qAnoN 1

---

SEE TWO THREE FOUR

MERRI OK

see conspiracy

see amplify escaltor echo

see alt reality /earth 2 polarization

see disinfo russia hackers

boosted beto shooter bs

collusion pizzagate ~ Hillary

see pedophile groomer

bak 1219

---

tags:

ali alex, boebert, bongino, cleta, corsi, nunes, don jr, engelbrecht true the vote, flynn fitton, ginni, gohmert, influencer, jan 6, jesse watters, jordan? kash, kirk? kraken sidney, mtg meadows? navarro OANN, newsmax, overstock, rumble, satan, telegram, trump, twitter, violkence; 8chan, ashli, any biggs, cernovich, ...globalist, hollywood celebs, lin wood esq, oprah, ted nugent, poso, raiklin RFK, russia troll, sheriff sovereign, stew peters, tim pool, wacko, wendy rogers, adrenochrome, blood libel, joe kent, lara logan, scott presler, rosaeanne barr, witze

:{---

---

russian-backed-organizations-amplifying-qanon-conspiracy-theories-researchers-s-idUSKBN25K136

reuters August 24, 2020

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Russian government-supported organizations are playing a small but increasing role amplifying conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon, raising concerns of interference in the November U.S. election.

Academics who study QAnon said there were no signs Russia had a hand in the early days of the movement, which launched in 2017 with anonymous web postings amplified by YouTube videos.

But as QAnon gained adherents and took on new topics - with President Donald Trump as the constant hero waging a misunderstood battle - social media accounts tied to a key Kremlin ally joined in.

In 2019, accounts removed by Twitter and suspected of being controlled by Russia's Internet Research Agency sent a high volume of tweets tagged with #QAnon and the movement slogan #WWG1WGA, short for Where We Go One, We Go All, said Melanie Smith, head of analysis at social media analysis firm Graphika. The IRA was indicted by Robert Mueller in his election interference prosecution.

More recently, Russian government-backed media RT.com and Sputnik have stepped up coverage of QAnon, which began with a false proclamation Hillary Clinton would be arrested for an undetermined reason and now includes theories about child trafficking by Hollywood elites, the novel coronavirus and more.

Alethea Group disinformation expert Cindy Otis, a former CIA analyst, said RT, Sputnik and other Kremlin-backed media have been writing more about QAnon, using it to fit into their broader narrative of: "The U.S. is falling apart, look how much division there is."

After Twitter banned thousands of QAnon accounts last month, RT.com predicted the move would backfire by directing more attention to the cause, adding that "it gave QAnon followers the validation they craved."

Last week, it ran a similar article after Facebook removed about a third of QAnon groups and restricted the other two-thirds.

RT's story began: "Facebook has removed thousands of groups and pages related to the QAnon conspiracy after expanding its concept of ‘dangerous individuals’ to include those who merely ‘celebrate violent acts.’ Streisand effect, meet slippery slope."

The 27-year-old grew up with her grandmother who shared stories from 1944, when Umerova’s family, along with hundreds of thousands of other Crimean Tatars, were deported to Central Asia by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

The Streisand effect refers to when singer Barbra Streisand sued to get photos of her Malibu, California, home removed from the internet, only to win them more viewers.

The articles have fallen short of full-throated support, and others have been critical. But they cast QAnon as channeling legitimate outrage.

QAnon followers have taken note and begun to share more content from the Russian outlets, according to Graphika.

In a report released late Monday, it said the QAnon accounts it tracked had posted material from 69 other websites more often than RT stories in 2018.

By earlier this year, RT was the 23rd most commonly shared site in the community. In the month ended Aug. 20, it had climbed to No. 12. here

"Though Russia is only one foreign actor capable of targeting US political audiences through the QAnon community, its history of operations appear to be the most ideologically aligned with the overarching QAnon theory," the report said. "Russia also appears to have made the most effort to gain credibility within the community thus far."

QAnon was named by the FBI as a potential instigator of domestic terrorism, and followers have been charged with making a terror threat, murder and other crimes.

Russia is actively interfering with the campaign season in other ways, the government’s top counter-intelligence official said recently, including by disseminating false stories about Joe Biden in Ukraine. Democrats are pressing for the public release of more instances.

Researchers at Graphika, Stanford University and elsewhere stressed that QAnon for now remains a largely domestic phenomenon. Facebook took down two QAnon networks for coordinated artificial behavior, before its new content restrictions, and neither had Russian connections.

But tracking QAnon has become increasingly tough, Graphika’s Smith said. QAnon backers have moved heavily into other social media groups, helping to organize real-life protests against child trafficking last weekend and getting involved in a pro-police demonstration in Portland that degenerated into violence.

"It’s very difficult to understand what a QAnon account is, versus a Trump supporter’s account versus an anti-vaxxer,"

Smith said.

Reporting by Joseph Menn; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Tom Brown

---

===

not sure this is bot per se?

QAnon received earlier boost from Russian accounts on ...

Reuters

https://www.reuters.com › article › technology › qanon...

Nov 2, 2020 — Russian government-backed social media accounts nurtured the QAnon conspiracy theory in its infancy, earlier than previously reported.

(Reuters) - Russian government-backed social media accounts nurtured the QAnon conspiracy theory in its infancy, earlier than previously reported, according to interviews with current and former Twitter executives and archives of tweets from suspended accounts.

Researchers said in August that the archives showed Russian accounts had helped spread QAnon in volume beginning in December 2017, https://reut.rs/2TFWoWc, but that team did not examine the history of specific QAnon promoters. https://bit.ly/2HTReUh

A more granular review by Reuters shows Russian accounts began amplifying the movement as it started, early in the previous month.

From November 2017 on, QAnon was the single most frequent hashtag tweeted by accounts that Twitter has since identified as Russian-backed, a Reuters analysis of the archive shows, with the term used some 17,000 times.

The archives contain more than 4,000 accounts that Twitter suspended for spreading Russian government disinformation in 2018 and 2019 but preserved for researchers.

The trove shows that some of the Russian accounts tweeted about QAnon's most important popularizer even before the anonymous figure known as Q emerged, then rewarded her with more promotion when she put videos about Q on YouTube. [TRACY BEANZ?]

Asked about support for QAnon, the Russian embassy in Washington said Moscow does not interfere in U.S. politics.

"Malicious activity in the information space contradicts the principles of Russian foreign policy, national interests and our understanding of interstate relations," a spokesman said.

A current Twitter executive said Russian accounts are not driving the present iteration of QAnon, which has expanded to include baseless claims about COVID-19 and other issues.

The original posts associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory appeared in late October 2017, purporting to be from a Trump insider with "Q" security clearance who said Hillary Clinton faced arrest and her allies were running a massive child-sex ring.

SEE REST BELOW

===

---

elected to gop in SC

russia hackers amplified or created an amp/escalator?

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-election-qanon-cyber-idUKL1N2HD00Z

disputed see homegrown?

qanon-received-earlier-boost-from-russian-accounts-on-twitter-archives-show-idUSKBN27I1AA

QAnon received earlier boost from Russian accounts on Twitter, archives show

By Joseph Menn

Nov 2 (Reuters)- Russian government-backed social media accounts nurtured the QAnon conspiracy theory in its infancy, earlier than previously reported, according to interviews with current and former Twitter executives and archives of tweets from suspended accounts.

Researchers said in August that the archives showed Russian accounts had helped spread QAnon in volume beginning in December 2017, reut.rs/2TFWoWc, but that team did not examine the history of specific QAnon promoters. bit.ly/2HTReUh

A more granular review by Reuters shows Russian accounts began amplifying the movement as it started, early in the previous month.

The archives contain more than 4,000 accounts that Twitter suspended for spreading Russian government disinformation in 2018 and 2019 but preserved for researchers.

The trove shows that some of the Russian accounts tweeted about QAnon’s most important popularizer even before the anonymous figure known as Q emerged, then rewarded her with more promotion when she put videos about Q on YouTube.

Asked about support for QAnon, the Russian embassy in Washington said Moscow does not interfere in U.S. politics.

“Malicious activity in the information space contradicts the principles of Russian foreign policy, national interests and our understanding of interstate relations,” a spokesman said.

A current Twitter executive said Russian accounts are not driving the present iteration of QAnon, which has expanded to include baseless claims about COVID-19 and other issues.

The original posts associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory appeared in late October 2017, purporting to be from a Trump insider with “Q” security clearance who said Hillary Clinton faced arrest and her allies were running a massive child-sex ring.

The fantasy was confined to a small piece of the internet for a few days until conservative video blogger Tracy Diaz, known online as TracyBeanz, began to post regular videos promoting it. She soon began amassing undisclosed donors and now has more than 10 million video views on YouTube.

A few Russian accounts had been retweeting Diaz as far back as April 2017, according to the archives of suspended accounts. After her first Q video on Nov. 3, the number of Russian tweets pushing Diaz’ handle surged to 40 monthly through the following spring, the archives show.

Diaz did not respond to an email seeking comment.

It remains unclear how much the Russians influenced Diaz before she hit it big. But former Twitter security staffers said a handful of accounts that tweeted to Diaz from mid-2017 illustrated the extreme difficulty of detecting covert influence.

Now suspended for undisclosed reasons or abandoned by their operators, these accounts claimed to be American but displayed unusual interest in Russian issues. The visible tweets between them and Diaz were first flagged to Reuters by open-source researcher Chris Scott.

One account called CrusadersPost retweeted obscure Russian officials and appeared to be the first account to use the term “Q Anon” on social media, on Nov. 2, according to people with access to all public tweets.

CrusadersPost had reached out to Diaz in April to wish her a happy birthday and offer to help her with a new project.

“YOU ROCK,” she replied. The account also encouraged Diaz to publicize MegaAnon, which preceded and resembled QAnon.

Another Diaz fan ran an account called SlicksTweetz, which the banned Russian accounts mentioned 871 times. The day of her debut Q video, Diaz publicly thanked SlicksTweetz for sharing it.

A week later, as she worked on new videos, she replied to him: “There are so many connections—that’s a good one I hadn’t seen yet :).” (Reporting by Joseph Menn. Editing by Jonathan Weber and Steve Orlofsky)

---

===

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/pro-trump-media-claim-cdc-overhyping-coronavirus-because-nancy-messonnier

Dr. Nancy Messonnier is the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Her impressive bio lists a number of top positions that she has held in the CDC, and it also notes that she has received multiple awards.

In recent days, Messonnier has taken a leading role in warning the public about the threat that the novel coronavirus strain known as COVID-19 poses to the United States. The Wall Street Journal noted that Messonnier said it was just a question of when coronavirus will circulate in the U.S. The Daily Beast quoted her as saying, “We expect to see more cases of person-to-person spread among close contacts. ... The goal here is to slow entry of this virus into the United States.” CNBC quoted her calling for schools to divide students into smaller groups or to close entirely and conduct courses online. Many other outlets have quoted her as well.

But right-wing media have begun to coalesce around a conspiracy theory that Messonnier’s warning should be disregarded because she is the sister of former Trump appointee Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein was a frequent target of pro-Trump propagandists for appointing Robert Mueller as a special counsel in the Russia investigation.

From a QAnon Twitter account to Rush Limbaugh's show

The conspiracy theory about Messonnier and Rosenstein goes back at least to a QAnon Twitter account noting their connection in early January.

It really started to pick up speed this week.

On February 25, Rush Limbaugh ranted about Messonnier, suggesting an anti-Trump conspiracy after he learned she’s related to Rosenstein. It was also picked up by a poster on white nationalist message board 8kun. Soon thereafter, it jumped to 4chan's “/pol/,” a slightly less extreme white nationalist message board. The Conservative Treehouse, a right-wing blog featured on Lou Dobbs' Fox Business show before, also posted about the conspiracy theory.

Others followed suit:

On the morning of the February 26, Joe Hoft (the brother of Jim Hoft, proprietor of the Gateway Pundit) posted about it. Hoft wrote that Messonnier’s remarks while President Donald Trump was in India were “a startling rebuke” and that it was “eerily similar to past Presidential trips when former and corrupt DAG Rod Rosenstein and the corrupt and criminal Mueller gang would drop shocking news as the President was overseas.”

Later on the 26th, Rush Limbaugh returned to the conspiracy theory, with the transcript of his show hyperlinking to Hoft’s post. After suggesting that Messonnier was not to be trusted, Limbaugh quickly changed the subject to suggest that the virus may just disappear once the weather warms up. Scientists have cast doubt on that theory as well.

Meanwhile, Trump is reportedly furious at Messonnier:

mma 1219

right-wing media pushed a QAnon-linked hoax claiming a kid was jumped for wearing a MAGA hat. The school superintendant says that's not what happened.}:

mma 1219

Media Matters' Alex Kaplan passed this along:"Trump on Friday went on a spree amplifying nearly 20 times accounts supporting the insane and dangerous QAnon conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory, which involves an anonymous user on a far-right message board claiming to have inside information on a secret plot by Trump against the “deep state” and pedophiles, has been tiedto multiple acts of violence and warned about in an FBI memo as a potential domestic terror threat. It comes as Trump has already amplified dozens of accounts supporting the conspiracy theory over the past two years."

Also: A noted white nationalist fabricated a claim about guns and Virginia’s Democratic governor that has spread in the past week throughout social media and on far-right message boards. The hoax has drawn tens of thousands of engagements and views, and some have issued calls to violence in response.

Finally: A pro-Trump subreddit is full of calls for violence in response to proposed Virginia gun safety laws.

---

ref

https://www.mediamatters.org/fake-news/white-nationalist-created-hoax-about-gun-confiscation-leading-calls-violence

semiotic?

no lnx graf twt

A white nationalist created a hoax about gun confiscation that is leading to calls for violence on social media and message boards

Special PROGRAMS

GUNS & PUBLIC SAFETY

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

:{PUBLISHED 12/18/19

A noted white nationalist fabricated a claim about guns and Virginia’s governor that has spread in the past week throughout social media and on far-right message boards. The hoax has drawn tens of thousands of engagements and views, and some have issued calls to violence in response.

Following the Democratic takeover of the Virginia state legislature in November’s elections, the state’s Democratic governor, Ralph Northam, said he would reintroduce multiple gun safety bills. In response, multiple counties in the state declared themselves “Second Amendment sanctuaries,” adopting largely symbolic resolutions that say they will not enforce what they deem to be unconstitutional gun laws.

On December 13, Rep. Donald McEachin (D-VA) suggested that Northam use the state’s National Guard to enforce the bills if they become law.That same day, the Twitter account for the Virginia National Guard tweeted that it had “not received any requests from the Governor, or anyone on his staff, about serving in a law enforcement role related to any proposed legislation” and encouraging residents to “be patient while we allow our elected officials to work through the legislative process.” Northam himself a day earlier had said that there would be “consequences” if localities did not enforce the law, but he said only that he would “cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”

Also on December 13, Hal Turner, a white nationalist radio host who has a history of spreading false claims and hoaxes, posted on his website that Northam had “allegedly ordered a small cadre of staffers to begin the process for determining how to cut off electricity, telephones/ FAXES, Cellular phones AND DATA, as well as the Internet, in areas where he plans to send Virginia National Guard Troops to forcibly seize guns when the Democrat legislature convenes in January.” Turner further claimed that the order “was allegedly given to a very small and trusted group of staffers, some of whom it turns out, do not agree (at all) with this idea.”

