One American News Network (OANN) correspondent Jack Posobiec reached one million Twitter followers over Labor Day weekend. He has repeatedly used the website to promote hate and disinformation and is currently promoting unsubstantiated and potentially inflammatory claims suggesting that Democrats are plotting to steal the 2020 election from President Trump. Hatewatch submitted to Twitter evidence we accrued during our investigation into Posobiec’s ties to the white supremacist movement. A significant amount of Hatewatch’s findings relate to Posobiec’s prodigious use of that website. Twitter has not released a statement in response to Hatewatch’s investigation into Posobiec and replied by email to say that tweets of his appearing to endorse white vigilantism and hyping an unsubstantiated story about a bomb scare did not violate their terms of service. Posobiec, who claimed to call the FBI on Hatewatch after we reached out for a comment about this series in April, has not requested a correction for anything reported in our series, nor has he denied any specific facts published in it. Instead, Posobiec gave an interview to the pro-Trump website Townhall titled “Is the Southern Poverty Law Center Taking Things Out of Context Again?” In that interview, Posobiec denied being an antisemite, without addressing specific findings of our investigation, such as the fact that he collaborated with neo-Nazis, made public references to the so-called 1488 meme and targeted Jewish journalists with antisemitic hate.
Der Verfassungsschutz hat offenbar 19 Jahre lang bis 1970 einen gesuchten Naziverbrecher beschäftigt und scheinbar auch geschützt. Er war der Mann gegen die Linken, die Kommunisten, gegen die sich die Sicherheitsbehörden des Nachkriegsdeutschland besonders wappneten. Als der frühere Gestapo-Beamte Viktor Hallmayer 1951, praktisch mit der Gründung Baden-Württembergs, zu einem der ersten Verfassungsschützer gemacht wurde, spielte diese politische Denkrichtung eine wichtige Rolle. Hallmayer, der durch ein im Mai 1950 eingestelltes Spruchkammerverfahren offiziell rehabilitierte frühere SS-Hauptscharführer, hatte schließlich während des Krieges schon in Paris beim Gestapo-Kommando Gutgesell Résistence-Mitglieder aufgespürt. Zugleich hatte er umfangreiche Kenntnisse über die linke Front National gesammelt. Über den Namen Hallmayer ist jetzt erst der Ulmer Historiker und Kulturwissenschaftler Andreas Lörcher gestolpert. Der 32-Jährige, der seit 2009 die Ulmer “Denkstätte Weiße Rose” leitet, die der Volkshochschule Ulm angegliedert ist, forschte der Erhängung zweier Zwangsarbeiter zum Kriegsende in Langenau (Alb-Donau-Kreis) und Ulm nach. Die Hinrichtungen, in einem Fall wegen des Diebstahls von Filzstiefeln, hatte ein gewisser Hallmayer beaufsichtigt. Lörcher beschaffte sich von der Ludwigsburger Zentralstelle zur Aufklärung nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen die Akte zu dem Mann – und konnte kaum glauben, was er las: “Der Mann steht auf einer amerikanischen Kriegsverbrecherliste. Die französischen Behörden suchen ihn wegen Mordverdachts und Folter. Aber anstatt dass man ihn ausliefert, wird er zum Verfassungsschutz befördert.”
Schwertwale tragen einen martialischen klingenden Spitznamen. Wegen ihrer Jagdtechnik, die so raffiniert wie brutal wirkt, haben Fischer den Tieren einst den Spitznamen Killerwal verpasst. Und ja: Wenn Gruppen von Orcinus orca, oder kurz Orca, Robben zerfleischen, dann fließt Blut. Auf Menschen haben es die bis zu zehn Meter langen Tiere nahezu nie abgesehen – nur wenigen Attacken sind dokumentiert Umso überraschter sind Wissenschaftler von dem, was gerade vor der spanischen Küste passiert. Dort rammen die Tiere offenbar seit einiger Zeit gezielt Schiffe. An der Atlantikküste verloren zwei Boote einen Teil ihrer Ruder, mindestens ein Besatzungsmitglied erlitt durch die Auswirkungen der Kollision Blutergüsse und mehrere Boote wurden beschädigt. Bereits Ende August hatte die spanische Jacht “Mirfak” vor der Küste von Galizien nach einem Vorstoß von Schwertwalen einen Ruderschaden. Der Vorfall wurde von der Crew gefilmt. Der Clip zeigt, wie die Tiere neben dem Boot schwimmen und drunter durchtauchen. Dann bemerken die Segler, dass die Steuerung der Jacht nicht mehr funktioniert. Der Vorfall ereignete sich etwa zwei Seemeilen vor der Küste, als das Schiff auf den Weg zu einer Regatta war und unter Motor fuhr. Einen ähnlichen Vorfall meldete ein Schiff unter französischer Flagge der Küstenwache per Funk. Am Freitag wurde ein etwa elf Meter langes Sportboot der Firma Halcyon Jachts angegriffen, das auf dem Weg nach Großbritannien war. Ein Orca soll mindestens 15 Mal das Heck des Boots gerammt haben. Das Boot musste schließlich manövrierunfähig in den Hafen geschleppt werden. Auch weitere ähnliche Vorfälle wurden bekannt.
