For the last month I've been attending online webinars from election denial groups who are ramping up their efforts to try and disrupt the 2024 presidential election.

Here's what I found out:

(with typically wonderful art from @AnjaliNair25)

1/7

wired.com/story/election… True the Vote and founder Catherine Engelbrecht have been trying to disenfranchise voters for more than a decade, but as the November elections rolls around they are now looking to recruit thousands of local activists to challenge voter rolls and disrupt election locations

2/7

Russia's media is this morning celebrating a huge victory thanks to #TuckerCarlson's softball interview with Putin last night.

Here's how the Kremlin-backed outlets, as well as Telegram channels, and bot networks are spinning the encounter.

1/6

wired.com/story/tucker-c… The homepages of all Russian media are dominated by stories about the interview. State-run news agency RIA Novosti's newsfeed had at least a dozen stories published since last night — focusing on how Putin had succeeded in "educating" the west about Russia/Ukraine history

2/6

Going to be monitoring the #takeourborderback convoy here today, watching numerous livestreamers who are in Viriginia broascasting from the convoy as it gets ready to depart for Texas

1/x

wired.com/story/extremis… Last night some of those involved got kicked out of the parking lot where they were set to meet this morning, prompting a last-minute change of venue



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https://twitter.com/ZTPetrizzo/status/1751786949495644637

Tensions on the Texas border are already sky high, with GOP lawmakers calling for civil war & Trump calling to deploy the national guard

Now a convoy, organized by a far-right extremist who wants to hunt down migrants, is about to make things worse

1/5
wired.com/story/extremis… The #TakeBackOurBorder convoy is spearheaded by Pete Chambers who claims to be a former green beret and plans to deploy tactics used fighting ISIS in Syria against migrants crossing the border.

Here he is on Alex Jones talking about deploying a "domestic internal defense"

2/5

How did Bannon and Carlson, two of the biggest MAGA influencers, end up boosting a conspiracy that Ireland's government is replacing its population with "people from the third world"?

The answer is Keith Woods (a Roscommon native whose real name is Keith O'Brien)

A 🧵... Woods, who has blocked me, was a student at NUIG where he studied philosophy.

He can be seen in this picture (back row, 3rd from left) which was taken at an intervarsity debating competition where Woods (or O'Brien as he's referred to in the caption) came 2nd.

Irish Garda Commissioner Drew Harris this morning said that there's no way when the stabbing happened they "could have anticipated" the #DublinRiots

It was the first thing I expected when I heard about the stabbing.

Anyone paying attention knew this was coming.

A short 🧵 Last year, @globalextremism warned that white nationalist, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant and anti-lockdown groups in Ireland “seem to be coming together and echoing each other’s hateful rhetoric."

The report was largely ignored with one Irish journalist calling it "disinformation"

It has been quite a week in QAnon world....so if you're sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner today, it might be good to know just what your crazy uncle from Florida is talking about.

Here's a short 🧵... Elon Musk began the week by reviving the Pizzagate conspiracy, a precursor to QAnon that many within the movement still believe to be true, even though it was thoroughly debunked

edition.cnn.com/2023/11/20/tec…

Moms for Liberty claim to be protecting children, but the group's interference in Tony's life almost cost him his life.

Here's his story:

🧵 1/8

vice.com/en/article/dy3… Tony had been messaging a boy who went to his church since June 2021, when, one Sunday morning in January 2022, the boy's parents outed Tony to his parents.

Tony's mother's reaction was not good. "She kept telling me that I was going to hell"

2/8

vice.com/en/article/dy3…

Meet Nicole Sirotek, a former nurse who has become an anti-vaxx superstar and is using her platform not only to spread disinformation but also harass real nurses who are trying to debunk her lies

1/6

vice.com/en/article/bvm… Sirotek shot to fame in 2020 for this video where she claimed NYC hospitals, then the epicenter of the pandemic, were murdering patients for money and compared the ICU to a Nazi gas chamber.

2/6

NEW:

A month after being exposed as the operators of an Ohio-based neo-Nazi homeschool group, the Lawrences have spoken publicly for the first time.,

Defending their Nazi-infused cirriculum, they call it "so wholesome" and "just extra fun"

1/6

vice.com/en/article/epz… The Lawrences spoke to the white suprematist website the Justice Report, which has ties tothe National Justice Party, which Katja Lawrence promoted in her Dissident Homeschool group encouraging members to join and meet up in real life

2/6

vice.com/en/article/epz…

NEW: For the last decade, Travis Vernier worked with the @OKCPD as a decorated officer, earning the Medal of Honor, his department's highest award.

