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  1. #101
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    QAnon reshaped Trump's party and radicalized believers. The Capitol siege may just be the start.


    WASHINGTON - The siege on the U.S. Capitol played out as a QAnon fantasy made real: The faithful rose up in their thousands, summoned to Washington by their leader, President Donald Trump. They seized the people's house as politicians cowered under desks. Hordes wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the "Q" symbol and toting Trump flags closed in to deliver justice, armed with zip ties and rope and guns.


    The "#Storm" envisioned on far-right message boards had arrived. And two women who had died in the rampage - both QAnon devotees - had become what some were calling the first martyrs of the cause.

    The siege ended with police retaking the Capitol and Trump being rebuked and losing his Twitter account. But the failed insurrection marked a grim milestone in how the paranoid conspiracy theory QAnon has radicalized Americans, reshaped the Republican Party and gained a forceful grip on right-wing belief.


    Born in the Internet's fever swamps, QAnon played an unmistakable role in energizing rioters during the real-world attack on Jan. 6. A man in a "Q" T-shirt led the breach of the Senate, while a shirtless, fur-clad believer known as the "Q Shaman" posed for photographers in the Senate chamber. Twitter later purged more than 70,000 accounts associated with the conspiracy theory, in an acknowledgment of the online potency of QAnon.


    The baseless conspiracy theory, which imagines Trump in a battle with a cabal of deep-state saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex, helped drive the day's events and facilitate organized attacks. A pro-Trump mob overwhelmed Capitol Police officers, injuring dozens and one officer later died as a result. One woman was fatally shot by police inside the Capitol. Three others in the crowd died of medical emergencies.


    QAnon devotees joined with militia members and white supremacists at the Capitol assault after finding one another on Internet sanctuaries: the conservative forums of TheDonald.win and Parler; the anonymous extremist channels of 8kun and Telegram; and the social media giants of Facebook and Twitter, which have scrambled in recent months to prevent devotees from organizing on their sites.

    QAnon didn't fully account for the rampage, and the theory's namesake - a top-secret government messenger of pro-Trump prophecies - has largely vanished, posting nothing in the past 35 days and only five times since Trump's election loss.


    But QAnon's prominence at the Capitol raid shows how powerful the conspiracy has become, and how quickly it has established a life of its own. QAnon activity has surged on fringe right-wing platforms and encrypted messaging apps in the past week, with believers offering increasingly outlandish theories and sharing ideas for how they can further work to overturn the results of the Nov. 3 contest - with violence, if necessary.


    Even as Trump is set to exit the White House, QAnon's grip on the conservative psyche is growing. Two Republican members of Congress, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, have voiced support for QAnon, while others have tweeted its slogans. State legislators across the country have further lent it credence while also backing Trump's claims of electoral theft despite a lack of evidence and dozens of swift rejections in court.


    The QAnon movement's evolution,from an Internet hodgepodge to a hallmark of pro-Trump violence, is a signal of the danger it poses to security this weekend and going into next week's inauguration. It also presents long-term challenges for President-elect Joe Biden by fomenting resistance to democratic governance and to measures needed to corral the coronavirus pandemic, including mass vaccination.

    "The takeaway from this is that disinformation is a threat to our democracy," said Joel Finkelstein, co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute, a research group that studies online disinformation. "And we're not nearly done."


    As much of the nation - including leading Republicans - expressed horror at last week's events, a different narrative was playing out in the parallel online universe that has grown around Trump's presidency and helped sustain it through perpetual upheaval. The siege was justified, described on Twitter by one QAnon devotee as "the least we can do." Or it was staged as a false flag to discredit Trump supporters, with its participants as the true victims.


    "You all know the attack on the Capitol was done by [the far-left political movement] antifa," Thomas McInerney, a retired lieutenant general in the Air Force, declared in remarks captured on video and peppered across Twitter by accounts participating in a frenzied effort to construct a different narrative of the Capitol riots.


    Experts tracking the QAnon conspiracy movement believe a new president may only exacerbate feelings of resentment and victimhood that have nurtured the baseless philosophy. Against the backdrop of QAnon, Trump was able to position himself as an outsider, fending off secret enemies, even while in the Oval Office. Once he's really on the outside, that sense could grow.


    "This will be a new cause," said Mary McCord, a Georgetown Law professor and former national security official at the Justice Department. "Democrats in the White House."


    - - -


    In 2017, a writer on the anonymous message board 4chan, styling themselves as Q, wrote posts spinning a dark and cryptic fantasy - detailing how Trump was working tactically to dismantle the "deep state" cabal that controls much of the world.


