I am actually seeing this myself. Delusional people are always dangerous because there is no way to predict what they might do next because they don't know themselves. And that is scaring some family and friends. Not just because of their politics but because in their delusional state they will believe anything. So there are efforts to bring some of them back to reality.

In The Wake Of Jan. 6, Families Are Searching For Ways To Deradicalize Their Relatives

WASHINGTON DC, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, UNITED STATES - 2021/01/06: Rioters clash with police using big ladder trying to enter Capitol building through the front doors. Rioters broke windows and breached the Capitol bui... MORE
By Josh Kovensky
|
May 10, 2021 9:00 a.m.
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As Virginia approached the peak of its COVID surge last January, Robyn Sweet was sick with the disease and caring for a patient who was dying from it.

Then she heard the news: her father had been arrested for invading the Capitol on Jan. 6.

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“He felt that he was doing what the President asked him to,” Sweet, who works at a long-term care facility in the Virginia Tidewater region, told TPM.

Her father, a participant at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, was arrested in the days after the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Douglas Sweet was charged with violent conduct on Capitol grounds, impeding a government function, and criminal trespass. He and his attorney did not return requests for comment.

For Robyn Sweet, it came as a shock, but not a surprise. Their relationship, she said, had deteriorated over the past few years as he became increasingly cocooned in the world of far-right conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate and QAnon.

It’s a problem that’s confronted families across the country as they struggle to find ways to reach loved ones who are sliding into extremism, and may mobilize to violent acts that land them in jail. One hotline devoted to the issue has seen its call volume triple since Jan. 6.

But researchers say that the U.S. lags behind other countries in programs to prevent extremists from mobilizing to commit violent acts. In Germany and Scandinavia, for example, the government has developed programs for families to intervene with loved ones who, relatives worry, may be considering committing a politically motivated attack.

Brian Hughes, co-founder of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University, told TPM that families with radicalizing relatives reach out to him periodically. He’s also noticed an uptick since Jan. 6.

“It tears families apart as surely as drugs and alcohol,” Hughes said. “The level of destructiveness to personal relationships is unbelievable.”

Daniel Koehler, a German extremism researcher who has consulted for law enforcement in the U.S., told TPM that he regularly receives inquiries from American families who don’t know where to turn.

“The U.S. is behind most West European countries, especially Germany and Scandinavia, by 30 years,” Koehler said. Even with renewed efforts, he said, the U.S. has a long way to go. “It’s actually a huge stretch that the U.S. needs to cover to get roughly to the same level.”

Prevention programs
Koehler said that Germany has a structure that approaches the problem in different ways depending on the facts of the situation. One family may only want help finding a counselor, another, depending on the severity of the threat, may require witness protection.

The country has regional outreach offices that provide help to people who are afraid that family members are being radicalized, and may be mobilizing to commit an act of violence.

“Ideally, you’d have a helpline, hotline, or any other central place where parents, teachers, social workers can address concerns, counseling, case assessment,” Koehler said, describing deradicalization and prevention of violent extremism as more of an “art” than a science. “If it’s really a concerning case, then they get referred to a local service provider to help mitigate the risk, and bring people undergoing radicalization away from that process.”

Very few organizations in the U.S. offer these kinds of services, though experts say that family-based interventions are often the only effective route to reach people who may commit an act of extremist violence before they do so.

The groups that do tend to be underfunded and understaffed.

Parents for Peace, a mostly volunteer-run group co-founded by a man whose son radicalized and killed a soldier, offers a national hotline to help yank people away from extremism. The group has said that calls to the line tripled after Jan. 6. In Colorado, the state funds a hotline called Safe2Tell, which aims to provide people with “a safe, anonymous way to help someone who is struggling or hurting.”

The Department of Homeland Security has committed in the past to making prevention efforts a larger feature of counterterrorism policy, though persistent concerns about the potential for freedom of speech violations have made it difficult for such initiatives to gain traction.

