which she said someone else had to tell her about because she was banned from Twitter.
“I am headed to Washington to provide you with some firepower and reinforcements Mr. President, so I look forward to meeting you soon next time you’re back in the Mar-a-Lago district,” Loomer said in response to the Trump’s tweet.
In attendance at Loomer’s celebration party were far-right notables, including:
Canadian media personality Gavin McInnes, who founded and led the Proud Boys hate group as its members engaged in violent brawls across the United States. After some Proud Boys members were arrested and charged after one such brawl, McInnes left his formal role with the group. McInnes has a long history of violent rhetoric and a seeming fondness for extremists and white nationalists.
Far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, who was ejected from mainstream political discourse after BuzzFeed news reported on his efforts to launder white nationalism through Breitbart News and comments he made that appeared to condone pedophilia spawned social media backlash.
Hoaxster Jacob Wohl, who has achieved national notoriety for joining Jack Burkman in press conferences to peddle outlandish political smears that crumble under mild scrutiny from reporters in attendance.
Right-wing political trickster, felon, and Alex Jones associate Roger Stone, who was convicted of obstruction of justice in the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election but whose sentence was commuted by Trump before he started serving jail time.
Ali “Alexander” Akbar, a right-wing operative who in 2019 launched a smear campaign questioning Kamala Harris’s race and ethnicity. Akbar has filmed himself speaking fondly of white supremacists and offering bounties for disinformation production.
Loomer is a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and promoter of disinformation who has been banned from multiple social media platforms for promoting anti-Muslim bigotry. She is best known for attention-seeking stunts like chaining her screaming self to the front door of Twitter’s New York headquarters in protest of being kicked off the service. She has rallied support for white nationalists while denouncing the supposed threat of “Sharia supremacy.”
On multiple occasions, Loomer has proclaimed that she does not care about what happened to Muslims in the Christchurch shootings, where more than 50 people were murdered by a white supremacist.
“Nobody cares about Christchurch. I especially don’t. I care about my social media accounts and the fact that Americans are being silenced more than Christchurch,” Loomer wrote on Telegram.
Last year, Loomer said she didn’t care about the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government because she claimed he was a Muslim Brotherhood operative and thus “an enemy of the state.”
In 2019, Loomer lost her media credentials and was removed from the Conservative Political Action Conference after harassing journalists. She has also contributed to with Alex Jones’ conspiracy-theory site Infowars, which has also been kicked off multiple platforms.
Loomer has often worked in concert with far-right nationalists to accomplish her goals of Trump-world notoriety and influence. In turn, her campaign has received support from an eclectic mix of far-right figures. As Melissa Ryan wrote for Right Wing Watch:
White nationalist hate group VDARE has promoted her campaign for Congress, as has Fox News host Jeanine Pirro. Trump allies Rep. Matt Gaetz, who is up for reelection this year and has his own connections to far-right figures, and Roger Stone, a convicted felon and associate of the Proud Boys hate group, have endorsed Loomer.
Tags: Ali AkbarDonald TrumpGavin McInnesJacob WohlLaura LoomerMilo YiannopoulosRoger Stone
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