    For years, QAnon spun a tale in the militant language of good against evil, promising that Trump, a soldier messiah, would strike down a global cabal of pedophile politicians and Satanist media elites in a day of reckoning called the "Storm." The siege, for some believers, was seen as that online theory coming to life.


    As its online infrastructure expanded from a single message board to a network of aggregators, chat rooms and social-network bubbles, QAnon, which originally mimicked much of the debunked conspiracy theory Pizzagate, mushroomed into an umbrella conspiracy theory. It encapsulated all manners of disparate right-wing beliefs: vaccine skepticism, anti-Semitic ideas about government control and, most recently, the unsubstantiated belief that Biden's election win was a fraud.


    In recent months, it has become challenging to know where QAnon's world ends and Trump's begins. QAnon T-shirts and banners are a constant presence at Trump's rallies, and pro-Trump figures are exalted by QAnon believers as heroes.


    Trump has rarely explicitly acknowledged QAnon, which has been linked by law enforcement to intensifying real-world violence, although believers have often celebrated when he has retweeted the theory's best-known promoters. In August, when Trump was asked whether he believed QAnon's core claims that he was "secretly saving the world from this cult of pedophiles and cannibals," Trump replied, "If I can help save the world from problems, I am willing to do it. . . . We are actually, we're saving the world."


    Q's relative quiet since the election has led some believers toward a crisis of faith on whether Q had abandoned the flock. But many still call on their fellow adherents to "trust the plan": "Do not mistake silence for inaction," says one site that sends alerts whenever Q posts a new "intelligence drop."


    Much of QAnon devotees' energy has in recent months flooded to false allegations that Trump had been robbed of an election victory. The QAnon-boosting attorneys Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood led a failing pro-Trump attempt to overturn the election.


    The QAnon conversation online had pivoted from taking down a global cabal to targeting a more specific mission: "Stop the Steal." So when Trump invited supporters to Washington for mass demonstrations on Jan. 6, the day when Congress was set to certify Biden's victory, researchers said pro-Trump agitators and QAnon believers saw it as a demand for action.


    "Be there," Trump tweeted last month. "Will be wild!"


    - - -


    Rosanne Boyland was prepared to take the president literally, traveling from Georgia to "keep the fight alive," as she wrote on Facebook this month.


    She was in Washington when Trump addressed his supporters last week near the White House, urging them to march to the Capitol and "fight like hell."


    The 34-year-old woman was among four participants in the pro-Trump action who died. Two of them, including Boyland, were QAnon devotees, according to family members and a review of their digital footprints. On Facebook, Boyland reposted content from popular QAnon personas and praised members of the Trump administration seen as working most avidly to bring about Q's promised salvation. Facebook in October removed QAnon pages and groups, citing links to real-world harm, but permitted individual QAnon posts so long as they didn't violate other policies, such as the ban on inciting violence.


    The other was Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran shot by police in the Capitol. Both women have been mourned as martyrs to QAnon, with Babbitt described on Twitter as a patriot whose "heart was pumping with fire and hope." Anonymous accounts have swarmed tweets by Republican politicians telling them to "show support for our fallen MAGA patriots."


    Others involved in the Capitol breach proudly wore their devotion to QAnon. Douglas Jensen, the man who authorities say led a pack of rioters into the Senate, wore a shirt with a giant Q rendered in red, white and blue. He was arrested Saturday on federal charges, including trespassing and obstructing a law enforcement officer.


    Jacob Anthony Chansley, the "Q Shaman" who was later charged for his involvement in the riots, told the FBI he had come as part of a group from Arizona "at the request of the President that all 'patriots' come to D.C." on Jan. 6.


    Jo Rae Perkins, a QAnon adherent who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Oregon last year, wrote on Twitter that she had been present at the Capitol for "over three hours." She added the rally cry, "#TheStormHasArrived," invoking the day of reckoning associated in the QAnon canon with the mass arrest of Democrats.


    The fervent online organizing seen ahead of last week's assault has begun building again, despite an unprecedented crackdown against QAnon on Twitter and other mainstream services. A QAnon group on Gab has grown by more than 40,000 members since the failed insurrection. Thousands more have flocked to QAnon-affiliated spaces on Telegram. One 12,000-member channel was so overrun with new members that those behind the forum temporarily froze the chat feature.


    QAnon, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, "is one major point in a constellation of right-wing terrorist movements that also includes Boogaloo, militia movements, white supremacists, neo-Nazis."


    Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on and soon-to-be chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said QAnon's ability to "weave together - and thereby recruit from - a wide constellation of existing conspiracy theories and causes has brought these dangerous beliefs more into the mainstream."


