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    Gretchen Whitmer accuses Donald Trump of inciting domestic terror

    The Michigan governor who was the target of a foiled rightwing kidnapping plot said on Friday that Donald Trump’s rhetoric “incites more domestic terror”, after the president posted a series of aggressive tweets overnight that sought to shame the victim of the plot.Thirteen men have been charged over a plan to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan, whom Joe Biden considered naming as his running mate for the November election before picking Kamala Harris.The men, some of whom were members of a rightwing, self-styled militia group, discussed blowing up a bridge and bundling Whitmer into a boat. Another plan involved killing Whitmer on her doorstep, according to the authorities.The fallout from the thwarted kidnapping – which was set to take place before the 3 November election – has further pulled back the curtain on the ideological polarization in US society, and descended into a growing political row.On Friday Biden accused Trump of “giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country”, as Trump attacked Whitmer hours after the plotters were named.Trump, who has spent months criticizing Whitmer and other Democratic governors over measures to try to control the coronavirus pandemic as it surged across America, on Thursday said Whitmer had “done a terrible job” in Michigan, and complained that she was yet to thank him for the FBI stopping the plot.Speaking on Friday morning, Whitmer said Trump was “creating a very dangerous situation”.“Each time he has tweeted about me, each time that he has said ‘liberate Michigan’ and said I should negotiate with the very people who are arrested because they’re ‘good people’, that incites more domestic terror,” Whitmer told ABC News.“And I am not the only governor going through this. Certainly it’s been worse for me than most, but it is not unique to me, it is not even unique to Democrats. This White House has a duty to call it out and they won’t do it – in fact, they encourage it.”Meanwhile, it was disclosed that Whitmer and her family were at times moved around by authorities as law enforcement tracked the men who allegedly plotted for months to kidnap her, the state’s attorney general said Friday.Dana Nessel disclosed the detail to CBS This Morning. She said the Democratic governor was consistently updated about the investigation over the past couple months.“She was aware of things that were happening,” Nessel said. “At times, she and her family had been moved around as a result of activities that law enforcement was aware of.”Whitmer became a hate figure for rightwingers throughout the spring, when she was among a number of state governors to issue stay-at-home orders in an attempt to stop the spread of Covid-19.In April, thousands of protesters, many armed, besieged the Michigan state capitol, in Lansing, to demonstrate against Whitmer’s order.From the White House, Trump cheered the mostly white protesters, tweeting: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” as he repeatedly attacked Whitmer.The FBI said on Thursday that the plan to kidnap Whitmer began around the time of those demonstrations, and was months in the making.“Snatch and grab, man,” Adam Fox, one of the conspirators, unwittingly told an FBI informant in July.“Grab the fuckin’ governor. Just grab the bitch. Because at that point, we do that, dude – it’s over.”Plotters twice surveilled Whitmer’s vacation home, including in mid-September, as they developed plans to take her hostage.The men attempted to construct explosive devices and held combat drills, and planned to blow up a bridge to Whitmer’s home to slow down police.Seven of those arrested are backers of the so-called boogaloo movement, NBC News reported. Experts say boogaloo is a far-right, violent anti-government movement, and some adherents are also tied to neo-Nazi groups.Of the president’s response to the revelations, Whitmer said on Friday: “A decent human being would pick up the phone and say, ‘Are you OK? How’s your family doing?’“That’s what Joe Biden did. And I think it tells you everything you need to know about the character of the two people that are vying to lead our country for the next four years.”Biden, who is leading Trump in opinion polls in several key swing states – including Michigan – criticized the president in the early hours of Friday morning.“When Governor Whitmer worked to protect her state from a deadly pandemic, President Trump issued a call to “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” Biden said in a tweet.“That call was heard. He’s giving oxygen to the bigotry and hate we see on the march in our country – and we have to stop it.”Pro-Whitmer demonstrators held a gathering of support for the governor outside the state capitol building in Lansing on Thursday evening.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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    'Our worst nightmare': Will militias heed Trump's call to watch the polls?