“We can’t be thought police,” Dr. Rachel Nielsen, former director of the Colorado Resilience Collaborative, told TPM, explaining that he group could only step in in a limited set of circumstances. “It’s only if someone is going to go hurt another person.”

Chicken or the egg?
Sweet, the daughter of the Jan. 6 defendant, told TPM that she believes her father was more susceptible to extremist views in part because of isolation: he was living alone, without a spouse and with children who had left and moved away.

“It was belonging, finding a group of people that share the same ideas with you,” she said.

But whether a person radicalizes based off a grievance in their own life, or whether the ideology itself pushes them towards violence, can remain a chicken-or-egg problem.

It’s only in recent years that prevention of violent extremism has been considered possible. DHS has spurred that recognition in part through an as-of-yet small grant program, offering $20 million for the coming year, aimed at funding programs to prevent terrorist violence.

Advocates of preventative approaches to violent extremism argue that family members are uniquely positioned to identify both when someone is going off the rails and, potentially, address any underlying problem that’s contributing to the issue.

The idea is that for people who are lonely or suffering from personal problems, family frequently remains the only way to break past the worldview and sense of community that far-right extremist groups can provide for their members.

“Without face to face social discourse, we tend to go to more mean, extreme places,” Nielsen said. “So you take someone who is already in a bad place, you give them voice, a rationale, have people cheering them on, and tell them they’re part of something bigger than themselves.”

Hughes, the American University researcher, said that bringing people back tends to be most successful early on in the radicalization process, and almost always via family members who can effectively compete with the sense of belonging that radical groups provide.

“The therapeutic, emotional approaches tend to be the most effective,” Hughes said.

Robyn Sweet, a Black Lives Matter activist, still remembers how before Jan. 6, her father Douglas was able to connect with her at times as his daughter, even when their politics were clearly opposed.

At a summer 2020 protest to change the name of a local elementary school named after two Confederate generals, her father was there on the other side, Sweet recalls, with a group of people waving Confederate flags.

“But halfway through, he saw me and yelled ‘I love ya,'” Sweet said.

She added that her father had disowned her since she spoke out about him following the insurrection.

“He can come at any time ever, regardless of how much I disagree with something he says or does,” she added.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/...hing-for-ways-to-deradicalize-their-relatives

 

Well there you go. I have to say one thing for treasonous conservative/Republicans. They've always got a plan.

QAnon hatches plan to steal Arizona for Trump by replacing every 'usurper' elected since 2018


(Gage Skidmore)


Supporters of QAnon have reportedly come up with a plan to make Donald Trump president again by replacing every official elected in Arizona since 2018.

https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-arizona/

 

Kash Patel: New FISA abuses further erode faith In DOJ, FBI

https://www.oann.com/kash-patel-new-fisa-abuses-further-erode-faith-in-doj-fbi/

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 2:14 PM PT – Monday, May 10, 2021
Kash Patel, the former Deputy Assistant to President Trump for Counter-Terrorism, told One America News that new instances of FISA abuse and corruption have caused the American people to further lose faith in the FBI as well as the DOJ.

 

Influential Covid-19 model uses flawed methods and shouldn’t guide U.S. policies, critics say

A widely followed model for projecting Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is producing results that have been bouncing up and down like an unpredictable fever, and now epidemiologists are criticizing it as flawed and misleading for both the public and policy makers. In particular, they warn against relying on it as the basis for government decision-making, including on “re-opening America.”

“It’s not a model that most of us in the infectious disease epidemiology field think is well suited” to projecting Covid-19 deaths, epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health told reporters this week, referring to projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

Others experts, including some colleagues of the model-makers, are even harsher. “That the IHME model keeps changing is evidence of its lack of reliability as a predictive tool,” said epidemiologist Ruth Etzioni of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who has served on a search committee for IHME. “That it is being used for policy decisions and its results interpreted wrongly is a travesty unfolding before our eyes.”

