ISIS-K Claims Credit After 137 Killed in Moscow Concert Attack; Russia Tries to Blame Ukraine

ISIS-K Claims Credit After 137 Killed in Moscow Concert Attack; Russia Tries to Blame Ukraine 1

This post was originally published on this site

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

In Russia, the death toll has risen to 137 from an attack on a popular concert hall in Moscow Friday. Authorities say gunmen opened fire inside the Crocus City Hall during a sold-out rock concert, then set part of the venue on fire. More than 100 people were also injured, many in critical condition. A survivor described the attack.

ANASTASIA RODIONOVA: [translated] They were just walking and shooting as they went along. There were five of six of them. They were just walking and just shooting like this. They did not shoot upwards. They did not scream. They did not say, “Everyone, lay down. We will kill you,” etc. They were just walking and gunning down everyone methodically in silence. Sound was echoing, and we could not understand what was where.

AMY GOODMAN: Sunday was a day of mourning in Russia. Authorities have detained 11 people, including four men from Tajikistan who appeared in court today. They all appeared to have suffered significant injuries, reportedly suffered during interrogations. One suspect was in a wheelchair and seemed to lose consciousness during the court session. Reuters reports he may have had an eye missing. The four are charged with terrorism and face life sentences.

An affiliate of the Islamic state, ISIS-K, has claimed responsibility and posted video of the attack online. Russian authorities have suggested Ukraine was in the attack, a claim Kyiv called absurd.

The U.S. Embassy had reportedly warned Russia earlier this month that it was, quote, “monitoring reports that extremists have imminent plans to target large gatherings in Moscow,” unquote, especially concert halls, and U.S. National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said the U.S. government had, quote, “shared this information with Russian authorities in accordance with its longstanding ‘duty to warn’ policy.” Putin called the warnings, quote, “provocative” and “outright blackmail” in a speech last Tuesday. Today, a Kremlin spokesperson refused to respond to reporters who asked Friday — if Friday was an intelligence failure.

DMITRY PESKOV: [translated] Our special services work independently. Any help now is out of the question, although, as you know, the day before, President Putin had many phone communications, leaders of various countries, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and other countries, whose leaders spoke with the president over the phone. The intentions to develop and improve cooperation against terrorism were voiced there. The topic was discussed. There are no contacts with the Westerners now.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by two guests. In a minute we’ll speak with Nina Khrushcheva, a professor at The New School university here in New York. But first we turn to Joshua Yaffa, contributing writer to The New Yorker magazine, their longtime Moscow correspondent, author of Between Two Fires: Truth, Ambition, and Compromise in Putin’s Russia, his new piece, released yesterday, “How Will Putin Respond to the Terrorist Attack in Moscow?”

Josh, welcome back to Democracy Now! Well, how will and how is Putin responding to this attack, as we just listened to Dmitry Peskov, the longtime Kremlin spokesperson?

JOSHUA YAFFA: Well, you highlighted, rightly, that this is an awkward, to put it mildly, subject for Putin, given the warnings that the West made publicly, through that U.S. Embassy notice that you read, and there were also clearly private warnings that now the U.S. National Security Council is talking about, in which the U.S. shared some intelligence about the prospect or likelihood of an attack. And Putin, at a meeting with high-ranking FSB officials, an address he gave to an FSB colloquium, in three days before the attack, dismissed those warnings, as you said, as blackmail, as a provocation, as a kind of ruse by the West. So, all of this is now, again, to put it mildly, and very tragically, quite awkward for Putin, given the scale of destruction in the terror attack last week.

Putin’s first instinctual reaction, I think, both based on political calculation but also, I think, kind of genuine — his genuine paranoid read of how things work, was to try and cast a shadow on Ukraine, suggesting that somehow these ISIS-K terrorists had links to Ukraine, that Ukraine and perhaps the West were behind this attack. That fits very much into Putin’s paranoid worldview. Of course, it’s a very convenient argument and narrative for not just Putin himself but the Kremlin information machine to make to the Russian public. We’ve seen propaganda outlets go into overdrive. State media, Margarita Simonyan, the head of RT, really pushed this narrative that somehow Ukraine must be involved, that even if the perpetrators, the ones who actually carried out the attack, were citizens of Tajikistan, perhaps doing so out of allegiance or in coordination with ISIS-K, that the real villain lies in Ukraine. And I think Putin will continue to try and push this narrative to the extent possible.

We saw, as you mentioned, clear signs of torture from the suspects who were brought to Moscow court. Could torture be used to extract a kind of “confession,” in air quotes, from them that indeed Ukraine or the West stood behind the attack? I think that’s possible. We don’t know.

It’s also possible that given how awkward and uncomfortable this is of a subject and how it doesn’t actually fit with the larger Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, the necessity of that war, the standoff with the West, the United States as the main enemy, that Putin, the Kremlin, the propaganda machine of the Russian state may try and change the conversation, move on, quickly change topics and actually not devote a lot of attention to this attack and see if they can’t get the Russian people to grimly absorb it as the Russian public has had to grimly absorb so many tragedies in recent years.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to your reference to what Russian President Vladimir Putin said, suggesting Ukraine was involved in the deadly attacks on Crocus City Hall, vowing to punish all those responsible.

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: [translated] All four of the actual performers of the act of terror, all those who shot and killed people were found and detained. They tried to hide, and they were moving in the direction of Ukraine. There, according to the preliminary data, they had a crossing of the border prepared from the Ukrainian side. … All executors, planners and those who ordered this crime will be rightfully and inevitably punished, whoever they are and whoever directed them. Let me repeat: We will identify and punish everyone who stood behind the terrorists, who prepared this attack against Russia, against our people.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Vladimir Putin. He said that these people, the Tajiks, were headed to the Ukraine border. Talk about who ISIS-K is, that claimed responsibility for this attack.

