A group of migrants huddle on a sidewalk in Martha’s Vineyard, MA on September 15, 2022 (Photo by Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Popular Information has obtained documentary evidence that migrants from Venezuela were provided with false information to convince them to board flights chartered by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R). The documents suggest that the flights were not just a callous political stunt but potentially a crime.
Last Wednesday, two planes landed in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and dropped off about 50 migrants from Venezuela. DeSantis quickly took credit. The migrants were used as political pawns in the hopes of provoking a negative reaction from a liberal community.
“When people are brought to their front door, they go berserk,” DeSantis said. “Their virtue signaling is a fraud.” But the people in Martha’s Vineyard did not go berserk. Instead, they rallied together to provide shelter, food, clothing, and other necessities for the group. On Friday, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (R) facilitated their voluntary relocation to Joint Base Cape Cod, which is “a safe temporary accommodation appropriate for the specific needs of families and individuals.”
The charter flights appear to be inspired by a Tucker Carlson monologue from July 26, in which the notoriously xenophobic host suggested sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in “huge numbers.”
DeSantis reportedly sent a videographer along for the ride, and Fox News obtained “exclusive footage of the migrants’ arrival.”
In the aftermath of the flights, a key issue of contention is whether the migrants boarded the flights freely and voluntarily. While DeSantis and his administration repeatedly referred to the migrants as “illegal immigrants,” the migrants surrendered to immigration officials after crossing the border into Texas. They are now seeking asylum from the repressive authoritarian regime in Venezuela. The migrants are legally permitted to remain in the United States while their cases are being considered by immigration courts.
So these migrants are able to voluntarily travel within the United States. But many of the migrants told reporters that they were misled about the nature of the flights. Several migrants told NPR they were told the flight was going to Boston, not Martha’s Vineyard. According to the migrants, a woman who identified herself as Perla also said that, if they traveled to Boston, they could receive “expedited work papers.”
The allegation that the migrants were misled is legally significant. It would mean that the flights were not just heartless, but potentially criminal. If the migrants were misled, the scheme to transport them to Martha’s Vineyard could constitute fraud, false imprisonment, or kidnapping. “There is absolutely the possibility of both civil and criminal liability if people were lied to about where they were going [or] what they were going to get when they got there,” lawyer Susan Church told Politico.
DeSantis has been adamant that the migrants were not misled. He claims that migrants were provided with a map showing the destination was Martha’s Vineyard and describes the flights as “all voluntary.” Appearing on Fox News on Sunday Morning, Florida Lt. Governor Jeanette Nunez (R) called allegations that the migrants were misled “categorically false.”
Popular Information, however, has obtained a brochure that was provided to the migrants who ultimately agreed to the flights. It was provided to Popular Information by Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based legal organization that represents 30 of the migrants. The brochure says that migrants who arrive in Massachusetts will be eligible for numerous benefits, including “8 months cash assistance,” “assistance with housing,” “food,” “clothing,” “transportation to job interviews,” “job training,” “job placement,” “registering children for school,” “assistance applying for Social Security cards,” and many other benefits.
None of this, however, is true.
Matt Cameron, a Boston-based immigration attorney, explained that the benefits described in the brochure are resettlement benefits available to refugees who have been referred by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and authorized to live in the United States. These benefits are not available in Massachusetts to the migrants who boarded the flights, who are still in the process of seeking asylum.
The migrants who boarded the planes “absolutely do not have access to cash, housing, and other resettlement benefits which are provided through both federal funds and partnerships with faith-based [organizations],” Cameron said.
The brochure, which is crudely designed to resemble a government document, does not explain that these benefits described are only available to specially designated refugees.
According to some of the migrants, the benefits described in the brochure were also promised verbally by Perla to lure them onto the planes chartered by DeSantis. “[T]hey told us that they were going to help us with the rent, to get a job, that was the only option left to us,” one migrant, Eduardo Linares, told the Texas Tribune. (Linares ultimately declined to board the flight.)
