#SeditionHunters - "arrest Friday" is back! Not just in numbers but in importance: the first arrest in awhile of a perp with an "organizational" role on Jan 6. But first, the colorful & violent #PinstripeBoilersuit, FBI #37 and #94, Josiah Kenyon of NV..1/
#PinstripeBoilersuit was ID'd within days of the Capitol attack: a witness told FBI they'd met him on the Washington Metro, gave his motel, ID'd from motel records. Arrests often lag IDs by many months, presumably to not overload the court system. 2/ justice.gov/usao-dc/press-…
And now, the biggest of the big game, hunted for months, the two who ran the breaches on West and East sides of the Capitol - #MaroonPB and #ZZtopPB. The #1 arrest priority for many, not the leaders of the insurrection but on-the-ground executors. 3/
We knew #MaroonPB (Ronald Loehrke of GA) was a Marine from his tattoos, here he is in uniform 2012. #ZZTopPB is James Haffner of South Dakota. Cannot emphasize enough how huge this is. 4/
Indictment is sealed but there's a press release, that doesn't fully explain their role. #MaroonPB was the absolute first perp we made a reel of, before even Proud Boys leader Joe Biggs. He's key to understanding the organization of the Capitol attack. 5/ justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/two…
Here's a "trailer" for the updated #MaroonPB reel, from June. He gave the signal for the taking of the W. Plaza, walked around the Capitol and helped initiate the NE breaches. He was the first clue to the larger organization of the attack. 6/
Here's the reel itself, over 19 minutes - #MaroonPB was everywhere, almost always with #ZZTopPB. If anyone wonders why #SeditionHunters have said for months there was organization - just watch. With this arrest we should expect other big ones too. 7/
Here's #MaroonPB urging people to go from West to East sides of the Capitol to help with the NE breaches - "don't back down patriots - the whole f--ing world is watching you!" (find by @RavenDragon2015) 8/
Here's #MaroonPB at the front of the NE barricade breach. In the yellow hat in front is #LemonyKickit who also moved from W to E to help push through police lines and keep the breaches synchronized. 9/
Here's #MaroonPB in a meeting on the E. Steps so suspicious it got its own hashtag, #J6EastMeet: talking with cops, gesturing. The silver-haired man in front is Warren Gilbert (#GnarleyParley), father of Joey Gilbert who is running for NV governor. 10/
After the E steps meeting, #MaroonPB walked around on E. Plaza and had a triumphal hug with a guy wearing a hat from the Navy VFA-81 Sunliners. 11/
Then #MaroonPB made his way to the top of the E. steps in time for the breach attempts, where #ZZTopPB bear-sprayed the officers guarding the Capitol. (h/t @StevieG54099097 for all video). 12/
#MaroonPB was one of the first people into the Capitol through the main E doors breach, hauled in by people waiting on the inside. He goes in so fast you may have to pause to see him; he's out of frame 6 seconds into the video. He stood out at the Capitol for his competence. 13/
Inside the Capitol #MaroonPB joined the early group in Sen. Merkley's office - not the later pot-smoking crowd, but one with several perps suspected of having roles. 14/
The complaint for #MaroonPB (Loehrke) & #ZZTopPB (Haffner) is public: 25 pages that summarize work by #SeditionHunters over many months. All his Capitol sightings, hotel Jan 5th, earlier Proud Boy marches. Finding him was a true crowdsourced manhunt. 15/ justice.gov/usao-dc/press-…
The complaint adds new insight from phone searches: #MaroonPB is a friend of arrested Proud Boy leader Ethan Nordean (#Rufio), who asked #MaroonPB to be "on the front line" with him. Reply from #MaroonPB - he'd bring three "bad mother f---ers" with him. 16/
Journos who call Jan 6 a riot (or complain about DOJ's pace): conspiracy indictments are coming. There was organization; FBI knows it; the hundreds of #SeditionHunters who upended their lives to help know it. The dominoes were being stacked for months and they will now fall. 17/
Journos: to understand how large these efforts are, search Twitter under the hashtags. So many people contributed to this effort they can't all be named. See how much it took. Here's @22ColeRin in March teaching people how to even find #MaroonPB. 18/
The Capitol attack is too big for one person to work out, even a small investigative team. It takes hundreds. Look at one new video from the Plaza, less than a minute long - 98 total hashtags on the front lines facing down police, including all the Proud Boys leadership. 19/
h/t @AlHunt08657198 for the annotation, but it took hundreds to find, describe, categorize perps. It's been a massive, grinding effort, but it will be solved. Perps like #MaroonPB are the threads to pull to untangle the whole story, and FBI is pulling them. 20/
Journalists please understand - collaborative efforts are the only way to find truth in complicated datasets. Society has worked out how to do this - people come together to attack a problem. If we can do this for black holes (below), surely we can do it for democracy too. 21/
