VICE US - VICE NewsNews by VICEhttps://www.vice.com/en%2Fsection%2Fnews%3Flocale%3Den_usenThu, 22 Feb 2024 13:24:29 GMT<![CDATA[Inside the Christian Nationalist Church Where Proud Boys Go to be Baptized]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3akex5/hansel-orzame-proud-boys-church-christian-nationalismThu, 22 Feb 2024 13:24:29 GMTOn a recent Sunday, a man dressed in basketball shorts and a black and yellow T-shirt that read “FIGHT CLUB” was summoned to the front of a hired event space in Pomona, California, and invited to climb into an inflatable bathtub to be baptized. 

The baptism, which was streamed on Facebook, was led by Pastor Hansel Orzame, a 44-year-old southern Californian and a self-identified Christian Nationalist who leads “Ekklesia; The Unwoke Church.” 

The service was held in the 800-square foot “Wonderwall Space,” which, with its exposed brick and Christmas lights, advertises itself as ideal for baby showers and engagement photo shoots. But twice a month, Orzame’s flock—who he calls “Praying Patriots”—assembles there to pray. 

The Praying Patriot who was baptized on this recent Sunday in February was named Andrew. Sitting in the bathtub in his clothes, he spoke into a microphone that Orzame held for him, his voice cracking with emotion. Andrew, who has Proud Boy insignia in his personal Telegram profile, explained that he’d recently found God and learned that “true masculinity is in Christ.” 

“Christ had the biggest cojones,” said Andrew. “Being men of Christ is being real men. So let’s be real men.” 

Another man being baptized that day was introduced by Orzame as “a warrior.” “As you know, political rallies can get a little physical, a little spicy,” Orzame said. “I’ve seen this guy do amazing things out there.” 

“Christ had the biggest cojones. Being men of Christ is being real men. So let’s be real men.” 

Orzame’s church has harnessed a rising tide of Christian nationalism, which claims that America is a fundamentally Christian nation, and that “patriots” are in a “spiritual war” against nefarious, even Satanic, forces who want to subvert the country’s cultural and political institutions. 

“Christian nationalists just want to go back to the way it was, Christian values and Christian ethics,” he told his followers in response to a newly-released trailer for the documentary “God and Country,” about the disturbing rise of Christian nationalism.

“We don’t want to jail Muslims, we don’t want to jail Atheists. But we want the Christian standard back. Secular government introduces paganism. It’s just a stopgap for paganism.” 

Praying Patriots gather for a Sunday service at Ekklesia: The Unwoke Church (screenshot from Facebook livestream)
Praying Patriots gather for a Sunday service at Ekklesia: The Unwoke Church (screenshot from Facebook livestream)

In the last four years, churches that fuse rabid nationalism with Christianity have sprung up nationwide, thumbing their noses at the tax breaks offered by 501c3 status, which has historically incentivized pastors to at least maintain the illusion of keeping politics out of the pulpit. There’s even a website, “MyChurchFinder'' that ascribes a letter rating to churches based on their pastor’s level of Christian nationalist views. Orzame’s church received an A: “Biblically sound, Culturally Aware & Legislatively Active.” 

“We cannot beat these globalists, this globohomo machine alone,” Orzame appealed to God in a recent prayer broadcast on the streaming platform Rumble. “We need Your strength. We need Your guidance. We need strategies from heaven and God.” 

Orzame’s rising profile in southern California’s far-right scene, and his extensive links to the Proud Boys, is the latest indication that the gang and their allies are increasingly seeking religious justifications for their continued culture war activities, even as their uniformed public appearances have waned. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, which tracks extremism and unrest worldwide, found that since the Jan. 6. Capitol riot, Proud Boys have been more likely to appear in public alongside Christian nationalist and conservative groups compared to years prior to 2021, when they often aligned themselves with militias. 

A 40-person private Telegram channel, leaked to VICE News by local researchers, offers some insight into Orzame’s core Praying Patriots congregation. Among them is at least one known Proud Boy, Louie Flores, as well as far-right activist Bryce Henson, an active-duty Navy Seal who was recently investigated and exonerated for his ties to extremist groups. (He is, however, set to be disciplined for making threats towards local independent journalists and activists, according to KPBS). Some members of the channel have explicit neo-Nazi or white supremacist imagery in their profiles. 

Orzame uses the Telegram channel to broadcast his upcoming appearances; recently, he said he’d be at a school board meeting to protest LGBTQ-inclusive policies, an effort that has preoccupied southern California’s far-right for the last two years. These appearances often devolve into violent brawls. “THIS IS GROOMING BEHAVIOR,” Orzame wrote before a visit to Don Lugo High School in Chino, where school board members were set to approve a policy that requires administrators to notify a student’s family if the student identifies as transgender. “Please pray for me and the men that are to be my security.” 

He also posts links to his sermons on Rumble and DLive; the latter platform allows him to collect donations in the form of tokens purchased, or bitcoin. Ahead of one sermon in December, he advised the other members of the chat to avoid using Proud Boy slogans such as “POYB” (Proud of Your Boy”) and “Uhuru” (a Swahili word meaning “Freedom” that Proud Boys have co-opted as their rallying cry). “We will fly under the radar,” wrote Orzame. 

Do you have information to share about Hansel Orzame’s church or about far-right organizing in California? Email tess.owen@vice.com to share tips.

A sermon in September featured John Kinsman, a Proud Boy who just completed a four-year prison sentence for his involvement in a violent street brawl with antifascists in Manhattan in 2018. Kinsman told Orzame that he, too, had recently found God. He described a dream he had in prison, in which he was sitting on the toilet smoking a cigarette and visited by a Christ-like figure who told him God had “big plans” for him. 

Last May, Orzame’s guest was Tony Moon, who goes by “Rooftop Korean” and has been a mainstay of violent far-right demonstrations around Los Angeles in the last few years. Moon was filmed at a 2021 protest swinging a titanium water bottle at a journalist’s head. He has also appeared for in-person services at the Ekklesia Church. 

Orzame was born in Manila and moved with his parents to southern California when he was a child. His father, who he describes as “based,” works as a dentist, and owns a $1.4 million home in Covina; Orzame has held baptisms in his dad’s swimming pool. 

Orzame has claimed he previously worked as a producer in the adult film industry, and even appeared briefly as a talking head in a documentary about the dangers of porn that was bankrolled by a fundamentalist Christian organization. VICE was unable to independently verify his stint in the adult film industry. 

As Orzame tells it, his first stint as a religious leader was as a youth pastor at Gospel Life Community in Walnut, in Los Angeles County, just 8 miles from Pomona. He got his formal training at the Potter’s House of Ministry, an international pentecostal religious organization that’s faced multiple accusations of being a cult.

Orzame did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment, but claims on the Ekklesia website that while serving as pastor for a Christian club at a grad school, he encountered “satanic imagery” scrawled on whiteboards and was ultimately “kicked off of campus for proselytizing.” 

His ties to the far right date back to at least 2017; that year he was present when far-right groups including Patriot Prayer—a Christian nationalist group known for allying with Proud Boys—assembled for “Free Speech Week” at UC Berkeley and ended up scrapping with leftist protesters.

