A former US Marine charged with assaulting officers during the Capitol riot told FBI investigators that he got “caught up in the moment.” Barton Shively, of Pennsylvania, who faces multiple charges in federal court in Washington, DC, was arrested Tuesday. The charges against him include aiding and abetting, civil disorder, forcibly assaulting, resisting, opposing, impeding or interfering with any federal officer or employee and violent entry into restricted grounds or any Capitol building, according to a criminal complaint. He has not yet entered a plea. (…) During an interview with the FBI in Pennsyvlvannia, Shively said he “got caught up in the moment,” and grabbed a police officer by the jacket, according to the filing. Prosecutors also shared a screenshot of Shively appearing to shove a Capitol Police officer — and Assistant US Attorney Scott Ford said at a hearing Tuesday that Shively “laid his hands” on officers.
Dienste
Trump’s pardon largesse a boon for well-connected fraudsters
A former congressman who pocketed millions of dollars in bribes from defense contractors. A Republican fundraiser who paid handsome sums to illicitly lobby a presidential administration. An influential voice in conservative circles accused of duping donors who supported a border wall. Donald Trump’s final batch of more than 140 pardons and sentence commutations, issued in his last hours as president, benefited an ignominious list of defendants whose swindles, frauds and public corruption made them unlikely candidates for executive clemency. The recipients included people who not only abused their own positions of power but who also leveraged well-placed connections to pursue pardons from a president willing to use his authority to bless patrons and friends. (…) And many of the names on Trump’s last list were conventional and non-controversial selections, including relatively anonymous drug offenders seen as having rehabilitated themselves during long stays in prison. Those types of defendants were also pardoned en masse by previous administrations. Even so, “Trump has had a much higher percentage of his pardons be the sort of well-connected, personally connected-to-him kind of folks,” said Michigan State University law professor Brian Kalt, an expert on pardons. (…) For instance, joining Cunningham on the pardon list was Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist. He was pulled from a yacht off the Connecticut coast in August and brought to Manhattan to face charges that he duped thousands of donors who believed their money would be used to fulfill Trump’s chief campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border. Instead, he allegedly diverted over a million dollars, paying a salary to one campaign official and personal expenses for himself. His co-defendants were not pardoned. The pardon was notable not only because Bannon has steadfastly asserted his innocence — the Justice Department pardon process values acceptance of responsibility — but because the criminal prosecution was still in its early stages. The pardon nullified the case while the trial was still months away, eliminating the prospect for any punishment for Bannon. Another recipient was Elliott Broidy, a major Trump fundraiser and former Republican National Committee deputy finance chairman. Prosecutors said Broidy collected millions of dollars in a back-channel but ultimately unsuccessful lobbying scheme aimed at getting the Trump administration to drop an investigation into embezzlement from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund and to extradite a Chinese dissident wanted by the government in Beijing.
via ap: Trump’s pardon largesse a boon for well-connected fraudsters
Gewalt
‘We Were Played’: #QAnon’s Inauguration Day Meltdown
After spending years awaiting “The Storm”—the moment when President Donald Trump would supposedly eliminate the so-called “deep state” and expose an elite child-sex trafficking cabal— adherents of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory were forced to reckon with the fact that their movement was little more than delusional fantasy. Despite attempts to keep the hope alive, QAnon followers watched in dismay as Trump left Washington, D.C., for Florida Wednesday morning while Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. With no military coup, no dramatic scenes of revolution, and no mass executions or retaliatory violence as prophesized, QAnon adherents began to wonder if they had been deceived. “It’s over. We were played,” one follower said on a QAnon Telegram channel with more than 30,000 subscribers. “I’m going to throw up now.” Some QAnon channels attempted to maintain optimism by theorizing that “Biden will be the one who pulls the trigger” that leads to “The Storm”, that “Biden is Q,” and even that the 17 flags at Trump’s farewell speech—Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet—was a sign to “trust the plan.” Yet while QAnon channels and influencers scrambled to make sense of the collapsing narrative, many followers seemed disillusioned by the latest spin. “[Q] has left me here looking out over the sea watching and waiting,” a QAnon disciple said on Telegram. “No word, no letter, no sign. Nothing tangible on which I can depend. I could wait forever but no true sign.”
