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kpfa
10.12.23 - 10:00AMGuest: Zusha Elinson is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, where he covers America’s gun culture and industry. He is the co-author with journalist Cameron McWhirter of the new book American Gun: The True Story of the AR-15.
https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/pennsylvanias-gop-gubernatorial-nominee-is-a-christian-nationalist-who-associates-with-ar-15-fetishists-historian/
no lnx
in the swing state of Pennsylvania, Republicans have a nominated a gubernatorial candidate who is even to the right of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. State Sen. Doug Mastriano, who is competing with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, is way beyond conservative — he’s extreme.
History professor Thomas Lecaque, who teaches at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, lays out some reasons why Mastriano is so dangerous in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on May 31. The Republican who may be Pennsylvania’s next governor, Lecaque warns, is afar-right Christian nationalist and an “insurrectionist” who associates with AR-15 fetishists.
“Mastriano’s résumé hits all the main points of today’s bog-standard MAGA candidate template,” Lecaque explains. “He’s an insurrectionist who ginned up enthusiasm for the attempted coup as a featured speaker for Jericho March’s rally in December 2020 before participating — by his own admission — in the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally on January 6, 2021…. Mastriano also has an increasingly familiar religious profile.”
Lecaque continues,“He has described the Gulf War, in which he served in 1991, as a ‘holy’ war — a belief reflected in his bizarre 2002 graduate thesis, ‘Nebuchadnezzar’s Sphinx.’ He has attended events of the Charismatic Christian dominionist movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. He shares anti-Muslim memes, hangs out with militia members to guard Confederate statues at Gettysburg, and constantly hits all the main themes of Christian nationalist discourse in his speeches and other activities.”
Moreover, Lecaque adds, Mastriano “associates with an extremist sect that places special emphasis on America’s most notorious gun.”
The “extremist sect” that Lecaque is referring to is the World Peace and Unification Sanctuary Church, a.k.a. Rod of Iron Ministries,founded by the Rev. Hyung Jin Moon — who is the youngest son of the late Unification Church founder Rev. Sun Myung Moon and also goes by Sean Moon. And the “notorious gun” is the semiautomatic AR-15, which was used in two mass shootings in May: one in Buffalo, New York on May 10, and the other in Uvalde, Texas on May 24.
“Rod of Iron continues the Unification Church’s tradition of apocalypticism, but adds to this framework beliefs derived a variety of sources that include, most importantly, the rhetoric, imagery, and ideology of both QAnon and Christian nationalism,” Lecaque observes. “The younger Moon wrote a constitution for the messianic kingdom he and his followers believe will replace the United States following its collapse…. Members of the church perform ceremonies wearing bullet crowns and carrying AR-15s.”
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Mastriano, Lecaque notes, has been “a speaker at Rod of Iron events.” According to Lecaque, Mastriano and Moon “are fellow travelers not only in promoting far-right Christian nationalist politics, but also, in being January 6th insurrectionists.”
“Moon reportedly stormed the Capitol with over 50 of his followers,” Lecaque writes. “But the most important connection between Mastriano and Moon is their shared belief in an apocalyptic religion that imagines the present moment as a battleground between good and evil at the advent of the End Times. Rev. Sean Moon derived his church’s unusual name from Revelation 2:27, ‘he shall rule them with a rod of iron.’ He takes the rod to be the AR-15.”
The Book of Revelation part is important. In far-right evangelical fundamentalism, the Book of Revelation in the New Testament is an obsession — and it fits in with their End Times theology.
“The Book of Revelation — also known as the Apocalypse of John — is the final book of the Bible and the place where Moon came to his beliefs about the cosmic significance of the AR-15,” Lecaque observes. “What he and other cultists should consider is that the apocalypse they desire might reveal a different deity than they expect.”