JOSHUA YAFFA: ISIS-K is a group, an affiliate of the larger ISIS, or the ISIS that we came to know in Syria and Iraq. It’s based in Central Asia, Afghanistan, where it’s most active, and it’s engaging in a kind of civil war within the jihadi community with the Taliban, has made Russia a target, at least rhetorically, for some time, citing Russia’s own campaign, or the Soviet Union’s campaign in Afghanistan against the mujahideen in the ’80s, all the way up to Russia’s war against ISIS, its air campaign in Syria, very brutal, destructive, indiscriminate air campaign, a ground campaign involving Wagner mercenaries against ISIS in Palmyra and other sites around Syria, Russia’s own repression and ongoing counterinsurgency against Muslim communities, oftentimes Muslim extremist or Muslim militant communities, in the Russian North Caucasus, so that there’s no share of grievance on the side of ISIS-K, again, which doesn’t really need to work very hard to try and find or justify targets. It’s also in recent months tried to plan attacks in Europe, Germany, elsewhere. Those apparently have been foiled. So, the fact that Russia is in ISIS-K’s crosshairs is neither nothing new nor particularly all that surprising, given what we know about the group and Russia’s own involvement in various interventions in the Muslim world over the years.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring into the conversation with Joshua Yaffa Nina Khrushcheva, professor of international affairs at The New School, her book titled The Lost Khrushchev: Journey into the Gulag of the Russian Mind, also co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones, and wanted to get your response, as well, to this attack — you’ve talked about it, immediately going back to 2004, the Beslan school siege, when Christian [sic] rebels — Chechen rebels, rather, occupied a school in the town of Beslan — and whether you think, as Josh was just saying, Putin, whose brand is so-called security, can just hope that this goes away very quickly in the minds of the Russian people.

NINA KHRUSHCHEVA: Well, thank you, Amy.

Putin can hope that it goes away. It doesn’t go away. There has been at least three instances already since Friday where various venues, including hospitals, have been warning bomb warnings, and they’ve been evacuated. So, that seems to be going on. Even if there is no bombing, and perhaps they’re false warnings, it is really to destabilize this Putin’s claim that Russia is stable.

And, of course, when we talk about Putin’s or Russia’s state dealings with the Islamic fundamentalists, it goes back even to 2002, when a theater, during the performance of Nord-Ost, was attacked. And then, of course, Beslan school is 2006. Then, there have been a study done that from 1995 to 2006 — I mean, it’s not a clear number, but approximate number — about 20,000 people have been killed in those attacks by Islamic fundamentalists. Then, of course, there’s other instances, the 2011, the 2007, the 2017, all in subways or other places in Russia. And also, that is the first time when Russia dealt with ISIS, with ISIS-K, with this group that attacked on Friday, was in 2022, where the Russian Embassy in Kabul was bombed, and two people were killed then. So, really, there’s been more than one or two. There have been over 10 or even 20 instances of Putin’s or Russia’s dealing with it.

And in his performance, in his sort of response to the attack, when he spoke for about six minutes after the attack on Saturday, he spoke about the Nazis, because that’s the important message that he needs to deliver, since his whole point in Ukraine is denazification of Ukraine. So, he needed to make this kind of connection, while, in truth, of course, he should have been talking about the kind of Muslim treatment in Russia and the Islamic fundamentalist threat, that is not just in Russia but all over. And that’s unfortunate, because Russia seems to be denying global cooperation, and that will create more problems, not just for the world, but for Russia, inside Russia, for sure.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, just to say, ISIS-K has targeted the United States, but the United States has left Afghanistan. They’ve targeted Pakistan, repeatedly targeted China, as well as Russia. The significance of — these are different lines than we traditionally see. You know, you’re either attacking Russia or the United States. We see it very much as an East-West line. ISIS-K doesn’t.

NINA KHRUSHCHEVA: Exactly, it doesn’t. And that’s why when Peskov says, “We have no cooperation with the West,” that’s unfortunate, because exactly that. And, in fact, Putin himself, 20 years ago, he was the one who was encouraging the George Bush administration, George Bush Jr. administration, to work together. He was the one, in fact, even in 2015, 2014, was encouraging Barack Obama to work together on this kind of issues. Clearly, that time has long gone. And now Putin is going to be a lone actor in this, which, unfortunately, really doesn’t bode well for Russia, because we probably will see more attacks like that. And if Russia is not going to listen to Western warnings or any warnings, then, in fact, how it is going to fight a rising threat? I mean, we saw already that France has raised its security level to the highest level. So, if it is a threat, once again, a global one, and Russia will be left alone to do that, that will become a problem.

AMY GOODMAN: Joshua Yaffa, the piece that you wrote before this piece that you wrote on how will Putin respond to the attack came around the time of the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s headlined “Has Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Improved His Standing in Russia?” And you write, “Putin’s authoritarian drift has accelerated into something resembling a full-blown military dictatorship.” How will this attack impact where he’s headed? I mean, we see overnight massive attacks on Ukraine, trying to — do you think it’s trying to redirect attention back to Ukraine? And what do you say to those who are saying they were headed to the Ukraine border, that whether or not some of these attackers were Tajik, that there’s some hand in it by Ukraine?

JOSHUA YAFFA: I’d say a few things. One, indeed, this is a trend that began before the war but accelerated greatly since Russia’s invasion, which is Russia’s authoritarian drift, empowering of the security services, really the FSB, the main security service, becoming kind of the political police of Russia. These are trends that began a long time ago and have accelerated since the invasion. But what we see is that for all of Putin’s authoritarian — kind of gathering of authoritarian control and handing over much authority to the FSB, that these institutions are there to protect the regime, not the Russian people. I think that that’s the great lesson of late-stage Putinism, what we’re witnessing now, but really true of so many autocracies, that as they hand more and more control to things like security services, secret police, carry out mass repressions against their own citizens. An analysis by a group named Proekt, an independent Russian media outlet, counted more political prisoners under Putin than were under the leadership of Khruschev or Brezhnev in the Soviet period, so we’re talking about a massive number of Russian citizens facing these repressions.

And what is it all for? Not to actually keep Russia or its population safe, but to keep the regime safe. And I think that’s important to understand, both in trying to determine how did this attack happen in the first place and also what might Putin’s response be going forward. First and foremost, he cares about preserving his own power and the continued stability of his ruling system.

How he might respond in terms of lashing out at Ukraine, trying to redirect attention to Ukraine, you mentioned a massive Russian drone and missile attack against Ukrainian targets today against the center of Kyiv. A university, among other targets, was struck. The city of Kharkiv is undergoing rolling blackouts, you also mentioned. So, yes, of course, this will be tempting for the Kremlin to try and deflect from the real, by all accounts, source of this terror attack — Muslim fundamentalism, ISIS — try to redirect to a more convenient, sellable target — Ukraine — that fits more in line with Russian — overall Russian propaganda messaging. But it’s not really clear how much there is slack in the rope, so to speak, for Russia to escalate more in Ukraine. What can it do more than it’s already doing? These attacks against Ukrainian cities, against Ukrainian infrastructure, they have been going on, well, really, for two years, since the invasion began. But in the last weeks we’ve seen Russia ramp up the scale of these kind of swarm attacks of ballistic missiles, drones against especially energy targets, trying to force blackouts, heating shutoffs and crises across Ukraine. So, all of that was happening before these attacks. Can Russia do more of it? I guess. But it’s hard to think of Russia escalating in a qualitative way beyond what it’s been doing for the past two years.