There are two tried-and-true ways to model an epidemic. The most established, dating back a century, calculates how many people are susceptible to a virus (in the case of the new coronavirus, everyone), how many become exposed, how many of those become infected, and how many recover and therefore have immunity (at least for a while). Such “SEIR” models then use what researchers know about a virus’s behavior, such as how easily it spreads and how long it takes for symptoms of infection to appear, to calculate how long it takes for people to move from susceptible to infected to recovered (or dead).


“The fundamental concept of infectious disease epidemiology is that infections spread when there are two things: infected people and susceptible people,” Lipsitch said.


Newer, “agent-based models” are like the video game SimCity, but with a rampaging pathogen: using computing power unimagined even a decade ago, they simulate the interactions of millions of individuals as they work, play, travel, and otherwise go about their lives. Both of these approaches have often nailed projections of, for instance, U.S. cases of seasonal flu.

 

Another thing that seems a contradiction is most treasonous conservative/Republicans oppose reinstating voting rights for convicted felons. They lose a lot of votes that way.

'Cold-blooded fraudster': Students for Trump co-founder gets prison term for posing as a lawyer


Travis Gettys
May 11, 2021



John Lambert, Nat. Vice-Chair & Co-Founder, Students for Trump. Image from screenshot.


The baby-faced Students for Trump founder was denounced as a "cold-blooded fraudster" by a judge before he was sentenced for posing as a lawyer.

https://www.rawstory.com/john-lambert-students-for-trump/

 

Great news for treasonous conservative/Republicans. QAnon gets you discount.

City of Dallas offers QAnon crackpots special discounted conference rates




www.rawstory.com

https://www.rawstory.com/dallas-qanon/

 

Now I guess treasonous conservative/Republicans will have to start hating Jews now that Q has spoken.

Popular QAnon account unleashes racist tirade against Jewish power and Biden being replaced by James Woods in a mask

Sarah K. Burris
May 21, 2021



Shutterstock.


The right-wing QAnon Telegram account run by someone known as "GhostEzra" went on an anti-Semitic rant about George Soros and Jewish reporters.

 

Pastor wants LGBTQ warning label on foreheads — and is asking his followers to take over a town

Bob Brigham
May 22, 2021



Screengrab.
Controversial right-wing pastor Andrew Wommack wants LBGTQ Americans to have a warning label on their foreheads.

"Homosexuals have like three times as much suicide as heterosexuals, and then you go into transgenders, and it just continues to go up," Wommack said on his "Truth & Liberty Livecast," without any apparent self-awareness of the role anti-gay hate plays in the epidemic.

"It's a very destructive lifestyle. They have 20 years less that the homosexual lives than a heterosexual. And, you know, cigarettes take an average of seven years off of a person's life, so homosexuality is three times worse than smoking," he argued. "We ought to put a label across their forehead, 'This can be hazardous to your health.'"

Wommack is now trying to take over a town and county in Colorado.

"Health and wealth teacher Andrew Wommack has long urged his followers to 'take back Colorado' from the 'demon-possessed' socialists and Democrats who've turned the state from red to blue. Last month, that rallying cry became practical, as Wommack urged followers to take control in Woodland Park and Teller County," the Colorado Springs Gazette reported Saturday.

"'Man, as many people as we have in this school here, we ought to take over Woodland Park,' said Wommack during an April Citizen's Academy at Charis Bible College, which was hosted by the Truth & Liberty Coalition, the 501(c)4 political organization he founded in 2017," the newspaper reported. "Charis also held a candidate's academy this month to prepare Christians to run for office, and Wommack helped found the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, designed to 'bring lawmakers together in support of clear biblical principles.'"

Watch:

https://www.rawstory.com/andrew-wommack-woodland-park-colorado/

 

Woodland Park?
He wants Woodland Park???
Hope he brought his checkbook.
Real estate in Woodland Park is really expensive just now.