In February 2018, Orzame traveled to San Diego for a so-called “Patriot Picnic,” part of a series of protests against murals in a local park celebrating Mexican-American and Aztec culture. Orzame was photographed wearing a tactical vest with the word “pastor” emblazoned on his chest and was later arrested for urinating on a mural. Local antifascists obtained leaked planning chats that showed protesters discussing the guns they were bringing to the protest, with Orzame responding approvingly. In 2019, along with his wife, he founded Ekklesia.

Though he denies being a Proud Boy himself, Orzame makes no secret of his fondness for the gang. He routinely promotes Proud Boy content on his social media pages, including videos by Proud Boy founder Gavin McInnes and fundraisers to help Proud Boys facing charges related to the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. 

Orzame’s insistence that he’s not actually a Proud Boy, as well as the fact that he generally keeps his hands clean by not getting directly involved in violent melees at protests, means he doesn’t have the same baggage as some of his friends in his group chat. As a result, he’s been able to build inroads into more “mainstream”—relatively speaking—political circles in southern California. 

For example, he describes Siaka Massaquoi, an actor and the vice chair of the Los Angeles County GOP committee, “a close friend.” Massaquoi, who was arrested at Hollywood’s Burbank airport in December on charges linked to the Jan. 6 riot, has appeared on Orzame’s broadcast twice in the last six months. 

In that livestream, Massaquoi and Orzame reflected on a rally hosted by “Leave Our Kids Alone,” a coalition of far-right activists, which resulted in brawls with pro-LGBTQ counter-protesters outside Los Angeles Unified School District’s headquarters. 

Massaquoi suggested that it might be poor optics for the anti-grooming contingent to keep getting into scrapes with counter-protesters at these sorts of events. “We have to be strategic,” he said. 

“I think we should treat this as a military operation,” Orzame said. “I’m not calling for violence, okay? I’m just saying this is spiritual warfare.” 

“It’s a battle for everything,” said Massaquoi.  “Some people are going to be involved in physical altercations, and there's some people who are going to die.” 

“I think we should treat this as a military operation. I’m not calling for violence, okay? I’m just saying this is spiritual warfare.” 

Orzame is also the “chaplain” for a new organization called G3 (God, Guns, and Government). G3 is run by Netty Chow, who became a local celebrity in Orange County in 2020 when she coordinated “prayer walks” in defiance of COVID-19 lockdowns. Also leading G3 is Jon Matthews, a long-time conservative activist with deep ties to the Eagle Forum, which was formed in 1972 as a retrogressive counterweight to the women’s liberation movement. 

Last July, G3 hosted an “Election Reform Summit” that drew an array of right-wing influencers, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, the man who ran the effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Toni Shuppe, a QAnon adjacent election denier and key ally of Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who ran an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2022. 

The following month G3 paid for Ormaze to travel to Missouri for a conference on election fraud hosted by Lindell. There, Orzame said he met with Gen. Mike Flynn, who allegedly told him he was a “big fan” of the Ekklesia Unwoke Church. “He says ‘good job guys hang in there,’” Orzame wrote in the Telegram channel. 

And most recently, Orzame attended an in-person conference in Orange County hosted by the California chapter of the Election Integrity Project, a group dedicated to sniffing out voter fraud claims that is now holding meetings across the state to recruit “citizen observers” who can “observe and document” the upcoming primary election. 

Orzame might have built a local reputation on providing spiritual meaning to the lives of southern California’s bruisers—to local left-wing activists, he’s known as “The Proud Boys Pastor.” But if his recent activities are anything to go by, he’s now looking to capitalize off some of his new relationships from the culture war scene and expand his reach, beyond the fringes, and into MAGA-world. 

Disclosure: Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, was a co-founder of VICE in 1994. He left the company in 2008 and has had no involvement since then.

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3akex5Tess Owenchloe angyalNewsProud Boyschristian nationalismextremismhansel orzameCaliforniamaga
<![CDATA[What We Know About the Death of Nonbinary Teen Nex Benedict]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v7bn99/nex-benedict-oklahoma-lgbt-attacksWed, 21 Feb 2024 16:58:55 GMTThe day before they died, Nex Benedict, a nonbinary 16-year-old from Owasso, Oklahoma, said they got “jumped” at school and ended up in the hospital emergency room.

That’s according to text messages they sent to a family member, shared with Fox23

Nex told the unidentified recipient of their text messages that they’d been getting bullied by three other students. “I got tired of it so I poured some water on them,” Benedict wrote. “All 3 came after me.” They said that they were “okay” after being in the ER, had scrapes and bruises, and had been given an injection to help with pain.

“If I’m still dizzy and nauseous in the morning I might have a concussion,” they wrote. 

The next day, on Feb. 8, Benedict was rushed back to the hospital by their grandmother, who they lived with, and died. The state medical examiner has yet to release their cause of death. Owasso police detectives say they are committed to conducting a thorough investigation of Benedict’s death, and are currently awaiting the autopsy report and toxicology results. 

LGBTQ press started raising the alarm about Benedict’s death over the weekend after a local news outlet, KJRH, published an interview with an unnamed family friend claiming that the teen had been assaulted by older female students in the girls’ bathroom. 

Those outlets flagged an ominous potential link between Benedict’s death and the ongoing attacks on Oklahoma’s LGBTQ citizens.

The far-right account Libs of TikTok has repeatedly mounted harassment campaigns against school districts nationwide, including in Oklahoma. A queer teacher from the Owasso School District resigned in 2022 after they were targeted by Libs of TikTok over their social media videos expressing support for the LGBTQ community. 

Libs of TikTok’s harassment campaigns have been correlated with violent threats against those school districts. And, earlier this year, Libs of TikTok founder Chaya Raichik was appointed to the Oklahoma Library Media Advisory Committee, where she will “make schools safer” by removing LGBTQ-inclusive books. 

And in 2022, a bill went into effect that mandated Oklahoma schools have multiple occupancy bathrooms for the exclusive use of either male or female sex, as designated by their birth certificates—barring schools from creating gender-neutral restrooms, and forcing trans kids to use bathrooms that are inconsistent with their identities. 

The unnamed family friend also claimed, in the interview with KJRH, that the school had failed to administer timely medical assistance to Benedict, despite the fact that they were unable to walk to the nurse’s office. (Those claims have since been removed from an updated version of the story). 

In response to the growing uproar over Benedict’s death and speculation that the school acted negligently in response to the altercation, the Owasso Police Department and the Owasso Public School District put out separate statements on Tuesday night. 

Owasso Public School District dismissed accusations of negligence as the result of “misinformation.” It said the altercation lasted less than two minutes and was broken up by other students and a staff member who was supervising outside. 

It also asserted that all students who were involved “walked under their own power” to the assistant principal’s office and the nurse’s office, and that district administrators took statements from all students who were involved or witnessed the altercation, and contacted the respective parents or guardians of those involved. 

The school district says that all students were assessed by a school nurse, per district protocols. “While it was determined that ambulance service was not required, out of an abundance of caution, it was recommended to one parent that their student visit a medical facility for further examination,” they wrote. 