    QAnon believers, in videos and posts about the siege, said they felt invigorated by the starring role they had played in battling their hero's enemies. Tamara Towers Parry, a Seattle woman who goes by the name "Dr. Tammy," had voiced her devotion to QAnon with posts and videos on her since-suspended Twitter account in which she said Q would one day "be in every history book."


    After the siege, she posted another video outside the Capitol, where she wore an American-flag cowboy hat and gripped a large "Q" flag.


    "We just stormed the Congress, and I'm going to tell you right now, it was wild," she said. She narrated the action as she clambered past broken windows and dodged clouds of tear gas. "Our eyes are burning, but you know what, compared to what our Founding Fathers did, it's the least we can do." Parry did not respond to calls or emails seeking comment.


    Then she voiced a signature QAnon belief - that Biden, among other Democrat leaders, would soon go to prison.


    "God bless America," she said into the camera, flashing a big smile.


    - - -


    The next wave of mayhem is expected to arrive this weekend, possibly extending into Inauguration Day on Wednesday. One video circulating widely on YouTube and elsewhere offered a mash-up of Trump speeches that culminates in a call to Washington as Biden is sworn in, promising "PANIC IN DC."


    This time, authorities are taking these warnings seriously, with heavy police presences and up to 15,000 National Guard members planned to help keep the peace.


    In the siege's aftermath, when Trump acknowledged there would be a transfer of power on Jan. 20, some QAnon adherents saw a final betrayal - although others, trusting Q's plan, said they saw in it a coded message that Trump would not actually cede control.


    At the same time, the fervor among QAnon supporters appears not to have ebbed, even as arrests mount. A mix of excitement and fear pushed QAnon believers further into their alternative digital reality. One QAnon-affiliated account with more than 11,000 subscribers on the private-messaging app Telegram posted a list of emergency resources the night of the failed insurrection, including survival guidebooks and documents detailing firearm and physical training in isolation.


    QAnon believers doubled down on their worldview, offering contradictory and nonsensical theories for the week's events: The siege was instigated by undercover Black Lives Matter and antifa activists, they said, but pro-Trump operatives seized the opportunity to steal laptops they said would contain evidence of widespread sex trafficking among elites.


    Another theory posited that Trump's comments on Thursday about a "smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power" were not about an incoming Biden administration but about imminent military rule led by Michael Flynn, Trump's first national security adviser, whose Twitter account was suspended last week as part of the platform's widening ban on QAnon content.


    After the siege, the administrator of a smaller far-right Telegram channel promoted the use of untraceable 3-D-printed gun parts and posted the locations for the headquarters of Twitter, Facebook, Google and Apple.


    The response by Republican leaders makes it unknown which direction the party will go. Even those no longer in office, and no longer subject to the will of pro-Trump voters, have not always been full-throated.


    "A sad day," wrote Tom Graves, Greene's predecessor in Congress. "Not who we are to be." When invited to say more, he did not take the opportunity.


    But while members of Congress have stayed silent about QAnon, its believers have pushed for more aggressive action. The raft of suspensions across social media targeting QAnon-related accounts - as well as the ban of Trump's Twitter account - led some to claim the U.S. military was launching a global media blackout, the first phase of a cryptic operation they believed would climax with thousands of arrests and live-streamed military tribunals exposing the crimes of the political elite.


    "We are safe from the blackout here," wrote one user, "Digital Soldier," on Telegram.


    Most theories converged on a key point for QAnon, which over years of missed deadlines for an impending conquest by Trump has hinged on promoting and anticipating some new blockbuster event: that Trump was going to drop reality-shifting intelligence in the days and weeks ahead.


    "The reason we had to go through all this drama," one user posted on Telegram, "was for people to become aware, angry and ready to look at the evidence and demand justice."



    QAnon reshaped Trump's party and radicalized believers. The Capitol siege may just be the start.

  2. #102
    Thailand Expat Saint Willy's Avatar
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    They make the tea party folk look quaint.

    bring back Sarah Palin
    Last edited by Saint Willy; 14-01-2021 at 07:32 AM.

  3. #103
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    There are more troops in capitol hill presently, than they have in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

    what ferking drama queens these pricks are.

    Rumour has it there are ulterior motives, for the Hysteria being shown in the good old USA.

    where the fek are those Laptops and Hard drives.

  4. #104
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    Quote Originally Posted by TheRealKW View Post
    bring back Saran Palin
    Saran the mother of all Karan

  5. #105
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post
    There are more troops in capitol hill presently, than they have in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

    what ferking drama queens these pricks are.

