January 2021

Boise man with alleged neo-Nazi ties, now facing gun charges, sought Idaho prison jobs – #terror #awd #atomwaffendivision

Before a Boise man was arrested in October for alleged gun crimes and was accused of trying to organize a “modern-day SS” on a neo-Nazi message board, he applied and interviewed for taxpayer-funded jobs at Idaho prisons. That same man, 35-year-old Paul Kryscuk, said in Instagram messages made public in court filings that he also applied to become a Boise firefighter and prepared to take a Boise Fire Department exam less than two weeks before his arrest. Kryscuk — who moved to Idaho in February 2020 — was arrested and later charged in federal court in North Carolina on multiple counts of conspiring to manufacture and ship firearms without a license. Three other men were charged in connection with the alleged conspiracy to manufacture and ship guns: Liam Collins, Jordan Duncan and Justin Hermanson. (…) At around the time of Kryscuk’s applications, he, Duncan and two other people met in the Boise area for live-fire weapons training outside of the city, according to prosecutors. During the training, the group made a video while shooting assault-style rifles, and at the end of that video, the four are seen giving a “Heil Hitler” sign and are wearing skull masks associated with the Atomwaffen Division, a terrorist neo-Nazi organization that is connected to multiple killings in the United States, federal authorities say. (…) In the Instagram messaging logs made public by prosecutors, Kryscuk and Duncan frequently used racial slurs and glorified violence, at one point discussing the shooting during protests and unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that left two people dead and one wounded, allegedly at the hands of 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse. Kryscuk and Duncan also discussed the group of men who planned to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who tried to put measures in place to curb the coronavirus pandemic and received the ire of right-wing groups. The two said that if the group had been more secretive, members “could’ve done it.” The group in Michigan is accused of watching Whitmer’s vacation home and purchasing explosives in the hopes of destroying a bridge that would hamper a police response, according to federal charging documents. The group planned to kidnap the governor, destroy the bridge and escape in a boat, federal prosecutors say.

via idahostatesman: Boise man with alleged neo-Nazi ties, now facing gun charges, sought Idaho prison jobs

symbolbild awd
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Decoding the extremist symbols and groups at the #Capitol Hill insurrection

Flags, signs and symbols of racist, white supremacist and extremist groups were displayed along with Trump 2020 banners and American flags at Wednesday’s riot at the U.S. Capitol. The pictures tell part of the story of the beliefs of some of those who chose to show up on that day — from passionate and peaceful Trump supporters to extremists who showed their hate with their symbols as well as their actions. (…) “This was an event designed to oppose the results of a free and fair democratic election and the transition of power that would naturally follow,” Mark Pitcavage, a historian and expert in extremism with the Anti-Defamation League said. CNN spoke with him to identify the symbols and understand the chilling messages of tyranny, white supremacy, anarchy, racism, anti-Semitism and hatred they portray. (…) A rioter inside the Capitol wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt. The bottom of the shirt reads “Work brings freedom,” which is the rough translation of the words “Arbeit macht frei” on the gates of the Nazi concentration camp. Auschwitz was the largest and most infamous Nazi concentration camp, where about 1.1 million people were killed during World War II. Pitcavage says he believes the shirt came from the now-defunct website Aryanwear. The design, which has been around for about 10 years according to Pitcavage, has been popping up on differing websites in recent weeks, though it is often taken down when a complaint is made. A social media image shows Nationalist Social Club stickers on what appears to be U.S. Capitol Police equipment It’s unclear when the photo was taken, but it was posted Wednesday in a Telegram chat the group uses, which includes a Nazi symbol as part of their name. NSC, apparently a word play on the National Socialists or Nazi party, is a neo-Nazi group that has regional chapters in both the United States and across the globe, according to the ADL. It is unclear if the sticker on the right refers to a New England chapter, or because the group originally called itself the New England Nationalists Club.

via ctvnews: Decoding the extremist symbols and groups at the Capitol Hill insurrection

siehe auch: These are some of the extremist groups responsible for the violence on Capitol Hill. The mob of U.S. President Donald Trump’s supporters who overran police and stormed Washington’s Capitol Hill included members of several well-known extremist and white-supremacist groups. Federal authorities have begun to ingest thousands of hours of pictures and video of the mob violence in an effort to identify and potentially charge perpetrators. Other organizations like investigative journalism heavyweight Bellingcat, also put out a call for civilians to save any and all livestreams, footage and pictures they find so that they can begin to “scrape” the material to piece together the sequence of events and identify extremists, like they did for the “Unite the Right” rally in August of 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. The violence did not come as a surprise to Barbara Perry, Director of the Centre for Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University. “I think I was [only] surprised that it took that long for something like this to happen. A lot of us had anticipated that we would see violence immediately following the election, especially if he [Donald Trump] lost,” Perry said in a phone interview with CTV News.ca Friday. Perry said she agrees that there has been a “mainstreaming of hate,” in recent years, and that the attack on the Capitol was a perfect example of it. “That’s an indication, I think, of how deeply embedded this has become in American politics in particular. But it certainly has become much more mainstream, not just in the political context, but in the media and popular discourse as well,” Perry said. Canada has not escaped the rise in extreme views either. “If we look at even Canadian public opinion polls, you know, we’re seeing quite a dramatic increase in attitudes around immigration, around Muslims, around legitimacy of government,” she said; Conspiracists, neo-Nazis, gun activists: The Trump loyalists who stormed Capitol. Naming the names: A look at some of the more prominent rioters who assailed the US Capitol this week The tattoo-chested man in a horned headdress, the middle-aged intruder with his foot on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk and the woman shot dead by police: Their images have been beamed around the world, but who are the Donald Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol?