Parents and guardians of students involved in the altercation were also told that they could file a police report if they wanted to, per district protocols, according to the statement.

The Owasso Police Department said that they were only notified of the altercation when they were summoned to a local hospital later that day, and the responding school resource officer took information for a report. 

On Tuesday, Nex Benedict’s mother Sue Benedict updated a GoFundMe with a statement apologizing for failing to initially use their chosen name. 

“We are sorry for not using their name correctly and as parents we were still learning the correct forms. Please do not judge us as Nex was judged, please do not bully us for our ignorance on the subject,” she wrote. “Nex gave us that respect and we are sorry in our grief that we overlooked them.” 

Sue Benedict added that their headstone will reflect Nex’s chosen name, and the rest of the donations will go to “other children dealing with the right to be who they are, in Nex Benedict’s name.” 

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v7bn99Tess Owenchloe angyalLGBTQnex benedictowassononbinarychaya raichikNews
<![CDATA[FBI Investigating an Insular, Nameless Religious Group Undergoing Sexual Abuse Reckoning ]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/88x7zp/fbi-investigating-an-insular-nameless-religious-group-undergoing-sexual-abuse-reckoningWed, 21 Feb 2024 16:12:37 GMTIn an unusually transparent move, an FBI field office in Omaha, Nebraska announced this week that it is looking for help from the public in identifying people with “knowledge of abuse and/or criminal behavior” in an insular, nameless religious sect, often referred to by outsiders as the “Two by Twos.” 

As VICE News detailed in an investigation in October, the group is in the midst of a dramatic reckoning with a decades-long pattern of sexual abuse, often committed against children by people in the community with a high degree of spiritual authority. Both current members of the sect and people who have left it have accused the group of failing to alert secular authorities when individuals are said to have molested children.

For several weeks, former members of the community who have become anti-abuse activists have told VICE News that it appears the FBI is investigating the group. The FBI generally does not confirm or deny active investigations; reached for comment last week, an FBI spokesperson in their Seattle office gave the usual response, telling VICE News, “The FBI’s media policy prohibits confirming or denying an investigation unless in rare circumstances.” The same spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up request for comment. But the request for help from the Omaha office is exceedingly clear that the group is being investigated; the agency even created an online questionnaire for people with knowledge or direct experience of the abuse. 

The group – usually referred to by insiders as “The Truth” or “The Way” – has a lineage that stretches back over 100 years. The name “Two by Twos” is drawn from the fact that its preachers, known as “workers,” are homeless and itinerant, traveling in pairs around territories composed of several states to lead prayer meetings held in people’s homes. Workers are often expected to sleep in the houses of congregants, which several people told VICE News has led to sexual abuse committed against children. Above workers are “overseers,” who in the United States have control over territories that include several states. Both workers and overseers have been accused of sexual abuse, committed both in the homes of congregants and during large conventions held yearly. 

The current tumult began in March 2023, when a letter began circulating disclosing that an Oregon overseer named Dean Bruer had been a “sexual predator” whose patterns of alleged abuse first came to light after he abruptly died in a hotel room in the remote community of Government Camp. The letter, said to have been written by Bruer’s successor Doyle Smith, added: “His actions include rape and abuse of underage victims. He totally abused his authority as an overseer in order to control, manipulate and threaten his victims. We are strongly recommending our staff look at the Ministry Safe Program and possibly other venues that help understand, recognize, and prevent such problems.” (Italics his.) 

Notably, this letter does not suggest that Bruer’s alleged behavior was referred to legal authorities. (Smith did not respond to a previous request for comment from VICE News.) Sources within the community told VICE News that instead of alerting law enforcement, sexual abuse allegations were often handled by temporarily removing the accused person from prayer meetings, or, in the case of workers, seemingly moving them to a different territory. 

Former members of the group told VICE News that one specific overseer, Darryl Doland, an overseer for Washington state, received a visit from FBI agents. There is no evidence that Doland is himself accused of abuse or any other crime; he has, however, been unusually transparent in his communications with members about what he said was his own inadequate response when receiving reports of sexual abuse. 

“I want to personally apologize for the times I have ‘tuned out’ the muted cry of a wounded, frightened person and left their plea for help unheeded,” Doland wrote in an April 2023 letter said to have been sent to community members in Washington, North Idaho, and Alaska; the letter was reprinted on WINGS For Truth, which information about the sect’s issues with child sexual assault and reshares letters from workers and overseers.  

“ I am saddened and deeply sorry to know that my responses (or lack thereof) have hindered justice and/or healing in some way,” Doland’s letter continued. “I hope you will forgive me for this.” It followed with concrete steps Doland says leaders in the group will now take: “Going forward, we will have a zero-tolerance policy regarding CSA. If we are made aware of CSA violations involving a victim who is presently a minor, we will report it to authorities immediately, in compliance with the law.”

Reached for comment on February 10, Doland would not confirm or deny whether he had received a visit from the FBI, but told VICE News he’s “actively addressing” abuse allegations in his region and committed to helping victims receive help.

“Thanks for reaching out,” Doland’s email read. “I am actively addressing all abuse allegations involving participants in this region of our fellowship. My paramount concern is that victims receive the professional help that they need.  I take all allegations of abuse seriously, strongly recommend mandated reporter training to all, and encourage everyone to report issues to the proper legal authorities as soon as possible. This is my only statement at this time.” 

Bruce Murdoch, a spokesperson for WINGS For Truth, told VICE News that WINGS is encouraging “full cooperation” from people in leadership positions in the group with the FBI investigation.

"WINGS would like encourage full cooperation for the FBI's investigation into victims of child sexual abuse stemming from the ‘2x2’ church,” Murdoch told VICE News in an email. “In particular, we encourage those in leadership positions of elders, workers and overseers to come forward where you have knowledge of past offenses that were never resolved through the proper legal and social channels.”

Several groups of current and former members of the sect have formed to advocate for sexual abuse survivors and chart a path forward. Mike and Abbi Prussack and Kyle and Kari Hanks are two married couples who all grew up within the sect. They founded and help run a large support group on Facebook for ex members, and told VICE News in a statement that they’d first spoken to the FBI last year. 

“After decades of being silenced, survivors are finally having their voices heard and amplified,” their group statement read. “We first spoke with the FBI last year when they reached out to us and have continued to help them in their investigation while prioritizing survivors who have entrusted us with their stories. The FBI is motivated to expose abusers and those complicit within the church, especially those in positions of leadership. The investigators are compassionate and concerned for survivors. Their goal is to protect future generations of 2x2s. We encourage and stand behind survivors who want to reach out to the FBI with their stories.” 

Another major group is Voices for the Truth, who told VICE News that news of the FBI investigation is “a significant step forward in providing validation and support to countless victim-survivors.” The group also said that they’ve recently partnered with RAINN, the national anti-sexual violence organization, to create a hotline with specific resources for people who are current and former members of the sect. Their full statement reads as follows: 

We are grateful that a legal and professional entity is acknowledging both the historical and ongoing abuse crisis within the Truth community. This recognition is a significant step forward in providing validation and support to countless victim-survivors. It is our sincere hope that the FBI's investigation will be a valuable resource and a powerful tool for victim-survivors as they navigate their personal healing journeys. 