But since 2020, he led a double life as one of MAGA world's favorite election conspiracists.

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vice.com/en/article/v7v… As Election Wizard, Vernier quickly gained fame in the world of election conspiracies around the 2020 presidential election.

Within the space of a few months he had gathered 130,000 followers, and then Donald Trump shared one of his videos

2/6

vice.com/en/article/v7v…

New from me:

The Ohio Department of Education has finished its investigation into the neo-Nazi homeschooling group...and appears to have concluded there's nothing it can do

1/6

vice.com/en/article/5d3… The department effectly concluded that it has very little power to control what parents teach their children at home, and oversight falls to the superintendent.

2/6

vice.com/en/article/5d3…

NEW: Inside a Nazi homeschooling group run by the Lawrences, a couple from Upper Sandusky, OH, and parents of four young children.

The group has almost 2,500 member and the founders say its aim is "making sure that children become wonderful Nazis”

1/6

vice.com/en/article/z34… Katja Lawrence said last year that she founded the group because she was "having a rough time finding Nazi-approved school material for [her] homeschool children"

2/6

vice.com/en/article/z34…

Just an update on #CPACHungary. As far as I can tell, no journalists from any US media outlet have been allowed entry to the event. Reporters from @voxdotcom @RollingStone and @NewYorker along with myself were all denied entry this morning. Representatives from @CPAC blamed their Hungarian colleagues who organized press accreditation. When asked if they were OK with no US media outlets being allowed in, they said: "You can watch it online."

Heading to Budapest today to cover #CPACHungary where American conservatives will come to learn how to be better conservatives by listening to authoritarian Hungarian leader Victor Orban, who will give the keynote speech At least the weather in Budapest is better

Facebook is facing lawsuits on both sides of the Atlantic brought by Rohingya Muslims who are demanding hundreds of billions of dollars in compensation from the company they say encouraged and facilitated the genocide in Myanmar

1/5

vice.com/en/article/qjb… And this is just the beginning.

"The lawsuits in the U.S. and England are not the only two suits that will be brought against Facebook over this genocide, they're just the first two suits,” @jayedelson, one of the lawyers involved, told me.

2/5

vice.com/en/article/qjb…

The Lin Wood-Michael Flynn war of words continues.

Wood's latest comment is a thinly veiled suggestion that Flynn is in fact Q

vice.com/en/article/k7w… Wood also claims his life has been threatened.

But that's not stopping him from speaking at QAnon John's next conference, called the Patriot Revival, which takes place in Las Vegas in February

Just a couple of weeks ago, Matthew Coleman joined members of his Christian surfing group for a memorial service for a deceased friend. Everything seemed normal.

This week he killed his 2 children, telling the FBI QAnon inspired him to do it.

vice.com/en/article/akg… @LillPerlmutter spoke people who knew Coleman, a well-known figure on the Santa Clara beaches just east of Santa Barbara, where he was born.

It was here he launched the Lovewater Surf school with his wife, teaching surfing interspersed with bible study

vice.com/en/article/akg…

Sitting GOP @replouiegohmert and @TexasGOP chair @AllenWest are both slated to speak at a QAnon conference next month.

The organizer of the "God & Country Patriots Roundup"
event says it’s not a QAnon event.

That organizer’s name? QAnon John

vice.com/en/article/dyv… @replouiegohmert @TexasGOP @AllenWest As well as Gohmert and West, the speaker line up includes multiple well-known QAnon influencers, George Papadopolous and the salon owner where Nancy Pelosi didn’t wear a mask.

vice.com/en/article/dyv…

Sequim is a small town in Washington State that made headlines when its mayor publicly backed QAnon

But for the GOP operative who helped him get elected the outburst would have come as no surprise

In fact, it was one of the reasons he was picked to run

vice.com/en/article/k7a… Donnie Hall, the GOP operative, would happily run another QAnon candidate so long as their views weren't too extreme — though his definition is extreme is questionable given he thinks Marjorie Taylor Greene is just misunderstood.

vice.com/en/article/k7a…

It's #March4th, and for many QAnon followers, that means Trump is about to return to the White House.

This is based on a conspiracy that emerged in the wake of Biden's inauguration and takes inspiration from the sovereign citizen movement

vice.com/en/article/88a… As the date approached and more media covered it, many major QAnon influencers dismissed the prediction, saying it was a "false flag" planted by the mainstream media to make QAnon look foolish.

vice.com/en/article/m7a…