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chris hayes had 2 experts and ref'd sev artl but not sure i found]
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/guns-republican-primary-campaign-ads-midterms-1336903/
see greitens rino hunt, assault ar15
no lnx twt many pix
The Real Reason Republicans Are Loading Their 2022 Campaign Ads With Guns
Conservative candidates have responded to the attack on the Capitol by doubling down on firearm worship and violent imagery to court their base
By RYAN BORT
A Republican official poses with a large gunA Republican official poses with a large gun
20,885 people were killed by guns in America in 2021, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That figure does not include suicides.
Youtube
Garrett Soldano released a pretty strange campaign ad last fall. The only words spoken in it came from a voice aggressively asking, “WHO?” and a chorus twice chanting “WE THE PEOPLE!” in response. The rest of the ad was 45 seconds of Soldano firing various weapons at a gun range, set to a heavy, looping guitar riff.
Soldano is not running for sheriff, or even for a seat in the state House. He’s a Republican running to become the next governor of Michigan.
Soldano’s ad may have been absurd, but it wasn’t atypical. Republican candidates are turning to guns, guns, guns in a very big way ahead of the midterms, serving their potential constituents with a torrent of campaign ads, Instagram posts, and even Christmas cards of themselves toting and firing deadly weapons. Conservatives using guns in campaign ads is nothing new, of course, but the way in which they’re being used in the wake of Trump’s term in office — and particularly in the wake the violent attack on the Capitol that ended it — portends a dark future for the party, and if it regains control of Washington, D.C., for the nation.
Ron Filipkowski, a researcher who tracks right-wing activity online and has highlighted several examples of Republicans going gun crazy in their campaign ads, says the use of guns in ads has “absolutely” ratcheted up this primary cycle compared to 2020 and 2018.
[RELATED STORIES
GOP Candidate Fantasizes About Murdering Political Opponents in New Ad [greitens?]
Ohio Shrinks Training Requirement for Teachers to Carry Guns From 700 Hours to 24]
“I started noticing it and was like, ‘What’s going on?'” he says. “I think it’s almost like the [Lauren] Boebert-, [Marjorie Taylor] Greene-ization of the whole America First movement that’s driving the Republican Party now. It’s those candidates who are the ones that are doing it. I feel like the establishment candidates kind of feel like they have to do it too, now.”
Boebert built her successful 2020 campaign largely around guns, and last year released an ad promising to carry a Glock on Capitol Hill. Greene in an ad for her 2020 campaign cocked an assault rifle as she warned “antifa terrorists” to stay out of her district, and last fall blew up a Prius with a 50-caliber rifle. Establishment Republicans like Lindsey Graham, who last year released a video of himself at a shooting range in khakis, are struggling to keep up, but the point is that they feel like they need to try. This is what the party is now.
Filipowski says he really started noticing the uptick in gun-centric ads, which were often the first big campaign rollout ads candidates would release, last fall. They haven’t stopped since.
Here’s Max Miller, a former Trump aide running for the Ohio U.S. House seat left vacant by retiring Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, talking about using “a rifle to protect our country.”
Here’s Georgia U.S. House candidate Michael Collins blowing up “Nancy Pelosi’s Plan for America” before hopping in a big rig, throwing a football, and firing another assault rifle for good measure. “I’m not afraid to say I was pro-Trump from Day One,” he adds.
Here’s Blake Masters, who’s running for Senate in Arizona, with an intimate — and frankly, creepy — ad about his love for his Walther PPK and silencers.
Masters, a venture capitalist and favorite of Trump-loving billionaire Peter Thiel, has featured guns prominently throughout his primary campaign. He responded to President Biden’s promise on Monday to crack down on “ghost guns,” which are homemade and untraceable, by tweeting a picture of a “ghost gun” he recently built himself. “Very legal & very cool,” he wrote.
“Our founders built their own guns,” Masters added. “They intended us to as well — it’s the ultimate political act, a liberty the 2A protects. Technology will not stop. With 3D printing, this is going to get easier year after year. I’ll be a political check on ‘gun control,’ but the technological check is inevitable.”