There could be real consequences for migrants who were convinced to board the flight under false pretenses. Seeking asylum is an “often years-long process through immigration courts that requires [migrants] to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement periodically.” Some migrants now find themselves thousands of miles away from where they need to report for their next check-in. A missed appointment can “be detrimental to their case.”
On Saturday, LCR wrote to U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, calling on them to open a formal investigation. “Individuals, working in concert with State officials, including the Florida Governor, made numerous false promises to LCR’s clients — including of work opportunities, schooling for their children, and immigration assistance — in order to induce them to travel,” LCR said in the letter. “[T]hose who had induced our clients to travel under these false pretenses disappeared, leaving our clients to learn that the offers of assistance had all been a ruse to exploit them for political purposes.”
DeSantis’ office did not respond to a request for comment about the brochure.
This is highly illegal and the trump people did it, repeatedly. It makes all future elections unsecure if those machines are used again. Will the trump maga cult be punished for these attacks on the voting machines? Hugs
Newly released videos show allies of former President Donald J. Trump and contractors who were working on his behalf handling sensitive voting equipment in a rural Georgia county weeks after the 2020 election.
One such incident took place on Jan. 7 of last year, the day after supporters of Mr. Trump stormed the Capitol, when a small team traveled to rural Coffee County, Ga.
The group included members of an Atlanta-based firm called SullivanStrickler, which had been hired by Sidney Powell, a lawyer advising Mr. Trump who is also a conspiracy theorist.
Videos show allies of Donald Trump and contractors who were working on his behalf handling sensitive voting equipment in a Georgia county weeks after the 2020 election. It was not immediately clear what, if anything, was done with any data. https://t.co/AZBcY7c5JR
On 1/18/21, Doug Logan was seen on camera entering the elections office in Coffee County, Ga., site of an alleged voting equipment breach. A week later, the $422,750 mortgage he took out in 2017 on his Sarasota, Fla. home was paid off. Logan has 12 kids. https://t.co/IPeFC62Dm9
Doug Logan paying of his mortgage after the shenanigans was reported in Sarasota about a year ago. He is connected to Michael Flynn, Charlie Kirk, Chris Pavloski, Caroline Wetherington, Steve Bannon, Andy Badolato, and especially Patrick Byrne.
After the investigation, Cyber Ninjas concluded there was no fraud in AZ and confirmed President Biden’s victory, he claimed the company was in bankruptcy. Now Logan says he will start a new company. (Hey, he has 12 kids to support)
This one of the most watched loudest voices in right wing media. Spreading more lies so more people will be targeted for violence and more LGBTQ+ events will get shut down by the Proud Boys gang thugs enforcement arm of the republican party. Grooming is when someone builds a relationship, trust and emotional connection with a child or young person so they can manipulate, exploit and abuse them. Children and young people who are groomed can be sexually abused, exploited or trafficked. Anybody can be a groomer, no matter their age, gender or race. Teachers are not groomers, nor are drag queens reading stories with parents present. The ones sexualizing kids is the right who are claiming anything they don’t like is sexualizing kids, and anyone they are against is a grooming pedophile. Kids understand gender from the time they notice mommy and daddy, brother and sister, and kids understand love attraction again because they see it at home, on TV, at church, anywhere there are people in relationships. They understand it if Mr. T and Mr. B are a couple that they love each other like their family. They are not sexualized to see a picture of a straight spouse on a teacher’s desk and they are not sexualized to see a picture of a same sex spouse on a teacher’s desk. It doesn’t sexualize them in anyway. It is just the world around them. What does sexualize them is what the right wing is doing, making children a sexual pawn to criminalize / ban everything you don’t like in society. Don’t bring the kids into your hate, be honest and just say you hate some and are against it. Don’t hide behind the kids. Hugs
“In a healthy country, with an intact social fabric, neighborhood dads would give out instant justice to anyone who even thought about sexualizing their kids.