    Rumour has it there are ulterior motives, for the Hysteria being shown in the good old USA.

    where the fek are those Laptops and Hard drives.
    What hysteria ?
    You mean the response to violent armed seditious militias attacking the seat of government while it is conducting business ?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo View Post
    What hysteria ?
    You mean the response to violent armed seditious militias attacking the seat of government while it is conducting business ?
    It seems chico keeps asking about his laptops and hard drives . . . I'm surprised he even had any.

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    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    It seems chico keeps asking about his laptops and hard drives . . . I'm surprised he even had any.
    Laptop shmaptop, he should learn to know what country he is in. Oh wait, he just lies. His MO.

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    Quote Originally Posted by aging one View Post
    Laptop shmaptop, he should learn to know what country he is in. Oh wait, he just lies. His MO.
    A few months ago he was inthe UK, Sudan and/or Norway. Then he was in Laos, then Thailand and seemingly just yesterday it was the UK again and now Thailand.

    He really is a member of the Jet-Set who has stayed in hotels with a pool. All this during covid as well . . . I guess we'll hear from him again when it's morning time in the UK or his excuse for keeping UK hours in Thailand

    Yea . . . nah. You're right:
    Quote Originally Posted by aging one View Post
    he just lies

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    In true American style, why doesn't some whiz syndicate this bullshit, and form an antifa vs proudboys MMA league?
    Let 'em have their fun the amerkin way, sponsored by CocaCola and with hotdogs on hand.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo View Post
    What hysteria ?
    You mean the response to violent armed seditious militias attacking the seat of government while it is conducting business ?

    And murderous. You forgot to mention the policeman and others killed by them. And the second policeman who apparently committed suicide.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post

    Rumour has it....

    Fucking moron.

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    ^hehe look the emotionally charged loons have been part of the Hysteria in the US, I'm surprised they all don't support Don.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Cujo View Post
    Fucking moron.
    and look who posts:
    Quote Originally Posted by Chico View Post
    emotionally charged loon

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    Trump flags and assorted Qanon crap in Wellington. WTF?



    Nice weather for Welly. There's that.

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    Quote Originally Posted by happynz View Post
    Trump flags and assorted Qanon crap in Wellington. WTF?
    Saw that on the news today - they interview as well as the Trumptards

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    Quote Originally Posted by happynz View Post
    WTF?
    Quote Originally Posted by panama hat View Post
    Saw that on the news today - they interview as well as the Trumptards
    WOW!! That is crazy!!!

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    The problem today is that some people are just so entitled and privileged they can't grasp the concept that a minor inconvenience isn't them being personally persecuted.

    A sense of entitlement coupled to victimhood is basically the default for these fucking snowflakes. A 'Pro Trump, Anti-Lockdown, Freedom' rally in NZ where there is currently no lockdown, Covid pretty much under control, they can pretty much do what the fuck they want to -- and they are whinging about their 'Freedumbs!' FFS!

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    ^ Yup, that about sums it up . . . add a group of American anti-vaxxers in Northland with their idiotic local followers . . . jaysus

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    QAnon right wing nutters-brown-bag-brigade-png
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails QAnon right wing nutters-brown-bag-brigade-png  

  20. #120
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    In true American style, why doesn't some whiz syndicate this bullshit, and form an antifa vs proudboys MMA league?
    Let 'em have their fun the amerkin way, sponsored by CocaCola and with hotdogs on hand.
    I'd rather see them having an old fashioned pistol duel at sunrise

  21. #121
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    Quote Originally Posted by lom View Post
    I'd rather see them having an old fashioned pistol duel at sunrise
    Only a 50% rate of success

  22. #122
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    They never stop believing.


    Desperate QAnon fans spout bogus claim Trump spoke to them in MORSE CODE

    DELUDED QAnon fans believe Donald Trump sent them a secret message in Morse Code during his video where he condemned the Capitol riot.


    Trump issued a video Wednesday night to condemn violent mob which stormed the Capitol building in Washington, DC, which left five people dead.

    During his video speech which was posted to the White House’s Twitter account, Trump said the rioters were not his “true supporters” and slammed the attack as a “calamity.”


    "I unequivocally condemn the violence that we saw last week," Trump said. "Violence and vandalism have absolutely no place in our country and no place in our movement."


    In the video Trump can be seen to move his hand four minutes and 20 seconds in and QAnon devotees believe he was sending them a message.


    The bizarre claim was initially made on a pro-QAnon forum called the Great Awakening, where the poster claimed that Trump’s hand movements at that specific time represented “dash-dash-dot-dash,” which represents the letter Q in Morse Code.