QAnon took root on the infamous 4chan discussion board in October 2017, where an anonymous poster claimed to have “Q clearance” granting him access to classified information at the Department of Energy, including nuclear secrets. “Q” quickly amassed a large following through his posts (known as “Q drops”), and the movement grew among right-wing circles. The anonymous prophet fueling the QAnon movement spent years flooding the internet with unfounded conspiracies, proclamations about the so-called deep state’s cabalistic control of the United States, and Trump’s role as the anointed savior fighting off the forces of evil. It is worth noting that Q has not posted online since Dec. 8, when the anonymous figure sent out a YouTube link of a pro-Trump montage set to the Twisted Sister song “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” And while QAnon influencers continued to predict a stunning victory for Trump and the so-called patriot movement by Jan. 20, Biden’s inauguration was a body blow that leveled many of the movement’s followers. “I’m crying and tired of this pain,” said one post on a QAnon channel. “All the evil is being praised right now while we sit and watch. No arrests, no swamp reveal. Nothing.” As reality set in, some key figures within the QAnon community appeared to change their tune. Ron Watkins—the former administrator of the 8kun message board that was home to Q and is also linked to white supremacy, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, various other hate crimes, and multiple mass shootings—called on his followers to respect the incoming administration.
via rightwingwatch: ‘We Were Played’: QAnon’s Inauguration Day Meltdown
Rechtsextremismus
#Wannsee Conference and the “Final Solution” – #OnThisDay
On January 20, 1942, 15 high-ranking Nazi Party and German government officials gathered at a villa in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee to discuss and coordinate the implementation of what they called the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.”
The mass murder of the Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators required the coordination and cooperation of governmental agencies throughout Axis-controlled Europe. The Wannsee Conference was a high-level meeting of German officials to discuss and implement the so-called “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” (mass killing). The SS envisioned that some 11 million Jews, some of them not living on German-controlled territory, would be eradicated as part of the Nazi program. (…) The “Final Solution” was the code name for the systematic, deliberate, physical annihilation of the European Jews. At some still undetermined time in 1941, Adolf Hitler authorized this European-wide scheme for mass murder. Heydrich convened the Wannsee Conference “to inform and secure support from government ministries and other interested agencies relevant to the implementation of the “Final Solution” to disclose to the participants that Hitler himself had tasked Heydrich and the RSHA with coordinating the operation”. The men at the table did not deliberate whether such a plan should be undertaken, but instead discussed the implementation of a policy decision that had already been made at the highest level of the Nazi regime.
via ushmm: Wannsee Conference and the “Final Solution”
Gewalt
White women’s role in white supremacy, explained
Women at the Capitol riot are just the latest reminder of a long history. It’s tempting to think of the storming of the US Capitol on Wednesday as toxic masculinity run amok: a mob of mostly white men, carrying guns and wearing animal skins, trying to overthrow democracy on behalf of a president who once bragged about his ability to grab women “by the pussy.” It’s even more tempting to embrace this narrative when, in a bizarre statement, that president’s campaign press secretary describes him as “the most masculine person, I think, to ever hold the White House.” But focusing too much on masculinity obscures a crucial truth: Many women were either present at the riot or cheering on the insurrectionists from back home. There was Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran and apparent devotee of QAnon ideology who was killed during the riot. There was the woman photographed with “zip-tie guy” Eric Munchel, now believed to be his mother. There was Martha Chansley, the mother of the widely photographed “QAnon shaman” who wore a horned hat and carried a spear to Congress. She wasn’t present at the riot but later defended her son in an interview, calling him “a great patriot, a veteran, a person who loves this country.” And, of course, there were the women lawmakers who boosted conspiracy theories and false claims about the election being stolen, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon adherent who railed against Democrats and Black Lives Matter protesters in a speech on the House floor this week while wearing a mask reading “censored.” Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, meanwhile, described January 6 as “1776” before the riot began, live-tweeted from the House during the attack (including a mention that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been removed from the chambers), and this week, refused to allow police to search her bag after it set off metal detectors outside Congress. During her campaign, Boebert promised to bring her gun with her to the House. White women have been part of white supremacy in America since the very beginning, experts point out, dating back to their role in slavery. “They were at the table when the system was designed,” Stephanie Jones-Rogers, a history professor at UC Berkeley and author of the book They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, told Vox. “They were co-architects of the system.” That remained true after the Civil War, through the birth and evolution of the Ku Klux Klan, and during the civil rights movement when white women were some of the most vocal opponents of school integration. And it remains true today, when women hold a key role in spreading QAnon ideology and sustaining white nationalist groups and movements. “Like other parts of our economy and society, these movements would collapse without their labor,” Seyward Darby, author of Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism, told Vox.