We encourage victim-survivors to explore all avenues of support available to them and to choose what feels safe and empowering. It is vital that victim-survivors and their loved ones have access to psychologically safe and compassionate support from professionals who fully understand the unique circumstances of the Truth community. That's why we have partnered with RAINN — the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization and operators of the National Sexual Assault Hotline — for our Victim-Survivor Support Hotline, which will be launching in early March.

See more here: https://voicesforthetruth.org/hotline/ 

Update, 2:40 P.M. EST:

A spokesperson for the FBI Omaha field office confirmed to the investigation to VICE News, but said they were unable to answer further questions about its scope or whether other FBI field offices are involved. The statement reads, in full: “Because the FBI Omaha field office is seeking the public’s help in identifying potential victims, I can confirm an investigation.  In order to preserve the integrity and capabilities of the investigation, I cannot share any details of the ongoing process.”

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<![CDATA[Man Who Showed Father’s Decapitated Head in a YouTube Video Charged With Terrorism]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/epv73w/man-who-showed-fathers-decapitated-head-in-a-youtube-video-charged-with-terrorismFri, 16 Feb 2024 17:24:07 GMTThe Pennsylvania man who decapitated his father and displayed his head in a YouTube video in which he called for violence against government workers has been charged with terrorism. 

After allegedly killing his father, Justin Mohn, 32, filmed a 14-minute video in which he displayed the head in a bag and called for people to kill federal employees. He posted the video to YouTube under the name “Mohn’s Militia—Call to Arms for American Patriots.”

“This is the head of Mike Mohn,” he says as he holds up the head, “a federal employee of over 20 years, and my father.”

Police believe Mohn shot his father to death before beheading the corpse. The DA’s office says records show he purchased the gun he used on the day before the murder. He was arrested 100 miles away from his home, in Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania, where he was apprehended after jumping the fence surrounding a National Guard Training Facility. He was arrested with a loaded Sig Sauer 9mm pistol. 

The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office has now filed terrorism charges against Mohn. In a press release, the DA office said when they arrested Mohn they found him with a USB drive on which police found a folder titled “fucked up shit.”

“Inside of that folder, [police] observed another folder titled ‘us army improvised munitions handbook,’” reads the criminal complaint against Mohn. “That folder included several pictures of Federal Buildings along with instructions appearing to show the steps needed to make an explosive device.”

When police searched Mohn’s home they found his father’s head in a cooking pot and a blood-stained computer Mohn used to upload the video to multiple platforms. The video was removed within less than a day but has nonetheless spread extensively across the internet, particularly on the website X, where keyword restrictions were necessary to halt its spread.

In the video, Mohn gives a speech that isn’t dissimilar to what you’d hear from many on the far right. In it he rails against President Joe Biden, a “communist takeover of America,” and “far-left woke mobs.” He bemoans that the “federal government has declared war on America’s citizens” and that “America is rotting from the inside, as far-left woke mobs ravage our once prosperous country.” He also claims that the government is working alongside undocumented immigrants, the LGBTQ community, Black Lives Matter, and Antifa to destroy the United States. 

He then calls for “patriots” to fight back. If convicted, Mohn could face life in prison. (Pennsylvania law does carry the death sentence for first degree murder, but no one has been executed for it since 1999 and politicians just started the process to abolish it.)  

“All federal employees are to be killed on site,” he said. “All FBI, IRS, and other federal law enforcement offices, as well as federal courthouses, are to be sieged around the country… Earn your place in heaven by sending a traitor to hell early.”

Mohn had an extensive online footprint which included having several albums up on Spotify and a collection of self-published books. His latest publication was an essay called “America's Coming Bloody Revolution.” Mohn was seemingly involved in several lawsuits against the government that focused on affirmative action; he argued the government harmed him by allowing him to take out student loans and affirmative action prevented him from finding work. In the video where he displays his father’s head, Mohn mentions the judge who dismissed his lawsuit by name, gives out his address, and calls for a $100,000 bounty on the “heads of all federal judges.” 

Mohn is facing charges for “first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, possession of an instrument of crime, three counts of terrorism, two additional counts of possession of an instrument of crime, and one count each of robbery, firearms not to be carried without a license, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, criminal use of a communication facility, terroristic threats, and defiant trespassing.”

He is being held without bail. 

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<![CDATA[Trump’s Master Plan to Defeat His Criminal Cases Isn’t Working]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7empd/trumps-master-plan-to-defeat-his-criminal-cases-isnt-workingFri, 16 Feb 2024 10:30:00 GMTFormer President Donald Trump rolled into 2024 with a master plan to defeat his four criminal cases: Utilize his political firepower to delay his trials past the election, then use the presidency to dismantle them.

But lately, it’s not working out the way he hoped. 

After a dizzying series of recent legal decisions, it’s now looking possible that Trump may be forced to go through two criminal trials before November—giving prosecutors two shots to convict him on felony charges before votes are counted.  

On Thursday, the judge in Trump’s New York City criminal case officially set Trump’s first six-week trial to begin on March 25, in a crucial defeat for Trump’s efforts at delay. The failure could hobble both Trump’s presidential campaign and his hopes to later use the presidency to thwart prosecutors. Many voters say they have misgivings about putting a felon in the White House, according to a bevy of recent polls. And if Trump is convicted in this New York State prosecution, he won’t be able to pardon himself even if he wins, because presidential pardons only apply to federal crimes. 

Justice Juan Merchan breezily dismissed objections from Trump’s lawyers that spending six weeks in court would unduly keep him off the campaign trail. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche called the late-March trial date “unfathomable,” because “we’re in the middle of primary season.” 

Trump’s team has repeatedly argued that his campaign for the presidency, and the fact that he used to be the president, should give him the right to duck his criminal trials, either temporarily or permanently. 

Trump has used the calendar to his advantage over and over again as a litigant. But Thursday’s hearing was only the latest to show the limits of that strategy in his recent attempts to battle criminal prosecutors. He also faced a crucial defeat in Washington D.C. that could yield a second trial in 2024 before election day—one with higher stakes than in New York, and longer potential criminal sentences. 

Last week the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals rejected Trump’s claims that he should enjoy complete criminal immunity as a former president in a landmark decision. That ruling kicks the ball over to the Supreme Court for the next move. But even so, with the start of the trial in Manhattan now fixed, Trump’s legal calendar appears to leave enough time for a trial in his D.C. case to begin sometime this summer, according to a group of lawyers who wrote a recent detailed analysis published in Just Security

Trump’s D.C. case for allegedly attempting to subvert the 2020 election had been scheduled to begin in early March, and is currently on hold pending his immunity appeal. But the analysis concluded that, barring any big surprises, the that trial could kick off in June or July, and wrap up in September or October, right before the vote. 

