Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Several white supremacist domestic terrorism groups are celebrating the Rittenhouse acquittal, and they see it as proof they can kill as many non-white folk and white allies as they want to "purify" the nation.

In the minutes after a jury acquitted 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse on all counts, jubilation lit up on social media spaces where far-right extremists gather.

In one Telegram channel for the far-right Proud Boys, some noted they had taken the day off work to await the verdict. "There's still a chance for this country," wrote one. In another channel, a member stated that political violence must continue. "The left wont stop until their bodied get stacked up like cord wood," he wrote.

Rittenhouse himself is not known to be a member of an extremist group. But the trial, which from its beginning became a cause and rallying cry among conservatives who champion gun rights, has been particularly alarming to extremism researchers.

As it played out against the backdrop of an increasingly polarized nation, experts of far-right movements say opportunists found a growing audience for their violence-fueled messaging that targets the left. Now that a jury has found that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense, those concerns are recentering on the question of whether it may embolden others to engage in political violence.

"This might be interpreted across the far right as a type of permission slip to do this kind of thing or to seek out altercations in this way, believing that there is a potential that they won't face serious consequences for it," said Jared Holt, a resident fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council. "I worry that that might end up being interpreted by some people as a proof of concept of this idea that you can actually go out and seek a 'self-defense situation,' and you'll be cheered as a hero for it."

Holt said the verdict also prompts questions about whether far-right extremists may become more visible at public demonstrations.

"Broadly speaking, the far right has been a bit reluctant to turn out in person for things, especially on larger national scales or on issues with a lot of national attention," he said. "But this could change that dynamic."

 

I don't know if this will spawn copycat killings, where lunatics will test "stand your ground" laws during Black Lives Matter demonstrations or rallies. All I know for sure is that Black folk are going to be made to suffer.

You should be terrified of angry white men as CNN's John Blake points out.They have free license to kill.

The Brute. The Buck. And, of course, the Thug. 

Those are just some of the names for a racial stereotype that has haunted the collective imagination of White America since the nation's inception. 

The specter of the angry Black man has been evoked in politics and popular culture to convince White folks that a big, bad Black man is coming to get them and their daughters.
I've seen viral videos of innocent Black men losing their lives because of this stereotype. I've watched White people lock their car doors or clutch their purses when men who look like me approach. I've been racially profiled.

It's part of the psychological tax you pay for being a Black man in America -- learning to accept that you are seen by many as Public Enemy No. 1. 

But as I've watched three separate trials about White male violence unfold across the US these past few weeks -- the Kyle Rittenhouse trial, the Ahmaud Arbery death trial and the civil case against organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville -- I've come to a sobering conclusion: 

There is nothing more frightening in America today than an angry White man. 

It's not the "radical Islamic terrorist" that I fear the most. Nor is it the brown immigrant or the fiery Black Lives Matter protester, or whatever the latest bogeyman is that some politician tells me I should dread. 

It's encountering an armed White man in public who has been inspired by the White men on trial in these three cases.

Fear. Terror. Anguish.

Every day for us.

The psychic damage is enormous.

But Black Lives Matter.

The Big Lie, Con't

I'm beginning to think the Big Lie folks like MyPillow exec Mike Lindell, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney "The Kraken" Powell and the rest of the merry band of Trump election fiddlers are about to get hit with some serious federal election tampering charges.

Federal and state investigators are examining an attempt to breach an Ohio county’s election network that bears striking similarities to an incident in Colorado earlier this year, when government officials helped an outsider gain access to the county voting system in an effort to find fraud.

Data obtained in both instances were distributed at an August “cyber symposium” on election fraud hosted by MyPillow executive Mike Lindell, an ally of former president Donald Trump who has spent millions of dollars promoting false claims that the 2020 election was rigged.

The attempted breach in Ohio occurred on May 4 inside the county office of John Hamercheck (R), chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners, according to two individuals with knowledge of the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigations. State and county officials said no sensitive data were obtained, but they determined that a private laptop was plugged into the county network in Hamercheck’s office, and that the routine network traffic captured by the computer was circulated at the same Lindell conference as the data from the Colorado breach.