Dienste
US Capitol riot: police have long history of aiding neo-Nazis and extremists
For years, domestic terrorism researchers have warned that there are police departments in every region of America counting white supremacist extremists and neo-Nazi sympathizers among their ranks. To these experts, and the activists who have been targeted by law enforcement officers in past years, it came as no surprise that police officers were part of the mob that stormed the US Capitol on 6 January. In fact, the acceptance of far-right beliefs among law enforcement, they say, helped lay the groundwork for the extraordinary attacks in the American capital. “I’ve been trying to ring the alarm since before Donald Trump was elected,” said Cedric O’Bannon, a journalist and activist who was stabbed at a 2016 neo-Nazi rally in Sacramento and was later targeted by the investigating officer. “It’s nothing new. We’ve seen it getting worse and worse. The law enforcement collusion with white nationalists is clear,” he said. (…) Extremism experts and survivors of far-right violence have for years cried foul about the close ties between some police and white supremacist groups. These links have escalated under the Trump era, they’ve warned, with numerous examples of police openly protecting far-right organizers, including armed and violent ones. (…) The number of white supremacist extremists within US police forces is unknown, but even relying solely on cases that have been publicized shows the problem is widespread. Johnson, the Georgetown expert, testified in Congress last year about white supremacist infiltration of police. She found that since 2009, more than 100 police departments in 49 states have faced scandals involving officers making overtly racist statements. In Florida, Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana and elsewhere, active police officers have been outed as members of organized hate groups, including the KKK, she found. And this is likely the “tip of the iceberg”, she said, adding that polls showing that 10% of Americans believe it’s acceptable to hold neo-Nazi views, and that 12% supported the Capitol attack. Those rates are likely higher for police officers, she said, given that officers are disproportionately white and male.
via guardian: US Capitol riot: police have long history of aiding neo-Nazis and extremists
Gewalt
Nazi Ravensbrück camp: How ordinary women became SS torturers
“Healthy, female workers between the ages of 20 and 40 wanted for a military site,” reads the job advertisement from a 1944 German newspaper. Good wages and free board, accommodation and clothing are promised. What is not mentioned is that the clothing is an SS uniform. And that the “military site” is Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. Today the flimsy wooden barracks for the prisoners are long gone. All that remains is an eerily empty, rocky field, about 80km (50 miles) north of Berlin. But still standing are eight solidly built, attractive villas with wooden shutters and balconies. They are a 1940s Nazi version of medieval German cottages. That is where the female guards lived, some with their children. From the balconies they could overlook a forest and a pretty lake. “It was the most beautiful time of my life,” said one former female guard, decades later. But from their bedrooms they would have also seen chain-gangs of prisoners and the chimneys of the gas chamber. (…) Some 3,500 women worked as Nazi concentration camp guards, and all of them started out at Ravensbrück. Many later worked in death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau or Bergen-Belsen “They were awful people,” 98-year-old Selma van de Perre tells me on the phone from her home in London. She was a Dutch Jewish resistance fighter who was imprisoned in Ravensbrück as a political prisoner. “They liked it probably because it gave them power. It gave them lots of power over the prisoners. Some prisoners were very badly treated. Beaten.” (…) Ravensbrück was Nazi Germany’s largest female-only camp. More than 120,000 women from all over Europe were imprisoned here. Many were resistance fighters or political opponents. Others were deemed “unfit” for Nazi society: Jews, lesbians, sex workers or homeless women. At least 30,000 women died here. Some were gassed or hanged, others starved, died of disease or were worked to death. They were treated brutally by many of the female guards – beaten, tortured or murdered. The prisoners gave them nicknames, such as “bloody Brygyda” or “revolver Anna”.
via bbc: Nazi Ravensbrück camp: How ordinary women became SS torturers
Von <a href=”//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Stw-kunst&action=edit&redlink=1″ class=”new” title=”User:Stw-kunst (page does not exist)”>Stw-kunst</a> – <span class=”int-own-work” lang=”de”>Eigenes Werk</span>, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link