From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   June 8, 2020   
      
   Small-town vigilantes duped into standing guard for Antifa ‘bus invasion’   
   hoax   
      
      
   Hundreds of armed, primarily white vigilantes have come out in recent days not   
   to protest the death of George Floyd, but to defend their small towns from   
   Antifa “invasions” that haven’t happened.   
      
   These would-be vigilante groups seem to have fallen for a far-right hoax on   
   social media, which warns that busloads of anti-fascist agitators are being   
   sent to small towns to destroy their white-owned farms and businesses. There   
   is currently no evidence    
   to support that claim, according to media reports and statements by multiple   
   police departments across the United States.   
      
      
   Armed men stand nearby during a Black Lives Matter protest in Coeur d'Alene,   
   Idaho, on June 2, 2020.   
   https://shawglobalnews.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/alene.jpg?qua   
   ity=85&strip=all&w=1200   
      
      
   Nevertheless, groups of right-wing gun-lovers have been standing on guard   
   against a made-up invasion in recent weeks, amid unproven claims from the   
   White House that protest-related looting is the work of Antifa, rather than   
   opportunistic protesters.  U.S.   
    President Donald Trump has even attempted to label Antifa as a terrorist   
   organization — although it’s much closer to an unorganized movement of   
   far-left individuals.   
      
   One group of a few hundred vigilantes showed up in Klamath Falls, Ore., on May   
   31, where they brandished their weapons across the street from a Black Lives   
   Matter protest but remained peaceful, NBC News reports.   
      
   Smaller groups have done the same thing in Coeur D’Alene and a few other   
   Idaho towns in recent days, according to the Spokesman-Review newspaper.   
      
      
   “We are not counter-protesters, we’re just going to make sure Coeur   
   d’Alene is safe,” gun-toting vigilante Conrad Nelson told the Associated   
   Press last week.   
   https://shawglobalnews.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/coeur-e159163   
   370144.jpg?quality=85&strip=all&w=1200   
      
      
   In Forks, Wash., dozens of would-be vigilantes accused a multi-racial family   
   of being Antifa agents because they were camping in a school bus, according to   
   the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office.  The group allegedly confronted the   
   family in a parking lot,   
    then knocked down trees in the woods to block their path later that same   
   night, in a case that is now under criminal investigation.   
      
   Sheriff’s departments in Curry County, Ore., and Payette County, Id., have   
   also received a flurry of calls about “Antifa buses” coming into their   
   areas, but have not found any evidence to back those claims up.   
      
   The latest version of the hoax appears to claim that Sparta, Ill., is next.    
   “Antifa terrorists to be bused to Sparta, Illinois with orders to burn farm   
   houses and kill livestock in rural ‘white’ areas,” several false   
   Facebook posts say.   
      
   “We have no evidence leading us to believe this threat is at all   
   credible,”  the Randolph County Sheriff’s Department told an ABC   
   affiliate.  “It would appear that the author’s goal is to place fear in   
   our community members, thereby creating    
   fear and discontent.”   
      
   Some often-repeated posts about the “invasions” feature a doctored photo   
   showing two buses with the words “Soros Riot Dance Squad” edited onto   
   them, the Associated Press reported in a fact-check last week.   
      
   That Soros is George Soros, a Jewish Hungarian-American billionaire and   
   Democratic donor who is often portrayed — without evidence — as the   
   boogeyman and puppet-master behind various far-right conspiracy theories over   
   the years.   
      
   “He’s the number one enemy of folks on the radical right,” Heidi   
   Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law   
   Center, told the AP in 2018.  She added that Soros is “like the Jew behind   
   the curtain, from their    
   perspective, not just in the U.S., but all over the world.”   
      
   Soros-related conspiracy theories have spread rapidly over social media with   
   the outbreak of anti-racist protests across the U.S., according to the   
   Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Several far-right pundits have also alleged —   
   without evidence — that    
   Soros is paying protesters and anti-fascists to go on destructive looting   
   sprees.   
      
   Candace Owens, a Black far-right commentator who has often opposed the Black   
   Lives Matter movement, claimed in late May that Soros is paying looters to   
   “burn down” Minneapolis.  Actor James Woods also suggested on May 31 that   
   Soros was behind the    
   protests.   
      
   The White House also added fuel to the Antifa claims last week, with a   
   now-debunked video that claimed to show Antifa violence during the protests   
   while using footage from other incidents.  The video has since been deleted.   
      
       Here is a recording of the wildly inaccurate White House video that was   
   posted on the official government Twitter and Facebook feeds on Wednesday, and   
   later deleted without explanation. pic.twitter.com/hbmmx68DKe   
   https://twitter.com/i/status/1268319020530294785   
      
         
   A recent AP analysis found that about 85 per cent of those arrested at   
   protests in Minneapolis and in Washington, D.C., were residents of those   
   states, despite conspiracy theories to the contrary.   
      
   Facebook and Twitter have been doing their best to crack down on the false   
   conspiracy theories, the AP reports.  Twitter said last week that it removed   
   an account that claimed to be Antifa after discovering that it was actually   
   run by Identity Evropa, a    
   white supremacist group.     
      
   The account suggested that Antifa would “move into residential areas” and   
   “white” neighbourhoods.  That tweet was shared hundreds of times and cited   
   in online articles before it was removed, Twitter said.   
      
   In the case of the fake Antifa buses, Golden Limousine International owner   
   Sean Duval told the AP that the vehicles are his, and that he doesn’t   
   appreciate whoever photoshopped Soros’ name onto them for a social media   
   hoax.   
      
   “It’s frustrating when people outside start instigating and try to turn   
   American against American,” he said.   
      
   Evidence shows those “outside” people are the ones spreading   
   misinformation on social media — not a made-up army of Antifa agents on   
   buses.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)