Hal Turner Virginia hoax

Over the next few days, the hoax spread on multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, and multiple YouTube channels, some of which are proponents of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Users claimed Northam’s supposed response was “why the founding fathers put in the 2nd amendment,” calling for “patriotsaround the country” to “go after [these] anti-gunners with extreme prejudice,” and calling for “troops [to] remove this traitor from his position.” According to the tracking tool BuzzSumo, posts linking to the hoax article received more than 25,000 engagements on Facebook and Twitter combined.

Twitter Virginia hoax1

Facebook Virginia hoax1

Facebook Virginia hoax4

YouTube Virginia hoax2

Additionally, the hoax circulated throughout multiple message boards, including pro-gun forum AR15.com, where a user asked if there was “any truth” to the hoax and users said it could cause a “civil war.” Another message board that saw traffic on the hoax was the backup site for thesubreddit “r/The_Donald,” where users called the “new rumor” a reason to “plan, act, purchase, train appropriately” and an “absolute necessary step to guarantee full scale revolution in the state ending in executions for all government officials.”

The Donald subreddit backup site Virginia hoax

The hoax was also repeatedly mentioned on 4chan’s “/pol/” message board, where multiple users posted images of the headline or the text of Turner’s article and responded by writing that they were “glad to be fighting age” and urging others to “take care of this faggot” because “americans killed a president for much less.”

4chan Virginia hoax1]

By December 17,multiple white nationalist channels on Telegramwere also posting the hoax, via text from Turner’s site or from another radio host and QAnon supporter, John B. Wells, who had cited Turner and posted the same text on his site on December 15. One of those Telegram channels was that of Paul Nehlen, a former congressional candidate who ran against former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and who has openly expressed white nationalist views and issued calls to violence.

Telegram Virginia hoax2]

IN THIS ARTICLE

Fake News

fake news

Facebook

Facebook-MMFA-Tag.png

4chan

4chan-MMFA-Tag.pngMORE

50 COMMENTS

How a total fabrication connecting George Soros' son to the whistleblower went from the underbelly of the internet to Rep. Steve King

11/15/19 11:57 AM EST

A new baseless conspiracy theory about Rep. Ilhan Omar can be traced back to far-right message boards

09/09/19 2:26 PM EDT

How bots and far-right figures spread a lie about Beto O'Rourke and the Odessa shooting

09/04/19 1:52 PM EDT

Media Matters for America

---

ORIG OF HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP bs?

https://www.mediamatters.org/trump-impeachment-inquiry/far-right-trump-defenders-blast-russia-aligned-ukrainian-lawmakers}:}:

as testimony was underway during the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, far-right defenders of the president rapidly spread false and unsubstantiated information in an attempt to bolster a Republican-backed conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden and Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that previously had Biden on its board of directors.

On November 20, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified before the House Intelligence Committee and provided further support for the central premise of the impeachment inquiry. Sondland confirmed that he believed Trump directed an effort to hold up security assistance to Ukraine unless the country announced an investigation into his political adversaries. Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others close to the president have repeatedly pushed the evidence-free claim that, as vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor because that prosecutor was investigating Burisma, where his son worked at the time. (In fact, the prosecutor in question was corrupt, and no Burisma investigation was being carried out at the time when Biden was tasked with advancing the broadly held Western foreign policy goal of pressuring Ukraine to fire the prosecutor.)

While the hearing was underway, conspiracy theory website ZeroHedge published an article claiming that Burisma founder Nikolai Zlochevsky had been indicted by Ukraine’s prosecutor general, and that evidence indicated that Hunter Biden and other Burisma board members had received money embezzled by Burisma from Ukrainian citizens.NBC News reported that the claims in the ZeroHedge article were “incorrect,” as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky has not been indicted, but that “didn’t stop allies of President Donald Trump from widely disseminating the false account of an indictment, seizing on some truthful elements while wildly extrapolating others.” According to a report from Reuters, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, did announce on November 20 an escalation into his investigation of Zlochevsky to include suspicion of embezzlement, but he “did not provide evidence or details” or mention Biden. Reuters added that the investigation is “is effectively on hold” because “the Ukrainian authorities cannot determine Zlochevsky’s whereabouts.”

According to NBC News, the claim that Burisma’s founder had been indicted was shared by tens of thousands of users on Twitter during the first hour after it was published. Social media analysis tool CrowdTangle showed that by the morning of November 21, the ZeroHedge story had been shared on Facebook pages with a total of nearly 5.5 million followers. The story also began to trend on Reddit’s toxic “r/The_Donald” subreddit. In particular, the story was initially popularized on Twitter by an account purporting to be a news organization, @BreakingNLive, that was suspended from the platform later in the day.

The false story reached Trump’s inner circle on Twitter, with Donald Trump Jr. liking a tweet promoting the ZeroHedge article sent by Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec. (Posobiec appears to have subsequently deleted the tweet.) On YouTube, the indictment claim is being promoted by Red Pill News, a channel verified by YouTube that has 176,000 subscribers, and a channel belonging to far-right congressional candidate Joey Saladino, which has 252,000 subscribers.

Beyond Posobiec, the ZeroHedge claims were pushed on social media by other prominent far-right conspiracy theorists including Jerome Corsi, Bill Mitchell, and cartoonist Ben Garrison. Proponents of the far-right pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory were also behind the social media push. As NBC News reported, “One minute before the ZeroHedge article was published, the anonymous account that inspired the QAnon conspiracy theory — generally known as 'Q' — linked to the same” article that formed the basis of the claims promoted at ZeroHedge. Major QAnon accounts, including @Jordan_Sather_ and @EyesOnQ subsequently promoted the ZeroHedge article. NBC’s Ben Collins reported that “Q” later made a post complaining about the suspension of @BreakingNLive.

Beyond social media, the claims first popularized by ZeroHedge were also featured on disreputable right-wing conspiracy theory websites Infowars and The Gateway Pundit as well as smaller such platforms including The Federalist Papers, WayneDupree.com, [your]News, The Daily Coin, and MAGA Daily Report. (Hannity and Fox “straight news” program Fox News @ Night later covered the Reuters report as well, while featuring pictures and a discussion of Hunter Biden.)

The source of ZeroHedge’s story appears to be an article from Interfax-Ukraine that repeated unsubstantiated claims about illegal payments from Burisma to Biden made by Ukrainian Members of ParliamentAndriy Derkach and Oleksandr Dubinsky at a press conference they held at the news agency, where they did not offer evidence to back their claims. Interfax-Ukraine’s parent company is a Russian business, Interfax, that was recently praised by Vladmir Putin as making “a major contribution to strengthening the authority and prestige of journalism.” Derkach’s claim about the payments isn’t new. As Time reported, in recent months Derkach has repeatedly made public statements alleging improper payments from Burisma to Biden. Those statements failed to catch on in the way the statements made at the press conference on Wednesday did. Other Ukrainian lawmakers have accused Derkach -- who does not belong to a political party and, according to Time, “studied in the early 1990s at Russia’s top intelligence academy” -- of advancing the interests of Russia, which is currently waging a war against Ukraine. According to Kyiv Post, Derkach has made separate accusations about Biden receiving improper payments in an offshore account while providing “no evidence to support these accusations.” According to Ukraine experts interviewed by NBC News, Derkach and Dubinsky are “not credible” and likely held the press conference to boost Trump.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/man-shot-mob-boss-francesco-franky-boy-cali/story?id=64483955

man who is accused of fatally shooting a New York City mob boss in a brazen crime that shocked observers and the law enforcement community allegedlythought he had the protection of President Trumpand was trying to arrest the mob boss as part of a battle against the "Deep State," new court documents claim....

---

mma 919 deep state talking pts

Turning Point USA’s Benny Johnson, a serial plagiarist, claimed the complaint has “no evidence,” is “unverified” and “uncorroborated,” and is being “used to launch a fraudulent investigation.”

Conservative radio host and QAnon supporter Bill Mitchell claimed that “this whole thing is hearsay” and addedthat “we are witnessing the end of the Democrat Party as we know it.”

---

NY Post columnist and CNN contributor posts climate-denial tweet from QAnon conspiracy theorist

WRITTEN BY ERIC KLEEFELD

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALEX KAPLAN

:{PUBLISHED 09/19/19

Salena Zito, a columnist at the New York Post as well as a CNN contributor, reposted a climate-denial Twitter thread from a writer who is involved in a notorious far-right conspiracy theory.

Zito began as a local Pittsburgh Tribune-Review columnist and since the 2016 election has further built her career upon the rise of Donald Trump. (At the same time, she has faced allegations of plagiarism.)

On September 19, Zito retweeted Martin Geddes, whose Twitter profile identifies his affiliation with the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The “interesting thread” goes on to declare: “There are many crimes & crises that are going to bury the progressive left over the next few years, but the one that will be their epitaph is Global Warming (aka ‘Climate Change’).”

Geddes describes himself as a “digital soldier,” and his profile includes a link to a piece he wrote that he describes as a “QAnon article that Medium censored.”

The QAnon conspiracy theory is based around an anonymous user on the far-right internet forum 8chan who signs cryptic posts as “Q.” The user claims to be a high-level member of the federal government, and dedicated believers look in these posts for clues about an alleged master plan by President Donald Trump to take down his “deep state” opponents and pedophilia rings supposedly linked to celebrities and politicians.

As for Geddes’ accusation that global warming is “a political construct,” backed up by “people with PhDs (whose entire livelihood depends on agreeing with this)” -- wouldn’t it make more sense to think that the fossil fuel companies would pay more money for a science-on-demand racket, rather than university administrations?

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/wacky-qanon-conspiracy-theorists-have-become-a-major-headache-for-trumps-reelection-campaign-report/

no lnx

Wacky QAnon conspiracy theorists have become a major headache for Trump’s reelection campaign: report

Written by Alex Henderson September 12, 2019

Not all of the right-wing Republicans who want to see President Donald Trump reelected in 2020 are believers in the goofy QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that Trump is secretly fighting an international ring of pedophiles and child sex traffickers — and that an anonymous figure known as Q is secretly sending updates on the battle. Many conservatives and Trump supporters believe that the QAnon cult is completely nuts. But QAnon theorists won’t go away, and in a report for the Daily Beast, journalists Will Sommer and Asawin Suebsaeng describe the ways in which they have become a headache for Trump’s 2020 campaign.

Sommer and Suebsaeng report that QAnon theorists are feeling increasingly energized: in addition to making their presence felt at Trump rallies, they have been holding rallies of their own — for example, a QAnon rally was held across the street from the White House on Wednesday, and about 100 people showed up.

At a recent Trump rally in Tampa, Florida, according to Sommer and Suebsaeng, QAnon supporters were so visible that cable news couldn’t ignore them. QAnon supporter John Welch told the Beast, “By the time the rally was over, they didn’t have any choice but to put us on (television).”

The problem that QAnon poses for the Trump campaign is that when they are able to attract media attention at Trump events, it sends out a message that parts of his base are divorced from reality — and gives Democrats a possible weapon to use against Trump.

Sommer and Suebsaeng report that “to Team Trump…. QAnon diehards who adore Trump and garner media coverage and camera shots at his 2020 rallies have been a long-time nuisance.” And one senior Trump campaign official, interviewed anonymously, told the Beast that the campaign has a formula for dealing with QAnon: “ignore them” and don’t “make a big deal out of” them — and at the same time, try to avoid “pissing off the crazy” people.

On one hand, Sommer and Suebsaeng report, Trump’s team don’t want to anger QAnon supporters — who view Trump as an heroic figure who will topple an international ring of pedophiles and child sex traffickers. But on the other hand, their visibility at Trump events is bad publicity for the campaign.

“The presence of Q believers at rallies,” according to Sommer and Suebsaeng, “also means Trump could accidentally endorse the theory, at least in the eyes of its believers. Nearly every Trump appearance produces footage that QAnon believers scrutinize in hopes of seeing Trump’s hand movements form what they believe to be a Q.”

mma

QAnon rally promoter plans to livestream event on Periscope, which prohibits violence-encouraging content

:{09/05/19

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/what-is-qanon-inside-the-conspiracy-theory-that-just-wont-die/

no lnx

What is QAnon? Inside the conspiracy theory that just won’t die

Written by Matthew Rozsa / Salon August 19, 2019

If you follow the squeaks and squawks of far-right conspiracy theorists, you have almost certainly encountered QAnon believers — individuals who follow the oft-debunked predictions of an anonymous man who calls himself “Q” and claims to know the sinister truth about how the world works.

To better understand the QAnon conspiracy theory, Salon spoke with Travis View, the host of the QAnon Anonymous podcast, who has written about the group extensively for the Washington Post.

What does QAnon believe?

“QAnon is based upon the idea that there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world, essentially, and they control everything,” View told Salon. “They control politicians, and they control the media. They control Hollywood, and they cover up their existence, essentially. And they would have continued ruling the world, were it not for the election of President Donald Trump.”

“Now, Donald Trump in this conspiracy theory knows all about this evil cabal’s wrongdoing. But one of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected was to put an end to them, basically. And now we would be ignorant of this behind-the-scenes battle of Donald Trump and the U.S. military — that everyone backs him and the evil cabal — were it not for ‘Q.’ And what ‘Q’ is — is basically a poster on 4chan, who later moved to 8chan, who reveals details about this secret behind-the-scenes battle, and also secrets about what the cabal is doing and also the mass sort of upcoming arrest events through these posts.”

What is “The Storm?”

As Vox’s Jane Coaston wrote in March, followers of QAnon believe that there is an imminent event known as “‘The Storm,’ during which all of Trump’s enemies, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and others, would be arrested and executed for being murderous child-eating pedophiles.” In November 2017, Coaston pointed out that QAnon had predicted that John Podesta, the chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, would be arrested and that the military would take control, followed by riots being orchestrated to prevent more senior officials from also being arrested.

“‘The Storm’ is basically when tens of thousands of people, including Hillary Clinton and James Comey, and [John] Brennan, and maybe even Hollywood celebrities, and other high-level politicians and journalists even, are going to be arrested, and rounded up and possibly even sent to Guantanamo Bay,” View told Salon. “Or be subjected to basically military tribunals, where they will be tried for their heinous crimes. And that’s sort of like the outline.”

Who is ‘Q?’

As View put it, “We have some indication of who ‘Q’ might have been, but there isn’t really any sort of solid evidence right now connecting someone to ‘Q.'” At the very least, it does not seem likely that any old person could pretend to be ‘Q.’