    In the final minutes of last week’s televised presidential debate, a few days before he tested positive for Covid-19, Donald Trump was asked by the moderator, Chris Wallace, whether he would call on his supporters to stay calm and desist from civil unrest in the immediate aftermath of next month’s election.Trump pointedly declined the invitation. Instead, he replied: “I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen. I’m urging them to do it.”For those who monitor the activities of far-right militia groups and white-supremacist paramilitaries, Trump’s remarks were as welcome as jet fuel being used to quell a wildfire. Indeed, since they were made the FBI launched a series of arrests of militia members and others plotting to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and attack law enforcement, adding to a sense of a nation spiraling out of control as November’s election approaches.“The militias will absolutely seize on [Trump’s comments],” said Steven Gardiner, who tracks militias at the progressive thinktank Political Research Associates. “The possibility of armed factions with military-style rifles showing up at polling places is very troubling.”Devin Burghart, the director of the anti-bigotry organization the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, had a similar sinking sensation when he heard Trump’s words. “My first thought was ‘Here we go’. This is the stuff of our worst nightmares.”The US president’s clarion call to his supporters to intervene at polling places on election day comes at a perilous moment. As the country is battered by the combined winds of the pandemic and Trump’s personal battle against the virus, the Black Lives Matter reckoning over racial injustice, and the pending turbulent election, the US is not only more virulently divided than at any time in decades, it is also more heavily armed.FBI background checks – a direct indicator of gun sales – almost doubled year-on-year this summer, a reflection of the jitters that abound. As America arms itself, deadly weaponry is increasingly finding its way on to the streets, borne by self-styled private militias and culminating in violent clashes that have caused bloodshed in several US cities. More

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    Biden blasts Trump for not condemning Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot – video

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    Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has slammed Donald Trump for not condemning right-wing militias following the foiled kidnapping plot against Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Speaking from his campaign in Arizona, Biden criticised the president for not watching his words after Trump previously tweeted ‘Liberate Michigan’ in response to the state’s Covid restrictions. ‘You saw what the head of the FBI said a couple of days ago. He said the greatest terrorist threat in America is from white supremacists,’ Biden said. ‘Why can’t the president just say, stop, stop, stop, stop, and we will pursue you if you don’t”
    Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer

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    Six people charged in plot to kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer

    Six people have been been charged with a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, that involves links to a rightwing militia group, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced.Additionally another seven people were charged with plotting to target law enforcement and attack the state capitol building. The state attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced additional charges under Michigan’s anti-terrorism law. Seven men, all in custody, are linked to the militia group Wolverine Watchmen.They are suspected of attempting to identify the homes of law enforcement officers to “target them, made threats of violence intended to instigate a civil war”. They also planned and trained for an operation to attack the Michigan capitol building and to kidnap government officials, including the governor, Nessel said.The news sent shockwaves through a country facing one the most contentious elections in its history and already marred by accusations of voter suppression, civil unrest linked to police brutality and sometimes violent incidents and protests by heavily armed rightwingers.The FBI said in an affidavit that the plot to kidnap Whitmer had involved reaching out to members of a Michigan militia. The criminal complaint states that the alleged plot involved her second home in northern Michigan.“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an FBI agent wrote in the document. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.”The six men charged with plotting against Whitmer were arrested on Wednesday night and each faces up to life in prison. US attorney Andrew Birge called them “violent extremists”.“All of us in Michigan can disagree about politics, but those disagreements should never, ever amount to violence. Violence has been prevented today,” the Detroit US attorney Matthew Schneider told reporters.The affidavit was filed on Wednesday hours after FBI agents raided a home in Hartland Township, a community about an hour outside of Detroit.The criminal complaint identified the six as Adam Fox, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris, Brandon Caserta, all of Michigan, and Barry Croft of Delaware.Whitmer, a Democrat, has been the frequent target of protests by often heavily armed anti-lockdown groups who have launched numerous demonstrations against her efforts to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. She put major restrictions on personal movement throughout the state and on the economy, although many of those limits have been lifted.Whitmer’s moves once caused Donald Trump to tweet “Liberate Michigan” as an exhortation to his supporters against her policy. As news of the foiled plot unfolded, many commentators fingered the president’s words as a contributing factor to the alleged conspiracy.Former FBI agent and national security commentator Asha Rangappa asked pointedly: “Who knew that Trump and Fox News’ exhortations to “liberate Michigan” might lead to an attempt to harm the governor and lead a coup? Completely unforeseeable.”The Detroit News reported that the investigation dated to early 2020 when the FBI learned via social media that individuals were discussing a violent overthrow of several state governments. A confidential paid informant then recorded a meeting between more than a dozen people from several states that took place in Dublin, Ohio.“The group talked about creating a society that followed the US Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient,” the affidavit said. “They discussed different ways of achieving this goal from peaceful endeavors to violent actions. At one point, several members talked about state governments they believed were violating the US constitution, including the government of Michigan and Governor Gretchen Whitmer.”Through electronic communications, two of the alleged conspirators then “agreed to unite others in their cause and take violent action against multiple state governments that they believe are violating the US constitution”, the FBI said.One of the alleged conspirators, Adam Fox, said he needed 200 men to storm the capitol building in Lansing and take hostages, including the governor, according to the FBI. He said he wanted to try Whitmer for “treason” and would execute the plan before the 3 November election, the government said.Later, however, the group shifted to targeting the governor’s vacation home, the FBI said. More

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    Biden denounces hate and calls for US unity in 'house divided' speech at Gettysburg – video