Trump’s power to undermine the cases against him would be magnified enormously if he recaptured the presidency before he’s convicted. From the White House, he could order his new Attorney General to simply drop the two federal criminal cases against him in Washington D.C. and South Florida. And his lawyers have also raised the argument that, as a sitting president, any state-level criminal trial would need to be put on hold until the end of his presidency. It’s unclear whether that would happen, but Trump would, of course, be deprived of that argument if he loses the election or is convicted before taking office. 

Trump’s criminal cases in South Florida and Georgia look relatively less likely to begin before the election. 

In Georgia, Trump was accused of violating the state’s racketeering statute along with over a dozen codefendants while attempting to reverse his electoral defeat in the Peach state, in a sweeping case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. 

Willis has asked for a trial to begin in August, although no firm start-date has yet been set on the calendar. 

Willis is currently battling accusations of wrongdoing originally raised by one of Trumps’ codefendants in the case and joined by Trump and others. They argue that Willis had an improper romantic relationship with the lead prosecutor in the case, Nathan Wade. On Thursday, a court in Georgia heard testimony from a personal associate of Willis who claimed that the relationship began earlier than Willis has admitted. Willis also fired back in fiery testimony. It remains to be seen whether the judge overseeing the case will agree that the situation presents a conflict that requires Willis’ removal, although many legal experts have said they doubt that will happen

In Florida, Trump is accused of violating the Espionage Act by squirreling away classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago beachside estate. In that case, Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon has seemed amenable to delays sought by Trump’s legal team that could easily push the complex national security trial past November. 

In New York, Trump is accused of falsifying business records related to hush-money payoffs to an adult film star who claims she slept with Trump. 

Trump has pleaded not guilty in all cases, and denied all wrongdoing.

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n7empdGreg WaltersJosh VisserNewsPoliticsCrimeDonald Trump
<![CDATA[A 19-Year-Old Died After Taking ‘Gas Station Heroin’. His Mom Wonders Why It’s Still Being Sold Legally. ]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v7bna3/gas-station-heroin-johnathon-morrison-deathFri, 16 Feb 2024 10:00:00 GMTKristi Terry keeps replaying the last time she saw her son Johnathon Morrison alive.

The 19-year-old scholarship student came into her bedroom on the night of Feb. 20, 2019 and asked if it was OK if he cooked some pizza rolls; he didn't want to hog them from his younger sister, who was a fussy eater.

Terry, 41, and her husband found it odd that he was asking permission.

“We were like ‘you don’t have to ask to cook something," she said. In hindsight, she wishes she’d gotten up to see if he was feeling alright. She wonders if he was feeling sick at that point and was trying to settle his stomach with food.

The next morning Terry and her 15-year-old daughter found Morrison unresponsive in his bedroom in Trafford, Alabama. Paramedics spent an hour trying to revive him, but they couldn't. Next to his body was a half-eaten plate of pizza rolls and a nearly empty bottle of tianeptine pills, an unapproved drug known as “gas station heroin” because of its addictive effects on some users.

Morrison’s cause of death is asphyxia due to aspiration of gastric contents—meaning he choked on his vomit—and is considered accidental, according to his autopsy report, which VICE News has obtained. But the high level of tianeptine he had in his system was similar to the level found in another reported tianeptine fatality in which no other drugs were detected, the medical examiner wrote.

IMG_4094.jpg
Kristi Terry and her son Johnathon Morrison.

His death is one of the few rare fatal overdoses that’s been linked to tianeptine, a drug that is  sold at gas stations and convenience stores around the U.S. as well as online, often illegally marketed as a dietary supplement or cognitive booster. Tianeptine is a tricyclic antidepressant that is used as medication in over 60 countries around the world, but it is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for medical use in the U.S., so the versions sold here are unregulated. While at least a dozen states have banned tianeptine, it remains federally unscheduled.

Because it also hits opioid receptors in the brain, it can produce euphoria and pain relief. Many users have told VICE News tianeptine’s effects were similar to prescription opioids at first, but were quickly replaced with brutal withdrawal symptoms including insomnia, shakes, nausea, and anxiety. It’s also been linked to seizures and hospitalizations.

But Morrison, a theater and business student at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, didn’t know any of that.

He stumbled upon tianeptine by chance when he popped into a gas station in search of medication to relieve his migraine, according to his mom. The gas station didn’t have Excedrin, but an employee there offered Morrison a bottle of pills called Tianaa, a popular brand of tianeptine.

“He had no clue what he was taking,” said Terry. “They told him that it was all natural, herbal, and that it was like a powerful Tylenol.”

So Morrison took it like Tylenol, popping a couple at a time over the next few hours. In the morning, Terry and her teenage daughter went to check on Morrison after his boss sent a concerned text saying he hadn’t turned in a report. They found him lying flat on his bed. While it seemed like he was making a snoring noise, he wasn’t breathing.

Just three of the 15 tianeptine pills in the bottle remained, Terry said.

VICE News has left messages with MT Brands, a Florida-based company that makes Tianaa, but has not yet received a response.

The degree to which tianeptine toxicity may have contributed to Morrison’s death, “either directly due to the toxic effects of the drug or indirectly by potentially reducing his seizure threshold, remains uncertain,” the autopsy said. His system had therapeutic amounts of a couple of prescription drugs he was taking for his migraines as well as an anti-seizure medication, though Terry said he’d only had two seizures in his life.

Dr. Ryan Marino, medical director of toxicology and addiction medicine at University Hospitals in Cleveland, said it’s common for people to vomit and aspirate during drug overdoses because they “lose higher functioning.”

“A helpful comparison is alcohol,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to die from drinking alcohol in one night or one sitting. But obviously people can throw up and have bad things happen.”

He said it’s not clear that tianeptine causes overdoses by causing people to stop breathing, which is the case for opioids like fentanyl. But he cautioned there’s not enough data yet on high levels of tianeptine in humans to draw strong conclusions about its toxicity.

The FDA, which has issued several consumer alerts about tianeptine in the last few months, said it has received two tianeptine-related death reports since 2015. The agency also said poison control center cases about tianeptine exposure increased from 11 total cases between 2000 and 2013 to 151 cases in 2020 alone. A 2018 paper analyzing tianeptine deaths worldwide showed that the ones that didn’t involve other drugs were tied to respiratory depression or cardiac arrhythmias.

Despite the fact that deaths are rare, tianeptine users have still reported adverse health reactions to the drug.

Chris Ricks, who lives in Mobile, Alabama, was hospitalized for a week in 2021 after taking four bottles of Zazas, another popular tianeptine brand. He was found “urinating and defecating everywhere in the house,” according to a hospital report seen by VICE News, before being admitted into an intensive care unit.

“I just remember being out of it, I don't know what was going on,” he said, noting that in hospital he required benzodiazepines to stop him from ripping out his IV.

Ricks has been sober from tianeptine since he was discharged in March 2021. At the height of his addiction, he was taking eight bottles a day, spending $80,000 on them in one year.

“Within a month of taking those I looked in the mirror and said ‘You’re either headed back to rehab or death,’” he told VICE News.

IMG_4092.jpg
Johnathon Morrison at his high school graduation.

After Morrison died, Terry was determined to get tianeptine banned in Alabama.

She testified at a state senate healthcare committee in February 2020.