Masters isn’t the only Republican to cry that the Second Amendment is under assault while vowing to scale back gun reform policy — Florida U.S. House candidate Anthony Sabatini even responded to Biden’s address on Tuesday by calling for the abolition of the ATF — and if the party takes back Congress in November they are likely to attempt to pass a slew of pro-gun legislation, from clearing the way for nationwide open carry to doing away with background checks. “Far-right politicians in primaries are licking the boots of gun lobbyists,” Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts told Rolling Stone in an email on Tuesday. They’ll certainly continue to do so once in office.
But there’s something more insidious behind the sudden rash of pro-gun ads than protecting the Second Amendment. It’s a visual reminder that the party believes Jan. 6 was a good thing, that the attack on the Capitol was a valiant effort, and that Republicans deserve candidates who is willing to implicitly or explicitly condone the use of violence to reclaim a bygone version of the United Statesthey’ve seen slip through their fingers under Democratic leadership — to make America great again.
“It’s an extremist movement,” says Mike Madrid, a Republican strategist and co-founder of The Lincoln Project. “The GOP base, at least a wide swath of it, has been radicalized. There are very few things you can do to demonstrate you’re more extreme and intense on tribal issues than to insinuate, tacitly or overtly, violence, that you are willing to fight for the cause. That’s what it is. It’s not a Second Amendment issue. It’s saying, ‘I’m this intense. I’m this extreme. I’m willing to go to these measures to fight for our tribe.’ That’s what it’s all about.”
As Idaho gubernatorial candidate Janice McGeachin put it in an ad released Monday in which she fires an assault rifle, “the Second Amendment wasn’t ratified into the Bill of Rights so we could bird hunt.”
“The Second Amendment has always been a defensive posture,” Madrid continues. “It’s always been don’t take my guns. What we are moving into now is something foundationally different. It’s now advocating that gun ownership and bearing arms is a virtue. It’s not a right. It’s almost an obligation. … There’s a desire to see a society that is centralized on this type of weaponry. There’s a lot of paranoia involved here, but it’s also demonstrative of a society that a lot of these members feel is out of their control.They feel quote unquote America is gone. It’s behind them. It’s already been taken, and theonly way to defend themselves from whatever that boogeyman is, is to have a stockpile of gold bullion, canned goods, and a ton of weaponry.”
Madrid, like Filipkowski, acknowledges that the use of guns in political ads is “growing,” and that by 2024 Republicans are going to be blowing stuff up. “Brandishing weapons and leaning into gun culture is viewed as revolutionary, and by revolutionary I mean, in their minds, the most virtuous sense, as defenders of quote unquote America,” he says. “There’s the 1776 rhetoric and there’s the patriot rhetoric, and there’s the American flag that’s always waved. It’s this absurd definition of what American is, and it’s getting more and more extreme in the Republican Party every election cycle.”
The fact that it’s getting so extreme among Republicans, and Republicans alone, may lead some to believe that the tenor of the ads could calm down a little ahead of the general election, when candidates typically pivot to a more moderate message in an effort to court a wider swath of voters.
In last year’s gubernatorial election in Virginia, Glenn Youngkin hammered guns, abortion, and his love of Trump during the Republican primary, but eased up on guns and abortion and distanced himself from Trump ahead of the general election, which he went on to win convincingly over Democrat Terry McAullife.
But this new fixation on guns is not coming from savvy billionaires like Youngkin. It’s coming from the hardcore MAGA set, and not only is it likely to stick around beyond the primaries, it’s likely hardwired into the DNA of a party now driven by extremism, conspiracy, and a belief that violence is a legitimate tool to achieve desired political outcomes.
“It’s not going to change,” Madrid says. “This is not this is not a primary tactic. This is mainstream Republicanism. So once you start to move off of that, you will start to lose the intensity of the support and turnout you need from the shrinking Republican base. Radicalization is the goal. This is about saying I’m willing to go to arms to overthrow what’s here or what’s coming. I’m willing to be violent in that cause. It’s not a small fringe group. These people are winning Republican primaries.”