siehe auch: Scientists baffled by orcas ramming sailing boats near Spain and Portugal. From the Strait of Gibraltar to Galicia, orcas have been harassing yachts, damaging vessels and injuring crew. Scientists have been left baffled by incidents of orcas ramming sailing boats along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts. In the last two months, from southern to northern Spain, sailors have sent distress calls after worrying encounters. Two boats lost part of their rudders, at least one crew member suffered bruising from the impact of the ramming, and several boats sustained serious damage. The latest incident occurred on Friday afternoon just off A Coruña, on the northern coast of Spain. Halcyon Yachts was taking a 36ft boat to the UK when an orca rammed its stern at least 15 times, according to Pete Green, the company’s managing director. The boat lost steering and was towed into port to assess damage. Around the same time there were radio warnings of orca sightings 70 miles south, at Vigo, near the site of at least two recent collisions. On 30 August, a French-flagged vessel radioed the coastguard to say it was “under attack” from killer whales. Later that day, a Spanish naval yacht, Mirfak, lost part of its rudder after an encounter with orcas under the stern.
Von <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external text” href=”https://www.flickr.com/people/83654635@N00″>Winky</a> from Vancouver, Canada – <a rel=”nofollow” class=”external text” href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/83654635@N00/2841562603/”>5 orcas in johnstone strait</a>, CC BY 2.0, Link
A popular website for posts about the conspiracy group QAnon abruptly shut down after a fact-checking group identified the developer as a New Jersey man. Qmap.pub is among the largest websites promoting the QAnon conspiracy, with over 10 million visitors in July, according to web analytics firm SimilarWeb Ltd., and served as the primary archive of QAnon’s posts. The website aggregates posts by Q, the anonymous figure behind the QAnon theory, and the creator of the Qmap.pub website is known online only as “QAppAnon.” The fact-checking site Logically.ai identified Jason Gelinas of New Jersey on Sept. 10 as the “developer and mouthpiece” for the site. New Jersey state records connect QAppAnon to Gelinas’s home address, Bloomberg found. Reached outside his home, Gelinas declined to comment on the Logically report, saying only that someone had sent it to him on Twitter after it was published. “I’m not going to comment on any of that,” Gelinas said when asked if he was behind the website Qmap. “I’m not going to get involved. I want to stay out of it.” Wearing an American flag baseball cap, Gelinas said that QAnon is a “patriotic movement to save the country.” Hours after the initial contact from Bloomberg News, the website was no longer accessible. A LinkedIn profile for Gelinas says he works as an information security analyst at Citigroup. Citigroup declined to comment.
siehe auch: QAnon Key Figure Revealed as Financial Information Security Analyst from New Jersey. A Logically investigation identifies a key QAnon figure as New Jersey resident Jason Gelinas. The investigation ties QAnon properties to a company owned by Gelinas, an information technology specialist who has held prominent positions at both Credit Suisse and Citigroup. Ever since the shadowy figure known as Q made his first appearance on the 4chan imageboard in October of 2017, the author’s identity has remained a mystery. Since then, Q has posted thousands of ‘drops,’ converting legions of followers to the belief that Donald Trump is leading a global fight against a satanic cabal of child trafficking elites, commonly referred to in the QAnon world as the ‘Deep State’. Over the years, Q’s posts would move from the 4chan forum to 8chan, and finally to its later iteration, 8kun. But these forums weren’t where most of Q’s followers would go to access the drops: most would find them neatly compiled on a site called QMap, now the main platform on which Q’s drops are published. For years it was believed that QMap was an endeavour that was independent of both the chan forums and the person or people posting Q’s drops, but recent discoveries concerning an IP address behind QMap raised questions as to whether Jim Watkins, the owner of 8chan and 8kun, an elusive figure in his own right, could also be Q. As some QAnon researchers have pointed out, however, the story of Q’s operations does not end with Jim Watkins. What is QMap? In the world of QAnon, the site qmap.pub is something of a sacred text. It’s a site designed to collect Q’s posts on other message boards and collate them in a searchable database; over the years, it has grown to include glossaries on themes, profiles on people named across the drops (handily sorted into ‘Evil’, ‘Traitor/Pawn’, and ‘Patriot’), and even a prayer wall. Most followers of QAnon tend not to visit Q’s posts on 8kun and the ‘chan’ boards where they are initially posted (the vernacular used on those sites is deliberately exclusionary and newcomers are often put off). This makes qmap.pub a crucial port of call for all QAnon information and a major node in how the movement disseminates its lore. The site has been hitting over 10 million monthly users since April of this year. The developer of QMap has been known only as ‘QAPPANON’ since the launch of the site in May of 2018. They have a successful Patreon where they regularly post and update their following on the running of the website. They pull in over 600 patrons and a $3,320 a month income – although there is a $4,000 a month target for ‘running costs’ of the website. In addition to the website, QMap also had an accompanying app on the Google Play Store (for $2.99) until it was removed in May this year as “harmful content”. The user QAPPANON is synonymous with qmap.pub, acting as its sole developer and mouthpiece.