“On 4chan and 8chan, these are image boards,” View said. “There aren’t really like webs or forums. And how image boards work is that you can’t create an account. You can’t register an account that’s yours. But what you can do is — you can create what they call a trip code. And this is sort of like a string of characters that’s connected to a particular password that only you know . . . For someone to post as ‘Q,’ they would first need to know ‘Q’s’ trip code or password. And so that’s basically it: There’s a method for identifying yourself basically on these image boards.”

“Now, in ‘Q’s’ case is kind of complicated, because the trip code has changed a few times, because the trip code was leaked or hacked for whatever reason. But, yeah, that’s basically how image boards work. You can sort of identify yourself as sort of someone who posts two or more times with this trip code.”

Is there any truth to what QAnon believes?

“The interesting thing about QAnon is that there’s always at least this tiny hint of truth to it,” View said. “I’ve talked about sometimes they’re sort of right, maybe in a very broad general sense, but their specific particular claims are always insane and far, far detached from reality. In the case of secret pedophile rings, I mean, you don’t have to look very far to see that kind of thing actually happens. I’m talking about the massive sort of scandal in the Catholic Church. For example, there’s a case in Philadelphia, which is horrendous, of many young people who were molested by people in the Catholic Church. And it was sort of covered up, and has gone on and served several cities all over the world. Very, very tragic.”

“And, of course, there’s the case of Jeffrey Epstein, who was a billionaire who may have molested dozens of girls, and then basically got a sweetheart deal from the government and is a free man now. So there’s that reason — is that they often have a sense that, ‘Well, if this kind of thing is going on and is being covered up, then perhaps the cover-up is bigger than anyone thinks.'”

This point cannot be discounted: From Hollywood to the corridors of power, there are indeed secret pedophile rings that exist. That does not mean, however, that any crackpot who claims to have discovered one should be automatically taken seriously.

Why do people believe this nonsense?

To answer that question, let us turn to “The Paranoid Style in American Politics,” the classic American political essay by historian Richard Hofstadter. Originally published in Harper’s Magazine in 1964, Hofstadter dissected what causes people to subscribe to conspiracy theories. His argument was based not on a psychological diagnosis but rather on a particular style that tends to appeal to people regardless of whether it has any objective merit:

The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization. He constantly lives at a turning point. Like religious millennialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date fort the apocalypse…

As a member of the avant-garde who is capable of perceiving the conspiracy before it is fully obvious to an as yet unaroused public, the paranoid is a militant leader. He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician. Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Since the enemy is thought of as being totally evil and totally unappeasable, he must be totally eliminated—if not from the world, at least from the theatre of operations to which the paranoid directs his attention.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/michael-flynn-and-george-papadopoulos-slated-to-speak-at-event-hosted-by-qanon-conspiracy-theorist/

no lnx

Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos slated to speak at event hosted by QAnon conspiracy theorist

Written by Alex Henderson August 14, 2019

Many right-wing activists avoid discussing the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that: (1) Democrats are involved in an international ring of pedophiles and child sex traffickers, (2) President Donald Trump was put in the White House to secretly combat the ring, and (3) important updates are being sent via an anonymous figure named Q. But others are happy to promote it, including Yippy, Inc. CEO Rich Granville. And Trump allies Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, Mother Jones is reporting, are scheduled to speak at a conference Granville is organizing.

The one-day event, scheduled for September 14 in Atlanta, is billed as the Digital Soldiers Conference and claims it is designed to promote a “digital civil war” against “censorship and oppression.” Granville, who has posted many references to QAnon on Twitter, is not the only QAnon supporter who will be speaking at the event: Florida-based online broadcaster Bill Mitchell, another scheduled speaker, has often promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory on his show.

The letter “Q” is one of the ways in which QAnon supporters identify themselves, and the website for the Digital Soldiers Conference depicts an American flag with stars in a “Q” shape. But Granville told Mother Jones that the flag depicted on the site isn’t a QAnon reference but rather, a reference to the fact that Flynn (who briefly served as national security adviser in the Trump Administration in 2017) is a three-star general: three of the stars are depicted in gold rather than white.

Gen. Flynn set to speak at Digital Soldiers Conference in Atlanta@DigiSoldiers @GenFlynn #DIGITALSOLDIERShttps://t.co/j96rWMMayC #realDonaldTrump via @freedomoutpost

— Rich Granville CEO of Yippy.com (@GranvilleReal) August 13, 2019

Nonetheless, Granville acknowledged to Mother Jones that he is a QAnon supporter. And Mother Jones described Granville’s Twitter account as “littered with references to QAnon.”

According to the Digital Soldiers Conference site, most of the proceeds from the event will go to Flynn’s defense fund. Flynn, like Papadopoulos (a foreign policy adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign), faced federal charges as a result of lying to the FBI in connection with the U.S. Justice Department’s Russia investigation. Both of them agreed to fully cooperate with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, but while Papadopoulos has already served a brief prison sentence, Flynn has yet to be sentenced.

Trump campaign ad featured QAnon signs despite FBI warning that conspiracy could ‘motivate’ extremists

The FBI in a recent document listed “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory as a “domestic terror threat.” Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have already been linked to multiple threats, attempted acts of violence, and even murders.

On Twitter, President Donald Trump has amplified supporters of the conspiracy theory more than 20 times. Trump has also met with multiple supporters of the conspiracy theory at the White House, and a supporter of the conspiracy theory is co-chair of a coalition group for his reelection campaign.

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/fbi-calls-qanon-domestic-terror-threat-trump-has-amplified-qanon-supporters-twitter-more-20

ref

no lnx many

The FBI calls QAnon a domestic terror threat. Trump has amplified QAnon supporters on Twitter more than 20 times.

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

:{PUBLISHED 08/01/19

The FBI in a recent document listed “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory as a “domestic terror threat.” Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have already been linked to multiple threats, attempted acts of violence, and even murders. On Twitter, President Donald Trump has amplified supporters of the conspiracy theory more than 20 times. Trump has also met with multiple supporters of the conspiracy theory at the White House, and a supporter of the conspiracy theory is co-chair of a coalition group for his reelection campaign.

Sarah Wasko / Media Matters

FBI cites QAnon as a domestic terror threat

FBI lists QAnon conspiracy theory as a domestic terrorism threat. In May, the FBI released a memo which “for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat,” according to Yahoo News. The memo “specifically mentions QAnon.” From the August 1 article:

The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News.

...

The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).

…

President Trump is mentioned by name briefly in the latest FBI document, which notes that the origins of QAnon is the conspiratorial belief that “Q,” allegedly a government official, “posts classified information online to reveal a covert effort, led by President Trump, to dismantle a conspiracy involving ‘deep state’ actors and global elites allegedly engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring.” [Yahoo News, 8/1/19]

The conspiracy theory has been growing online since October 2017. As reported by Media Matters in August 2018, “the unhinged conspiracy theory known as ‘QAnon,’ or ‘The Storm,’ has been gaining traction online among President Donald Trump’s supporters since October 2017,” but “it finally jumped to the mainstream in the form of shirts and signs that were prominently visible at a Trump campaign rally in Tampa, FL”:

While the theory has its murky origins on 4chan and 8chan -- message boards best known for serving as the source of hoaxes and organized harassment campaigns -- many prominent right-wing figures, websites, and social media accounts have helped amplify QAnon. [Media Matters, 8/2/18]

QAnon supporters have been linked to multiple acts and threats of violence. Supporters of the conspiracy theory have been linked to multiple violent incidents and threats of violence, including a man accused of murdering his brother with a sword, a man who reportedly threatened to kill YouTube employees, a man accused of murdering an alleged crime boss, an armed man who blocked the Hoover Dam with an armored vehicle, and a man who threatened to assassinate Trump. Supporters of the conspiracy theory have even terrorized a charter school and forced it to cancel its annual fundraiser. [The Daily Beast, 8/11/18, 9/27/18, 1/9/19; BuzzFeed, 6/17/18; The New York Times, 7/21/19; The Daily Dot, 5/10/19]

Trump has amplified QAnon-supporting Twitter accounts more than 20 times

On Twitter, Trump has repeatedly retweeted, quote tweeted, tagged, and shared content from QAnon supporters. Since 2017, Trump has repeatedly amplified Twitter accounts supporting the conspiracy theory.

From November 25, 2017:

Travis View

@travis_view

Question: When will Trump retweet a Q-Anon account and promote a Q-Anon website?

Answer: Trick question. He already has.

On Nov. 25, 2017 Trump quote tweeted @MAGAPILL, which included a link to their website. The site has been promoting Q-Anon since before Trump's quote tweet.

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Mar 17, 2019

Replying to @atrupar

The account Trump retweeted (@Lrihendry) to indicate he hates John McCain is a bigoted pizzagate conspiracy theorist who suggested Obama is a pedophile

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Trump retweeted a Qanon account (@vmbb12) whose avatar is Q with a MAGA hat. I’d tell you more about this account but it has me blocked, even though we’ve never interacted.

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

171

4:02 PM - Mar 17, 2019 · Minnesota, USA

Twitter Ads info and privacy

96 people are talking about this

From March 20:

From a QAnon conspiracy theorist to actor James Woods to comedian Larry the Cable Guy to the leader of the free world.Thus travels information in the age of Twitter and President Trump, who took a late-night swing at a familiar punching bag — the Transportation Security Administration — via a nearly two-year-old video spread by a character on the far fringes of the Internet.

…

The video was reshared on Monday by a Twitter account called Deep State Exposed, which is operated by Jeremy Stone, a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Stone’s twitter bio includes the phrase “WWG1WGA,” shorthand for “Where We Go One We Go All,” a rallying cry for the bizarre theory that ties together the Pizzagate conspiracy and a supposed “deep state” plot to control American politics. Stone soon added a follow-up tweet to the viral video claiming that “TSA goes out of their way to hire high school dropouts with an inclination for sexual perversion. It’s mind control!!!” [The Washington Post, 3/20/19]

On May 1, Trump retweeted six accounts that had pushed the conspiracy theory:

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

Multiple accounts that Trump retweeted this morning appear to have pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory.

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

5:15 AM - May 1, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

20 people are talking about this

From May 4:

Josh Russell

@josh_emerson

Big day for the murderous death cult known as Qanon.

This is one of the biggest Q accounts.

Twitter could have done something about this, Reddit did.

But they refuse too and they won't, until a few more people get killed by these nutcases.

View image on Twitter

5:47 AM - May 4, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

29 people are talking about this

From May 12:

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

Crowley in March called the New Zealand shootings a false flag and pushed the conspiracy theory that John Podesta was involved with the attacks.https://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/uploader/image/2019/03/18/Lisa_Mei_Crowley_Podesta.png …https://twitter.com/travis_view/status/1127706781952512000?s=19 …

Travis View

@travis_view

Today Trump retweeted an old tweet from Lisa Mei Crowley, a QAnon pusher who has screenshots of Q drops in her Twitter header image.

This is the sixth or so time that Trump has retweeted a QAnon account. I stopped keeping track tbh.

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

4:54 PM - May 12, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

47 people are talking about this

On June 9, Trump retweeted Bill Mitchell, a conservative radio host who has boosted the conspiracy theory:

[Media Matters, 7/9/19]

From July 4:

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

May 1, 2019

Multiple accounts that Trump retweeted this morning appear to have pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory.

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

It appears that Trump tonight retweeted another QAnon believer.

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

Jul 4, 2019

Replying to @AlKapDC

It appears that Trump tonight retweeted another QAnon believer.

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

An account Trump quote tweeted last night had pushed QAnon, Pizzagate, & a debunked hoax known as "Frazzledrip" about Hillary Clinton & Huma Abedin mutilating a child. Trump since then has also retweeted two other QAnon accounts.

On July 12, Trump again retweeted Mitchell:

From July 14:

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

Jul 12, 2019

Replying to @AlKapDC

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

At least two of the accounts Trump retweeted this morning appear to be QAnon accounts.

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

7:36 AM - Jul 14, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

See Alex Kaplan's other Tweets

In a July 30 tweet, Trump tagged a QAnon supporter with the QAnon slogan in its profile. He also retweeted another QAnon account.

Replying to @AlKapDC

This afternoon, Trump tagged in a tweet a QAnon account.https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/1156246319868129280 …

Josh Dawsey

@jdawsey1

The account potus just tagged for voter ID https://twitter.com/voteridplease/status/1112189035554983936 …

Alex Kaplan

@AlKapDC

Trump also quote tweeted and retweeted another QAnon account this afternoon.

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

10:51 AM - Jul 30, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

See Alex Kaplan's other Tweets

[Right Wing Watch, 7/30/19]

Trump has met with multiple QAnon supporters at the White House and even has a QAnon supporter as a campaign surrogate

Trump has hosted multiple QAnon supporters. InAugust 2018, Trump met with radio host and QAnon supporter Michael Lebron in the Oval Office. This July, Trump’s White House social media summit hosted Mitchell, singer Joy Villa, who wore “Q” earrings at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, and Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit, which has criticized media outlets that tried to “mischaracterize and discredit” the conspiracy theory. Another booster of the conspiracy theory, cartoonist Ben Garrison, was originally invited to the summit, but his invitation was later rescinded. [CNN, 8/25/18; Media Matters, 7/9/19]

A QAnon supporter is co-chair of a Trump campaign coalition group. Actor and QAnon supporter Stacey Dash is a co-chair of Women for Trump, a coalition group for Trump’s reelection campaign. [women.donaldjtrump.com, accessed 7/23/19; Twitter, 1/28/19, 7/23/19]

Alleged QAnon-inspired murderer was obsessed with Fox News

killed mafia deep state; want to arrest schiff and _)

many pix twt no lnx

Alleged QAnon-inspired murderer was obsessed with Fox News

Special Programs

Guns & Public Safety

Written by Timothy Johnson

Published 07/22/19

A man facing charges for allegedly carrying out a QAnon-inspired killing also appears to have had his worldview significantly shaped by Fox News, as is evident from his social media account.

On March 13, Anthony Comello allegedly shot and killed Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali in Staten Island, NY. Cali was reportedly a member of the Gambino crime family. During a court appearance following his arrest, Comello was photographed with a “Q” on his hand, a reference to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

The New York Times followed up on this angle in a July 21 article, reporting that Comello’s lawyer claimed “Comello had become convinced that Mr. Cali was part of the so-called deep state, a cabal of criminals that conspiracy theorists claim controls the United States government.” The Times reported that Comello’s attorney says the murder was carried out because Comello “believed he was a chosen vigilante of President [Donald] Trump.”

The Times reported that court filings list the handle of Comello’s Instagram account and that Comello was “posting and sharing conspiracy theories online that are associated with the far-right.” According to the paper, Comello was “engaging with other QAnon believers on the internet”:

Mr. Gottlieb identified one of Mr. Comello’s accounts, RealAmericasVoice_ on Instagram, in his filing. The page has dozens of memes and written screeds, some that are difficult to decipher, including several posted days before Mr. Cali’s death.

