Month: May 2023

A federal judge sentenced Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes to 18 years in prison Thursday for his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The 57-year-old Rhodes, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, received the longest sentence of any defendant to date. Before pronouncing the sentence in Washington, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said: “you, sir, present an ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy.”

Prosecutors said Rhodes was in contact with Trump between his election loss and Jan. 6, calling on him to invoke the Insurrection Act with the intent of creating an armed militia to act on his behalf. Judge Mehta accepted the government’s recommendation to apply an enhancement for terrorism in Rhodes’ sentencing for the first time in a Jan. 6 case, . Mehta agreed with prosecutors that Rhodes “inspired the use of violence” in his followers to disrupt the certification and that his conduct met the legal definition of terrorism intended to influence the actions of government; and cited the stockpile of weapons the Oath Keepers had amassed just outside of Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, as well as Rhodes’ orders for members to delete incriminating messages after the Capitol assault.

Rhodes called himself a “political prisoner” before his sentencing. He addressed Judge Mehta in defiant remarks maintaining his innocence, saying: “like President Trump, my only crime is opposing those who are destroying our country.”  In November he was found guilty of seditious conspiracy, along with co-conspirator Kelly Meggs. A jury found he and other members of the group played a principal role in disrupting the certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

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On Thursday, the White House released a comprehensive plan to counter antisemitism across the U.S. In a video clip at an event announcing the plan, President Joe Biden said the strategy is “most ambitious and comprehensive U.S. government-led effort to fight antisemitism in American history, adding “we must say clearly and forcefully that antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America.” 

The plan includes addressing the lack of education about the Holocaust, security at Jewish institutions, and the proliferation of conspiracy theories on the Internet. The strategy features four pillars: increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism; improving safety for Jewish communities; reversing the normalization of antisemitism and building solidarity among religious groups.

Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris and the first Jewish spouse of a vice president, said at the event that antisemitism has divided American society: “It threatens our democracy while undermining our American values of freedom, community and decency. And antisemitism delivers simplistic, false and dangerous narratives that have led to extremists perpetrating deadly violence against Jews.”

Outgoing White House domestic policy adviser Susan Rice said that to increase awareness about antisemitism, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. will launch the first U.S.-based Holocaust education research center.  In addition, the National Endowment for the Humanities will expand its investment in K-12 education on Jewish history, adding that federal agencies have “committed to incorporating information about antisemitic bias and discrimination into their diversity, equity inclusion and accessibility training programs.”

The White House said that the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center will conduct an annual threat assessment “on antisemitic drivers of transnational violent extremism that can be shared with technology companies and other nongovernmental partners.”  The center released a declassified version of its first assessment on Thursday.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has officially declared his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president, announcing the news with a campaign video during a glitch-riddled event on Twitter with the owner of the social media site, Elon Musk. DeSantis filed paperwork on Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, before his planned event with Musk.

DeSantis said: “I am running for president of the United States to lead our great American comeback … But we know our country’s going in the wrong direction. We see it with our own eyes. And we feel it in our bones.” In his campaign video, DeSantis said he was running to “lead our great American comeback … We proved it can be done. We chose facts over fear, education over indoctrination, law and order over rioting and disorder.”  DeSantis painted a dark picture of a country he said is going in the wrong direction under Biden and urged Republicans to get behind him: “My pledge to you is this: If you nominate me you can set your clock to January 20, 2025, at high noon because on the west side of the US Capitol, I will be taking the oath of office as the 47th president of the United States. No excuses, I will get the job done.”

DeSantis’ decision to announce his campaign in a Twitter conversation with Musk ultimately backfired; the audio stream crashed repeatedly, making it virtually impossible for most users to hear the new presidential candidate in real time. Musk said the event’s technical glitches were due to “straining” servers because so many people were trying to listen to the audio-only event; more than 20 minutes passed beyond the scheduled start time with users getting kicked off, hearing microphone feedback and hold music and dealing with other technical problems.

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One student is dead and another is in custody after a shooting early Wednesday outside a school in Pittsburgh. The ages of the students involved in the incident outside the Oliver Citywide Academy were not immediately clear; however according to the city school district’s website, Oliver Citywide Academy is a full-time special education center serving grades 3-12.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the shooting happened around 7:25 a.m. on the steps outside the school. It wasn’t immediately clear what spurred the shooting, and no other injuries were reported. The names of the students have not been released, but police said both were under the age of 18. Authorities said the wounded student was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Pittsburgh Major Crimes Cmdr. Richard Ford said during a news conference at the school that “We believe, based on the information that we have and the video we’ve been able to see, that we have the actor in custody and there’s no potential threat to the other schools,”  adding that the victim was killed as he was walking into the school. Maria Montano, a city spokeswoman, said most students were still on their way to the school when the shooting happened, and buses were rerouted to another school building. Students who were already in the school were kept in the building. Classes there were canceled for the day following the shooting.

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