“And if you doubt that, go out and try it in Bulgaria or South Africa or the Solomon Islands. Good luck. Let us know how that ends, if you can still speak.
“Libs of TikTok was being banned from the internet — why? Because it showed documentary evidence of what was happening. Some people described what was happening as grooming.
“We are not exactly sure what that means, but if it’s sexually abusing children — yeah, that is what’s happening. But the term groomer is now hate speech, says NBC News.
“What you’re seeing is a society that hates children. You would have to hate children in order to sexualize them. Because sexualizing children screws them up for life — ask anyone to whom it has happened — period.
“No one should put up with this. No parent should put up with this for one second, no matter what the law says. Your duty — your moral duty — is to defend your children.
“This is an attack on your children and you should fight back.” – Tucker Carlson, on last night’s show.
NEW: Sean Hannity accidentally SCREWS OVER Ted Cruz to his face on air. To demand the DOJ prosecute DeSantis and Abbott for their Martha’s Vineyard stunt, sign here 👉 https://odaction.com/prosecute-desant…
Religious goon spreads vicious lies about furries in schools. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET.
https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/st… “Right-wing preacher Andrew Wommack claims to have a friend who “actually knows a teacher that comes to school as a furry and wears ears and a tail and uses a litter box at the front of the classroom to relieve himself.”
Donnie Romero, a pastor who wished death to gay people, resigned after admitting to a few of his “sins.” Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks. Watch LIVE weekdays 6-8 pm ET. http://youtube.com/theyoungturks/live
“Donnie Romero — a pastor who gained national attention after his views on the Pulse nightclub shooting inspired a protest from LGBTQ advocates — has resigned. In a video posted to YouTube, Romero says that he had sinned by paying for sex, gambling and using drugs.
Romero — formerly the pastor of Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas — publicly voiced support for the Pulse nightclub gunman, who opened fire inside the popular LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando and killed 49 people. A June 2016 Dallas Morning News report says Romero’s words sparked a protest.
‘These 50 sodomites are all perverts and pedophiles, they’re the scum of the Earth and the Earth is a better place now and I’ll take it a step further,’ Romero said in a sermon published online, the publication reports. ‘I’ll pray to God like I did this morning, and I will again tonight, that God will finish the job that that man started,’ Romero said.”
Remember these are a large part republican’s brownshirt maga enforcers using threats of violence and scaring people into closing legal events and removing legal books while white washing the US history. They are the violent threat issuing part of the US Taliban and as the end of the article says they are normalizing political violence targeting the LGBTQ+ events / people. Hugs
Members of the Proud Boys march in Manhattan against vaccine mandates on 20 November 2021 in New York City. Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
Document of 23 pages shows the lengths to which the far-right group goes to prepare for potentially violent encounters and exposes the militaristic structure and language it has adopted
The document is so dowdy and formal it resembles the annual minutes of a society of tax accountants. Its index lists sections on “objectives” and “rules of engagement” and carries an “addendum” that provides recommendations for hotels and parking.
On the cover, two words give a clue to the notoriety of the group that produced it: “MAGA” and “WARNING”. That and the date: 5 January 2021, the day before the US Capitol attack.
Proud Boys developed plans to take over government buildings in Washington DC
Read more
What goes unsaid on the cover and is barely mentioned throughout the 23 pages is that this is the work of one of the most violent political gangs in America, the far-right street fighters who Donald Trump told to “stand back and stand by”: the Proud Boys.
The document, published by the Guardian for the first time, gives a very rare insight into the meticulous planning that goes into events staged by the far-right club.
The Proud Boys have been designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and are alleged to have acted as key organizers of the violent assault on the Capitol.
In the wake of January 6, which has been linked to the deaths of nine people, the New York march featured in the document was called off and the strategy so fastidiously laid out was never implemented. But the document remains sharply revealing.