“He was just the light of my life and he was my best friend,” Terry said, showing a photo of her son to the committee, according to an audio recording of the hearing obtained by VICE News.

Her friend explained that Terry had been bedridden with post-traumatic stress disorder since finding Morrison.

Also at the hearing was James Morrissette, CEO and founder of MT Brands. He said his tianeptine products were promoted as being for stress and anxiety relief, but “it has taken a direction where people are beginning to abuse the product” or use it as a “cessation product for opiates.”

Morrissette said while Terry’s story was heartbreaking, he supported stronger regulation over banning tianeptine, including increased age limits for customers. He has also accused other tianeptine manufacturers of making subpar products.

“There are other people that are benefiting from this product. And to just turn around and start banning products without having solid meaning behind it, where does it stop?” he said at the hearing.

A year later, Alabama became the second state to ban tianeptine. Florida, Arkansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Indiana, have also banned it.

In January, citing VICE News’ previous reporting, a group of five members of Congress wrote a letter to the FDA asking the agency to “to take immediate action to research and provide guidance on tianeptine use,” including working with the Drug Enforcement Administration to determine if it should be federally scheduled.

But bans can have unintended causes, including leading people back to using illicit drugs, especially because there’s no clear-cut detox protocol for coming off of tianeptine. Three former users previously told VICE News their tianeptine use led them back to using street drugs including fentanyl and crack cocaine.

In an email, an FDA spokesperson told VICE News it urges consumers not to use any tianeptine product and reiterated that it is not approved for any medical use.

“The FDA will continue to take regulatory actions and alert consumers of safety issues related to tianeptine products,” the statement said.

Terry said it makes her “sick” that there are many Americans who can still easily purchase the drug.

She said her son, who had the “biggest smile and dimples” had been saving up for a vintage Mercedes or BMW when he died. Instead, that money paid for his headstone.

“I do feel like Johnathon’s story is what got it banned in Alabama. I really do,” she said.  “The senators and everybody had to look at my son’s picture.”

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v7bna3Manisha KrishnanJosh VisserNewsPoliticsgas station heroinDrugsdrug policytianeptine
<![CDATA[Joe Rogan and Bret Weinstein Promote AIDS Denialism to an Audience of Millions ]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/jg543y/joe-rogan-and-bret-weinstein-promote-aids-denialism-to-an-audience-of-millionsThu, 15 Feb 2024 18:17:50 GMTBret Weinstein, the evolutionary biology professor turned podcaster and ivermectin guy, repeated a series of discredited pseudo-theories about AIDS in a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Weinstein, a frequent guest, told Rogan that he found the theory that party drugs like poppers cause AIDS to be “surprisingly compelling.” (It is not.) Weinstein also told Rogan he came to these ideas by reading a recent book by anti-vaccine activist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, creating a sort of unholy turducken of misinformation passed onto an audience of millions. 

There is, to be clear, no scientific debate whatsoever about the cause of AIDS, and the information Weinstein was repeating has been roundly discredited for decades. HIV can be spread through several means, including unprotected sex, sharing needles, or, in some cases, from a mother to a child while giving birth; if HIV is untreated, it can develop into AIDS. No one who has been through a basic sex ed class likely needs to hear this information re-stated, but nonetheless, AIDS denialism continues to exist in various forms. The specific idea that AIDS is spread through poppers—a party drug with a long medical and recreational history—first circulated as HIV began to spread in the 1980s. (A Los Angeles Times article from 1986 details the debate at the time over whether businesses should continue to sell poppers.)

This idea is often referred to as the Duesberg hypothesis, named after the Berkeley biologist who popularized it, and it’s been around—and ultimately discredited—for so long that it has a lengthy Wikipedia page, the gist of which is that correlation is not causation. Peter Duesberg, who was not an AIDS researcher, was given a chance to air his theories at a 1988 panel that convened some of the nation’s foremost AIDS experts; they pointed out that he had no real evidence for his theory and had ignored compelling evidence to the contrary. One of those questioning him was Anthony Fauci, then the coordinator for AIDS research at the National Institutes of Health. 

If you’re starting to see why Weinstein and Rogan are invested in these particular discredited ideas, you’re not alone. 

Rogan interjected that the theory that HIV causes AIDS — which is not a theory, but a fact— is “ignoring a very important factor in AIDS, which is party drugs.” Weinstein agreed that that is the “competing hypothesis,” adding, “For those who think that this is a preposterous allegation, you should look at this evidence. The evidence is surprisingly compelling.” 

Weinstein’s “evidence,” he made clear, is partially drawn from reading about this theory as outlined by Robert F. Kennedy in his book The Real Anthony Fauci, published in 2021. (One review of the book noted that Kennedy managed to misrepresent numerous scientific studies he cites, which does not make a strong case for its scientific rigor; nor does the fact that it was written by Robert F. Kennedy.) 

“I came to understand later, after I looked at what Luke Montagnier had said and I read Bobby Kennedy's book on Fauci, was that actually the argument against HIV being causal was a lot higher quality than I had understood, right?” Weinstein told Rogan. “That it being a real virus, a fellow traveler of a disease that was chemically triggered, that is at least a highly plausible hypothesis. And with Anthony Fauci playing his role, that was inconvenient for what he was trying to accomplish.”

(Luc Montagnier was a French virologist who won the Nobel prize in 2008 for co-discovering the HIV virus. During the early stages of the pandemic, he promoted unproven theories, according to the Associated Press, about COVID being a manipulated virus.) 

Besides Kennedy, Weinstein also promoted the work of Kary Mullis, who he described as “the inventor of PCR technology who died tragically, and some would say, strangely, at the very beginning of the COVID crisis.” (Mullis, 74, died in August of 2019 of respiratory and heart failure brought on by pneumonia, according to his widow. COVID is believed to have begun circulating in China in December of that year, well after Mullis passed away in California. When that information was conveyed to Rogan by his “fact-checker,” his producer Jamie Vernon, Rogan muttered, “Woah, right before it popped up. That’s convenient.” ) 

Mullis was a Nobel prize-winning chemist who tended towards weirdness thereafter, casting doubt on climate science, for instance, which was very much outside his field of study.  He also promoted alternative—and false—theories about the causes of AIDS, in ways that seemed to cast blame on the lifestyles of gay men. 

“The guys who were hanging out in the bathhouses of San Francisco had every parasite you could imagine," he told a journalist in 1998. "It was a whole way of life that killed a certain percentage of the people who lived it.” 

Weinstein, naturally, cast Mullis as a maverick, and seemed to intimate that his death was suspicious in nature. 

“Have you ever seen this piece of video where he talks about Anthony Fauci?” he asked Rogan. “Yeah, let's put it this way. Kerry Mullis was a outspoken, vigorous, highly intelligent person who was not corralled by fashion. And in fact, his objection to the idea that HIV was causing AIDS was an early testament to his maverick nature.” 

Rogan also took a brief detour into AZT, an early AIDS drug that is no longer usually used on its own, saying, “With AZT, with AIDS, it was killing people. So now you have people dying from AIDS and you have this medication which Fauci in the 1980s has famously quoted as saying is the only reason why we use only one medication is because the only medication that's been proven to be both safe and effective.”