One post accuses Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, of being a fascist. “Patriot sleeper cells are awake,” he wrote in another. Yet another refers to Bill and Hillary Clinton as “The Clinton Crime Family.”

What the Times declined to include in its reporting is that in addition to posting conspiracy theories, the RealAmericasVoice_ Instagram account heavily focused on promoting Fox News. For example, the post about “The Clinton Crime Family” referenced by the Times shows that the Comello’s claim was partly sourced from Fox News host Sean Hannity:

Hannity’s conspiratorial “Clinton Crime Family” claims are an area where Fox News programming overlaps with the QAnon conspiracy theory -- both push the notion that Trump is waging war against a “deep state” operated by criminal elites.

In the months leading up to the killing, Comello frequently made posts on Instagram with videos or photos of his TV playing Fox News. In another post, Comello praised Hannity for “spreading the truth” and wrote that “the real news is @foxnews”:

On October 18, Comello posted a screenshot of a video from Fox News host Tucker Carlson and wrote that Fox News is his “favorite network.” Comello’s post tagged and praised the network alongside Hannity, Tucker Carlson Tonight, Fox & Friends, Fox Business Network, Fox Nation:

Comello uploaded a video of Carlson’s show on November 15 and wrote, “Now that right there is a news monologue”:

On January 7, Comello posted a video of Carlson attacking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY):

Comello, who would later use a gun to shoot his victim, praised Carlson multiple times for attacking gun violence prevention laws. He also praised the NRA in one of those posts.

On January 5, Comello uploaded a video of Fox News host Jeanine Pirro attacking Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) on her Fox News show. In a comment, Comello told Tlaib to “go back to Iran”:

Comello shared other Fox netowork content from:

Fox Nation:

Fox & Friends:

Fox News Radio:

A Fox News special on Ronald Reagan:

And FoxNews.com:

Other right-wing media figures and outlets promoted by Comello include Fox News contributor Sara Carter, cartoonist Ben Garrison (who was recently invited and then disinvited to the White House), One America News Network, Jim Hoft, and Turning Point USA.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/qanon-conspiracists-appear-at-trump-rally-only-hours-after-fbi-warning-on-far-right-conspiracy-group/}:

no lnx ah

Far-right proponents of the bizarre QAnon conspiracy theory — which claims that an alliance of Hollywood actors and Washington, D.C. politicians, among others, have been engaging in an international child sex ring —are not only unhinged; they are also potentially dangerous, according to the FBI. And this week, the Washington Post reports, some QAnon proponents turned up at a rally for President Donald Trump on the same day the FBI issued a bulletin warning that the group could be dangerous.

According to the bulletin, proponents of QAnon as well as the Pizzagate conspiracy theory have the potential for violence. In 2016, Pizzagate proponents claimed that Democrats were using a Washington, D.C. pizzeria for child sex abuse.

The bulletin reads, “The FBI assesses theseconspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts.And it goes on to say thatreports “of a sudden rise in threats and unfounded accusations against a given individual or business may indicate impending conspiracy theory-driven crime or violence.”

On Thursday at a Trump rally in Cincinnati, according to the Post, a supporter named Brandon Straka used a QAnon slogan: “where we go one, we go all.” And other QAnon proponents were seen at the rally as well.

In the cultish QAnon community, Trump is held in high regard: QAnon theorists believe his presidency is meant to help carry out a worldwide battle against a child sex ring — and Q is an anonymous figure who sends sporadic messages on the battle.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-approved-conspiracy-kook-says-military-sprays-chemicals-in-the-sky-to-sow-societal-chaos/}:

Lionel Lebron, a YouTube conspiracy theorist who posed for a photo with President Trump in the Oval Office last year, claims that the federal government and military are manipulating the climate over the United States to sow chaos and disorder in society.

Dan Wigington of Geoengineering Watch joined Lebron on his YouTube podcast to discuss the government’s alleged routine of spraying chemicals into the sky in order to influence the climate in ways that shape world events and sow chaos into the American population. The duo specified that they wouldn’t call the chemicals sprayed in air “chemtrails” because the word “chemtrail” is too often associated with conspiracy theories. Rather, the duo opted to say that their theories are about “geoengineering.”

“Semantics are important and I don’t want to be an anti-semantic,” Lebron joked.

The science community has debated the ethics of using chemical agents to curb the effects of climate change, but the ideas are often considered to be far-fetched and too risky to attempt on a large scale. However, Lebron and Wigington pile conspiracy theories onto that scientific debate—theories about military forces using geoengineering to “topple nations” in “weather warfare,” and to destabilize society.

Wigington said that government agencies use chemicals sprayed in the sky to keep portions of the United States cooler than the rest of the planet so that it “confuses and divides the population as to the true state of the climate while the planet descends into total meltdown.”

“Not only is climate modification used for weather warfare, to topple nations without those nations ever knowing they were at war—nations in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere that are forced to allow U.S. occupation. It’s used as a weapon of war, but also it’s used to confuse, divide, and thus pacify populations,” Wigington said.

Lebron agreed.

“Just like free radicals are so dangerous because they’re always trying to cleave and grab something, the worst thing that the military industrial complex, cabal, whoever you want to call these people—the asset-stripping jackals—the worst thing they could have happen is stability, calmness, power, strength, a sense of solemnity, purpose, cooperation. They don’t want that,” Lebron said. “Anything that makes them skeptical, that makes them run to the streets, run to the religions, run to their science—just run.”

Wigington went on to claim that weather forecasters are able to read scripts predicting the path of hurricanes because the government is using microwave beams and Raytheon military products to steer the aquatic cyclones.

Lebron is a QAnon conspiracy theorist who posed for a photo in the Oval Office with President Donald Trump last year. The Daily Beast reported that Lebron claimed to have taken the picture with Trump after he received a “special guided tour of the White House,” and that an Oval Office photo op with the president is something that would typically require a senior administration official’s blessing. Earlier this week, Lebron filmed an interview with actress Roseanne Barr, who is a QAnon believer.

rww

MARCH 25, 2019 4:26 PM

Fox News White House Correspondent Inflames QAnon

MARCH 19, 2019 1:27 PM

Man Accused of Murdering a Mob Boss Was Interested in QAnon

3/19 mich

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/video-show-alarming-number-of-trump-fans-supporting-qanon-liberal-child-sex-trafficking-conspiracy/

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/trump-loving-conspiracy-nuts-once-again-blow-a-prediction-about-the-mass-arrest-of-the-presidents-foes/

Another week, another missed prediction of the mass arrest of President Donald Trump’s political enemies.

The *Daily Beast* reports that followers of the “QAnon” conspiracy theory had predicted that Trump would round up prominent Democrats for their supposed participation in a global pedophile ring on March 19th.

March 19th has come and gone, however, and the mass arrests never occurred.

As the report notes,this isn’t the first time that QAnon followers have made a false prediction about these arrests, which they refer to as “The Storm” that will sweep away all opposition to the president.

The first failed prediction came in 2017, when followers believed that longtime Clinton loyalists John Podesta and Huma Abedin would be arrested for their role in running a child human trafficking syndicate. Since then, QAnon followers have also predicted that Trump would bring the hammer down on his enemies during the funeral of former President George H.W. Bush — a prediction that also failed spectacularly.

None of this has phased QAnon’s core base, however.

“Unlike earlier failed predictions, which saw some followers leave the movement or express discouragement, this latest failure appears to have already vanished down the movement’s memory hole,” reports the Daily Beast. “QAnon’s failures are so numerous they’ve become an ambient white noise that true believers can tune out.”

https://www.alternet.org/qanon-conspiracy-believers-complain-being-isolated-loved-ones-during-holidays

Believers in the rightwing conspiracy Qanon, an elaborate fantasy in which President Donald Trump and Robert Mueller are secretly working togetherto battle a cabal of prominent people who are child molesters,complained of being lonely and isolated from loved ones in a new Daily Beast report.

Qanon believers "lamented that their belief in the bizarre right-wing conspiracy theory had isolated them from friends or family," and that the loneliness was "keenly felt over the holidays."

It's part of a trend that has followed the year-old conspiracy theory, which has reportedly broken up families.

The story was sourced to four conspiracists, "two diehards and two who are beginning to experience doubts."

One of the believers, a man, said that he has now joined a support group for Qanon believers who are increasingly estranged from family and friends.

“You hear about a lot of people, their spouses rolling their eyes and not seeing,” he said. “I’m trying to wake up my wife and head off potential disaster in the future and she just rolls her eyes. She thinks I’m nuts.”

Another woman lamented that no one she knows in person wants to hear about her conspiracy theories.

"I stopped trying to tell them. I stopped. Nobody wants to hear it," she said. "They say you’re a conspiracy nut and you’re looking at wacky stuff on the internet.”

One of the Qanon believers lost a friend of 60 years to her beliefs.

"She humiliated me on my Facebook page," she said. "There are other incidences as well. I keep it to myself that I follow QAnon. Some of my other friends follow as well.”

An expert who studies the Qanon phenomenon told the Beast that he's seen a lot of chatter about lost relationships within the conspiracy community but that the believers still think they will be vindicated.

"They often comfort themselves by imagining that there will be a moment of vindication sometime in the near future which will prove their beliefs right," he said. "They imagine that after this happens, not only will their relationships be restored, but people will turn them as leaders who understand what's going on better than the rest of us.”

Read the full story here.

---

ref DB no linx

Kimberly’s boyfriend was tired of hearing the QAnon videos she watched around their small apartment. To keep the peace, she started keeping the videos to herself. “I live in headphones now,” she told The Daily Beast.

“My boyfriend is... I don’t know how to describe it,” she said. “We have very different views. He does not think this QAnon thing is anything except nonsense. I drastically disagree.”

Over Thanksgiving, she joined a chorus of QAnon believers lamenting that their belief in the bizarre right-wing conspiracy theory had isolated them from friends or family, a loss keenly felt over the holidays. QAnon is “something I've been researching on my own, by myself pretty nonstop, 24/7 since probably July-ish,” Kimberly said. “And then it’s grown more and more and more and more and more and more intense for me.”

The QAnon theory falsely claims that President Donald Trump’s prominent opponents are part of an international criminal ring involved in the trafficking, abuse, and sometimes eating, of children. Believers think this because “Q,” an anonymous message board user who claims to be a high-level military insider, has been telling them so since October 2017. Over its year-plus lifespan, the theory has attracted untold legions of fans. It has also attracted comparisons to cults for behavior by adherents, some of whom claim to have become estranged from families and friends over their Q belief.

AND YOU THOUGHT PIZZAGATE WAS NUTS

QAnon: The Craziest Theory of the Trump Era, Explained

Will Sommer]

The Daily Beast spoke to four Q believers—two die-hards and two who are beginning to experience doubts—who claim to have been isolated from loved ones, as well as a former Q believer who now thinks the isolation helps reinforce QAnon support. The Daily Beast is withholding their last names at their requests.

In October, Matthew suggested “a support group” for members whose significant others did not believe in Q.

Matthew, a Washington man, was already in a QAnon club; he made the suggestion in a QAnon Facebook group with nearly 25,000 members. But what he suggested, a specialized group to deal with family alienation, resonated with the community.

RELATED IN POLITICS

In a First, Lawmaker Cites QAnon From City Council Floor

People Are Sending Total Strangers Money to Build the Wall

Jerome Corsi Wasn't Always This Damn Crazy

“You hear about a lot of people, their spouses rolling their eyes and not seeing,” Matthew told The Daily Beast. “I’m trying to wake up my wife and head off potential disaster in the future and she just rolls her eyes. She thinks I’m nuts.”

Earlier this month, Megan posted about the lack of Q believers in her small Pennsylvania town. “There is no one in my life that I can physically touch that knows what's really going on,” she wrote.

The rift is most evident this time of year. “When I get together with family for the holidays,” Megan doesn’t feel comfortable discussing conspiracy theories, or even politics, with members of her family, she told The Daily Beast. “I stopped trying to tell them. I stopped. Nobody wants to hear it. They say you’re a conspiracy nut and you’re looking at wacky stuff on the internet.”

Megan and Matthew now voice various degrees of skepticism about QAnon. Both were involved in earlier conspiracy communities, and view Q as one of many conspiracies in that broader matrix of fringe beliefs. A number of recent QAnon prophecies, including predictions about mass arrests of Trump foes on December 5 and the dismissal of charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn this week, have flopped.

“When I get together with family for the holidays. I stopped trying to tell them. I stopped. Nobody wants to hear it. They say you’re a conspiracy nut and you’re looking at wacky stuff on the internet.”

— Megan

Those failures, plus doubts about the moderator of a large Facebook group have caused both to back away from the conspiracy while still supporting some of its claims. But Kimberly and Marjorie (among a growing community of Canadian QAnon believers) said they were all-in on the conspiracy.

“My friends have told me they are tired of seeing my political postings,” Marjorie told The Daily Beast. She’s lost several friends over political posts about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, including a post about Trudeau being bricked into a wall, she said. She believes Trudeau is linked to the New World Order, a conspiracy theory promoted by some QAnon believers, and said she hopes Trump will save Canada from Trudeau.

In once instance, “after having a friendship with her for 60 years, she humiliated me on my Facebook page. There are other incidences as well. I keep it to myself that I follow QAnon. Some of my other friends follow as well.”

Kimberly said her Q belief had changed her, and that some former friends didn’t understand.

“I haven’t always been with these feelings I have now. I haven’t always felt the way I feel now,” she said. “I’ve done a complete 180. There are people in my family that don’t understand as well. I’ve lost some friends, people I’ve known since high school that I’m Facebook friends with, for an example. They just blocked me, or decided I’m not their friend, or unfriended me. Who the heck came up with that definition of friend anyway? That’s OK. It is what it is.”

Travis View is a researcher monitoring the QAnon conspiracy. Over the course of the movement, he’s seen believers discuss a growing estrangement from loved ones.

“People in the QAnon community often talk about alienation from family and friends,” View said. “Though they typically talk about how Q frayed their relationships on private Facebook groups. But they think these issues are temporary and primarily the fault of others. They often comfort themselves by imagining that there will be a moment of vindication sometime in the near future which will prove their beliefs right. They imagine that after this happens, not only will their relationships be restored, but people will turn them as leaders who understand what's going on better than the rest of us.”

But the alienation isn’t just a personal loss. It can also drive people further down the path of conspiracy.

Serena is a former QAnon believer. “I followed Q’s drops [forum posts]. I watched all the videos,” she told The Daily Beast. “I’m semi-retired, so that’s all I did all day. I was so excited. It was really a thrilling, exciting time.”

The spell broke in early 2018. She’d grown up in a military family. Her dad had been CIA, and though he was long dead by the time Q started posting, Serena still remembered how the intelligence community operated. The things Q, an alleged military insider, posted just didn’t sound right, she said.