It shows the lengths to which the Proud Boys go to prepare for potentially violent encounters and then to cover their tracks – something prosecutors have stressed but that has never been seen in the group’s own words. It exposes the militaristic structure and language the Proud Boys have adopted, and their aspiration to become the frontline vigilante force in a Trump-led America.
It also provides clues as to how the group continues to spread its tentacles throughout the US despite the fact that many of its top leaders, including its national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, are behind bars awaiting trial on charges of seditious conspiracy.
The purpose of the document is to provide a “strategic security plan” and call to action, summoning Proud Boys members to a pro-Trump Maga march that was scheduled for New York City on 10 January 2021. That was four days after Congress was to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election – the occasion that would be targeted by the fatal insurrection.
The document was obtained from a Proud Boys member by the extremism reporter Andy Campbell as he researched his new book, We Are Proud Boys: How a Right-Wing Street Gang Ushered in a New Era of American Extremism. The book will be published on Tuesday. Campbell shared the document with the Guardian.
The author of the document is Randy Ireland, who as president of the group’s New York branch, the Hell’s Gate Bridge Chapter, is one of the most prominent Proud Boys in the US north-east. The paper was circulated through Telegram, the encrypted chat app widely used by the Proud Boys as an organizing tool, to at least nine other chapters in New York and beyond.
Campbell told the Guardian the decentralized structure of the group, into what it claims are 157 active chapters in all but three states, is one of the Proud Boys’ greatest strengths, as reflected in the autonomous nature of the New York planning.
“Chapter leaders like Randy can create their own events, run independently of each other,” Campbell said. “Enrique Tarrio and other leaders are in prison, but these guys are going to continue what they are doing.”
‘We will not disappoint’
The language in the planning paper is overtly militaristic. Ireland designates himself “General of Security Detail”, while his underlings in the chain of command are “VPs” of “Recruiting”, “Scout Security” and “Team Leads”.
The plan is for 60 or so Proud Boys at the 10 January event in Manhattan to be corralled into seven “tactical teams” of five to eight men each (they are all men, as one of the overriding values of the group is misogyny). Members are told to bring protective gear, including “knife/stab protection, helmets, gloves, boots etc” and to make use of radio channels, walkie-talkies or Telegram to communicate with each other.
They are to stick together in groups and under no circumstances allow “Normies” – ordinary Trump supporters who are not Proud Boys – or “Females” into their ranks.
“Their presence will jeopardise the health and safety of all those involved with Security, and simply cannot be allowed to happen!” Ireland writes.
Maps reproduced at the back of the document show positions “scouts” and “tactical teams” should adopt at key points along the route of the march, which was planned to start at Columbus Circle and pass Trump Tower.
“That spot is understood in a very public way to hold special meaning for us,” the paper says, referring to Trump’s home on Fifth Avenue. “WE WILL NOT DISAPPOINT!”
Campbell, who has been reporting on the Proud Boys since they started turning up at Trump rallies in early 2017, describes them as America’s most notorious political fight club. In the planning paper, he sees equal parts fantasy and danger.
“These guys see themselves as super soldiers, like some sort of military outfit,” he said. “On one level it’s funny, as nothing is in fact going to pan out the way they say it will. But on another level, it’s alarming because it shows how much thought they put into this stuff.”
In We Are Proud Boys, Campbell traces the group from its birth in 2015-16 through to its central role on January 6 when a member, Dominic Pezzola, became the first person to breach the US Capitol. At least 30 Proud Boys have been charged in relation to the insurrection, including Tarrio and four others accused of seditious conspiracy – among the most serious indictments yet handed down.
The group was invented by the British-born founder of Vice magazine, Gavin McInnes, who branded himself a “western chauvinist” and peddled in bigotry. McInnes floated the Proud Boys name on his online chatshow in May 2016, introducing them as a “gang” and inventing a uniform, a black Fred Perry polo shirt with yellow trim.