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    Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has called for the US to put politics aside and unite as the country faces ‘too many crises’. Speaking at Gettysburg, the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the US civil war, Biden said he decided to run for president after the far-right rally and resulting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. ‘It was hate on the march in the open. In America,’ he said. ‘Hate never goes away. It only hides. And when it’s given oxygen, when it’s given an opportunity to spread, when it’s treated as normal and acceptable behaviour, we’ve opened a door in this country that we must move quickly to close’
    ‘Again we are a house divided’: Joe Biden calls for unity in Gettysburg speech
    Trump aide Stephen Miller tests positive for Covid-19

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    Revealed: Trump-linked consultant tied to Facebook pages warning election will cause civil war

    A militia-promoting father and son duo of fake news publishers and a Trump-connected social media consultant are linked to pages which promote the idea of an American civil war with material presented in a way that appears to be an effort to sidestep Facebook’s fact-checking system.Comments on their Facebook pages and other materials obtained by the Guardian show that some rank and file Donald Trump supporters are enthusiastically receiving the message that they should prepare for violence against their perceived political enemies in November.The network is comprised of websites owned and operated by Dino Porrazzo Sr and Dino Porrazzo Jr, whose company, AFF Media, is headquartered in Pinon Hills in California. The pair have been running rightwing websites since at latest 2013, according to DNS website records.The Porrazzos now run a network of websites that enthusiastically promote Trump, and far right anti-government militias like the Three Percenters, and offer distorted versions of current events. One of their Facebook pages, “Prepare to Take America Back” (PTTAB) at the time of reporting had 794,876 followers. Analysis with social media metrics tool Crowdtangle shows that over the last three months PTTAB posts have been shared over 141,000 times, and on average 9,600 times a week.At that time, the page’s header featured the logo of the Three Percenters, a decentralized group that the ADL calls a “wing of the militia movement”; a group of armed men in tactical gear; and a modified copy of the US presidential seal.In general, the page promotes conspiracy theories and criminal allegations about Democratic party politicians, liberal celebrities and leftist protesters, some of which – like persistent claims that Hillary Clinton will be imminently arrested – overlap with aspects of the so-called “QAnon” conspiracy theory movement.The page makes free use of political memes, but many posts link to a small cluster of rightwing websites designed to appear like news outlets. Increasingly, over the course of 2020, the page has been warning of a stolen election, and suggesting this will lead to civil war.Repeatedly in September, the page linked to a story on the website Right Wing Tribune, headlined “Radical Left Prepares For ‘Mass Public Unrest,’ ‘Political Apocalypse’ And Possible Civil War Should Be Expected If Biden Loses [Opinion]”, with Facebook captions including “the left wants war”.The story had a limited basis in fact, in that a number of progressive groups had met in early September to discuss the prospect of civil unrest and political violence after the election with a belief that the violence they were anticipating would be coming from Trump supporters and the far right.Nevertheless, the Right Wing Tribune piece concluded with a conspiracy theory: “These groups are heavily focused on removing President Trump from office as well as different scenarios which all lead to a second revolution in which they control our nation as a “New America”.”Similarly distorted stories warning of a “siege of the white house”, peppered the page throughout September and warnings of a post-election civil war were posted over the last year.Last November, the page linked to a site called Flag and Cross, and a story which it described as an “excellent opinion piece”, entitled “Winning the New Civil War (OPINION)”.The piece claimed on the basis of antifascist protests and comments by Democratic politicians that, “We have many strong indications that this is a hot war”.The transparency page for PTTAB discloses that PTTAB is managed by Southern California-based AFF Media Inc, and that the Vici Media Group “partners with this page”.According to California records, AFF Media was incorporated on Donald Trump’s inauguration day, 20 January 2017; in other documents, Dino Porrazzo Jr is listed as CEO and CFO, and Dino Porrazzo Sr as secretary. But the Guardian has discovered that the Porrazzos are further involved in running a dizzying array of interconnected sites and social media pages. The Annenberg Public Policy initiative lists two of their websites on its “Misinformation Directory” of “websites that have posted deceptive content”.One of the listed sites is Right Wing Tribune. But all of the other sites linked to by the PTTAB Facebook page also appear to belong to AFF, with similar design, shared bylines and shared source code.This is not some dark corner of the Internet, this is not a fringe thing, it’s mainstream Republicans.Becca Lewis, Stanford UniversityThe Porrazzos have been previously reported as having links to the Three Percenters, a decentralized, national militia movement that the Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes as anti-government extremists.Their online empire is large. Another Parazzo site, Flag and Cross is listed as the administrator of another Facebook page, United States Constitution, which has 1.2 million followers.A Guardian review of that site’s content shows a similar pattern of linking to Porrazzo-connected websites, and warnings of civil war stretching back to the lead-up to the 2018 midterm elections.Becca Lewis researches online extremism and disinformation at Stanford University. In a telephone conversation, she said that the page and the associated websites represented a sophisticated effort to skirt Facebook’s fact-checking efforts.