“Q dropped Bible verses in their entirety. I mean like pages of Bible verses,” she said of her disillusionment. “I was immediately crestfallen. It just broke my heart. I immediately knew there is no way that military men are sitting around working on national security trying to rally the patriots that they would risk that leaked channel by putting Bible verses on there... I knew when I saw those Bible verses that it was a marketing scheme targeting conservative Christians for donations, merchandise sales, and profit with a political agenda of some kind.”

“I followed Q’s drops [forum posts]. I watched all the videos. I’m semi-retired, so that’s all I did all day. I was so excited. It was really a thrilling, exciting time.”

— Serena

She left the movement and started watching a YouTuber who debunks Q claims.

“That kind of saved me. I also studied cults in the aftermath. I believe these people are brainwashed,” she told The Daily Beast. “There are several things they [Q] do. One is isolate their followers and turn their followers against all other sources.”

Cult expert Rachel Bernstein previously told Wired that online conspiracy movements can radicalize people by creating a tight-knit community, insulated from the rest of the world and its facts.

“When people get involved in a movement, collectively, what they’re saying is they want to be connected to each other,” Bernstein told Wired. “They want to have exclusive access to secret information other people don’t have, information they believe the powers that be are keeping from the masses, because it makes them feel protected and empowered. They’re a step ahead of those in society who remain willfully blind. This creates feeling similar to a drug—it’s its own high.”

As real-life friends slip away, some Q fans have taken solace in the online QAnon community.

“It gives me hope,” Marjorie said of the Facebook fanbase. “As far as I am concerned, real friends respect your opinions, not call you down.”

QAnon’s main slogan, “where we go one, we go all” is a statement of group identity.When she’s looking for more like-minded people, Kimberly searches a hashtag related to that slogan. “That tells me somebody’s paying attention. So I know maybe that person has some interesting things to share, so I might [look at] their profile. Whatever they’re doing, if I like what it is, I’ll comment on it.”

“People want to belong. We want to belong somewhere, to some group. You did it back in high school: the cheerleaders, the jocks, the stoners, the dweebs, the book club, the chess club, everybody wants to belong.”

— Matthew

The online circles aren’t a replacement for family, View said. But they can simulate support for people who need it.

“There's a sense of fellowship in the QAnon community,” he said. “They imagine that they're all members of a small group of people who know about a coming glorious age in America. This fellowship isn't the same actual familial relationships, but it's a workable substitute when relationships with family becomes frayed. So this creates a vicious cycle: they fall down the rabbit hole of QAnon, which hurts their real life relationships, and causes them to fall down the rabbit hole even further.”

Matthew said he’s not in lockstep with other members of the QAnon community (he believes a number of other conspiracy theories less common in the group), but participates in Q groups nonetheless.

“People want to belong,” he said of online QAnon groups. “We want to belong somewhere, to some group. You did it back in high school: the cheerleaders, the jocks, the stoners, the dweebs, the book club, the chess club, everybody wants to belong.”

But QAnon isn’t the chess club. At its most radical core, QAnon is a call for drastic political purges. Adherents believe tens of thousands of Trump opponents will be arrested and possibly detained in Guantanamo Bay or executed. Some Q believers call for the military to implement martial law and crack down on Trump’s rivals. It’s a fantasy about a political Armageddon, after which the country will be cleansed and Trump can rule unimpeded.

PEPE SILVIA

QAnoners: Trump’s Text Alert Test a Step Toward Martial Law

Will Sommer

Q’s failed predictions might be enough to dissuade some followers. But true conspiracy believers sometimes become more committed after a prediction falls flat. The 1956 book “When Prophecy Fails” is a study of an American doomsday cult whose followers became more outspoken in their beliefs after the cult’s central prediction of world-ending flood proved false. The study’s authors found that, throughout history, prophesy movements can actually become more intense after failure, as long as they have a robust community that reinforces belief among members.

These movements can also become volatile after several successive failed prophecies. Psychologist and author Robert Lifton uses the term “forcing the end” to describe efforts to push a prophecy into reality. In his book Destroying the World to Save It, Lifton describes a series of cults that initially believed Armageddon would happen naturally, without human intervention. But when significant dates came and went without revelation, and the groups perceived themselves to be under attack, members took drastic actions: mass suicides in the cases of the Heaven’s Gate and Peoples Temple cults, and mass murder in the case of the Manson family and Japan’s Aum Shinrikyo cult.

QAnon is less structured than these cults. Some followers like Matthew say they oppose martial law. But others have authored posts that appear to suggest ideas of “forcing the end.” After the December 5 prediction of mass arrests failed, View flagged a post by a QAnon follower who advocated “storm[ing] the white house” if the mass arrests don’t happen by mid January. “If you love our way of life, we may have to fight for it! WWG1WGA”

View image on Twitter

Travis View

@travis_view

Someone's not "trusting the plan" on this QAnon Facebook group.

"Ok patriots... if nothing happens (I'll give it until lets January 17th), then we must storm the white house and take our country back!"

That's a Wednesday. Which seems like a bad time to schedule an insurrection.

208

12:58 PM - Dec 14, 2018

114 people are talking about this

Leaving the QAnon movement isn’t easy, Serena, the Q renunciant, said.

“There’s different stages when you get out,” she said. “When I first got out I said ‘oh my goodness, I need to warn everybody. I need to warn them.’ But then I was attacked and threatened so harshly,” she said. “And then I was just so sad, like in a mourning stage, and then I had to laugh because it became so ridiculous. It was the only way I could cope.”

Megan, who has distanced herself from large parts of the theory after becoming convinced that Q is Trump insider Roger Stone, said the conspiracy videos can wear her down.

“Sometimes I watch it so much, I have to give it a break,” she said. “I say ‘I need a day away from this crap because it’s starting to depress me too much.’”

Matthew said he never made the support group he suggested in October.

“Recently a couple of us started questioning what’s really going on here,” he said. “This ‘where we go one, we go all’ is, I believe, brainwashing. Where are we going to go?”

Kimberly and Marjorie, meanwhile, said they’re sticking with the conspiracy theory and its leader.

“No,” Kimberly said when asked if anything would convince her Q was fake, “nothing.”

“No,” Marjorie answered the same question. “I just hope that justice will be served.”

great graphic dl

https://boingboing.net/2018/12/07/someone-is-getting-rich.html

Qanon is an unbelievably stupid conspiracy theory whose underlying bullshittery is mathematically provable, and whose primary proponents are pallsy with the President, and whose adherents include mass-murdererswhose crimes are linked to their belief in the Qanon conspiracy.

Early on, person(s) behind Qanon made a bunch of very specific predictions that failed to come true, causing many to leave the cult. But Qanon learned from their mistake and has started to make much hazier, astrology-style pronouncements that leave sufficient leeway to allow virtually any event to be interpreted as proof of the prophetic insights of Qanon.

An exception was a set of very detailed predictions for December 5, 2018, or #D5, which -- unsurprisingly -- also failed to come true.

With the latest disappointment, many members of the Qanon cult are waking up to the fact that they got hoodwinked. Anthropologist Jennifer Raft, who writes about conspiracies, has addressed a set of remarks to these departing members, helping to ground them in what has happened to them while they were in the thrall of the cult.

The short version: you got scammed, people gained both money and attention by scamming you, smart people are actually easy to scam because they form really good rationalizations and overestimate their own intelligence, and chances are, you helped scam other people.

Not everyone will get out. Look at the Q Anon movement today. It’s still full of people—although less than there were at the beginning of the week—claiming that whatever hit the headlines proved his prophecies to be true, and demanding that everyone Trust the Plan and WWG1WGA, forever and ever, amen. It’s a lesson in how the brain works. It doesn’t matter how much evidence there is proving that Q is making it up as he goes along; for some people, the pain of admitting it was a hoax is greater than the pain of believing in that hoax. The costs of believing are less than the costs of reconsidering, so they won’t reconsider. When you see the die-hard Qists trying to keep the movement running, what separates you from them? How were you able to pull your head out of the rabbit hole, and why haven’t they? Again, I can’t answer that question, and again, the answer’s going to be different for everyone. And again, this is still something that’s important to think about.

This isn’t the last scam. The hardest point is last. Earlier I said that even, maybe especially, smart people fall for dumb conspiracy theories. And that’s true. But it’s also true that people who fall for conspiracy theories like Q will keep falling for conspiracy theories. There are lots of explanations for why that’s so, some of which are probably right. But even if we don’t fully understand why it’s true, we all know that it’s true. And that means that you, dear ex-Qist, are very likely to fall for some new conspiracy theory before long. That’s one reason why it’s worth thinking about how you got out of this one, and why the dead-enders didn’t. The “mental hygiene,” or good habits of skepticism and reasoning, that it takes to question Q Anon are also good defenses against getting tricked again. But not perfect defenses, not by a long shot. So maybe the best takeaway here is simply to remember, and really believe, that you can be fooled and that you have been fooled in the past. (And yes, that applies to everyone. I’m a conspiracy theory skeptic, and I try to remind myself all the time that I can be fooled and that I have been fooled in the past.)

Your Q Anon Exit Briefing [Jennifer A. Raff/Violent Metaphors]

(*via Naked Capitalism*)

Pence tweets — then deletes — photo of 'courageous' cop wearing far right QAnon conspiracy theory logo

guy got demotion/transfer?

rww

UPDATE (11/13/18): Since the publication of this article, the American Priority conference event page has been modified. The QAnon “expert” panel mentioned in this article has been delisted and some listed speakers who frequently spread the conspiracy theory are no longer listed as conference speakers. Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth no longer appears in the lineup; American Priority conference’s Alex Phillips tells Right Wing Watch that Hegseth withdrew due to an unexpected family obligation.

Heritage Foundation Distinguished Visiting Fellow Stephen Moore and Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth are scheduled to appear at a conference in Washington, D.C., next month where a panel of believers in the “QAnon” conspiracy theory plan to present. Moore served as an economic adviser to President Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The conference was announced earlier this year as an alternative to the Conservative Political Action Conference, which Ali Alexander (also known as “Ali Akbar”), one of the original American Priority conference organizers, said neglected the Trump base, despite a CPAC speaker roster that has included administration officials (including the president himself).

Fox News and Heritage Foundation have not answered Right Wing Watch’s requests for comment.

The current agenda page for the American Priority Conference lists as one of its “conference topics” the “QAnon” conspiracy theory, which surmises that President Donald Trump has ordered someone (or a group of people) with top-level federal security clearance to gradually reveal a secret collaboration between Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller to take down a satanic pedophile ring said to span the globe, and allegedly involves top Democratic leaders. Believers of the conspiracy theory, which revolves around an anonymous figure known only as “Q,” who shares via cryptic riddles posted to an image board notorious for child pornography, believe that Trump will eventually subject such top Democrats as Hillary Clinton to military tribunals.

The American Priority event promises “an open panel discussion from Q Experts.” The website does not contain any additional information about the planned panel. Speakers listed on the conference lineup include YouTube personality Jordan Sather, a prominent producer of QAnon content on YouTube.

Sather, who was on Comedy Central as a QAnon conspiracy theorist, uploads content perpetuating the conspiracy theory almost every single day online, where he has nearly 160,000 subscribers on YouTube. Just this morning, Sather [posted](mailto:%3cblockquote%20class=%22twitter-tweet%22%20data-partner=%22tweetdeck%22%3e%3cp%20lang=%22in%22%20dir=%22ltr%22%3eStop%20it.%20Staaahp.%20%3ca%20href=%22https://twitter.com/hashtag/QAnon?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%22%3e%23QAnon%3c/a%3e%20%3ca%20href=%22https://t.co/TNCkjEdeqw%22%3epic.twitter.com/TNCkjEdeqw%3c/a%3e%3c/p%3e—%20Jordan%20Sather%20%28@Jordan_Sather%29%20%3ca%20href=%22https://twitter.com/Jordan_Sather/status/1060562948479868929?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%22%3eNovember%208,%202018%3c/a%3e%3c/blockquote%3e) an image to Twitter suggesting that news that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg had been hospitalized with fractured ribs was part of the QAnon conspiracy theory.[grafic]

Dustin Nemos, another QAnon content producer, is also slated to speak at the conference. Another speaker is Kari Baxter Donovan, who once promoted an apparently Q-themed article at Populist Media, which appears to have been deleted, tweeting its link with the tagline, “Q is for everyone” and the hashtag “#QAnon” hashtag, which she has also used to promote content as recently as November 3.

Another speaker slated for the conference is Marjorie Taylor Greene, who posted about QAnon on Facebook as recently as November 5. DeAnna Lorraine, who is also appearing at the conference, has tweeted about QAnon, too.

The event also features breakout sessions with other pro-Trump conspiracy theorists including Matt Couch, who’s responsible for spreading lies about the murder of former DNC staffer Seth Rich, and Laura Loomer.

The conference is also scheduled to feature presenters known to have had friendly interactions with figures within the white supremacist “alt-right” movement, including,, and Milo Yiannopoulous.

Deputy Director of the anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA Chris Chmielenski is also slated to speak at the American Priority conference.

Right now, the conference shows only two full sponsors: An entity called American Grassroots Council, Inc., which appears to have only a shell website, and Americans For The Trump Agenda, a project of the United States Public Policy Council, Inc., a 501(c)(4) nonprofit whose principal officer is listed as Emy Delgaudio, an Amway distributor. (Amway is the pyramid-style company founded by Richard DeVos, the late father-in-law of current Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.)

This article has been updated for clarity, with a link added to comments by a conference organizer, Ali Alexander, regarding the need for a conference alternative to CPAC. Alex Phillips, who told Right Wing Watch that he is now the “sole owner and organizer” of the American Priority conference, said that Alexander left the project in August.

Tags: Pete Hegseth Stephen Moore conspiracy theories The Storm Fox News Channel Heritage Foundation

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/qanon-conspiracy-theory-devastated-midterms-jeff-sessions

no lnx many

NEWS & POLITICS

QAnon's true believers are devastated as the conspiracy theory goes down in flames — and it won't end well

The Republican midterm loss and the firing of Jeff Sessions blew up the narrative of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Now its believers are at each others' throats.

By Matthew Chapman / AlterNet November 14, 2018, 3:55 PM GMT

The "QAnon" community is falling apart.

Perhaps no conspiracy theory has thrived more readily in the dark corners of the internet since it was first born last October on the infamous troll message board 4chan following President Donald Trump's vague remarks last year at a military dinner that it was the "calm before the storm." An anonymous user claiming to be a high-level government informant and calling himself "Q" after the highest level of security clearance at the Energy Department, began leaving cryptic messages he called "crumbs" which were supposed to be hints as to a wide-scale government operation known as "The Storm" to take down government corruption and the new world order, with Trump at the center. While the messages often had very specific dates, many aspects of them were purposefully vague, allowing believers in "QAnon" to use their imagination and fill in gaps.