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#Schweinekopf vor #Moschee gelegt – Rechtsextremist verurteilt – #terror

Im Mai 2019 wurde ein Schweinekopf vor einer Moschee in Mönchengladbach gelegt. Nun wurde der mutmaßliche Drahtzieher der Tat verurteilt. Er soll zwei Männer angestiftet haben. Wegen eines Schweinekopfes vor einer Moschee ist ein Rechtsextremist in Mönchengladbach zu vier Monaten Haft auf Bewährung verurteilt worden. Das Amtsgericht sprach den mehrfach vorbestraften 41-Jährigen am Freitag wegen Anstiftung zur Beleidigung schuldig. Der Schweinekopf war Ende Mai 2019 vor dem muslimischen Gotteshaus in Mönchengladbach abgelegt worden. Zudem war ein Hakenkreuz an die Moschee gesprüht worden. Der 41-Jährige soll zwei bereits verurteilte Männer zu der Tat angestiftet haben. (…) Der 41-Jährige, der in mehreren Verfassungsschutzberichten erwähnt wird, war ohne Anwalt erschienen und hatte auf Freispruch plädiert. Er quittierte die Urteilsverkündung mit Lachen und Kopfschütteln und kündigte Berufung an. Der 41-Jährige ist dem Verfassungsschutz als Funktionär der rechten Szene in NRW seit langem bekannt. Er war bei Pro NRW und Hogesa (Hooligans gegen Salafisten) aktiv

via ruhrnachrichten: Schweinekopf vor Moschee gelegt – Rechtsextremist verurteilt

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Trotz Verbots: Corona-Leugner mobilisieren für “Tag der Befreiung”

Mit einer neuen Richtlinie will das Innenministerium strenger gegen Demonstrationen vorgehen. Die Gegner der Corona-Maßnahmen wollen “unter allen Umständen” protestieren. Geht es nach den österreichischen “Querdenkern”, soll der 16. Jänner kein Samstag wie jeder andere werden: Am “Tag der Befreiung” werde man “das Regime zum Einknicken bewegen”, kündigt Martin Rutter, Ex-Landtagsabgeordneter des Team Stronach aus Kärnten, in einem Online-Video an. Schon bevor die Demo am Freitag untersagt wurde, sagte der Demo-Organisator, dass man “unter allen Umständen” marschieren werde. Er erwarte zehntausende Menschen, an Polizei und Militär appelliere er, nicht auf Befehle, sondern auf ihre “Moral, innere Verfügung und Haltung” zu hören. Befehle seien keine Ausrede mehr, sagt Rutter. Seine Videos werden im Netz bis zu 800.000 Mal aufgerufen.

via standard: Trotz Verbots: Corona-Leugner mobilisieren für “Tag der Befreiung”

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Illinois CEO arrested during Capitol riots says he was in ‘wrong place’ at ‘wrong time’


After he was arrested for unlawful entry, Bradley Rukstales, a Chicago-area CEO, said he regretted participating in the mob that stormed the Capitol. Bradley Rukstales, who was arrested on a charge of unlawful entry after he participated in the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol, told an Illinois news outlet that he is “deeply regretful.” “It was great to see a whole bunch of people together in the morning and hearing the speeches, but, yeah, it turned into chaos,” Rukstales said in an interview at his home with CBS2 Chicago. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I regret my part in that,” Rukstales said. (…) In a tweet Thursday, Cogensia, the Schaumburg, Illinois-based company of which Rukstales is CEO, said he has been placed on a leave of absence due to his admission of participation in the events. A statement from the U.S. Capitol Police confirmed that Rukstales was arrested on a charge of unlawful entry. According to a search of publicly available election donation data, Rukstales has donated thousands of dollars to Republicans running for Congress and to President Donald Trump

via nbcnews: Illinois CEO arrested during Capitol riots says he was in ‘wrong place’ at ‘wrong time’

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#breaking – #Twitter Permanently Bans #Trump After Years Of Aggressive, Violent Rhetoric On Platform