“It seems as though they are being very strategic in their messaging so as to not be shut down,” Lewis said, adding that viewing the ostentatious labeling of opinion as an effort to sidestep fact-checking is “absolutely a reasonable assumption”.In June, Heated reported that climate change deniers were exploiting the same loophole to “make any climate disinformation ineligible for fact-checking by deeming it “opinion”. In August, NBC reported that Facebook had systematically relaxed its fact-checking rules for conservative outlets and personalities.In a telephone conversation, Dino Porrazzo Jr asserted that PTTAB had had “zero fact-check violations”, characterizing his websites as “opinion websites based on fact”. Asked if they were fact-checked at all, Porrazzo said “no”, but added: “I don’t work at Facebook”. Asked if he thought that there really was a civil war coming, Porrazzo accused the Guardian of “writing a hit piece to get me thrown off Facebook”, and then ended the conversation.Facebook Media did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Porrazzos also have links to Republican officials.The registered agent for the company is an elected official in California, Ensen Mason, who was elected as San Bernardino county auditor-controller in California as a nonpartisan candidate, but who is listed as a member of the San Bernardino Republican party.In an email, however, Ensen Mason said that in relation to the Porrazzos, his accounting firm’s role “is strictly limited to accounting services and registered agent”.The Vici Media Group, meanwhile, is run by Patrick Mauldin, who is a social media consultant for the Trump campaign and other Republican politicians, and his brother, Ryan.The company was hired in 2016 by one-time Trump campaign manager and recently-resigned campaign consultant, Brad Parscale, to be part of the team that was widely credited with winning Trump the election. In June, Patrick Mauldin was identified as the creator of a fake Joe Biden site that was compared in New York Times reporting to “disinformation spread by Russian trolls”.In an email, Ryan Mauldin disavowed the Porrazzos’ publishing output, writing, “Vici Media Group was engaged for a small, non-content-related project by the managers of the page.”Mauldin added, “We have no input on the content published by the various sites or the comments made on that content. We are not working for the Trump campaign.”Mauldin did not immediately respond to attempts to further clarify the nature of their work for the Porrazzos, and to clarify New York Times reporting as recent as June 2020 that said Patrick Mauldin was on a retainer for the Trump campaign, and considered a “rising star”.Porrazzo refused to specify the nature of AFF’s relationship with Vici Media Group.Meanwhile, the content of the Porrazzo pages does appear to trigger extreme responses among users. Hundreds of user comments on the page’s posts suggest the use of violence against perceived political enemies. On a 5 September post linking to a Right Wing Tribune article suggesting that Democrats will foment civil war if Biden loses, one user commented, “a short civil war with the democrats and those who support socialist policies will go a long way to help Make America Great Again”.Another connects civil war to their belief that a Trump loss is impossible, writing “If [Biden] wins, it’ll be from fraud on an industrial scale, and the lesson that’ll have to be taught for that will necessarily be no less industrial.”Many welcome the prospect of armed conflict – one writes “That’s fine with me open season on democrats!”. Another deployed accused murderer Kyle Rittenhouse as a positive example, writing “I think it will be more whining, crying, rioting, looting and a lot of Kyles protecting their cities, towns and neighborhoods.”Asked to comment on the site’s apparent reach, and the nature of its community, Lewis, the extremism researcher, said: “This is not some dark corner of the internet, this is not a fringe thing, it’s mainstream Republicans that are stoking this.”On links to the Trump campaign, she said that the distorted content and the violent user comments formed a kind of “feedback loop”, and that “Trump and his campaign staff have been masters at exploiting these feedback loops”.On Tuesday night, meanwhile, following the Guardian’s outreach to the Porrazzos and Facebook that day, Dino Porrazzo announced on Twitter that he “HAD TO DELETE A FEW ARTICLES I WROTE TODAY BECAUSE THEY WERE DEMED FALSE BY BASEMENT DWELLING LIBERAL FACT CHECKERS”. More

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    Joe Biden tells white supremacist groups to 'cease and desist' – video

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    Joe Biden warned white supremacist groups including the Proud Boys, an extremist rightwing group, to ‘cease and desist’ in Alliance, Ohio, the second stop of his Build Back Better train tour to Pennsylvania.
    Donald Trump refused to condemn white supremacists and the Proud Boys during Tuesday night’s election debate, and on Wednesday Trump claimed he had never heard of Proud Boys, after saying on Tuesday they should ‘stand back and stand by’.
    The Proud Boys have since offered for sale T-shirts with the motif ‘standing by’
    Biden tells white supremacist groups to ‘cease and desist’ after Trump’s debate ’embarrassment’ – live
    Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacy fits pattern of extremist rhetoric

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