Today's front page features our story on the loosely connected, QAnon-believing network of 'patriots' that spent weeks organizing and crowd-sourcing money for mass action at the Capitol on Jan. 6: nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/… w/ @ddknyt@mmcintire
Keith Lee, an Air Force veteran, was one of the far-right, low-budget agitators trying to 'Stop the Steal'. More than an hour before Trump's speech: “If you died today and you went to heaven, can you look George Washington in the face and say that you’ve fought for this country?”
Much is still unknown about the planning and financing of the Capitol siege. But it was partly driven by a largely ad hoc network of agitators like Mr. Lee — far-right militant, Christian conservative and QAnon adhering. “They think this fence is gonna stop us? Probably not.”
In the months leading up to the Capitol siege, Mr. Lee had helped organize a series of pro-Trump car caravans across the United States, including one that temporarily blockaded a Biden campaign bus in Texas and another that briefly shut down a Hudson River bridge in NYC.
To help pay for dozens of caravans to meet in D.C. on Jan. 6, Mr. Lee teamed up with an online fund-raiser in Tampa. It was one of many grass-roots efforts to bring Trump supporters to the Capitol, often amid calls for revolution, if not outright violence. nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/…
Others, like Oath Keepers, a far-right militia whose members breached the Capitol, had solicited donations online to cover “gas, airfare, hotels, food and equipment.” web.archive.org/web/2021010818…
The Oath Keepers, were among the groups like the neo-fascist Proud Boys directly going to the Capitol, bypassing Trump's speech.
Keith Lee, already at the Capitol, asked his followers that weren't able to come to D.C. to instead donate to the legal defense funds for Proud Boy leader Enrique Tarrio and Chandler Pappas.
For those that are in D.C., the Air Force veteran and former police detective has a message too: “Y'all get to the Capitol. We need to surround this place.”
Backed by surging crowds, Keith Lee had made his way into the Rotunda and by 3 p.m. —after a fellow assailant had been shot— he was back outside using his megaphone to urge other into the building. “If we do it together,” he insisted, “there’s no violence!”
When he knew that lawmakers had evacuated, Keith Lee declared victory: “We have done our job,” he shouted through his megaphone while exiting the Capitol.
Read the full story here: nytimes.com/2021/01/16/us/… — incl. details on Women for America First, a chief sponsor of many rallies leading up to the Capitol siege.
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The world looked on in shock as a pro-Trump “Save America” rally turned into a mob that swarmed past barriers and stormed the U.S. Capitol. Here’s some of what we know about the breach of the building and the mayhem that unfolded. nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/…
It’s around noon when groups begin to gather at various spots near the Capitol, where Congress is set to certify the election results. At the same time, Trump holds a rally, calling on his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol.”
Trump's call causes the group outside the Capitol to swell quickly. The earliest breach of the fenced perimeter we could find happened 200 meters west of the congressional building at 12:53 p.m., as seen in this @ElijahSchaffer video.
Barely a year ago, Ethiopia's PM Abiy was acclaimed as a peacemaker, a youthful African leader awarded the Nobel Prize after signing a peace deal with Eritrea. But this week, he started a sweeping military operation against Tigray, one of his own regions. nytimes.com/2020/11/04/wor…
“Mr. Abiy announced the operation on Facebook just before 2 a.m. on Wednesday, an hour after internet and phone links to the region went down, according to NetBlocks, an organization that tracks internet services.”
This famous portrait of poet W.H. Auden was taken by Richard Avedon amid a snowstorm in Manhattan on the morning of 3 March 1960. No one has ever been able to identify the precise location. Can you solve this historical geolocation challenge? There are more clues in the thread.
Stanford professor @audenfan is writing a poetic essay about the photo and would love to know where it was taken. “Location is revelation,” he says, and “poetry has always been strongly related to specific places.”
Mr. Auden lived at 77 Saints Marks Place in New York City, and @audenfan suspects the photo was taken somewhere in the Lower East Side or East Village. The width of the road suggests it may be an avenue rather than a cross street.
There are at least two F-16s at Ganja International Airport in Azerbaijan, our analysis of an Oct. 3 @planetlabs satellite image shows. The fighter jets are likely operated by the Turkish Air Force, alongside a possible CN-235 cargo aircraft. Here’s a short thread why.
We compared the approximate measurements and visual characteristics (canard wings, color, etc.) with a variety of aircraft, including those operated by the Azerbaijani Air Force (MiG-21, MiG-29, Su-25, L-39). The Turkish-operated F-16 is the closest match.
There's also a larger aircraft on the Ganja apron, which we think is likely to be a CASA/IPTN CN-235 transport aircraft, also used by the Turkish Air Force. (It does resemble an Alenia C-27 too, but less likely to be in Azerbaijan due to its operators). planespotters.net/photo/865513/9…
At least 7 people who attended ACB's nomination ceremony in the Rose Garden on Sep. 26 have since tested positive for coronavirus. But experts say the more risky time spent that day was at a reception inside the White House. Here are some scenes. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
The Trump administration doesn't voluntarily disclose White House visitor logs, so —for what it's worth— we used geotagged selfies and observations of Mark Walsh, @crousselle and @JenniferJJacobs to identify at least 70 guests in the Rose Garden during ACB's nomination ceremony.
For those interested in the methodology of identifying guests at ACB's nomination ceremony, here are some ways 👇
There's a lot of chatter about those “airborne nuclear command centers”, but these two Boeing E6A Mercury aircraft were indeed flying almost daily since over the past month, publicly available flight data shows: the AE0414 flew at least on 20 days, and the AE0415 at least 14.
The Boeing E6A Mercury #AE0414, one of those “flying nuclear command centers,” was publicly tracked on 20 out of the past 31 days.
And here's the flight data for that other E6A Mercury, #EA0415. It was publicly tracked on 18 out of the past 31 days. (That's 4 more days than I initially mentioned; I'm sleepy. H/t @Amstelsam and @BillDedman for making me properly fact-check these flights btw.)