As to whether or not there was actually any Ukrainian links to this account, there’s been absolutely zero credible evidence of this that has emerged. The suspects were detained on a highway near in the Russian city if Bryansk. It’s about 140 kilometers from Ukraine. Were they actually headed to Ukraine? Who knows? The idea that they would cross one of the most monitored and heavily militarized borders in the world, just imagine what the border between two countries at war looks like, the amount of military personnel, intelligence personnel that are watching that border. The idea that people who just committed a terror attack could kind of easily sneak across the border seems a little far-fetched to me. But again, we don’t even know exactly: Were they planning to cross the border? Were they planning to cross the border to Belarus? To say that they were apprehended at the Ukrainian border is a bit of a stretch, given we’re talking about a distance of 140 kilometers. And beyond that fact, which really in and of itself might not amount to much, there’s really no other evidence whatsoever that would suggest Ukraine has anything to do with this attack, beyond the Kremlin’s understandable urge to try and force that narrative first and foremost on the Russian public to explain why the Kremlin didn’t see this coming and wasn’t able to prevent it.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Khrushcheva, to talk about those energy attacks, this from the Financial Times: “The US has urged Ukraine to halt attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure, warning that the drone strikes risk driving up global oil prices and provoking retaliation.” Your response?

NINA KHRUSHCHEVA: Well, and it is, because the — Joshua just talked about the recent Russian attacks that were before the Friday terrorist event. In fact, during the elections, during that process of Putin’s new term of president, Ukraine escalated its attacks on the cities around the Russian border and on the oil and gas infrastructure. So Russia retaliates back. So, in a sense, it becomes, you know, escalation on one side, escalation on the other side. This is not to equate, because, obviously, Russia is an invader. But it is — you know, the escalation now in the last month has been going on on both sides.

I don’t think Ukraine cares. I mean, they — in fact, Ukrainians did say they understand what the United States is asking for, but they really can’t care about this, because they are at war. They fight the way they can, especially now, when the Western aid, especially the aid from the United States, has been stalling in Congress. They have to do something, so they’re doing what they can. And I don’t think it’s quite fair on the part of the other parties involved to say, “Well, don’t do it,” because they are at war, and they have to fight by any means, by the means possible.

AMY GOODMAN: Joshua, you write in your piece, ISIS is on the Kremlin’s list of terrorist and extremist organizations, but so is Alexei Navalny’s political network. And on the day of the attack, Friday, Russia added the, quote, “worldwide LGBT movement” to the same list. What purpose does this list serve?

JOSHUA YAFFA: That’s a very fair question, that I would be — that would be difficult for me to answer convincingly or rationally. But the existence of this list, or, rather, its composition, the fact that you have ISIS on the same list of banned terrorist and extremist organizations next to Alexei Navalny’s political and Anti-Corruption Foundation, or something that I’m not even sure any fair-minded person could understand how to define the so-called worldwide LGBT movement, whatever that is, shows the Kremlin’s priorities in how it sees or what it sees as true dangers. And this gets back to what I said a moment ago, that the existence of this security apparatus and the reason for this granting so much power to organizations like the FSB, the scale of political repression we’ve seen in Russia, it’s not about protecting the Russian people. This is a point I made a minute ago. It’s about, first and foremost, protecting the political power and the political regime of Vladimir Putin.

And who is a threat for Vladimir Putin? Well, for example, the political organization, with field offices at one point around the country, of Alexei Navalny. LGBT movement, again, whatever that really means, to talk about the worldwide LGBT movement. But by stigmatizing and scapegoating LGBT movement and individuals, Putin is able to present his war in Ukraine as a kind of civilizational values war against the decadent West with its same-sex marriages and trans rights and so on.

Except there are very real human costs behind the inclusion and stigmatization and scapegoating of groups, for example, like LGBT community. Just this week, the first prosecutions or the first arrests we’ve seen of two people in connection with violation of this law — in other words, these are two people who owned a gay bar in Russia — they have been arrested for this fact and could face prison sentences of up to nine years for aiding this so-called extremist terrorist organization. So, one does have to wonder about the priorities of a political system and a government that equates ISIS terrorists with owners of a gay bar. Who are they devoting resources to track, to monitor, to go after? How are those resources being allocated? And I think some obvious questions immediately arise about, again, the true motives and interests of such a regime, based on where they parcel out resources, who they see as enemies. And who are they policing? ISIS terrorists or the owners of gay bars?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you both for being with us. We will continue, of course, to follow what has taken place in Moscow. Joshua Yaffa, contributing writer to The New Yorker magazine, longtime Moscow correspondent, speaking to us now from Berlin, Germany. His new piece, we’ll link to, “How Will Putin Respond to the Terrorist Attack in Moscow?” And Nina Khrushcheva, professor at The New School, author of The Lost Khrushchev and co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps.

This is Democracy Now! This breaking news: The Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has announced he plans to resign by the end of the year. In addition, Boeing’s chairman and the head of Boeing’s commercial airplane unit are also leaving. The Justice Department recently opened a criminal probe into the company. There is a meme going around that says, “When one door closes, another one opens — Boeing.”

Next up, we’ll speak with the World Peace Foundation’s Alex de Waal, who says we’re about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the Second World War. We’ll also talk to him about catastrophic hunger in Sudan. Back in 20 seconds.

Britfield Counters the Creativity Crisis

Britfield Crest

For Immediate Release

Rancho Santa Fe, CA 7/5/2023. While America is engulfed in a Creativity Crisis, the Britfield & the Lost Crown series has been countering this trend by offering fast-paced adventure novels that inspire the creative mind, promote critical thinking, encourage collaboration, and foster communication. The writing is active and the vocabulary stimulating, with family and friendship as the narrative drivers. This fresh approach not only entertains readers but educates them by weaving accurate history, geography, and culture into every exciting story. Already in thousands of schools across the nation, Britfield is redefining literature and becoming this generation’s book series.

“It is our belief that all children are gifted and have creative talents which are often dismissed or squandered, because they are not recognized or nurtured. Our schools stigmatize mistakes, censure independent thinking, and criticize individualism. Creative opportunities and programs must be introduced and fostered, because everything flows and flourishes from creativity,”
Author C. R. Stewart

Meanwhile, American Creativity Scores Are Declining: After analyzing 300,000 Torrance results of children and adults, researcher Dr. Kyung Hee Kim discovered that creativity scores have been steadily declining (just like IQ scores) since the 1990s. The scores of younger children, from kindergarten through sixth grade, show the most serious decline. While the consequences are sweeping, the critical necessity of human ingenuity is undisputed: children who were offered more creative ideas on Torrance’s tasks grew up to be entrepreneurs, inventors, doctors, authors, diplomats, and software developers.