McInnes was careful to brand his creation as harmless fun, a satirical male-only patriotic drinking club that later attached itself to all things Trump. But Campbell argues that from the outset political violence was baked in.
A Proud Boy was an organizer of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which an anti-fascist protester was murdered. The group has held violent gatherings in Portland, Oregon. Outside a Republican event in New York in 2018, several members were arrested and charged with felonious assault.
‘Street-level violence’
Proud Boys membership is structured into four ranks, known as “degrees”, the fourth granted once you “get arrested or get in a serious violent fight for the cause”, as McInnes himself explained. In an interview with Campbell for the book, McInnes denied promoting violence and insisted the Proud Boys were never proactively aggressive, only reacting to leftwing attacks.
That official line is reiterated in the document published by the Guardian. Ireland is careful to portray the Proud Boys as a defensive group.
He writes: “If any violence does spout off, all Proud Boys are expected to respond immediately – only so far as to eliminate and end that threat to them or others. VERY IMPORTANT: Once the threat has been neutralized, WE STOP!”
But there is a glaring contradiction: Ireland presents his chapter as a non-violent organization yet it goes out seeking violence. He assigns the group, uninvited, the role of a vigilante police force.
“We are there as the first line of defense for all event attendees,” he writes, then contradicts himself by saying the only role of the Proud Boys is to play a “back-up role” to law enforcement and to “force them to do their jobs”.
That speaks volumes. It carries the implication that if the police will not assail anti-fascist protesters, Proud Boys will.
“I’ve reported at Proud Boys events where they stood back and relaxed as police lobbed teargas and other munitions into the crowd of counter-protesters,” Campbell said. “Then the Proud Boys didn’t have to do what Randy Ireland is hinting at here – step in and do the fighting themselves.”
For Campbell, the most disturbing aspect of the document is that, with its soft-lensed double-talk and contradictory meanings, it falls into arguably the main ambition of the Proud Boys: the normalization of political violence. Despite having so many leaders behind bars, the group is prospering.
As new chapters pop up, Americans are increasingly inured to the idea of heavily armed gangs in public settings. Proud Boys have posed as “security details” at anti-abortion rallies, anti-vaccination demonstrations, pro-gun protests and of course Trump rallies.
“The street-level violence the Proud Boys helped to create is now being carried out by regular people,” Campbell said. “You saw it on January 6, you see it at Planned Parenthood and LGBTQ+ events where people are harassed and attacked by everyday Americans.”
The momentum behind the nation’s wave of book bans is growing. A total of 1,648 individual books have been banned as of June, according to a new report from PEN America, a nonprofit focused on defending the right to freedom of expression in literature, journalism, and education. Those banned titles were written by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators.
Out of those books, 674 titles, or 41 percent of all banned books, have an LGBTQ+ protagonist or secondary character or focus on LGBTQ+ themes. Another 659 times, or 40 percent, have a protagonist or prominent secondary character of color, and 338 banned books, or 21 percent, talk about issues of race or racism. Book bans have taken place in 138 school districts across 32 states. But there are three states that account for an overwhelming majority of the bans: Pennsylvania, Florida, and Texas.
The organization identified 50 groups operating at the national, state, or local level that advocate for bans in K-12 schools and said it appears that the majority of those groups formed in the last year. They range from local Facebook or online groups to more established conservative organizations.
One of those groups is Moms for Liberty, a conservative group that came together last year to fight for parental rights in Florida and has since spread across the country.
PEN America has identified another seven national groups with numerous chapters, as well as 38 groups operating at the state, regional, or community level that appear unaffiliated with the national groups or with one another, the report says.
Worth noting is that there are no books banned by liberal-left organizations, which have been maligned as being merchants of cancel culture. This makes clear that the true enemies of free speech are right wingers.
If you don’t like the subject of a book, don’t read it. Seems simple, right? But what do you expect from fascists, I mean, look at Monica, One Mad Mom. She has no idea that her TV has a Power Off button.
Scottie's Playtime 