In This Article: guns, Lauren Boebert, marjorie taylor greene
A right-wing activist known for hosting a podcast about firearms along with his 67-year-old father has been arrested on federal charges of illegal possession of firearms, according to federal prosecutors.
Joseph Paul Berger, the 32-year-old host of the podcast “Alt-Right Armory,” was indicted along with his father, Joseph Raymond Berger. Both are from Bethlehem in Northeastern Pennsylvania, and the announcement of their arrest came on Thursday, February 10 from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Business Insider’s Kelsey Vlamis quotes William S. Walker, an acting special agent for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as saying, “This father-and-son duo possessed a small artillery of firearms in their home, including more than a dozen machine guns and silencers. This type of fire-power is incredibly dangerous if in the wrong hands.”
The indictment, according to Vlamis, alleged that theBergers illegally possessed 13 fully automatic machine guns and 12 silencers.
U.S. Attorney Jennifer Williams warned, “These weapons are extremely dangerous, which is why there are laws regulating their possession.”
The Bergers have pleaded “not guilty” to the charges. If convicted, the men face up to 30 years in prison and $270,000 in fines.
an 222
Carlson donated to Marjorie Taylor Greene in gun giveaway promo to 'blow away Democrats’ socialist agenda'
David Badash The New Civil Rights Movement
Fox News host **Tucker Carlson** made a campaign donation to **U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene** last September as part of a gun giveaway for an assault-style rifle reportedly “loved...
https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/michigan-election/
hunter kos
the *Detroit Free Press* reports that the Michigan House and Senate buildings will be closed both to staffers and the public on Monday as the state's electors to the Electoral College meet to cast their votes for the state's presidential winner, Joe Biden. The Capitol was already expected to be closed to the public during the Electoral College meeting; this new, expanded closure also includes the building's legislative staff.
While neither Michigan State Police nor a spokesperson for the House Speaker's office would explain the reason for the closure, other than it being due to "security concerns," :{State Rep. Kevin Hertel tweeted that it was due to ":(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{credible threats":(style="background-color:#ffff00;"):}: that "have been made as Michigan's electors" meet.
The state has been a hotspot of fascist militia activity. Michigan legislators has been the subject of armed protests by the far right and the Michigan governor, a Democrat, was the intended victim of a domestic terrorism plot in which members of a far-right group sought to kidnap and possibly execute her over the state's pandemic safety measures.
Only a week ago, armed rightwing protesters with the intellect of flatworms demonstrated at the house of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over rabid Republican conspiracy theories claiming Joe Biden's win over Donald Trump was fraudulent and/or a conspiracy.
There is no word on what security measures are in place as a response to the apparent "credible" threats aimed at disrupting the electors' official vote. Michigan state Republicans, however, have repeatedly encouraged the state's violent conspiracy theorists, most recently by inviting Trump "lawyers" Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis to present their election conspiracy claims to the Republican-led House.
[covid also led to record? gun sales]
No governor or mayor has ever suggested suspending the 2nd Amendment, confiscating guns, or imposing martial law. Yet, in March, more guns were bought in the United States than ever before: around two million, roughly, sadly, the same amount as were purchased in the wake of the Sandy Hook murders and President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2008.
https://www.mediamatters.org/maga-trolls/far-right-message-boards-push-murder-conspiracy-theory-regarding-rep-ilhan-omar
no lnx twt pix many
A new baseless conspiracy theory about Rep. Ilhan Omar can be traced back to far-right message boards
WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN
PUBLISHED09/09/19
UPDATED 12/06/19 12:15 PM EST
Update (12/6/19): On October 7, Danielle Stella, a Republican congressional candidate running against Omar and a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory, pushed the conspiracy theory about Omar on Telegram. She posted an image of a tweet that claimed that an “apparent hit man” for Omar “fails to kill [her] target, and kills look alike” and accused the mainstream media of trying to “desperately … label the targeted murder as ‘random.’”
