#SeditionHunters - a chilling dispatch from Canadian reporter @mattgurney shows parallels between 'protests' in Ottawa now and DC Jan 6. In both cases: 'useful idiots' up front, grabbing press attention, & a harder, more purposeful group waiting behind. 1/ theline.substack.com/p/dispatch-fro…
Read this essential reporting. Gurney thinks the city of Ottawa has lost control: that harder elements ("disciplined, organized, and alert for outsiders") are now entrenched in a 2nd location, a group separate from the unwitting protestors, with a goal of disrupting the state. 2/
It's the Jan 6 playbook, eerily similar. Gurney says Ottawa police cannot move now without bloodshed ("dead cops, dead truckers"), short of military help. On Jan 6, Capitol/DC police miraculously called it right, found the only path out. But they faced bear spray, not trucks. 3/
Gurney's take: Canadian leaders are paralyzed by confusion and uncertainty. Media are distracted by the "bouncy castles and the Fuck Trudeau signs". The police see the trap but not a way out of it. It's Jan 6 with heavier weapons - a loaded semi weighs 80,000 pounds. 4/
More parallels: the astroturfed efforts to build a crowd (a sudden blitz of US-based Facebook pages); the untraceable donations (Politico: "unprecedented" in scale); promotion by the same 'influencers', some tied to Canadian Ezra Levant's Rebel Media. 5/ politico.eu/article/ottawa…
Levant's Rebel Media gave the world Gavin McInnes and his Proud Boys, also launched propagandist Jack Posobiec (1.6 M followers), a key driver of US election-fraud lies. Last month Posobiec's theme was Ukraine, Putin-worship; this month he's fundraising the invasion of Ottawa. 6/
In the US, the Capitol attack needed months of build-up. But the playbook is practiced now; Canada was faster. The rest of us (& media, politicians) must learn our lessons too: avoid bouncy-castle distraction, realize the danger, and respond decisively. 7/
Adding trucks to the playbook is a terrifying gamechanger. The US Capitol attack had a mob of 15,000, still didn't succeed. Invading Ottawa, the Canadian capitol, took just a few 100. Remember: five years ago in Nice, a single truck killed 86 people... 8/ abcnews.go.com/International/…
Gurney has a thread from Feb 5 with more details on the grim situation. He says "our enemies, foreign and domestic.. are taking careful notes". It will only get worse; Jan 6 is metastasizing: now Ottawa, soon Europe. We must act, together, to stop it. 9/
We can't be naive anymore. What's happened in DC & Ottawa are NOT protests over elections or vaccines. They are attacks on democracies, fed by outside $ and by carefully crafted conspiracy theories. Here's Pat King, organizer of the trucker convoy, talking regime change... 10/
Canada is a country of 38 million held hostage by a few hundred people. Without the money and the trucks, it's not even news. With money and trucks, and malign leaders, it's a national crisis. The only solution: remove money, trucks, and leadership. 11/ bbc.com/news/world-us-…
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#SeditionHunters - this week's Capitol attack court schedule, with some famous names in it coming up for status hearings: the Proud Boys leaders, rally speaker Simone Gold, the joint indictment of tunnel fighters. 1/
As a reminder that we have a full house on the "9 Leaders Leading" page of the Christmas VIP thread, with the entire top row arrested by FBI and the entire bottom row subpoenae'd by the Jan 6 Committee. The Biggs/Nordean/Rehl/Donohoe group has their status conference today. 2/
Simone Gold and John Strand, up for a status conference on Wednesday, also made the Christmas thread, on the "5 Anti-vaxxers" page. (Note one update: we had forgotten about Ty Bollinger, so he's now replaced Kennedy Lindsey who just can't make it into the A-list). 3/
#SeditionHunters - the Jan 6 Capitol attack required a crowd. A new timeline of the people who brought that crowd shows: the building blocks for Jan 6 were laid early, before the election. But the attack itself - in some form - was green-lit late, on the night of Dec. 18. 1/
A year’s work showed us the pipeline of #SeditionVIPs who streamed from rallies to Capitol grounds. Collecting a year’s notes into one timeline (and adding a 1500-page FOIA) makes the path to Jan 6 more clear. Read thread for a walkthrough - it’s a lot. 2/ docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
We focused on about 50 VIPs associated with rallies and crowd-building propaganda - maybe a quarter of the public figures at the Capitol on Jan 6. This walkthrough sticks to 2020, but the timeline includes their origins & back-stories... 3/
#SeditionHunters - Alex Jones finally appeared for his deposition yesterday, mostly pleading the 5th. To remind: on Jan 6 Alex began trekking to the Capitol exactly when needed to bring crowds, seemingly on instructions, and the whole InfoWars crew seemed to expect the attack. 1/
Alex did not rush to the Capitol - instead he leads a crowd there only about 1:34 PM, when the attack had stalled. It's the same moment Proud Boy Zach Rehl texts "We’re at a standstill, cops are dropping concussion bombs and pepper spraying..." 1/
You can see the sequence in our agency response timeline. Breaches are in red. Notice after an initial swift attack, there's a blank: for nearly an hour, officers held off the attack on the W. Plaza. That's when Rehl texts, and Alex Jones and Ali Alexander head to the Capitol. 2/
#SeditionHunters - now that his sentencing’s over, let’s talk MAGAfluencer Brandon Straka's role in the Capitol attack. Straka (500K on Twitter) led his “WalkAway” campaign since 2018, widely flagged as a Russian asset. On Jan 6, left the VIP section with Michael Flynn & co..1/
Straka’s story has an hour gap, then he arrives at the E. Capitol just as invaders wrest open the Columbus Doors, races up the steps. Claims he stayed just “a few minutes”, never saw violence. Watch the sync: his video is at L. Full footage at link: 2/
Straka was listed as a speaker for the Lot 8 Stop the Steal rally (never happened), but didn’t go there - instead ran up the steps where Proud Boy leader Joe Biggs was queuing. There's a clear view of Biggs' group just before someone tells Straka "Senators are running out!" 3/
#SeditionHunters - this week's court calendar for January 6 cases is big, as the most important sentencing yet comes today: MAGAfluencer Brandon Straka, one of the devil's crew of dividers & dirty tricksters who brought crowds to DC. (h/t @RubyWorms). 1/
Straka was arrested early, pled to one count of Disorderly Conduct, DOJ asks for 4 months of home detention + 3 years probation, but Straka whines that he deserves less: he innocently thought the Capitol attack was a protest. And yes: he's a journalist. 2/ s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2118…
DOJ recommendation is below. A bigger thread will come when sentencing is done, flagging now because so many missed his importance - and to suggest that journalists reach out to @davidalove of Rutgers who knows how important Straka is, why he matters. 3/ s3.documentcloud.org/documents/2117…
#SeditionHunters - the January 6 Committee now focuses on white nationalists / neo-Nazis, with subpoenas to Nick Fuentes (America First) & Patrick Casey (Identity Evropa). Fuentes spoke at all 3 DC rallies, VIP section Jan 6, brought over 200 of his Groypers to the Capitol...1/
Fuentes is deeply connected to the MAGAverse of influencers who brought people to the Capitol on January 6. The Committee's rationale includes rallies, Groypers, and strange foreign bitcoin donations... 2/
Fuentes left college after the 2016 Charlottesville march, hit it big on social media with a toxic combination of racism and religion. On Jan 6 his Groyper army invaded the Capitol with America First flags & Christian symbols (at R. they help lift the Jericho March cross). 3/