Since the 1990s, Schools have:

1. Killed curiosities and passions

2. Narrowed visions and minds

3. Lowered expectations

4. Stifled risk-taking

5. Destroyed collaboration

6. Killed deep thoughts and imagination

7. Forced conformity

8. Solidified hierarchy

Founded on outdated models, most current schools are promoting a “dumbed-down” curriculum where creativity is irrelevant, literacy is deplorable, history is misguided, and geography is abandoned. Instead of nurturing future leaders, our educational system is fostering mindless complacency. Conformity is preferred over ingenuity. Meanwhile, parents are aware of a concerted effort to criticize independent thinking and discourage creativity. They are in search of cultural enrichment and educational opportunities. This has opened the door to alternative options, such as homeschooling, which has grown from 5 million to over 15 million in the last three years.

Educator Roger Schank stated,

“I am horrified by what schools are doing to children. From elementary to college, educational systems drive the love of learning out of kids. They produce students who seem smart because they receive top grades and honors but are in learning’s neutral gear. Some grow up and never find their true calling. While they may become adept at working hard and memorizing facts, they never develop a passion for a subject or follow their own idiosyncratic interest in a topic. Just as alarming, these top students deny themselves the pleasure of play and don’t know how to have fun with their schoolwork.”

George Land conducted a research study to test the creativity of 1,600 children ranging from ages three to five who were enrolled in a Head Start program. The assessment worked so well that he retested the same children at age 10 and again at age 15, with the results published in his book Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today. The proportion of people who scored at the creative Genius Level:

  • Among 5-year-olds: 98%
  • Among 10-year-olds: 30%
  • Among 15-year-olds: 12%
  • Same test given to 280,000 adults (average age of 31): 2%

However, Creativity is the #1 most important skill in the world. An IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the number one leadership competency of the future. According to the World Economic Forum Report, the top three skills in 2022 will be creativity, critical thinking, and complex problem solving. A 2021 LinkedIn report ranked creativity as the #1 most desired skill among hiring managers. An Adobe Survey based on Creativity and Education revealed that 85% of professionals agree creative thinking is essential in their careers, 82% of professionals wish they had more exposure to creative thinking as students, and creative applicants are preferred 5 to 1. Jonathan Plucker of Indiana University reanalyzed Torrance’s data. He found that the correlation to lifetime creative accomplishment was more than three times stronger for childhood creativity than childhood IQ.

As Sir Ken Robinson said,

“We know three things about intelligence. One, it’s diverse. We think about the world in all the ways that we experience it. We think visually, we think in sound, and we think kinesthetically. We think in abstract terms; we think in movement. Secondly, intelligence is dynamic. If you look at the interactions of a human brain, intelligence is wonderfully interactive. The brain isn’t divided into compartments. And three, we can all agree that children have extraordinary capacities for innovation. In fact, creativity often comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.”

Our entire educational system is predicated on a questionable hierarchy that places conformity above creativity, and the consequences are that many brilliant, talented, and imaginative students never discover their gifts and therefore fail to realize their true potential. To prepare students for future challenges, education and literature must help children achieve their full potential by learning skills that foster creativity, critical thinking, and independence. The Britfield series is bridging this gap and fulfilling this need.

Lauren Hunter
Devonfield Publishing
Director of Media
[email protected]
www.Britfield.com

Republican prosecutors can subpoena phone data to hunt down 'evidence' of possible abortions

This post was originally published on this site

We are about to see a new wave of anti-abortion terrorism and violence, thanks to a Supreme Court majority that believes individual rights not only ought to flip around according to the whims of each new election but that if the U.S. Constitution makes things awkward, the states can designate private-citizen bounty hunters and evade whatever else the courts might say about it.

Sen. Ron Wyden is dead right when he warns that we’re about to see a new era in which women who seek abortions or who might seek abortions are going to have their digital data hunted down. Much of the hunting will be by Republican-state prosecutors looking to convict women who cross state lines into better, less trashy states to seek abortions that are now illegal in New Gilead. But in states like Texas, it’s likely to be private anti-abortion groups gathering up that data—not just to target women seeking abortion, but as potential source of cash. The $10,000 bounty on Texas women who get abortions after six weeks turns such stalking into a potentially lucrative career.

Sen. Wyden to Gizmodo: “The simple act of searching for ‘pregnancy test’ could cause a woman to be stalked, harassed and attacked. With Texas style bounty laws, and laws being proposed in Missouri to limit people’s ability to travel to obtain abortion care, there could even be a profit motive for this outsourced persecution.”

It’s not just that Republican prosecutors can subpoena data records of pregnant women looking for, for example, evidence that they might have looked up “pregnancy test” or “abortion pills” or “my remaining civil rights.” All of those would constitute “evidence” that woman who had a miscarriage might not have “wanted” her pregnancy—thus paving the way for criminal charges. It’s happened before, despite Roe, and after Roe falls will likely become a rote fixture of red-state prosecutions.

We’re likely to to see such subpoenas become a primary way for conservative state prosecutors to “prove” that American women crossing state lines did so to obtain now-criminalized abortions. “Even a search for information about a clinic could become illegal under some state laws, or an effort to travel to a clinic with an intent to obtain an abortion,” Electronic Privacy Information Center president Alan Butler told The Washington Post.

Republican states have already been examining ways to criminalize such travel. It’s coming, and American women will find that the phones they use to look up reproductive health questions can also be used by prosecutors to hunt them down for asking the wrong questions.

Bounty hunters looking for women to target may not have those same subpoena powers—though heaven knows what the future will bring, in a theocratic state that finds its best legal wisdom from colonial era witch hunters—but they will have the power of extremely amoral data tracking companies on their side. It was revealed just days ago that data broker SafeGraph, slivers of which may be hidden on your own phone inside apps that quietly collect and sell the information they gather on you, specifically offers tracking data for phones visiting Planned Parenthood providers—including the census tracks visitors came from and returned to.