The president, who had more than 88 million followers on the platform and often used it to govern, was permanently removed on Friday. After years of using Twitter as a legislation tool, sounding board and sometimes like a diary, President Donald Trump was banned from the platform on Friday. Less than two weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, the social media company removed the commander in chief after rioters overtook the Capitol on Wednesday, leading to the deaths of at least people. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that Trump would be banned from the platform “indefinitely” as a result of the insurrection. “The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden,” Zuckerberg said in a statement. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” he continued. “Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” Shortly after Zuckerberg’s announcement, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, tweeted that Trump had been blocked from its platform “indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks.” (Instagram is owned by Facebook.)
Twitter and other social media companies have long been criticized for not banning the president or taking harsher action against him after his repeatedly use of the platform to incite outrage and violence. The companies have previously defended leaving up Trump’s posts as they were of “the public’s interest.” In the last year, there’s been a palpable shift as Trump’s behavior on social media has escalated. Twitter’s earliest action to curb his rhetoric came in the form of warning labels beneath certain tweets, which alerted followers if a tweet was factually inaccurate or violated rules against glorifying violence. Facebook and Instagram would later follow suit. After the riot at the Capitol, Twitter had instituted a lock on his account for 12 hours, noting that the ban would be extended if tweets rejecting the results of the November election, and those that violated its “Civic Integrity” policy, were not deleted. “Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of [Trump’s] account,” read a tweet on Wednesday. The tweets had been deleted as of Thursday afternoon. Many are saying that deplatforming the president in the final days of his presidency is “too little, too late,” as the damage he’s caused has already been done.

via huff: Twitter Permanently Bans Trump After Years Of Aggressive, Violent Rhetoric On Platform

https://twitter.com/janboehm/status/1347688230762774528
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Capitol Rioters Planned for Weeks in Plain Sight. The Police Weren’t Ready

Insurrectionists made no effort to hide their intentions, but law enforcement protecting Congress was caught flat-footed. The invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday was stoked in plain sight. For weeks, the far-right supporters of President Donald Trump railed on social media that the election had been stolen. They openly discussed the idea of violent protest on the day Congress met to certify the result. “We came up with the idea to occupy just outside the CAPITOL on Jan 6th,” leaders of the Stop the Steal movement wrote on Dec. 23. They called their Wednesday demonstration the Wild Protest, a name taken from a tweet by Trump that encouraged his supporters to take their grievances to the streets of Washington. “Will be wild,” the president tweeted.Ali Alexander, the founder of the movement, encouraged people to bring tents and sleeping bags and avoid wearing masks for the event. “If D.C. escalates… so do we,” Alexander wrote on Parler last week — one of scores of social media posts welcoming violence that were reviewed by ProPublica in the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s attack on the capitol.
Thousands of people heeded that call. For reasons that remained unclear Wednesday night, the law enforcement authorities charged with protecting the nation’s entire legislative branch — nearly all of the 535 members of Congress gathered in a joint session, along with Vice President Mike Pence — were ill-prepared to contain the forces massed against them. On Wednesday afternoon, a thin line of U.S. Capitol Police, with only a few riot shields between them and a knot of angry protesters, engaged in hand-to-hand combat with rioters on the steps of the West Front. They struggled with a flimsy set of barricades as a mob in helmets and bulletproof vests pushed its way toward the Capitol entrance. Videos showed officers stepping aside, and sometimes taking selfies, as if to usher Trump’s supporters into the building they were supposed to guard. A former Capitol policeman well-versed in his agency’s procedures was mystified by the scene he watched unfold on live television. Larry Schaefer, a 34-year Capitol Police veteran who retired in December 2019, said his former colleagues were experienced in dealing with aggressive crowds. “It’s not a spur-of-the-moment demonstration that just popped up,” Schaefer said. “We have a planned, known demonstration that has a propensity for violence in the past and threats to carry weapons — why would you not prepare yourself as we have done in the past?” A spokesperson for the Capitol Police did not respond to a request for comment. In recent years, federal law enforcement agencies have stepped up their focus on far-right groups, resulting in a spate of arrests. In October, the FBI arrested a group of Michigan extremists and charged them with plotting to kidnap the state’s governor. On Monday, Washington police arrested Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the far-right group the Proud Boys, on charges of burning a Black Lives Matter banner. Conversations on right-wing platforms are monitored closely by federal intelligence. In September, a draft report by the Department of Homeland Security surfaced, identifying white supremacists as the biggest threat to national security. The warnings of Wednesday’s assault on the Capitol were everywhere — perhaps not entirely specific about the planned time and exact location of an assault on the Capitol, but enough to clue in law enforcement about the potential for civil unrest.

via propublic: Capitol Rioters Planned for Weeks in Plain Sight. The Police Weren’t Ready

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