Update to clarify: #MaroonPB & #ZZTopPB had moved to GA and SD only recently; both lived in Seattle (Nordean's hometown) on Jan 6. So they're now marked as "Pacific NW" in the PB table (bit.ly/CapitolPBTable). The Western states combined now match a hotspot like FL, NY, AZ. 22/
The PNW connection should have been caught earlier: #MaroonPB stuck so close to two Proud Boys on Jan 6 morning they got flagged as "friends" in his reel in April - we now know they are Jeffrey & Jeremy Grace of Battle Ground, WA. PBs on Jan 6 largely moved in state groups. 23/
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Reminder: Elon Musk, whose Starship just blew up on the test stand (with its extra fuel tanks nearby), was allowed for THIRTY YEARS to lie about his training in science. He started lying in 1995, kept lying - and suffered no consequences. But physics itself has consequences. 1/
Just listen to the man's nonsense about how he is shaped by physics and consider: the press allowed him to bullshit like this for 30 YEARS. Of course he got convinced he can just make up his own reality. If anyone died in the Starship explosion tonight, blame the press too. 2/
In 2022 I did a 69-Tweet thread on Elon's fake AstroBoy Genius image, hoping to ward off what was coming: Elon helping to overthrow democracy. What you saw on the launchpad tonight, that's what he's doing now to US science, to our country: exploding it. 3/
Sure, it's funny that Fox News is now using "86" in talking about a fired reporter, when less than a month ago they demanded the FBI investigate "86" as a death threat. But the joke is on us. Performative outrage over bullshit is a test of YOU, to see if you'll accept it. 1/
You can't criticize Fox's words as hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is when someone committed to the truth is inconsistent. Fox and others are post-truth: they're just making noises to see if they can get you to react. They're gaming you. 2/
All of us have a psychological need for rationality. We need to feel that words have meaning, that people mean what they say. We do understand that people lie: a lie is a meaningful but false statement, to deceive. But what Fox is doing here is worse, and harder to cope with. 3/
ABC's explanation of why they suspended correspondent Terry Moran misuses the word "objective". Moran said Stephen Miller was a "world-class hater" and "his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment". Those are objectively true statements. Miller's hatred is deeply documented. 1/
Moran ascribed to Miller an emotion: "hatred". A decade of reporting has documented, objectively, that Miller hates. In 2018, LA Mag interviewed his high school classmates and reported their stories of how Miller hated minorities. "Hate" is their word. 2/ lamag.com/politics/steph…
Terry Moran also said that for Stephen Miller, "hatred is his spiritual nourishment". That's colorful language, but also documented. Here's a high school classmate of Miller's with a story of Miller saying awful, provocative things to immigrants: "he wanted to be hated". 3/
Reminder: Trump has tried this before. It's part of his dream of control, to send in the National Guard against the will of a state or mayor. On May 29, 2020, he Tweeted the threat: "Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.." 1/
Trump has also overtly sought a Secretary of Defense willing to order the National Guard to shoot at protestors. In 2020 he fired Mark Esper and put in Chris Miller for that reason. Pete Hegseth may face a terrible test now. 2/
On Jan 6, the National Guard arrived late likely because sane heads in the Pentagon delayed them til local police had regained control, out of fear of what Trump might order. There are fewer sane heads now. Hegseth is already failing his test. 3/
Howard Lutnick, our Sec. of Commerce, shows a disconnect from material reality that will make Americans die. A weather forecast cannot be "automated" or MADE AT ALL without data. And Trump is cutting the satellites and weather stations that provide that data. 1/
Lutnick, who is in charge of NOAA and its National Weather Service, seem to think that if you say "web" and "cloud" and "computer" and "AI" then by some magic knowledge appears. But weather forecasts depend on MEASUREMENTS. Which Lutnick is cutting. 2/ kcci.com/article/propos…
The proposed NOAA budget cuts both current satellite operations and planned future satellites meant to make better predictions. Lutnick's testimony suggests: people have forgotten that not everything is a simulation, that reality exists (and bites). 3/ spacenews.com/omb-suggests-n…
Since Frank Luntz is defending Elon Musk, a recap: Luntz, like Roger Stone, was one of "Arthur's boys", mentored by Arthur Finkelstein, the dark lord of negative campaigns who (tho gay and Jewish), pushed homophobic far-right extremists - and gave us Orban, Netanyahu, & Trump. 1/
It was the Jewish Arthur Finkelstein who created the antisemitic George Soros conspiracy, to propel Victor Orban to power. Anything to get his clients elected. Everything Luntz says now is shaded by that history. 2/ buzzfeednews.com/article/hnsgra…
It was Arthur Finkelstein who brought in Roger Stone's partner Paul Manafort - who had been working for a pro-Russian politician in Ukraine - as Trump's first campaign manager. 3/