Nineteen years ago Friday, attacks by the Islamist terrorist cult Al Qaeda took place on American soil, followed by conspiracy theories that the CIA bombed the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. These have been thoroughly debunked, but they have still flourished, as Al Qaeda did itself until the U.S. took the threat seriously. Before you dismiss QAnon as another kooky ideology, consider the fact that it’s gaining popularity — and quickly. Now we face another dangerous cult that has inspired political conspiracy theories and could once again do the U.S. homeland damage: QAnon. The shadowy internet-based organization’s followers believe that the world is run by a global cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles and child sex traffickers who are plotting against President Donald Trump and his supporters and that only Trump can save us. There is great concern that QAnon might turn violent, particularly if Trump loses the election. According to QAnon, those involved in the plotting include “deep state” government bureaucrats, Democrats and celebrities. QAnon also appears to be spouting Nazi anti-Semitic tropes, and it uses biblical references, as some are convinced that Jewish bankers want to enslave people and incite world wars, evoking an out-and-out Nazi cult. They have recruited anti-vaxxers who are espousing distrust of virus experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, believe Bill Gates wishes to put chips into people and think 5G cell towers are dangerous. Before you dismiss QAnon as another kooky ideology, consider that it’s gaining popularity — and quickly. There are millions of QAnon (pronounced “KEW-a-non”) adherents in the United States, with entities established in more than 71 countries. And their conspiracy theories have seeped into the political landscape in significant ways. (…) While not all followers are “brainwashed” by all of its beliefs, QAnon is a destructive cult that operates the same way all cults do. That is, QAnon recruiters and proselytizers use deceptive and manipulative tactics to attract people and feed them messages that trigger certain emotions to hook them and indoctrinate them into a new sense of reality. QAnon leaders spread their messages through social media platforms, such as Twitter, Reddit and YouTube. These platforms are able to algorithmically radicalize people who are curious about QAnon using clickbait titles, images, videos and even purported documentaries. According to alternate reality game expert Jim Stewartson, QAnon uses online gaming techniques to entice people down an online rabbit hole, offering them a series of fantasy challenges with hidden code messages called “Q drops” that soon become addictive. By getting involved with QAnon, followers feel they are part of an elite community, which gives them a sense of belonging. That’s a powerful force — but you can work against it if you take the right steps.
Facebook said Saturday it would take down erroneous posts claiming anti-fascist activists have been maliciously sparking wildfires in Oregon and other Western states. The announcement came after multiple organizations, including the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon, issued warnings on social media about the false rumors, and another sheriff’s department placed a deputy on leave after he was seen on video suggesting fires were being started by antifa adherents. There is no evidence Oregon’s fires were caused by arson from far-left activists. “We are removing false claims that the wildfires in Oregon were started by certain groups,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone tweeted. “This is based on confirmation from law enforcement that these rumors are forcing local fire and police agencies to divert resources from fighting the fires and protecting the public.” (…) “Rumors spread just like wildfire and now our 9-1-1 dispatchers and professional staff are being overrun with requests for information and inquiries on an UNTRUE rumor that 6 Antifa members have been arrested for setting fires in DOUGLAS COUNTY, OREGON,” the office said on Facebook Saturday. “THIS IS NOT TRUE!,” it continued. “Unfortunately, people are spreading this rumor and it is causing problems.” A firefighters union in Washington said on Facebook recently that the platform was “an absolute cesspool of misinformation right now.” Facebook’s Stone said the effort to remove such content could save lives.
One of the men has recent links to the Finns Party, while the other reportedly has ties to the Nordic Resistance Movement, Alliance of Nationslists and the Soldiers of Odin vigilante group. Two suspects, both with links to the far-right, and one with ties to the Finns Party, have been detained by police investigating the attempted murder of a Finns Party activist in July. The National Bureau of Investigation NBI says the two men, born in 1981 and 1976, were remanded in custody as part of the pre-trial investigation into the violent attack on Pekka Kataja at his home in Jämsä. Kataja is a Finns Party local councilor and an aide to a Finns Party Member of Parliament, and was left with head injuries and broken ribs after the beating which happened when at least two men showed up at his door claiming to have a delivery for him. Finnish media have named one of the detained suspects as Teemu Torssonen, a Jyväskylä City Councilor and Board Member who had challenged former Finns Party chairman Timo Soini for the leadership of the party back in 2016. (…) The other suspect has been named by Finnish media as as Tero Ala-Tuuhonen, reportedly one of the leaders of the far-right Soldiers of Odin vigilante group, and also connected to the banned neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement. Ala-Tuuhonen is also involved with the far-right Alliance of Nationalists organisation, which has garnered some support from Finns Party MPs; while pictures of an anti-EU rally outside parliament on 1st September, which attracted far-right QAnon conspiracy theorists, show Ala-Tuuhonen posing with at least one Finns Party MP for photographs.