In time, a gigantic overarching narrative emerged in which Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller were all working together and planning mass arrests of everyone from Hillary Clinton to liberal financier George Soros to members of Congress, for their role in a massive, world-spanning criminal child sex ring enterprise that has included every former U.S. president — and that people should prepare martial law and orchestrated mass riots to protect those marked for arrest. Q's believers have claimed that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is a CIA plant, that former Democratic staffer Seth Rich was assassinated by MS-13 on the orders of party leadership, and that Republicans intentionally lost the special election for Jeff Sessions' Senate seat in Alabama to build evidence of voter fraud. At its height, QAnon broke into popular culture, with disgraced TV star Roseanne Barr promoting it on Twitter.

:{:{}:

But now, the ongoing failure of Q's predictions to come true has started to fragment the community, and two major events in particular smashed the credibility of the movement for many believers.

:{:{}:

The first event was the result of the midterm elections, where Democrats decisively won control of the House. Q had previously assured supporters that, contrary to the polls, there was a "red wave" coming:

Will Sommer

@willsommer

Nov 6, 2018

Replying to @willsommer

You might think it'd be good for QAnon believers to start wondering if it's all fake! But instead, they're mostly just convinced "Q" needs to cut to the chase and institute a military dictatorship.

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Will Sommer

@willsommer

Here are some QAnon believers getting disillusioned by losing the House. Turns out if you convince your fans that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles, they'll be upset when they take over part of the government! (h/t @travis_view) pic.twitter.com/39uGO1tMA5

1,232

10:30 PM - Nov 6, 2018

Twitter Ads info and privacy

View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter

The second event was Trump's decision to fire Sessions, who in the QAnon narrative Trump was only pretending to hate, and was the mastermind behind all of the impending mass arrests that were supposed to be right around the corner.This was a particular blow, as many supporters were already trying to rationalize losing the House with the fact that, any minute now, Trump was going to declassify huge swathes of intelligence that would result in House Democrats going to jail and a series of special elections that would give it back to Republicans:

View image on Twitter

MAGASutt ??????????

@DrMichaelSutter

And I leave this with you my people...

DECLAS DECLAS DECLAS

FISA brings down the HOUSE#Qanon

...

The end result, according to conspiracy theory debunker Mike Rothschild, is that tons of QAnon believers now realize they have been grifted, while the rest, who have been gathered on thesocial network Voatafter the community was banned from Reddit in September, are at each others' throats and frantically spinning ever crazier ideas to explain away why nothing Q has said has come true:

View image on Twitter

Mike Rothschild

@rothschildmd

All is not well in #QAnon-land: a believer posted a rant on Voat, decrying the lack of action and blown predictions.

Rather than turning into a struggle session, other believers chimed in with their own frustrations, accepting that little is going to happen in the end.

346

10:09 AM - Nov 14, 2018

198 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Mike Rothschild

@rothschildmd

Nov 14, 2018

Replying to @rothschildmd

The hottest thread on #QAnon Voat is another argument over who's a shill, who's a real patriot, and whether the lack of results on the part of Q is actually part of the plan, or proof the whole thing is a sham.

View image on Twitter

Mike Rothschild

@rothschildmd

While some #QAnon believers are melting away, others are taking to Voat to announce their intention to arm themselves and form citizen militias.

Yes, it's likely all anonymous nonsense. But it only takes one disaffected believer to cause considerable damage. Be aware. pic.twitter.com/kq63GpKl2n

131

12:25 PM - Nov 14, 2018

Twitter Ads info and privacy

View image on Twitter

178 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Mike Rothschild

@rothschildmd

Nov 14, 2018

Replying to @rothschildmd

Meanwhile, as the #QAnon fora continue their shill hunt, the rest of Voat hums on as usual, providing a place for literally the worst people to extrude whatever is on their mind.

View image on Twitter

Mike Rothschild

@rothschildmd

How are the most prominent #QAnon acolytes taking the blows of Q's fizzled 11/11 prediction and the midterms?

Liz Crokin is accusing Jerry Brown of starting fires with lasers, and Chrissy Tiegen of being a man; while Jordan Sather is yammering about UFOs and misusing "its."

pic.twitter.com/XnJ5umhnVg

115

2:05 PM - Nov 14, 2018

Twitter Ads info and privacy

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

176 people are talking about this

Twitter Ads info and privacy

The notion that some of the remaining QAnon believers might form "citizen militias" is particularly troubling, as far-right conspiracy theories have led to violence - most famously, a man nearly shot up the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington D.C. last year, acting on a hoax that Hillary Clinton and her inner circle were running a sex trafficking ring out of its basement.

:{:{}:

Whatever happens, the QAnon conspiracy theory was never fated to end well for its believers. And the whole saga is a cautionary tale about being careful what one believes on the Internet.

omg bump to 2nd:

Trump met in the Oval Office with a prominent QAnon conspiracy theorist who frequently appears on Infowars and Russia state media. The Qanon conspiracy theory, also known as "The Storm," essentially states that there are global pedophile rings tied to top celebrities and anti-Trump politicians. So far, no one knows how the conspiracy theorist was able to get an exclusive with Trump in the Oval Office.

A QAnon supporter also appeared as a guest on Fox & Friends. to complain about Facebook censoring him. Aside from pushing QAnon, the guest also previously posted on Facebook alleging that the Parkland mass shooting was fake.

Trump tweeted about the segment.

ref

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-in-oval-office-meets-promoter-of-qanon-conspiracy-theory-that-says-democrats-run-pedophile-cult

A NEW LOW

Trump Meets QAnon Kook Who Believes Democrats Run Pedophile Cult

Lionel Lebron said he got a personal invite to the White House—and took advantage to post photos and Q clues on social media.

ASAWIN SUEBSAENG

WILL SOMMER

08.24.18 6:08 PM ET

On Thursday, President Donald Trump posed for an Oval Office photo with one of the leading promoters of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that top Democrats are part of a global pedophile cult.

YouTube conspiracy theorist Lionel Lebron was in the White House for an event on Thursday, according to a video Lebron posted online. During the visit, Lebron and his wife posed for a smiling picture with Trump in the Oval Office.

Lebron is one of the internet’s leading promoters of QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory based on a series of anonymous clues posted to internet forums. QAnon believers have interpreted the clues, which they claim without evidence are coming from a highly placed source in the Trump administration, to mean that Trump and the military are engaged in a high-stakes shadow war against a supposed globalist pedophile cult. The conspiracy theory has caught on with Trump supporters, who have held up QAnon-related signs and wear QAnon shirts to the president’s rallies.

Lebron claimed to have received a “special guided tour of the White House” before posing for pictures with Trump. In a video posted Friday, Lebron said he didn’t use the brief encounter with the president to ask Trump about QAnon or its slogan, “Where we go one, we go all.”

“I think we all know he knows about it,” Lebron said in the video, sipping from a coffee mug he claimed to have received as a gift at the White House.

Lebron didn’t respond to a request for comment as of press time. Neither did White House spokespeople.

All four White House officials the Beast did speak with about how Trump, the leader of the free world, ended up in a smiling photo op at the Resolute Desk with a prominent QAnon conspiracy theorist, pleaded ignorance about when this occurred, and why. Two of these West Wing officials audibly could not contain their laughter.

RELATED IN POLITICS

Trump’s Allies Struggle to Stop QAnon

QAnon Leaders Crack Down on Mentions of Cohen

]QAnon Is Even Blowing Conservative Media’s Minds]

“This president is a president for all Americans,” one joked, including conspiracy theorists.

It is highly unlikely that Lebron and his spouse were simply able to casually stumble into this meeting while on a White House tour, for instance. Those familiar with how this Oval Office operates say that typically the only way that an Oval photo op between President Trump and strangers would even happen is if a senior official vouched for the guests and waved them in.

Lebron, for his part, tweeted a picture of himself in the White House with QAnon-related hashtags. His visit to the White House comes as other prominent Trump supporters in the media try to push back on QAnon’s spread, fearing that it makes Trump voters look ridiculous.

also ref

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/08/24/Fox---Friends-hosts-a-QAnon-conspiracy-theorist-who-has-claimed-the-Parkland-mass-shooting/221102

no linx vid

fox & Friends hosts a QAnon conspiracy theorist who has claimed the Parkland mass shooting was fake

Blog ››› August 24, 2018 4:50 PM EDT ››› ALEX KAPLAN

Fox & Friends provided a platform to a man who has repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, including sharing a post that claimed the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, was “fake” and that student survivors of the shooting are “actors.”

:{:{}:

During the August 24 edition of Fox & Friends, the show hosted Jason Fyk, who was identified as an entrepreneur, along with Fyk’s attorney to discuss Fyk’s lawsuit against Facebook for “unlawfully silencing people … for its own financial gain.” During the interview, co-host Steve Doocy praised Fyk for using Facebook to build a business and pursuing “the American dream,” whileFyk compared himself to YouTube personalities Diamond and Silk, citing the duo’s false Facebook censorship claims.

The show -- which President Donald Trump consistently watches -- did not disclose that Fyk has appeared multiple times on Infowars, the far-right conspiracy theory outlet that has been banned from multiple tech platforms for violating their hate speech and harassment policies. On his own Facebook profile, Fyk has also repeatedly promoted posts from “Q,” the supposed figure behind the QAnon conspiracy theory who claims that Trump has a master plan to dismantle child trafficking rings supposedly linked to powerful politicians and celebrities and defeat his perceived enemies and the “deep state.” (Three conspiracy theorists reportedly spread the conspiracy theory for financial gain.) In March, Fyk posted an image of a “Q” post calling the Parkland mass shooting “FAKE” and a “distraction” that was “organized & designed to DISTRACT” and that it featured “ACTORS [who] are ACTING.”

Fyk also discussed QAnon in January while appearing on Infowars (which fully embraced the conspiracy theory early on), with an Infowars host saying to Fyk, “What do you think of these latest QAnon posts hot off the press? ‘Chuck Schumer will live in fear from today forward.’ This is turning out to be a really good day.” Fyk responded that it was “definitely a win for the right.”

Trump himself may have also tweeted in response to Fyk's appearance when he claimed social media platforms were "silencing millions of people."

Matthew Gertz

@MattGertz

Aug 24, 2018

Replying to @MattGertz

President watches television, complains that Reality Winner is going to jail but Hillary Clinton isn't.

Left, Fox & Friends, 6:12 am

Right, Trump, 7:10 am pic.twitter.com/44XxktlGid

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

Matthew Gertz

@MattGertz

Fox caption: "Are social media giants silencing people?"

Trump: "Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people."

Left, Fox & Friends, 6:27 am

Right, Trump, 7:34 am pic.twitter.com/W7Y56Ma6kZ

5:06 AM - Aug 24, 2018

Short Link

http://mm4a.org/4Zg

copy link

Network/Outlet

Fox News Channel, Infowars

Show/Publication

FOX & Friends

Stories/Interests

Alt-right and pro-Trump trolls

comentary on

https://www.alternet.org/heres-why-trumps-most-rabid-fans-need-madness-qanon-conspiracy-theory

joshua h

If you want to really understand QAnon, the ludicrous mish-mash of conspiracy theories premised on the idea that Donald Trump has been working in cahoots with Robert Mueller and senior military officials -- and also maybe JFK, Jr., who faked his death in a 1999 plane crash to thwart the Derp State -- to investigate and ultimately punish Hillary Clinton and, presumably, most other Democrats for running a massive pedophile ring, you should read Chris Mooney's book, The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science- and Reality.

Mooney, writing in *Mother Jones*in 2011, summarized how "an array of new discoveries in psychology and neuroscience [have] further demonstrated how our preexisting beliefs, far more than any new facts, can skew our thoughts and even color what we consider our most dispassionate and logical conclusions...

This tendency toward so-called “motivated reasoning” helps explain why we find groups so polarized over matters where the evidence is so unequivocal… The theory of motivated reasoning builds on a key insight of modern neuroscience: Reasoning is actually suffused with emotion… [It is often] a means to a predetermined end—winning our “case”—and is shot through with biases.

If you're a normal person who's followed Trump's sleazy career, you've probably been shocked but not surprised by his conduct in office. Trump turned his father's modest slum empire into an international brand through relentless self-promotion and an unending supply of bullshit. He never passed up an opportunity to cut corners, recruiting undocumented workers to build his buildings with cut-rate Chinese steel. He pocketed big profits from projects that turned to shit by stiffing investors and contractors. He ran blatant scams like Trump University and sold cheesy crap made in overseas sweatshops.

In other words, he's always been a hypocritical, narcissistic grifter of the worst kind, and his America-First schtick on the campaign trail probably seemed like a ridiculous joke to you until the moment those early returns from the Midwest started coming in on Election Night.

But think for a moment how the past 19 months have played out for Trump's core supporters -- angry, disaffected white guys who are freaked out by the country's shifting demographics and blame those people for the fact that their incomes have been stagnant or declining for a generation or two and their kids are hooked on opioids.

Put yourself in their shoes (I know it's unpleasant). You'd pinned all your hopes on this guy. He was going to drain the swamp and revitalize coal mining and bring his brilliant negotiating skills to bear on all the foreigners who are screwing us. He was going to be a true "jobs president." He was going to stick it to the libs, people of color, immigrants -- everyone you hate.

But since his first day in office, he's run an embattled regime that's been mired in scandals and under the clouds of multiple investigations. He's delivered on the bigotry, but in a way that was a bit too obvious and made people call you out as a racist wingnut just for supporting him. And on the policy front, he's really only delivered a big tax cut for himself, his noxious spawn and other rich people just like them. The economy's strong, but you haven't seen it -- inflation has outpaced income growth over the past year. He's embraced a former geopolitical rival that you probably spent most of your adult life fearing and despising, and while you may think his tweets are awesome, on some level you also know they're kind of embarrassing.

In The Republican Brain, Mooney talks about a couple of studies that, while not definitive, suggest that conservatives tend to be more sensitive to cognitive dissonance than liberals. Holding two contradictory thoughts in their heads causes them pain and anxiety.

When you factor in how his base has been conditioned for so many years to believe that reality is often obscured by the corrupt Lügenpresse,it's easy to see how this crackpotty QAnon stuff has taken hold. Of course he must be some kind of super-spy who will lock up your enemies in Gitmo any day now. It's a necessary delusion for staving off the psychic agony that would come from acknowledging that you hung all your hopes and dreams on an erratic, wannabe-elitist doofus who sees the presidency as another opportunity to advance his brand and turn a shady profit.

Anyway, let us in the reality-based community review some of this week's less prominent dumpster fires...

*****

Embracing the reality of Trumpism means acknowledging the myriad ways in which he's broadened and deepened the swamp. Consider just a week of headlines about how his regime has made life easier for the plutocracy by giving them opportunities to fuck over working America -- in some cases, disproportionately targeting Trump's own credulous base.