This is, again, not a particularly good or accurate summary of what actually happened; false claims about AZT circulated early in the pandemic, in part through the viral pseudo-documentary Plandemic. The claim that AZT was killing people with AIDS is a dangerous piece of pseudoscience, and AZT is still used, in combination with other drugs.

“COVID was a rerun of the AIDS chapter of AZT,” Weinstein agreed.

The conversation generated substantial outcry from scientists and public health researchers on Twitter; David Gorski, an oncologist who frequently writes about the anti-vaccine world and pseudoscience, identified the conversation as an example of “crank magnetism,” writing, “Once you go down the rabbit hole of pseudoscience, quackery, and conspiracy theories in one area (e.g., #COVID19), it is nearly inevitable that you will embrace fractal wrongness in the form of multiple kinds of pseudoscience (e.g., antivax, AIDS denial, etc.).” 

And this is, of course, indisputably part of a larger pattern. Rogan and Weinstein regularly repeat discredited scientific ideas, mainly around their promotion of ivermectin as a treatment for COVID and Rogan’s constant promotion of anti-vaccine ideas. The AIDS conversation makes clear that COVID denialists are branching out, using their forms of pseudo-inquiry to draw other bad ideas back into the public discussion. 

It’s also clear that the conspiracy theories don’t end with science: Rogan also interjected some brief suspicions about January 6 and intimated that Fox News may have fired Tucker Carlson because they were pressured by both advertisers and “some intelligence agencies.” 

“I stand outside a little bit more,” Rogan proclaimed, “and analyze things with less emotion and try to figure out what is really going on here and how complex is it, and also, how much time am I going to have to invest in this before I really understand what's going on?”

Near the end of the conversation, in the midst of a full-throated endorsement of Kennedy’s presidential candidacy, Weinstein returned to an idea he’d mentioned earlier, about a shadowy secret group controlling the United States, or what he described as “a hidden cabal acting through a senile figurehead.” 

“If Kennedy can't do it, for whatever reason, if politics gets in the way, we still have to get whatever that cabal is out of power immediately,” Weinstein said, without elaborating who, precisely, the members of the “cabal” are. “This could not be more of an emergency. We've seen through Covid how dangerous these people are, how little they care about our well-being, and we have to rally around whatever it is that addresses this.”  

Rogan will have an opportunity to continue doing whatever he wants, and on even more platforms than before, for many years to come; Spotify recently announced that it had signed a new multi-platform deal with Rogan, reportedly worth around $250 million. 

Update, 2:30 PM EST:

A spokesperson for amfAR, a well-known nonprofit dedicated to AIDS research, HIV prevention and advocacy, tells VICE News it is “disappointing to see platforms being used to spout old, baseless theories about HIV.”

Their statement reads, in full:

It is disappointing to see platforms being used to spout old, baseless theories about HIV. At amfAR, we’ve worked for 40 years to provide people with scientifically sound information about HIV, free of stigma. The fact is that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), untreated, causes AIDS. Access to antiretroviral therapy and accurate information has saved many millions of lives. Mr. Rogan and Mr. Weinstein do their listeners a disservice in disseminating false information and amfAR would welcome the opportunity to correct the record for Mr. Rogan and his audience.

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jg543yAnna MerlanTim MarchmanJOE ROGANBret WeinsteinAIDSHIVAIDS Denialismconspiracy theoriesPodcastsSpotifyNews
<![CDATA[Tucker Carlson Gushes About Russia as Putin Mocks Him]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3akem3/vladimir-putin-mocks-tucker-carlson-russia-interviewThu, 15 Feb 2024 17:17:52 GMTDespite Tucker Carlson publicly gushing about Russia at any opportunity, the leader of the country he’s falling in love with decided to publicly lambast him. 

The former Fox News host recently made headlines after traveling to Russia and sitting down with President Vladimir Putin. It was the leader’s first Western interview since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands. 

The video has gotten over one million likes since being posted on X (the site formerly known as Twitter) on February 8. In the over two-hour video, Carlson lets Putin take complete control and ramble on about whatever subject matter he likes. At one point Putin talked for over half an hour. The interview has been described as “embarrassing” and “sycophantic". 

Those who champion Carlson declared the interview as a brave journalist willing to expose a dangerous truth, but outside of his (vocal) fanbase, Carlson’s interview was met with a more muted response. Even the subject of the softball interview questioned Carlson’s interviewing skills. 

"To be honest, I thought that he would behave aggressively and ask so-called sharp questions. I was not just prepared for this, I wanted it, because it would give me the opportunity to respond in the same way," Putin said in a Russian TV interview. "Frankly, I did not get full satisfaction from this interview.”

The most cringe moment of the interview occurred when Putin mocked Carlson for once wanting to be a CIA operative. 

Carlson was fired from Fox News in 2023, as his firebrand backing of Trump, role in a massive lawsuit, and allegations of a toxic workplace all became too much for Rupert Murdoch. However, despite losing the backing of the right-wing media giant, Carlson remains relatively popular and influential. Unsurprisingly, since going independent, the content he features in his interview show has drifted even deeper into the realm of conspiracy. He’s featured infamous conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, as well as a man who claimed he had drug-fueled sex with former President Barack Obama. 

Being roasted publicly by the subject of a loving interview hasn’t seemed to dampen Carlson’s love for Russia however. In a series of videos posted to his website, Carlson shows his viewers why Russia is superior to his home country. He made a loving video about the subway system in Moscow, set to swelling classical music, where he talks about how there are no “bums, or drug addicts, or rapists, or people waiting to push you on the tracks to kill you.” 

In another video, Carlson—who made millions hosting a television show for Fox News—stated that he had been “radicalized” against the leaders of the United States because of the grocery prices in Russia. He revels over the Moscow store offering such things as having to put in a coin to take a cart away and a “grocery cart escalator.”

“Seeing how much things cost and how people live will radicalize you against our leaders, that’s how I feel radicalized,” Carlson said. “We’re not making this up by the way, at all.”

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3akem3Mack LamoureuxJosh VisserNewsTucker CarlsonFar rightrussiaMediaPutin
<![CDATA[The GOP Has Impeached Alejandro Mayorkas and the Far Right Loves It]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/y3w495/alejandro-mayorkas-dhs-secretary-impeachment-far-right-reactionWed, 14 Feb 2024 19:44:22 GMTProponents of the racist “great replacement” theory are gloating after the GOP-led House of Representatives narrowly voted to impeach DHS Secretary Alexander Mayorkas on Tuesday.

All but three Republican House members voted to impeach Mayorkas for allegedly failing to enforce immigration laws, making him the first cabinet member to face impeachment in almost 150 years.

The proposition will most likely be squashed when it goes before the Democratic-controlled Senate for trial. But the vote alone has bolstered the spirits of the far right, which sees it as further proof that it has allies in Congress.

“Big news,” white supremacist Nick Fuentes said on a livestream Tuesday. “The House has finally voted to impeach the Jewish DHS secretary Alexander Mayorkas.”

“Got 'em,” white supremacist Jason Kessler, one of the organizers of the violent 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, wrote on Telegram. The Jew Mayorkas has been impeached.”