For just $160, SafeGraph has been selling that data to anyone willing to buy it. It’s a trivial investment for bounty hunters eager to cross-reference such clues to find who to next target. It’s also a valuable tool for would-be domestic terrorists, of the sort that are going to be once again emboldened by a Supreme Court nod to their beliefs that not only should abortion be banned, but that activists are justified in attacking those that think otherwise. Nobody can plausibly think far-right violence will decrease, in the bizarre landscape in which they have finally achieved victory in half the states while being rebuffed by the others. It has never happened that way. It never will.

RELATED STORIES:

Data collection company sells the information of people who visit abortion clinics

Louisiana Republicans push abortion bill doing exactly what national Republicans deny wanting to do

If SCOTUS kills Roe, many states are poised to swiftly enforce abortion bans, sweeping restrictions

America doesn’t want abortion overturned, does want an expanded Supreme Court

Thursday, May 5, 2022 · 7:15:16 PM +00:00 · Hunter

Another data miner, Placer, tracks Planned Parenthood visitors to their homes and provides the routes they took. Among the apps mining data for Placer is popular tracking app “Life360.”

The maps also showed people’s routes that they took to and from Planned Parenthood clinics. One in Texas showed people coming from schools, university dorms, and visiting a mental health clinic after. The free tier offered tracking to homes — the paid tier offered workplaces.

— alfred 🆖 (@alfredwkng) May 5, 2022

Biden reportedly caught off guard by Supreme Court leak; here's how the administration can catch up

This post was originally published on this site

If the Washington Post is to be believed, we’ve got a big problem, because if the White House wasn’t prepared for the news that the Supreme Court is poised to end federal abortion rights start, they have a serious lack of understanding of the reality in which we live.

“Biden officials spent much of Tuesday panicked as they realized how few tools they had at their disposal, according to one outside adviser briefed on several meetings,” the Post reports. “While officials have spent months planning for the possibility the court would overturn the landmark ruling,” the Post reports, “the leaked document caught the White House off guard.” It shouldn’t have. A leak is unusual, yes, but the only surprise in the contents is just how bloodthirsty Justice Samuel Alito is in coming after abortion, and ultimately all the other 20th century rights the court established.

“We will be ready when any ruling is issued,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday. Will they? Because they really should have seen this coming, and been prepared with some ideas by now. The fact that they pivoted to deficit reduction, of all things, as the message for Wednesday doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence that they’ll be ferocious in this fight. That they’ll be creative and that they will try everything to fix this, to tell the majority of Americans who support abortion rights that we’ve got a powerful ally in the fight.

Back in February, Shefali Luthra of The 19th News reported on the executive actions Biden can take. First, expand access to medication abortion, something the Food and Drug Administration can do. “The most significant thing the Biden administration has done is through the FDA, and the most significant things the Biden administration will be able to do going forward are through the FDA,” Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University who studies abortion, told Luthra.

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

The FDA has already acted to expand the availability of medication abortion. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, it allowed for the pills to be prescribed virtually, via telemedicine, and provided through the mail. It also allowed online-only providers to mail the pills to patients in other states, including those with restrictive abortion laws. Those rules have been made permanent.

The two-pill regimen for medication abortion has been safely used for two decades, and now accounts for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute. It’s approved for use up to 10 weeks, though it’s been demonstrated safe to use beyond 10 weeks, up to 20. In Great Britain, it’s used up to nearly 24 weeks.

“There is some support for the idea that states cannot ban FDA-approved medication,” Greer Donley, an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School, told the 19ths Luthra. “This is a novel legal argument. Maybe it would mean states cannot ban the sale of medication abortion, which would mean states must allow abortion up to 10 weeks.”

Forced birth groups are of course focusing on getting states to enact restrictions on medication abortion, and while there’s no precedent for FDA guidance to supersede state restrictions, it’s worth forcing the challenge.

The EMAA [Exanding Medication Abortion Access] Project has been having preliminary conversations with the administration, its director Kirsten Moore told the LA Times Jennifer Haberkorn. One thing they’re considering is pressing insurers to cover the drugs. “There is no obvious, one, two, three things to solve the problem,” she said. “We’re going to have to be really creative. And it may only be helpful on the margins—which may be important margins.”

Online providers of the medication are also getting creative. Aid Access, one of the sites, uses European healthcare providers and a pharmacy in India to provide the pills. It’s a relatively inexpensive option at $110, but takes up to four weeks. Another provider, PlanCPills.org has been gaming out the options for people in every state.

For instance, a patient in Texas—where abortion is banned after fetal cardiac activity is detected, or about 6 weeks of pregnancy—could – https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-09-17/is-this-legal-texans-scramble-to-get-abortions-out-of-state – drive across the border –  into New Mexico and conduct a telehealth appointment with a doctor there. The pills can be shipped to a friend in New Mexico or a temporary mailbox the patient has set up in the state and forwarded to Texas. Or a patient could stay in Texas and directly buy the drugs from an online pharmacy at a cost of $200 to $500.

Another option for the federal government: federally-sponsored clinics or leases to abortion clinics on public lands. Located on federal lands, the clinics could be exempt from state laws. They could also be located on tribal lands, where tribal leaders would allow them.

“It is possible that clinics can operate on federal lands without having to follow state law. That has to be explored. The federal government needs to push the envelope,” David Cohen, a professor at Drexel University’s Kline School of Law, told Luthra. “It’s not a slam-dunk legal argument, but these are the kinds of things that need to be tried.”

Audio: McCarthy weighed 25th Amendment for Trump in private after Jan. 6

This post was originally published on this site

A new audio recording of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy has reportedly captured him weighing whether to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove then-President Donald Trump from the White House two days after the assault on the Capitol.

With much attention largely trained right now on the Supreme Court after the leak of a draft opinion poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, McCarthy has managed a slight reprieve from the headlines. 

It was just over a week ago that a different series of audio recordings featuring the House GOP leader went public and he was heard, in his own words, telling members of his party that he was prepared to call for then-President Donald Trump’s resignation. 

In those recordings, and now in this new set, McCarthy’s private agony is yet again starkly contrasted against the public support—and cover—that he has ceaselessly heaped upon Trump. 

Related story: Jan. 6 committee may have another ‘invitation’ for Kevin McCarthy

The latest audio recordings—obtained by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns as a part of their book, This Too Shall Not Pass and shared with CNN—reportedly have McCarthy considering invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump as he listened to an aide go over deliberations then underway by House Democrats. 

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

When the aide said that the 25th Amendment would “not exactly” be an “elegant solution” to removing Trump, McCarthy is reportedly heard interrupting as he attempts to get a sense of his options.  

The process of invoking the 25th Amendment is one not taken lightly and would require majority approval from members of Trump’s Cabinet as well as from the vice president.