"The Trump administration is planning to suspend routine examinations of lenders for violations of the Military Lending Act, which was devised to protect military service members and their families from financial fraud, predatory loans and credit card gouging," reported *The New York Times this week.*According to the exit polls, military veterans voted for Trump by a 2-1 ratio.

(Back in April, *The Times*also reported that Mulvaney had "advise[d] bankers on ways to curtail" his own agency's abilities to oversee their industry.)

A tangentially related story that did get prominent coverage this week was ProPublica's report about how three of Trump's "cronies" from Mar-a-Lago who have never "served in the U.S. military or government" are "exerting sweeping influence" on the regime's policies for veterans.

*****

In the latest of her many rollbacks of Obama-era rules designed to protect students from for-profit college scams -- like Trump's own defunct university -- Education SecretaryBetsy DeVos announced plans to kill the "gainful employment rule," which "sought to punish for-profit college programs that left graduates with heavy debt compared to their incomes."

According to Collin Binkley at *The New Republic,*it was "the second planned rollback of a major Obama-era rule in a matter of weeks. On July 25, DeVos proposed changes to the so-called borrower defense rule to toughen the process by which defrauded students can get their loans erased."

******

Here's a story that illustrates how the regime's priorities are playing out in the real world.

According to *Capital& Main,*the regime's "immigration crackdown appears to be crowding out other law enforcement priorities, according to a new analysis of Justice Department data."

A study released Monday by Syracuse University researchers showed that federal immigration prosecutions in June comprised 94 percent of all cases in the five U.S. Attorney districts along the southwest border. The spike in immigration prosecutions comes only a few months after Justice Department data showed that the Trump administration has overseen a 20-year low in white-collar criminal prosecutions.

So they're punishing brown people who are just trying to earn a living, and letting the criminals in tailored suits run amok. And the sad truth is that many working-class Trump supporters would probably approve.

*****

Reuters:

The Trump administration moved on Wednesday toshrink a government agency tasked with identifying looming financial risks, notifying around 40 staff membersthey would be laid off, according to a person familiar with the change.

The Office of Financial Research "provides a critical function by gathering data on areas such as banking, lending and trading from the country's complex web of federal and state regulators to provide a bird's-eye view of system-wide risks," and is "one of several financial regulators being overhauled under President Donald Trump, including the Financial Stability OversightCouncil, also housed within the Treasury, and theConsumer Financial Protection Bureau."

*****

And then there's this fresh Hell…

Holy moley! Treasury & the IRS just exempted *bankers* from the definition of "financial services" in the proposed pass-thru regs! I can lend via a passthrough & claim a 20% deduction (so the top rate on interest income goes from 37% to 29.6%)? #PickedTheWrongProfession

— Daniel Hemel (@DanielJHemel) August 8, 2018

*****

In other news, we've noted before that we kind of miss Scott Pruitt because his unique blend of cheap sanctimony and unbridled corruption brought a lot of media attention to how the EPA has gone rogue under Trump. But apparently even after resigning in disgrace,Pruitt's a gift that keeps on giving.

"A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the Trump administration endangered public health by keeping the widely used pesticidechlorpyrifos on the market despite extensive scientific evidence that even tiny levels of exposure can harm babies' brains," reported the Associated Press this week. The court ruled that Pruitt had "violated federal law by ignoring the conclusions of agency scientists that chlorpyrifos is harmful."

*****

In related news, Lisa Friedman reported for *The New York Times* that "top officials at the Environmental Protection Agency pushed through a measure to review applications for usingasbestosin consumer products, and did so over the objections of E.P.A.’s in-house scientists and lawyers."

In this next graph, we see how The Timesin-house style requires characterizing obviously bullshit claims -- claims hotly refuted by the agency's own scientists, according to the story -- as just one side of a "spirited debate":

"The E.P.A. says it is toughening oversight. However, the way its new rule is written has spawned a spirited debate over whether it will actually make it easier for asbestos to come back into more widespread use."

*****

Meanwhile, in other rogue agency news, this week Gus Bova reported for *The Daily Beast* that back in July, "ICE crashed a van full of separated mothers" into a pickup truck in Texas, and "even though police said the van was too damaged to continue driving and the women reported injuries, ICE repeatedly denied the crash ever took place."

Keep in mind that it's all about law and order, folks.

*****

As you probably know, the myth of widespread in-person voter fraud is just a thin premise Republicans embrace in order to disenfranchise Democratic voters. Back in 2016, researchers atUC San Diego found that strict voter ID laws "cause a reduction in Democratic turnout by 8.8 percentage points, compared to a reduction of 3.6 percentage points for Republicans." That 5.2 percentage point margin wins them elections without having to come up with a popular agenda.

Here's a new twist on that old story. "A new study estimates that approximately 78,000 transgender people in eight crucial states will be eligible to vote in the upcoming 2018 elections, but will be unable to do so, due to those states’ excessively strict voter ID laws," according to DC's *Metro Weekly.*

*****

We try to leave you each week with some positive news, if only to keep you from ruining your liver by drinking too much.

The courts still appear to be functioning, according to this report from The Washington Post:

A federal judge in Washington halted a deportation in progress Thursday and threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt after learning that the Trump administration started to remove a woman and her daughter while a court hearing appealing their deportations was underway.

The judge actually ordered a plane carrying the two deportees to turn around before they disembarked in El Salvador, where their lawyers say they have a credible fear being murdered. The judge also halted all other removals in cases with petitions pending before the courts.

And finally, at The Intercept,Ryan Grim reported that back "in April,Michigan officials who oversee elections kicked Democrat Matt Morgan off the congressional ballot, leaving the Republican incumbent, Rep. Jack Bergman, to run unopposed in the general election. That was the plan, at least, until primary day on Tuesday, when more than 30,000 Democratic voters cast write-in ballots in Michigan’s 1st Congressional District. That’s nearly eight times as many votes as Morgan needed to be resurrected and placed on the November ballot."

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/we-have-cia-thank-qanon-conspiracy-theory

As the editor of the JFK Facts blog, I try not to spend a lot of time on stupid conspiracy theories, but given widespread ignorance and confusion on the subject, unpleasant journalist duty often calls.

Who killed JFK? The Federal Reserve? Nah. The Secret Service man? A hoax. Ted Cruz’s father? Pure B.S. George H.W. Bush? Heavy breathing is not the same as credible evidence. On a recent Black Vault podcast, the most common JFK question I heard was, “Was Kennedy assassinated because of his interest in UFOs?” Um, no, he was not.

Which brings me to QAnon, the imaginative conspiracy theorist now dominating the internet, attracting followers of President Trump, and obsessing the Washington Post, which has published a dozen articles about QAnon in the span of four days. Like many conspiracy theories, the QAnon fever dream can be traced back to the assassination of JFK. The QAnon conspiracy theory is a psychedelic mushroom planted in the fertile manure of the Warren Commission. This mind-altering proposition grows in the gloom of anonymous chat groups. It is then stimulated by the bright lights of social media. And finally it is harvested and ingested by Trump cultists eager to prolong the alt-reality buzz that commenced on January 20, 2017.

But it all began on November 22, 1963.

Who Is QAnon?

For the uninitiated, “Q” is the moniker of a person or group of persons who post to 4Chan, a popular image website favored by the anonymous. Q’s “theory” (and I use the term generously) is that President Trump was persuaded by the military to smash a network of “deep state” pedophiles that has ruled America for decades. The president (it is said) is working with John F. Kennedy Jr. (who did not die in a plane crash). They will soon smash the perfidious plotters, QAnon predicts, and Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be sent to Guantanamo.

You may think this is nutty stuff. Buzzfeed News speculates that QAnon is actually a leftist goof on right-wing suckers. But read the respectful coverage of the pro-Trump Washington Times, where QAnon is described as a “mysterious figure” who has been “posting provocative questions about the government since October.” This stuff is taken seriously.

The historical foundation of this mash-up of the preposterous, the ludicrous and the vile is, you guessed it, the assassination of JFK.

From a December 2017 QAnon post about Trump’s alleged enemies:

As a backup, they defined ‘conspiracy’ as crazy/mentally unstable and label anything ‘true’ as such.
This works given most of what they engage in is pure evil and simply unbelievable (hard to swallow).
The ‘fix’ has always been in – no matter which party won the election (-JFK (killed)/Reagan(shot)).

Why do people believe this nonsense?

One reason is that a few kernels of it are not nonsense. The CIA, in this April 1967 memo, launched a worldwide campaign to demonize critics of the Warren Commission as “conspiracy theorists.” Skepticism about official theory of JFK’s assassination, wrote one agency official with the approval of CIA director Richard Helms, “is of concern to the U.S. government including our organization.”

The agency distributed talking points for “friendly elite contacts,” including the bald-faced lie that accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was “an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service.” In fact, CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton had monitored Oswald’s movements, politics, personal life and foreign contacts for four years before he allegedly killed JFK.

If that fact became known, the CIA would have a world of hurt on its hands. So the agency said in its memo that the members of the Warren Commission were eminent men and “efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society.”

The Commission’s critics, said the CIA, “are enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or another.” In other words, the CIA did define belief in “conspiracy” as a symptom of the mentally unstable and patriotically unreliable.

In fact, the doubts were fact-based. Skepticism about the Warren Commission’s conclusions percolated among the Washington insiders (including Lyndon Johnson, Robert Kennedy, and Jackie Kennedy) and among foreign leaders (including Fidel Castro and Charles DeGaulle). All of them concluded privately that JFK had been killed by his enemies, not by a lone gunman.

Of course, there are other factors contributing to the vogue of QAnon that have nothing to do with JFK.

The echo chamber effects of social media encourage the credulous. So does a president enamored with “alternative facts” (aka bullshit). The exhaustion of the Americaneconomic system, which no longer provides the majority with affordable education or upward mobility, leaves young people grasping for explanation of their plight.

But the U.S. government’s implausible account of JFK’s assassination—and the CIA’s self-serving defense—can always be cited by those who say “The government is lying.” So if you want to trace the roots of QAnon in American society, look to the Warren Commission and Langley. Please leave us JFK researchers out of it.

The Origins of JFK Theories

...

ref

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/5/q-qanon-followers-gain-prominence-donald-trump-ral/

Dave Boyer - The Washington Times - Sunday, August 5, 2018

Gary Brown of central Ohio is a follower of “Q,” the mysterious internet figure suddenly gaining prominence at President Trump’s campaign rallies.

Mr. Brown, a real estate agent and retired firefighter, began paying attention to the cryptic and frequently pro-Trump comments posted by the anonymous Q on message boards last year. He concluded that Q is better informed than the mainstream media about Washington and other topics.

“I don’t know for a fact who Q is,” Mr. Brown said. “I havestrong thoughts that it certainly could be someone in the administration. All I know is, when I read what is posted on the ‘Q board,’ it seems to be more relevant and more true than what I’m reading in the papers.”

On message boards such as QAnon.pub and 8ch.net, a person or group of people identified only as Q has been posting provocative questions about the government since October.

In a typical post, Q wrote last week about election security, “How do you safeguard the integrity of our elections from domestic & foreign criminal actors? How do you utilize the Russia narrative to knock out decades old election corruption? Why are D’s opposed to cleaning up voter rolls? Why are D’s opposed to imposing VOTER ID LAWS to further safeguard our elections?”

...

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/qanon-about-much-more-trump-it-reveals-deep-pathologies-republican-party

The political movement swirling around President Donald Trump -- formerly known as the Republican Party -- displays certain unique features but is really just the latest noxious excrescence of the American right. Like so many of its predecessors, the Trump movement is built on fear. And like every movement motivated by paranoia, its followers are mentally vulnerable to the most idiotic conspiracy theories.

Not surprisingly, since everything about Trump is always the "biggest" and the "best," his fans are flocking to a truly enormous and enormously deluded conspiracy known as QAnon, or simply, "Q."

Insofar as any sane reporter can determine, Q is an entity that delivers anonymous messages via internet chat boards (the same virtual locations that generally attract obsessive right-wing types who carry out harassment campaigns from their mothers' basements). Supposedly sent by some person or persons in the upper reaches of the federal government with ultra-secret security clearances, the Q "drops" assure us that Trump is actually dismantling the "deep state" and elite international pedophilia cults, both controlled by various liberal politicians and celebrities. Already, Q has reported the arrest of Hillary Clinton (which never happened).

According to Q, all of this exciting activity is being carried out under deep cover, with the assistance of none other than Robert Mueller himself. You see, the special counsel is secretly working to assist Trump, not to investigate him. The verbal assaults and tweets against him emanating from the White House, not to mention Fox News, represent a "false flag" deception. So does everything else that doesn't fit into the conspiracy.

Among the charms of Q is that any believer can invent his or her own version of this mysterious presence, because there are no facts to fetter the paranoid imagination. Inquire who is delivering those tantalizing internet hints, as a CNN reporter asked Q kooks at a Trump rally last week, and everyone offers a different answer: It's one person, or 10 people, or more; it's a committee of military flag officers; it's Trump himself; it's John F. Kennedy Jr., who didn't really die in an airplane crash off Martha's Vineyard in 1999 after all. (Not kidding!)

If you're not a believer, you will have difficulty understanding how anyone can believe such a patently ridiculous confabulation. Yet among the Trump faithful there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps soon millions, fervently joining the Q queue. They are eagerly awaiting "the Storm," their term for the moment of reckoning when Trump and Mueller will seize all those liberal pedophiles and march them off to Gitmo.

Among them is Roseanne Barr, who has promoted Q on her Twitter feed for months. But nearly every right-wing media personality, from Sean Hannity to Alex Jones, is stoking the crazy -- as are the Russians and their bots, of course, along with "alt-right" internet trolls like Jack Posobiec and Mike Cernovich. In other words, Q fans include all the usual suspects.

Now, manipulative charlatans on the right have been training stupid people to believe stupid things for decades, dating back to The John Birch Society and its insistence that former President Eisenhower, among others, was a conscious instrument of the "Communist conspiracy." Those claims offended principled conservatives, who kicked the Birchers out of their movement.

But in more recent years, the inclination to promote outrageous calumnies has penetrated the upper reaches of the Republican Party and its allies on the religious right and in right-wing media. Republican leaders who are appalled by these tactics are almost always too cowardly to disavow them.

So in the early '90s, furious over losing the White House to Bill and Hillary Clinton after three terms of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Republicans promoted vile accusations to demonize the Democrats. Major GOP figures, including House committee chairs and especially House Speaker Newt Gingrich, slyly endorsed charges they knew to be utterly false. So did Rush Limbaugh, followed later by his many imitators on Fox. And so did Rev. Jerry Falwell, a minister of the Gospel who routinely violated the Eighth Commandment for profit.

The Clintons were slimed for years with concocted stories of cocaine trafficking and murder. Now they are said to operate an international child sex trafficking ring, along with former President Barack Obama (who is really a Communist Muslim born in Kenya) and George Soros (a Jew who is really a Nazi). But those sick fantasies have already gone stale.

