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Updates

Weekly: 1 Mar 2021


Happy March, here’s another weekly update. This week, the following is covered:

  • Further J6 updates, such as Greene’s connections to Capitol stormers
  • More legal updates, including The Base attempting to set up a white ethnostate in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
  • Other updates, like the revealing of a campaign photo of a sheriff posing with a Q fanatic

More J6 Updates

  • Last week, the total number of individuals charged in the US Capitol storming hit 275. Oregon leads this number by raw count.
  • A retired NYPD cop was arrested for his role in attacks on current police officers at the Capitol.
  • House Democrats pressed Facebook on their role as a ‘breeding ground’ for ‘polarization’ that caused the Capitol riot
  • After much reporting tying Roger Stone and Alex Jones to J6, the FBI says they are now investigating the ties of the two to the Capitol rioters
  • An ‘ally’ of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene took part in the Capitol riot. Anthony Aguero is a conservative streamer mostly concerned with documenting right-wing political action at the US-Mexico border. He was mentioned in an older MilitiaWatch piece (here). This news means MilitiaWatch might need to further expand the Georgia linkages piece (here).
  • WSUSA9 put out a really whack story about J6 defendants who needed public defenders. MilitiaWatch firmly supports both human and civil rights, and to deride any defendant for needing taxpayer-funded legal rights is shameful.
  • Both Proud Boys and Boogaloo adherents may be fearing a coming terror designation following J6. In part this is likely to the DHS admitting in an (admittedly vague) report that included a not that confirmed that right-wing movements were responsible for most of 2020’s deadly terror attacks.

Jessica Watkins, an Oath Keeper facing conspiracy charges for her role in the storming of the US Capitol, this past week claimed that she met with Secret Service ahead of the storming (which, initially, the Secret Service did not deny). Within a matter of days, she had changed her story and now claims that she didn’t actually meet with the Secret Service.

Watkins faces decades in jail and has said that she (rightfully) fears for her safety in prison as a trans woman. This is something she has petitioned the court over, in part due to her claim that after going on hunger strike to demand medical attention for her arm, the detention center kept her in her cell, naked, for four days.

In a new court filing, a friend of Watkins pleaded with the court, saying, “For lack of a better term, I believe my friend was brainwashed by those deeply entrenched in conspiratorial beliefs, and that (as has been a matter of record with her) Jess’s feelings outpaced her brain. My friend is an idiot, and I have never been more angry or upset with her in my life, but I do not believe that she wanted to become a terrorist that day.”

Whether by Watkins about her safety/dignity or by her friend about Watkins being “an idiot”, it is unclear how much of an impact these statements will have on the court proceedings.


Legal updates

The leader of Ammon Bundy’s People’s Rights chapter in Nevada was indicted last week on felony stalking and gun charges after he made threats against the life of a local police detective who is tasked with investigating domestic terror cases. The leader, Joshua Martinez, was obsessed with this detective, posting memes about the officer’s death on his personal Facebook. Martinez’s Nevada People’s Rights group is estimated at about 415 people.

Two individuals were charged for threatening election officials in Michigan over the 2020 election results. This involved threats left with three different officials, announced in charges put forward by Michigan’s DA this week. Included as evidence in the charges is a claim that a 5 January voicemail said, “there would be violence if the presidential election results were not changed.” One of those charged also said he had joined a state militia group due to his anger at the results. The two charged include one man from Michigan and another from Georgia.

Several Neo-Nazis arrested for involvement in the esoteric far-right movement called the Base said they wanted to build a fortified compound in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which one of the defendants referred to as basically a white ethnostate already.

Timothy Watson, the Boogaloo adherent who ran the portablewallhangers site to sell 3D-printed drop-in auto sears for AR-15s, was denied release this past week. He’s on trial in part because Steven Carillo purchased a product from Watson’s site before shooting police last summer.

Two bills aimed at “Ghost Guns” have passed the New York State Senate and are now awaiting committees in the New York State Assembly. Senators Anna Kaplan and Brad Hoylman put forward these two bills. The first, Kaplan’s, would criminalize the sale of partially-finished receivers. The second, Hoylman’s, would require gunsmiths to register and serialize any components they make, and it would ban any individual who isn’t a licensed gunsmith from assembling a firearm themselves.


Qupates, the GOP, and other points of selective ignorance

The next period of time of note for QAnon adherents is 4 March, during which some holdouts believe that Donald Trump will be inaugurated. It is unclear what will happen when he isn’t.

Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman was revealed to have posed with a QAnon adherent during his campaign. The photo is undeniably of him posing with a Q fanatic, but he claims that he didn’t know she was promoting a conspiracy theory because he claims he was unfamiliar.

The III%-branded truck parked at the Capitol on 6 January was revealed to belong to the husband of Representative Mary Miller. Her husband, Chris Miller, claimed not to know anything about the militia group whose logo he had on his truck. Rep Miller quoted Hitler approvingly the day before the Capitol storming, for which she has now apologized.

Lauren Boebert posed with an extremely cursed Zoom background for her first meeting for the Natural Resources Committee, wherein she took the opportunity to discuss gun safety while her unsafe gun display dominated her screen. Boebert has several children in her home, a fact that is even more worrying given that she has corrected people on Twitter to say the guns were loaded.


Further reading:

  • On the more than 200 evangelical Christians denouncing “Christian Nationalism” for its role in the Capitol riot (The Hill)
  • On the “Patriot Party” and their 12,000 member strong Facebook group — and a Proud Boy’s quest to raise awareness for the ‘party’ (WENY)
  • On preppers, Boogaloo, and Q adherents still pushing products on Amazon (Seattle Times)