“That takes too long,” McCarthy said after an aide walked him through the steps. “And it could go back to the House, right?”

Indeed, it wasn’t an easy prospect.

Trump would not only have to submit a letter overruling the Cabinet and Pence, but a two-thirds majority would have to be achieved in the House and Senate to overrule Trump. 

“So, it’s kind of an armful,” the aide said. 

On Jan. 7, 2021, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on the president’s allies to divorce themselves from Trump after he loosed his mob on them, Capitol Hill staff, and police. 

“While there are only 13 days left, any day could be a horror show,” Pelosi said at a press conference where she called for the 25th Amendment to be put in motion.

Publicly, McCarthy would not budge.

The House voted 232-197 to approve a resolution that would activate the amendment on Jan. 13.  McCarthy called for censure instead of impeachment through the 25th Amendment. Then, from the floor of the House, McCarthy denounced Trump. 

“The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters. He should have immediately denounced the mob when he saw what was unfolding,” McCarthy said. 

During the Jan. 8 call, the House GOP leader lamented that impeachment could divide the nation more. He worried it might also inspire new conflicts. He also told the aide he wanted to have Trump and Biden meet before the inauguration.

It would help with a smooth transition, he said. 

In another moment in the recording after discussing a sit-down with Biden where they could discuss ways to publicly smooth tensions over the transition, McCarthy can be heard saying that “he’s trying to do it not from the basis of Republicans.”

But rather, “of a basis of, hey, it’s not healthy for the nation” to continue with such uncertainty. 

Yet within the scant week that passed from the time McCarthy said Trump bore some responsibility for the attack and the impeachment vote, McCarthy switched gears again. 

He didn’t believe Trump “provoked” the mob, he said on Jan. 21. 

Not if people “listened to what [Trump] said at the rally,” McCarthy said. 

McCarthy met with Trump at the 45th president’s property in Mar-a-Lago, Florida a week after Biden was inaugurated. Once he was back in Washington, the House leader issued a statement saying Trump had “committed to helping elect Republicans in the House and Senate in 2022.” 

They had founded a “united conservative movement,” he said. 

Don't look now, but Stacey Abrams is mowing down Gov. Kemp's financial lead

This post was originally published on this site

Things are looking pretty good in the Georgia governor’s race.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Democratic powerhouse Stacey Abrams, even with a late start entering the race, is nipping at the heels of Gov. Brian Kemp when it comes to campaign contributions.

Between February and April, Abrams raised $11.7 million, collecting contributions from over 187,000 donors, the AJC reports. And at the end of the reporting period, she claimed over $8 million in the bank.

But, just as the state enters midterms, and after a leaked draft of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to The Washington Post, the Abrams camp temporarily paused fundraising, and instead began raising money for pro-choice groups in the state—The Feminist Women’s Health Center, SisterSong, ARC Southeast, Planned Parenthood Southeast, and others.

RELATED STORY: Stacey Abrams turns tables on Gov. Kemp, files suit to use law he signed for himself in her favor

“This moment demands action, so I will be blunt: The abomination of that leaked opinion is coming to find every one of us,” Abrams wrote in a campaign email. “Women in Georgia and across this country. LGBTQ+ and disabled people. And particularly those of color or low-income. This is a terrifying time for our nation.”

Co-founder of Sister District, Gaby Goldstein, joins The Downballot to discuss what Democrats in the states are doing to protect abortion rights

According to the Associated Press, Kemp has reported $10.7 million in cash on hand, down from $12.7 million as of Jan. 31. Kemp’s had to spend big in the battle against Sen. David Perdue and his other Republican rivals. Abrams has spent over $9 million in TV, radio, and digital ads in the last five months, AJC reports. 

In late April, a federal judge ruled in favor of Abrams to block Georgians First, Kemp’s leadership committee, from raising unlimited money for him until he became the official GOP nominee on May 24. The rule applies equally to Abrams; until the primary is over she is unable to raise money from her leadership committee.

Perdue hasn’t released his financial records, but according to AJC, his last report ended with an underwhelming $1 million in the bank, despite backing from former President Trump.

Meanwhile, in the Sen. Raphael Warnock battle against the assumed GOP nominee and COVID-spray salesman, Herschel Walker in November, in mid-April, the AJC reported that Warnock broke records as he collected $13.6 million in the first quarter of 2022. Walker ended 2021 with around $5 million in the bank.

Border Patrol has not been counting all migrants who've died along the border, watchdog says

This post was originally published on this site

Border Patrol agents have not been counting the total number of migrants who’ve died attempting to cross the harsh southern borderlands, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a new report. Some immigrant rights advocates have estimated that as many as 10,000 migrants have died from exposure and other elements within the last two decades, a number significantly higher than what border officials have stated. The watchdog report confirms the fears of many: they just haven’t been counting them.

“Border Patrol has not collected and recorded, or reported to Congress, complete data on migrant deaths, or disclosed associated data limitations,” the office said. The Tucson sector highlighted in the report is representative of the border agency’s overall negligence.

RELATED STORY: Border Patrol policies kill hundreds of migrants each year—and they were designed to

“Border Patrol sector officials from the four sectors we contacted told us that they coordinate with external entities—such as medical examiners—when remains are discovered,” the report said. But investigators said that a collaborative effort between the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office and humanitarian organization Humane Borders, Inc. recorded higher numbers than border officials in the region.

While investigators highlight the implementation of the Missing Migrant Program in 2017 “to help rescue migrants in distress and reduce migrant deaths along the southwest border,” they note the agency “does not have a plan to evaluate the program overall.” But actions by border agents indicate that while there’s a program to aid distressed immigrants in name, the action has been continued harassment.

Take No More Deaths, a humanitarian organization with one goal: To prevent the agonizing deaths of migrants in the desert, where temperatures commonly rise into the triple digits. But the group has been repeatedly harassed by border agents throughout multiple administrations, most recently last summer. The year prior, the same tactical unit that harassed anti-police violence protesters in Portland helped raid No More Deaths’ humanitarian aid station. 

This escalation began when the organization released shocking footage of grinning border agents destroying jugs of water left for migrants in the desert. Humanitarian workers had said containers were being routinely tampered with by human hands. While racist border vigilante extremists have eagerly confessed to some of the destruction, human rights groups had suspected Border Patrol as well. The footage proved them right.

“The practice of destruction of and interference with aid is not the deviant behavior of a few rogue border patrol agents, it is a systemic feature of enforcement practices in the borderlands,” No More Deaths and La Coalición de Derechos Humanos said in the report. Warning: The following footage is disturbing.