“Bolshevik Mayorkas now must be tried [for] treason,” wrote conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer David Wolfe on Telegram. “Will the Senate try him?”

The “great replacement” conspiracy theory claims that there is a nefarious plot to diminish the influence of white Americans via immigration. In its most extreme iterations, Jews are cast as the masterminds of the plot.

The far right has recently made Mayorkas, who is Jewish, the face of the great replacement conspiracy theory. Mayorkas briefly sat on the board of HIAS—the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society—which was originally founded to help Jews fleeing pogroms in Europe, and today helps refugees and at-risk immigrants get settled in the United States. The far right also views the organization as a key facilitator of “the great replacement.” The white supremacist who opened fire on the Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018, killing 11, railed against HIAS online before his deadly attack.

GOP members of Congress and right-wing commentators have repeatedly accused Mayorkas of “intentionally” facilitating an “invasion” of the U.S.

In an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called on the Senate to “remove this traitor [Mayorkas] who has invited the invasion of America.”Former Trump advisor Stephen Miller wrote on X that Mayorkas will “be tried before the Senate, the nation and history of his sinister role in masterminding Biden’s invasion of our Republic.”

“The kind of damage he’s done to cities and families is something you expect from a hostile adversary looking to destabilize and destroy America,” said Texas Rep. Beth Van Duyne in a first impeachment hearing last week, which resulted in a failed vote.

Earlier this month a coalition of Jewish organizations, including HIAS, released a statement expressing alarm about what they perceived as the normalization of great replacement conspiracy theories and antisemitism in relation to efforts to impeach Mayorkas.

“We now see Members of Congress and other leaders arguing that Secretary Mayorkas is intentionally orchestrating an “invasion’ and the ‘replacement’ of Americans,” they wrote.

“These dangerous, dehumanizing conspiracy theories have fueled a cycle of deadly violence against Jewish, Hispanic, Black, Muslim, and other communities in recent years – and we are deeply concerned that such bigotry and divisiveness will only make our community, and so many others, even less safe at this tenuous moment.”

The great replacement conspiracy theory was paraded through the streets of Charlottesville in August 2017, when neo-Nazis and white supremacists chanted “you will not replace us” and “Jews will not replace us.” It has since had a profound influence on white supremacist terrorists; it was referenced by Tree of Life shooter, by the man who opened fire on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019, by the man who targeted Latinos at a supermarket in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019, and by the man who opened fire on Black supermarket shoppers in Buffalo, New York, in May 2022.

Despite the clear links between the conspiracy theory and violence, in recent years the “great replacement” narrative has made its way out of white supremacist online forums and gained ground in mainstream political rhetoric. Multiple polls have found that half of Republicans believe in the core tenets of the conspiracy theory—and those same tenets have made their way into recent speeches by former President and presumptive GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. It was even explicitly embraced  by former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy during a debate.

Mayorkas stands accused of releasing migrants into the U.S. when they should have been detained, and lying to lawmakers about the situation at the border—both allegations he denies.

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y3w495Tess Owenchloe angyalNewsFar rightGreat Replacement TheoryantisemitismAlejandro Mayorkasimmigrationimpeachmentneo-nazis
<![CDATA[The Far Right Is Spreading Misinformation Claiming the Lakewood Church Shooter Was Trans]]>https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v7bnna/lakewood-church-shooting-houston-far-right-misinformation-claiming-suspect-transgenderTue, 13 Feb 2024 16:10:55 GMTThe far-right is desperate to make “trans terrorism” a thing. So desperate, in fact, that it’s willing to push out incorrect or false information just to shore up their baseless narrative that trans people are inherently dangerous. 

The latest example has played out since Sunday, when a woman, with her 7-year-old son in tow, walked into the Lakewood megachurch in Houston, Texas, and opened fire with an AR-15. 

The shooter, 36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno, was killed by armed off-duty law enforcement at the church, which is run by celebrity televangelist Joel Osteen. Two people were wounded: A 57-year-old man, and the shooter’s son, who was critically injured. 

On Monday, the account Libs of TikTok, which targets LGBTQ people and has been accused of inspiring bomb threats against dozens of schools nationwide, posted a document online that suggested the shooter had used the name “Jeffrey.”

“The Lakewood Church shooter was transgender,” Libs of TikTok asserted. “Another act of trans terrorism. We need to have a national conversation about the LGBTQ movement turning youth into violent extremists.”

Chaya Raichik, the far-right activist who runs the account, also asked “what kind of hormones and drugs was the trans terrorist who shot up the Texas church taking?” Elon Musk also weighed in, suggesting that hormones taken in most gender affirming care regimens “could be a major causal factor in violence.” There is no evidence for this claim.

In a press conference later on Monday, police officials noted that, although the shooter appeared to utilize both male and female names, they found no indication that she ever identified as anything but a cisgender woman. 

So far, it’s unclear why the shooter targeted Osteen’s church. According to a social media post unearthed by CNN, the shooter donated to the Lakewood Church in March 2020. Police say that they discovered “antisemitic writings” among her personal items, and her AR-15 was emblazoned with a sticker saying “Palestine.” Police also said there was some sort of “familial dispute” that took place between her ex-husband and her ex-husband’s family, some of whom are Jewish. 

The shooter was also being treated for schizophrenia, according to a Facebook post by her ex-mother-in-law, Rabbi Walli Carranza. Carranza described her as a “very sweet and loving woman,” and railed against the fact that Texas does not have a “red flag law” in place that would allow concerned family members to remove firearms from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others. The shooter legally purchased her AR-15 in December 2023, police said. 

“[The shooter] had a particular kind of schizophrenia that caused her to become violent,” Carranza told KHOU, a CNN affiliate. “She threatened her husband, my own son, and we still couldn’t get intervention.” 

In addition to having an extensive history of mental health troubles, the shooter has a long criminal record which includes, among other things, forgery, theft, assault of a detention officer, and unlawful carrying of a weapon. 

The far-right has been laser focused on the concept of “trans terrorism”—just one prong of their all-out assault on LGBTQ rights—ever since a transgender man carried out a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville where he was once a student. 

Following that shooting, which unleashed a fresh wave of transphobia from the right, Donald Trump Jr. falsely claimed that there had been “an incredible rise” in mass shootings perpetrated by trans people. Fact checkers debunked that claim, noting that there had been four shootings perpetrated by transgender people in the space of five years—and that mass shootings are overwhelmingly committed by cisgender men. 

Since the Nashville shooting, in the wake of other mass shootings, far-right accounts like Libs of TikTo typically scramble to uncover a “link” between the attack and the LGBTQ community. 

There is no evidence to support claims that transgender people are more prone to violence, and researchers have historically struggled to identify a correlation between testosterone and violence. There is, however, mountains of evidence showing that transgender people disproportionately experience violence, and that hormonal therapy for trans teens and adults significantly improves mental health and lowers the rate of suicidal ideation. 

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v7bnnaTess Owenchloe angyalNewslakewood churchJoel Osteengun violenceFar rightLibsoftiktokAnti-transelon muskchaya raichik