Together, the incidents in Ohio and Colorado point to an escalation in attacks on the nation’s voting systems by those who have embraced Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was riddled with fraud. Now, some Trump loyalists pushing for legal challenges and partisan audits are also targeting local officials in a bid to gain access to election systems — moves that themselves could undermine election security.

An FBI spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that the bureau is investigating the incident in Lake County but declined to comment further. Investigators are trying to determine whether someone on the fifth floor of the Lake County government building improperly accessed the computer network and whether any laws were violated.

Investigators with the office of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) believe a government official appears to have facilitated the attempted breach of the election network in Lake County, a spokesman for LaRose said.

Asked in a telephone interview whether he knew of the attempted breach or participated in it, Hamercheck said he was advised not to discuss the investigation. “I’m aware of no criminal activity,” Hamercheck said, and added: “I have absolute confidence in our board of elections and our IT people.”

Ahead of the incidents in Ohio and Colorado, county officials in both places — including Hamercheck — discussed claims of election fraud with Douglas Frank, an Ohio-based scientist who has done work for Lindell, according to people familiar with Frank’s role, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.

Frank, who has claimed to have discovered secret algorithms used to rig the 2020 election, has been traveling the country trying to convince election officials that the vote was riddled with fraud — and that they should join the effort to uncover it, he told The Washington Post in a series of interviews.

Frank has told The Post in recent months that he has visited “over 30 states” and has met with about 100 election administrators. He would not say how many local election administrators he has persuaded to join his cause. “I deliberately protect my clerks. I don’t want anybody to know who they are,” Frank said.

 

The good news is if these idiots are leaving a forensics trail visible from Alpha Centauri, it's going to be pretty easy to toss them in the clink.

 

The bad news of course is Republicans are only going to try to make this all as legal as possible at the state level in places like Wisconsin, Georgia, and Ohio. My greatest fear is that by the time 2022 actually gets done, we'll be looking at a 2023 where Republicans will rule all but the Mid-Atlantic, new England, and the Left Coast, with Illinois in the middle, and Biden will be under siege.

 

And in the majority of states, elections simply won't matter. Not when Republicans will control 75%+ of US House and state legislature seats even with 45-48% of the state's votes. Democracy won't be able to survive that. 

Look at Ohio's new congressional district map approved Friday.

Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill creating new Ohio congressional districts for 2022 and 2024 that likely will strengthen Republicans’ already-dominant share of the state’s congressional delegation.

The bill, approved by Republican state lawmakers earlier this week, favor Republicans to win 12 out of Ohio’s 15 congressional districts. Only two districts would be safely Democratic, with a third Democratic-leaning district joining Akron with suburban Cleveland projected as a toss-up, according to modeling from Dave’s Redistricting App, a widely used redistricting website.

Because the map was approved without Democratic votes, it will expire after four years, instead of the typical 10 years bipartisan maps would have been in effect. It will almost certainly be challenged in court. Because the map lacks Democratic support, it also will face tougher legal requirements, forbidding it from “unduly” being noncompact or benefitting either political party or its incumbents.

The map is the first approved under Ohio’s new redistricting rules, overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2018 as an anti-gerrymandering reform. The new system was designed to encourage bipartisan support. But Republicans approved both the congressional map and new state legislative maps finalized in September without gaining a single Democratic vote.

 

So instead of 12-4 Republicans, it's now 12-3, and most likely 13-2.  Instead of 75% of districts with 51% of the vote, Republicans in Ohio would get 86%. And four years from now, Ohio Republicans will just update the map to keep it this bad. They get to redistrict every four years now instead of ten.

What a great update to Ohio's state constitution. No wonder Republicans were happy to put it on the ballot, it gives them permanent control of the state in perpetuity.

This is what we're up against.

The era of mass disenfranchisement.