It is a fact that harsh immigration policies have helped led to this tragic death toll. The common misconception is that stricter policies make a more secure border, but deterrence policies beginning in the mid-1990s have only killed migrants, by knowingly pushing them into more and more dangerous terrain. “Of course, the U.S. government knew that Prevention Through Deterrence would send people to their deaths,” researcher John Washington told Rewire’s Tina Vasquez in 2016.

“If you look at the strategic plan for Prevention Through Deterrence, it is clearly stated that they were going to use the landscape as an ally,” Washington continued in the report. “Everything that’s outlined implies greater suffering. These are people in charge of the Southwest border, of course they knew that walking for five days in these conditions would kill people.” 

Earlier we noted Border Patrol’s Missing Migrant Program, which is supposed to aid migrants in crisis. Vasquez reported last year that advocates have led their own initiative, with a similar goal of aiding missing migrants. But she said that when advocates have fielded urgent calls to border officials, they have frequently gone ignored.

“In 63% of all distress calls referred to Border Patrol by crisis line volunteers, the agency did not conduct any confirmed search or rescue mobilization whatsoever—this includes 40% of cases where Border Patrol directly refused to take any measures in response to a life-or-death emergency.”

Count Stephen Miller’s anti-asylum Title 42 among failed border policies, experts have said. The policy, which may or may not end at the end of this month depending on a GOP-led lawsuit, has only resulted in higher apprehensions at the border. “That is because under Title 42, individuals who are expelled to Mexico within hours after apprehension can simply try again a second or third time in hopes of getting through.” And sometimes through ways that may cost them their lives.

RELATED STORIES: ‘Ongoing pattern of harassment and surveillance’: CBP is still tormenting humanitarian volunteers

BORTAC unit that terrorized Portland just helped raid a humanitarian medical camp at border

Border Patrol agents are destroying lifesaving jugs of water left for migrants in the desert

'It’s wild': Black nurse sues hospital after she was targeted with unjust criminal charges

This post was originally published on this site

A Black nurse is suing a hospital about 15 miles east of Denver in the city of Aurora after she says she was discriminated against and targeted with a manslaughter charge for doing her job and even going above and beyond what was required of her. DonQuenick Joppy named the Medical Center of Aurora (TMCA); HealthONE, which owns the medical center; and employees at the center, Katie Weihe and Bonnie Andrews, in a lawsuit filed April 22.

Ultimately, the charges Joppy faced in connection with the death of a 94-year-old patient in 2019—“manslaughter, negligent death of an at-risk person and neglect of an at-risk”—were dropped by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office “in the interest of justice,” according to a motion The Denver Post obtained. “It’s wild,” Joppy said in an interview the newspaper cited. “My life has been turned upside down … I never killed anyone. I’m a great nurse.”

RELATED STORY: Don’t forget Elijah McClain: Forced into chokehold, injected for looking ‘sketchy.’ He is dead now

Spelled out in Joppy’s complaint:

1. During her employment with TMCA Ms. Joppy, a Black nurse, was subjected to verbal and nonverbal slights or microagressions designed to marginalize, segregate and undermine her based on stereotypical and harmful views of Black professionals.

2. TMCA unlawfully denied Ms. Joppy training and transfer opportunities, refused to investigate her complaints of race discrimination, placed her on an unwarranted Performance Improvement Plan (“PIP”), isolated her from colleagues, then ultimately terminated her employment because of her race and because she engaged in protected activity.

3. In a final blow to Ms. Joppy, in an effort to have her professional nursing license revoked and end her career, TMCA, Andrews and Weihe, in a “take no prisoners” approach, maliciously caused felony manslaughter charges to be brought against Ms. Joppy for the death of a patient known to have died from natural causes.

Joppy was terminated on June 4, 2019 after working for the hospital for two years and receiving an Excellence Award from the American Heart Association for performing CPR and saving a patient’s life her first year on the job. She also received a positive performance review for her work from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018, according to the suit.

“In spite of the positive performance review, patient care comments and other awards and accolades, Ms. Joppy’s treatment by the overwhelmingly non-Black management in the ICU was racially biased and on many occasions the Charge Nurses would publicly and openly yell at Ms. Joppy undermining her in a humiliating and demeaning manner,” Joppy’s attorney stated in the suit. “None of the non-Black nurses were treated in this manner.”

In the incident that led to Joppy’s termination, she was told to make room in an understaffed intensive care unit for a critically ill patient dying in the hospital’s emergency room, according to the suit. Joppy hadn’t cared for the patient before but she was assigned as his nurse before her shift’s end at 7 AM, her attorney spelled out in the suit.

According to the complaint, when the doctor ordered Joppy verbally to prepare the patient for “versed and morphine” and to assume “end of life” measures, Joppy contacted the respiratory therapist on duty to carry out the doctor’s order.

When the therapist arrived, he told Joppy he was busy and would give her directions for turning off the ventilator, which she followed, according to the suit. The therapist returned later to disconnect the patient’s ventilator, and he died of “septic shock due to pneumonia and bowel infarction; acute renal failure,” according to the death certificate cited in the lawsuit.  

A supervising nurse who, according to the suit, showed animosity to Joppy in the past questioned how she responded in the incident, sparking the hospital’s investigation. It ultimately determined that it was “standard practice for nurses to ensure orders are being followed as received and entered” and “no order was placed into the chart until after the patient had deceased.”

The hospital also claimed Joppy should have waited for the respiratory therapist to disconnect the ventilator, and the medical center even cited as grounds for her termination, “staying after her assigned shift continuing to provide care to the patient unnecessarily”—a common practice of nurses, according to the suit.

Rachel Robinson, a spokesperson for the medical center, tried to dismiss Joppy’s allegations in a statement The Denver Post obtained on Tuesday.

“The lawsuit that has been filed against The Medical Center of Aurora is without merit and is a tactic by a disgruntled former colleague,” she said in the statement.

Jennifer Robinson, Joppy’s attorney, told The Denver Post Joppy has struggled to find stable housing and ceased work as a nurse, although her license is active.

“I took this case on because I thought it was particularly egregious that they would do this to someone’s life,” Robinson said. “She’s pretty much homeless now and hasn’t recovered since all of this happened. Who is going to hire a nurse who has manslaughter charges against her, even if they are dropped? It’s just not cool to treat people this way.”

One million

This post was originally published on this site

In the standard image displayed at the top of a Daily Kos story, on an average browser, there are fewer than 500,000 pixels. The image used for this story contains exactly 1 million pixels, but you’ll have to open it in another page if you want to see them all. And of course, even then you can’t see them all, not really. They’re just a sea of sameness. Just a mass of dark where there could be light. Just points that show nothing where there could be something.