The freshest theory, brought to us by BuzzFeed News, is also the most refreshing: Q is merely a hoax, concocted by leftists to make the right look extra dumb. For anyone with a functioning brain, a spirit of decency and a sense of humor, that's the only conspiracy with any traction.

To find out more about Joe Conason

lengthy BuzzFeed piece on the origin of QAnon has come to the conclusion that the entire group may have been started as an elaborate prank on the alt-right by leftists and anarchists.

Members of QAnon claim that President Donald Trump was recruited by rogue members of the U.S. military who "begged him to run for president" to overthrow a deep state involved in a global conspiracy that operates a pedophile ring.

4chan trolls are now claiming that QAnon was always meant as a prank on "older conservatives. "

"[L]ook how many normies and boomers got sucked into our lulz chaos," one member writes.

Further supporting the theory QAnon is a prank are statements by the author of a 1999 novel called Q that bears a striking similarity to the conspiracy theory.

"We can't say for sure that it's an homage," they told BuzzFeed. "But one thing is almost certain: our book has something to do with it. It may have started as some sort of, er, 'fan fiction' inspired by our novel, and then quickly became something else."

But the authors are concerned that the spread of QAnon represents a danger. The appearance of a seemingly armed man outside lawyer Michael Avenatti's office shared in photos by QAnon members serves as evidence of QAnon's possible danger.

ggl tom hanks top 5 vids?!

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/meet-qanon-deranged-conspiracy-theory-thats-surging-among-trump-supporters

sometimes “deplorable” just isn’t deplorable enough. That’s the case with a core set of Donald Trump supporters who have come together around a new conspiracy theory that’s … not Pizzagate. Because it’s worse. And, as the Washington Post reports, thisnew conspiracy is already spilling from under the rocks of alt-Reich websites, into living, screaming Trump rallies.

Believers in “QAnon,” as the conspiracy theory is known, were front and center at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall, where Trump came to stump for Republican candidates. As the president spoke, a sign rose from the audience. “We are Q,” it read. Another poster displayed text arranged in a “Q” pattern: “Where we go one we go all.”

Who or what is QAnon? It’s the handle for a racist troll who pretends to be “a government agent with top security clearance” working with Donald Trump to take out the “Deep State.” Starting with connections to the original Pizzagate, QAnon has built up followers through mystery appearances in the Trump-loving depths of Reddit. Most of those posts come in the form of “breadcrumbs,” brief, haiku-like statements that can be interpreted as anything from a stock market prediction to an example of an AI attempting to learn human language through random word combinations. In a real sense, it’s wrong to even think of the QAnon story as something coming from the QAnon troll. It’s a collaborative effort; a group of like-minded racist conspiracy nuts riffing on blobs of half-assed beat poetry.

The supposed meaning of the posts are actually generated by thousands of Q followers who sift through this mess and convert the obscure “crumbs” into an elaborate story. There are entire 24/7 streaming channels and multiple Youtube videos dedicated to nothing but attempts to fit together the crumbs into a single narrative. And the story generated by this collaboration between incoherent source and conspiracy-monger fans isn’t just convoluted, self-contradictory, and utterly inane, it’s also deeply racist, anti-Semitic, and woven through with equal parts pedophilia and Christian end-times eschatology. In short, it’s a massively expanded version of Pizzagate in which Hillary Clinton, the Illuminati, and the Rothchilds—who may or may not be interchangeable—are waging holy war against Donald Trump and his supporters … while running child sex rings and satanic murder cults on the side.

If that sounds ridiculous … it is. Unfortunately, the people behind it are not joking.

The full spray of QAnon information includes: How violent criminal John McCain must wear an ankle bracelet and be tracked at all times, the harem of child sex slaves owned by Tom Hanks, and how Trump actually installed Robert Mueller as part of an ongoing plan to capture the Muslim terrorist Barack Obama. At the climax of the consensus narrative, Trump supporters will have to unite for a mighty Good vs Evil fight in which Hillary will team up with George Soros in an attempt to overthrow the government, only to be cast down by Trump, who will then usher in a new age of Christian righteousness. One led by Donald Trump and, you guessed it, Vladimir Putin. Because in QAnon, Putin is one of the few who can see through the Jewish plot to turn the world to Satan. And yes, in QAnon, Jews are satanists. Not surprisingly, many QAnon followers also consider themselves evangelicals.

It’s the kind of conspiracy theory in which anything can be made to fit and any gesture or word has hidden meaning. Before every Trump rally, QAnon boards light up with speculation over which parts of the theory Trump will “confirm” this time. And after every rally, the boards fire up again with conviction that Trump has done exactly that—given them a phrase or a hand-sign that they’re on the right track. One of the QAnon posts mentioned the phrase “tip top.” Weeks later, another told believers to “follow the white rabbit.” So when Donald Trump said “tip top” while at the White House Easter egg roll … hey, who could miss a message that clear? Even when things don’t fit, they’re made to fit, as when promised revelations that failed to appearin the Inspector General report were turned into evidence of more tampering by insidious Deep State Jew Rod Rosenstein.

QAnon is loony and ridiculous, but not at all funny. it’s also a growing force within the ranks of Trump.

Considering that Pizzagate already inspired one Trump supporter to appear in a DC pizza place carrying an AR-15 (and become frustrated by his inability to find a basement, much less the child-sex ring dungeons he had been expecting) there are ample reasons to be concerned about a greatly expanded Pizzagate now with a extra large side of anti-Semitic claims and calls for widespread conflict. QAnon has already become a much bigger factor in Trumpdom than the original Pizzagate. It’s not just websites and handmade signs. Hundreds of QAnon followers marched in DC in January. There’s a QAnon industry turning out T-shirts and trinkets. Rightwing celebrities like Barr and Schilling have helped bring the conspiracy theory to a larger audience, and also helped ease it into larger Trump-centric sites like Breitbart.Where did Rosanne Barr get the outrageous, racist statements she made in many of her Twitter posts? She was quoting QAnon sites. And, as the Daily Best reports, Curt Schilling is also on board.

Not for the first time, events under Donald Trump make it clear that English just isn’t sufficient. Because it would take way too many adjectives to describe just how deplorable his followers really are.

---

ref

https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-is-qanon-the-craziest-theory-of-the-trump-era-explained

no lnx twit

THE DAILY BEAST

AND YOU THOUGHT PIZZAGATE WAS NUTS

What Is QAnon? The Craziest Theory of the Trump Era, Explained

From celebrities to the grassroots, the right is obsessed with the idea there is a secret conspiracy where Hillary is headed for Gitmo. Here’s everything you need to know.

Will Sommer

07.06.18 10:03 PM ET

Plotters in the deep state tried to shoot down Air Force One and foil President Trump’s North Korea summit. A cabal of global elites, including top figures in Hollywood, the Democratic Party, and the intelligence agencies, are responsible for nearly all the evil in the world. And now Trump is going to fix it all with thousands of sealed indictments, sending the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama straight to Guantanamo Bay.

Or at least that’s how the world is going for the believers of QAnon, the complex pro-Trump conspiracy theory that’s starting to having unpredictable effects in real life. The real news can be bad for Trump, but in QAnon-world, the president and his supporters really are getting sick of winning.

Who Is “Q”?

QAnon springs from a series of cryptic clues that started to be posted online in October 2017. Starting on 4Chan before migrating to the even more fringe 8Chan, the anonymous person behind the clues goes by “Q,” a reference to a high-level government security clearance. The “Anon” in “QAnon” refers to both Q himself, and to Q’s nameless supporters, the “anons.”

Q is supposed to be revealing this top-secret information via the clues, which QAnon fans have dubbed “breadcrumbs.” They’re written in a short bursts, in a reference-heavy style that’s part poem, part ransom note. Here’s one example from June:

Think SC vote to confirm (coming).

No Name action.

Every dog has its day.

Enjoy the show.

“No Name” is Q’s nickname for John McCain, and “SC” is obviously the Supreme Court. As for “every dog has its day” — that’s the kind of cryptic Q remark that has spawned a cottage industry of PDFs and 24/7 livestreams analyzing the crumbs.

Since Q could be anyone with internet access and a working knowledge of conspiracy theories, there’s no reason to think that Q is a member of the Trump administration rather than, say, a troll or YouTube huckster. But incredibly, lots of people believe it.

In April, hundreds of QAnon believers staged a march in downtown Washington, D.C. with a vague demand for “transparency” from the Justice Department. “Q” shirts have become frequent sites at Trump rallies, with one QAnon believer scoring VIP access. In June, an armed man in an homemade armored truck shut down a highway near the Hoover Dam and held up signs referencing QAnon. And celebrities like comedian Roseanne Barr and former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling have signed on.

Curt Schilling

@gehrig38

28 Jun

The Curt Schilling Show - Breitbart http://bit.ly/2I1wd3T via @BreitbartNews talk with a lawyer whose firm has cases in front of the Supreme Court and hear about latest ruling on 1st amendment as well as NOAA abandoning climate change hoax. On iTunes later today

Curt Schilling

@gehrig38

Also we open up a discussion about “Q” andwhy the anger and vitriol by liberals at the mere mention if it really is the fake conspiracy they claim?

9:49 AM - Jun 28, 2018

45 people are talking about this

[RELATED IN TECH

Crazy Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory Targets Avenatti in Person

Elon Musk Joins the Fringe Right in Calling His Foe a ‘Pedo’

Far-Right Twitter Keeps Falling for the Same Liberal Troll]

QAnon is unusual, according to University of Miami professor Joseph Uscinski, because it offers Republicans an alternate view of the world when they already control nearly the entire government. Usually, “conspiracy theories are for losers,” Uscinski said,

“Normally you don’t expect the winning party to use them, except when they’re in trouble,” Uscinski said.

The Origin Story

Since Q’s “breadcrumbs” are so vague, it’s impossible to nail down exactly what the storyline is supposed to be. But the general story, outlined in a pro-QAnon video endorsed by Schilling, is that every president before Trump was a “criminal president” in league with all the nefarious groups of conspiracy theories past: the global banking elite, death squads operating on orders from Hillary Clinton, deep-state intelligence operatives, and Pizzagate-style pedophile rings. In an effort to break this cabal’s grip, according to Q, the military convinced Trump to run for president.

:{:{}:

Now Trump and his allies in the military are poised to arrest all these wrongdoers, shipping many of them off to Guantanamo Bay. That coming purge has been dubbed “The Storm” by QAnon fans, who claim Trump referenced it when he referenced “the calm before the storm” in October.

While the Storm is at the center of the QAnon narrative, it’s also flexible enough to fold in just anything that makes the news. Q is fond of hinting that each mass shooting is a false-flag attack organized by the cabal, and he used a blurry webcam picture of a flash of light near the Puget Sound to claim that the deep state had tried to shoot down Trump’s plane. [previOus missle conspir "streAK OF LIGHT"] 911?

QAnon fans are obsessed with finding proof that whoever is behind Q is actually connected to the Trump administration. During one Trump trip to Asia, Q posted some pictures of islands, which supporters seized on as proof that Q was on Air Force One. Q is also fond of predicting Trump tweets that, in retrospect, don’t exactly require top-secret clearance — that Trump will tweet “Saturday” on Small Business Saturday, or “Juneteenth” on June 19th.

Fans also point to Trump using phrases “predicted” by Q as proof of the story’s legitimacy. After one supporter requested that Trump used the phrase “tip top” in the State of the Union Address, While Trump never said “tip top” in that speech, QAnon supporters felt vindicated three months later when Trump said it instead at the White House Easter Egg Roll. QAnon supporters have even claimed Trump uses his hands to make a “Q” sign as a signal to them.

QAnon supporters love to speculate about Q’s identity, predicting that it’s either a highly placed White House staffer or even Trump himself. Other, more mundane theories about Q’s identity abound, but there’s not much compelling evidence pointing in any direction.

Even when Q’s predictions disappoint, the QAnon community keeps going. Q hyped up the release of the Justice Department’s inspector general report on the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation, for example, promising that it would contain the promised “Storm” of revelations about top Democrats and the deep state. When the report fizzled, however, Q promised that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a frequent target of QAnon jabs, had tampered with the report. Trump had the real report, Q claimed, and that report’s release would solve everything.

Decoding It All

While QAnon has been the breakout conspiracy theory of the Trump era, not everyone on the right is on board. The farcical nature of QAnon’s clues has tended to alienate many younger, more internet-savvy people on the right, including members of the alt-right. QAnon also alienated a swathe of the right-wing conspiracy theory internet after Q denounced other internet personalities who had been speculating about the clues, accusing them of trying to profit off the movement. But QAnon has been a hit with older Trump supporters, leading to tech-illiterate baby boomers looking to spread the QAnon gospel asking for help in internet forums on “how to meme.”

Nine months after it started, QAnon world has accumulated an internal language of its own. The moderators of the QAnon forums and the interpreters of the clues call themselves “bakers,” a reference to the “breadcrumbs.” QAnon followers are fixated on which public officials are “white hats” or “black hats,” meaning whether they’re really working for Trump or are agents of the cabal. They urge one another to “follow the white rabbit,” which made Trump delivering his “tip top” speech next to the Easter Bunny all the more portentous.

QAnon believers even have a slogan, “Where we go one, we go all,” which they often abbreviate to “WWG1WGA.” It’s become a rallying cry for QAnon fans that Q has attributed to President John F. Kennedy, although it actually appears to come from the 1996 action movie White Squall.

Roseanne Barr

@therealroseanne

we r the army of truth-wwg1wga

12:03 AM - Jun 20, 2018

2,475

847 people are talking about this

That community of people deciphering the clues seems to be as important to QAnon believers as Q’s message itself. On QAnon forums, believers talk about the idea that the cabal they believe is responsible for most of the trouble in the United States will soon be swept away has given them hope. Despite obviously being fake, then, it doesn’t look like QAnon is going to go away anytime soon.

Will Sommer

William.Sommer@thedailybeast.com

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.

8. Pizzagate, et al.

That just covers views held by a majority of Republicans. It doesn’t even get to the wild conspiracy theories swirling in the fringes of Trump’s base. Allow us to present QAnon, a conspiracy theory even weirder than Pizza-gate. According to the Daily Beast, adherents of “QAnon” are convinced an anonymous administration official code-name “Q” has been posting mysterious clues about elite conspiracies involving John McCain, the Supreme Court and Hillary Clinton. Q reportedly leaves “breadcrumbs” in online forums like 8Chan.

Like Pizza-gate, an online conspiracy theory is start to bleed into real life. The Daily Beast reports that QAnon true believers have started staging protests demanding that transparency about “Q” from the Justice Department. The Beast notes that there’s no evidence that Q is anything more than an Internet huckster playing a prank on gullible conservatives, but in the Trump era, who knows?

---