    MORE Desperate QAnon fans spout bogus claim Trump spoke to them in MORSE CODE

  23. #123
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    four minutes and 20 seconds
    Or it showed Trump is part of the 420 movement.

  24. #124
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    ‘I’m About to Puke’: QAnon in Chaos as Biden Takes Office

    By Will Sommer (Daily Beast)

    Thu, January 21, 2021, 1:39 AM



    Win McNameeAs the rest of the country waited for Joe Biden to be inaugurated, believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory thought they were about to see something else: the long-awaited mass arrests of Biden and a host of other “deep-state” Democrats, followed by the restoration of the Trump presidency.

    “Trump will walk out during the arrest and thank America for reelection,” one QAnon supporter posted on a forum shortly before the inauguration. “This will be remembered as the greatest day since D-Day.”


    As Biden was sworn in, though, the mass arrests that QAnon believers call “The Storm,” stubbornly refused to happen. Trump really did appear to have left office, rather than springing the sly trap as they had all hoped. . The Democrats really did have control of the White House and both chambers of Congress.

    The tens of thousands of National Guard soldiers QAnon believers thought would help Trump retake Washington instead appeared to be there for a more obvious purpose: protecting the city from the same crazed QAnon believers who had violently attacked the Capitol two weeks earlier.

    “I’m about to puke,” one QAnon fan watching Biden take the oath of office wrote.

    For more than three years, tens of thousands of QAnon believers have pinned their hopes for the future on a second Trump term. They’ve become convinced that the government is run by a cabal of satanic pedophile-cannibals, and that Trump is the only way to restore justice. Many of them, egged by promises that Trump’s “Plan” included the eradication of diseases and personal debt, pinned their dreamson QAnon as well, alienating friends and family with their ideas.


    Then, on Wednesday afternoon, the QAnon future vanished, presenting the ever-expanding conspiracy theory with its greatest challenge yet.

    As Biden’s inauguration became ever more certain on Wednesday, QAnon believers rapidly cycled through rationalizations. They claimed that Trump was stepping down as the head of the United States “corporation” — an idea borrowed from fringe sovereign citizen legal theories — to become the head of a restored republic. Some QAnon leaders claimed that Biden himself was in on the scheme, and would soon help Trump carry out the arrests.

    As Biden finally took office, however, the mood changed quickly on QAnon forums. QAnon channels on messaging app Telegram filled with gifs of far-right mascot Pepe the Frog crying, as believers claimed they had been duped. Believers said they felt sick, or wanted to throw up.


    “Trump fooled us,” complained one Telegram commenter.


    “All my family and co-workers think I’m crazy,” wrote another.


    “I feel stupid,” wrote a third.


    Even major QAnon boosters saw their faith in the bizarre conspiracy theory shaken on Monday. QAnon booster Roy Davis co-authored a bestselling book promoting QAnon under the alias “Captain Roy,” even getting his sports car painted with a giant, blazing “Q” on the hood.


    As Biden was sworn in, Davis initially told The Daily Beast he didn’t want to comment until he was sure Biden was really president. But as Biden’s new title became official , Davis said he was ready to move on from Q — something his doctor has long urged him to do anyway.


    “We misinterpreted it,” Davis said. “Maybe we should have done something different.”


    Other top QAnon figures appeared to be backing away. As the former administrator of QAnon clues website 8kun, Ron Watkins had control over who posted as the mysterious “Q” — and has been accused of being Q himself. But on Wednesday, Watkins suggested that the QAnon fight was over.

    “Please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years,” Watkins wrote in a Telegram post.

    Still, there are many signs that QAnon and the kind of unreality world it promoted will persist.

    As Trump’s defeat became more certain, QAnon followers changed their claims, beginning to insist that the president’s war against the “deep state” had only begun. As the shock of Biden’s inauguration wore off on Wednesday, QAnon forum posters encouraged one another to “hold the line,” claiming that they had merely misunderstood the QAnon clues.


    The problem created by QAnon seems set to remain, as well. QAnon has been tied to three murders and
    a terrorist incident near the Hoover Dam, along with a series of other crimes. Biden’s top intelligence chief has promised an analysis of the threat posed by the conspiracy theory.

    Even as he distances himself from QAnon, for example, Davis still thinks “Q” really was a government whistleblower revealing the truth about the world.

    “It wasn’t some kid in a basement,” Davis said.






    Majestically enthroned amid the vulgar herd

  25. #125
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    So the whole conspiracy just imploded.

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