Like the one million people missing from the United States at this moment due to COVID-19.

There is really no way to show you what that loss looks like. No doubt there are, right at this moment, people making a valiant effort to do so. Somewhere shoes or cups or caps or some other items of everyday life are being arranged carefully on a field. Somewhere signs are being made with a scale and resolution that can genuinely provide some sense of what this number looks like when measured in human beings. Those efforts are, of course, symbolic, but that doesn’t mean they are worthless. Done well, such efforts can deliver a profundity and a physicality that the words “one million” simply don’t deliver.

This is a number so large that it falls into that the same well as those we use when describing the universe. These dinosaur fossils are 65 million years old. This galaxy is 10 million light years away. We nod along when told such things, but we don’t grasp them. Not really. Just like we can’t begin to grasp what it means to have one million people absent from the life of the nation. One million voices lost to the conversation. One million … one million.

Listen to Mark Sumner talk about the pandemic on Daily Kos’ The Brief

This doesn’t seem the time to review the awful decisions that brought us here. Everyone is far too aware of the lies, the distortion, and the sheer indifference. The downplaying of the threat. The false promises of a miracle cure. The long, deliberate effort to undermine the advice of those who saw what was coming.

Instead, try another form of memorial. Spend one minute and imagine it was you. If you’re young, imagine what impact your loss would have to your parents, your siblings, your friends, your coworkers. If you’re older, imagine your absence in the lives of your children or what it would mean to your partner. Take one minute and imagine a you-shaped hole, not just in the events of today, but every day to come. Forever.

Then multiply that by one million.

Oath Keeper abandons Elmer Rhodes, offers damning evidence for seditious conspiracy case

This post was originally published on this site

On Jan. 6, after the mob receded from the Capitol, Oath Keeper Wiliam Todd Wilson sat in a hotel room less than a mile away and listened as Elmer Rhodes attempted to call someone who he thought could connect him to then-President Donald Trump.

After a violent, failed day, the leader of their extremist network implored this individual to tell Trump that groups like theirs were on the ready to forcibly stop the nation’s transfer of power. 

Related story: Seditious Oath Keeper cries as judge accepts another guilty plea from extremist network

This is the account of William Wilson, the leader of the Oath Keeper’s North Carolina division. On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding for his part in what Department of Justice prosecutors have described as a well-orchestrated, fully weaponized conspiracy. 

Oath Keeper William Todd Wi… by Daily Kos

Rhodes has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial. Around him meanwhile, his former compatriots are turning their backs to seek reduced sentences at an increasing clip. Wison’s plea marks the third Oath Keeper to flip and subsequently up the ante on Rhodes who is facing possible decades in prison should a jury convict. 

According to the 45-year-old Wilson, during the call with someone appearing to serve as a Trump intermediary—the individual was not named in court records—Rhodes was left flat.

He would not be patched through to Trump. Wilson recalled that an apparently tense Rhodes turned to his fellow Oath Keepers gathered at the Phoenix Hotel and remarked: “I just want to fight.”

Wilson’s guilty plea is added to those entered by fellow Oath Keepers Joshua James of Alabama and Brian Ulrich of Georgia in the seditious conspiracy case. Wilson, however, was not indicted by a federal grand jury first, unlike James and Ulrich. Instead, he flipped voluntarily. This is a strong indicator that Wilson has been cooperating with the Justice Department for some time.

Statement of Offense Willia… by Daily Kos

Wilson was one of many Oath Keepers from neighboring states who arrived in D.C. in advance of Jan. 6 and prepared to lay siege.

Christine Pelosi talks about the Supreme Court’s leaked decision on Roe v. Wade, and what Democrats are doing now, on Daily Kos’ The Brief podcast

He arrived in Vienna, Virginia, on Jan. 5 and stowed weapons at the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel including an AR-15-type rifle, a pistol, ammunition, and body armor. Wilson also carried a pocket knife and chemical irritants like pepper spray and brought along a large wooden stick he intended to use as a weapon. 

When coming to Washington, he traveled with Rhodes. During the rioting, Wilson has admitted to charges that he plowed through the west side of the Capitol only to force open the Rotunda doors and usher in a column of Oath Keepers to join the fray. 

The Justice Department argues that this moment had been in the works since right after the 2020 election. Enraged over Trump’s lies about rampant fraud in the results, Rhodes, his indictment noted, wanted Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act.

If he did, the Oath Keepers would have a series of “quick reaction force” teams lined up in nearby hotels with weapons to aid him. 

Between Jan. 4 and Jan. 6 alone, Wilson said he and Rhodes spoke dozens of times with their co-conspirators to finalize their plans. As Wilson made the drive, he texted members of a “DC Op Jan. 6 21” encrypted channel. 

“It’s going to hit the fan tonight!” he wrote. 

In fact, it would take a few more hours yet. 

Once they breached the barricades on Jan. 6, Wilson said he and Rhodes, and others steadily advanced through a chaotic scene. Rhodes told the group they were “in the midst of a ‘civil war” and moving in a stack formation, the Oath Keepers attempted to force their way deeper inside the building. Wilson, at times, filmed the assault. 

When it was over, and Wilson, Rhodes, and other co-conspirators found themselves back at the Phoenix Hotel, the inability to connect with Trump directly seemed to fill the ringleader with a new rage. 

In an encrypted Signal chat seized by prosecutors, Rhodes warned that “patriots entering their own Capitol to send a message to the traitors is NOTHING compared to what’s coming.” [Emphasis original]

After meeting for dinner to discuss the longer fight ahead—what Rhodes allegedly said was going to be akin to the American Revolutionary War—the Oath Keepers agreed to destroy any incriminating evidence and scrub their devices. They went their separate ways. 

Weeks later, after Wilson had returned to North Carolina, he told prosecutors he chucked his phone into the ocean. 

At present, Rhodes and nine other defendants charged with seditious conspiracy have pleaded not guilty. But they are far from the only Oath Keepers involved or charged with crimes connected to Jan. 6. There is another group of seven Oath Keepers and their affiliates also poised to face trial for conspiracy. The Rhodes group goes to trial in July; the second group is expected to go to trial in the fall.

Rhodes has maintained that Oath Keepers who were in D.C. on Jan. 6 and charged with violence went off-script. He has argued that they were there if Trump invoked the Insurrection Act, but also to provide security details to Trump’s associates like Roger Stone. 

Related Story: Oath Keeper: I was ready to protect Trump by force