Far-right message boards created and helped spread a baseless conspiracy theory suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) ordered a Washington, D.C., woman’s killing. The conspiracy theory has spread onto multiple social media platforms, where some content promoting it has gone viral.
On August 27, a young woman was reportedly stabbed to death while walking dogs in Washington, D.C. Despite reports that local police consider it to be a random attack by a suspect whose “adulthood has been marked by periods of homelessness and hospitalizations for mental illness,” far-right message boards have without any evidence connected the woman’s killing to Omar. The baseless claim has since spread onto social media platforms including YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook.
How the baseless claim spread
On August 29, an anonymous user on 4chan’s “/pol/,” a message board known for spreading white nationalism and conspiracy theories, claimed that the D.C. stabbing victim looked “very similar” to a woman who has alleged that her husband had an affair with Omar (which her husband has denied). The 4chan user claimed that the slain dog walker “could easily have been mistaken for” the other woman, calling it a “possible Omaracide.” The post received more than 300 replies, with many users agreeing that the conspiracy theory “seems likely” and lauding the original poster.
4chan Omar conspiracy theory
Later that evening, a user onpro-gun forum AR15.comcited “/pol/” in asking, “Was the murder of a random redhead actually a political assassination plot to benefit Ilhan Omar?”
Gun forum Omar conspiracy1]
During the morning of August 30, the baseless claim spread to subreddits “r/The_Donald” and “r/conspiracy,” both of which are also known for spreading conspiracy theories. The “r/The_Donald” user posted largely the same language as the 4chan post, and “r/conspiracy” posted an image of the 4chan post. The post on “r/The_Donald” received thousands of “upvotes,” ranking it higher on the subreddit and helping it to spread.
The Donald Omar conspiracy
Conspiracy subreddit Omar conspiracy]
That afternoon, a far-right YouTube channel posted a video pushing the conspiracy theory titled “Did Ilhan Omar Order a Hit Job On Her Boyfriend's Wife?!” The video directly cited the post from “r/The_Donald” and has nearly 90,000 views.
YouTube Omar conspiracy theory image]
That evening, Twitter account @newanddangerous tweeted much of the same language as the 4chan post, and the tweet has received nearly 10,000 retweets.
@newanddangerous Omar conspiracy]
Among those who have shared @newanddangerous’ tweet include conspiracy theorist Devon Stack; a Pizzagate conspiracy theorist who was previously thrown out of a Joe Biden event; and a former adult film star turned far-right conspiracy theorist. The tweet was also shared over Telegram by a far-right channel.
Devon Stack conspiracy theory
PG Howie Omar conspiracy theory
Jenna Jameson Omar conspiracy
On the morning of August 31, a verified YouTube channel supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory posted a video sharing the conspiracy theory and directly cited the 4chan post. The video has nearly 100,000 views.
YouTube QAnon channel Omar conspiracy theory image]
Meanwhile, the conspiracy theory continued to spread on Twitter,including from multiple accounts promoting QAnon and its slogan, “Where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA.” Some of their tweets were also shared on Facebook, along with the 4chan thread and the conspiracy theory itself.
@PROUDPATRIOT45 Omar conspiracy theory]
Also on August 31, another QAnon account on a site called poal also shared the 4chan thread, saying “/pol/” had “nailed it.”Before It’s News, a conspiracy theory site known for pushing falsities, including Pizzagate, cross-posted an article the following day questioning if Omar had “tried to murder her new lover’s wife.” It also cited 4chan.
Before It's News Omar conspiracy theory]
The conspiracy theory also continued to circulate on 4chan -- one user even cited @newanddangerous’ tweet with language based on the original 4chan post -- and on “r/The_Donald,” where a user posted an image of the August 29 gun forum post. In total, there have been more than 400 posts on 4chan about the conspiracy theory.