 

Of inmates and asylums: Today's House Republicans make the John Birchers look quaint


https://thehill.com/opinion/campaig...house-republicans-make-the-john-birchers-look

 

The Police State of California is doing a fantastic bang-up job....Oregon and Washington could take this as a reminder of maintaining civil obedience.

Police declare unlawful assembly after Calif. party goes viral

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 11:37 AM PT – Sunday, May 23, 2021
A birthday party promoted on social media exploded as people flocked to the beach on Friday. Reports have said the party started as an online birthday invitation when the hashtag “Adrian’s Kickback” began trending online.

The details of the party spread after the promotion garnered about three million views on TikTok. Once the viral video caught wind, people started heading to Huntington Beach, about 40 miles south of Los Angeles.

Police declared an unlawful assembly late that evening after several hundred partiers had already shown up in town. Although, Saturday saw the main event with upwards of 1,000 people swarming the beach.

Police warned visitors heading into the city that steps were being taken in order to prepare for a potential increase in visitors. They reminded party-goers of no alcohol or drugs on the beach, no fireworks and that the beach closed at 10 p.m.

Attendees said they were starved for entertainment after a long pandemic.

As the gathering headed into the evening, partiers could be seen climbing on trees, flag poles and lifeguard stations. They also used fireworks, one of which exploded in a crowd sending people running.

At that point is when police declared an unlawful assembly due to unruly crowds. This then lead to an emergency curfew just before midnight into early Sunday for the downtown area. At least one arrest has been reported.

 

One way to spot a paid PR hack is when news breaks here before it starts appearing in other news outlets. Like the fact OAN spent the whole weekend screaming that Newsmax and Fox are liberal. Its insane but not surprising because OAN is actually a Russian false propaganda asset.

Which is great for us progressive/liberal/Democrats because OAN gets more insane by the day which pushes Independents and moderate Republicans away from the treasonous conservative/Republican party.

Newsmax guest lashes out at Bernie Sanders: 'With Jews like him, we go to the gas chambers'

David Edwards
May 24, 2021



Newsmax/screen grab

https://www.rawstory.com/bernie-sanders-dov-hikind/

 

NEW POLL: More Than Half of Republicans Think Donald Trump is Currently 'The True President'

 

New poll;
More than half of despicables are amazed biden/harris hasn't become harris.

 

‘Biggest coward ever’: Internet blames ‘impotent’ Kevin McCarthy for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s latest antisemitic rant

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
May 25, 2021



Kevin McCarthy speaks at House press conference (screen grab)


U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's latest antisemitic COVID-19 rant is being denounced across social media, after right wing streaming website host David Brody defended the Georgia Republican over calls for House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to expel Greene from Congress.

Social media users aren't just blaming Greene for her early Tuesday morning screed, however; they are blaming McCarthy too.

"Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi's forced Jewish people to wear a gold star," Greene tweeted Tuesday, (spelling error and factual errors are hers.)

"Vaccine passports & mask mandates create discrimination against unvaxxed people who trust their immune systems to a virus that is 99% survivable," she added, which is also false.

Greene is not only amping up the antisemitism – there is no comparison between having to wear a mask and being gassed to death after being abducted, toiling in work camps, barely fed, raped, caged, and yes, forced to wear a yellow – not gold – star (or pink triangle) – she's amping up the coronavirus disinformation too.

Her comments come just days after she attacked Speaker Pelosi and her mask mandate (in place because more than half of House Republicans refuse to get vaccinated).

"We can look back in time in history where people were told to wear a gold star, and they were definitely treated like second-class sort of citizens, so much so that they were put on trains and taken to gas chambers in Nazi Germany and this is exactly the type of abuse that Nancy Pelosi is talking about," Greene complained, after calling the 18-term Pelosi "mentally ill."

Here's how people are responding today, including many blaming GOP Leader McCarthy.

https://www.rawstory.com/mccarthy-greene/

 

Green now there is one cool chick

 

QAnon and other far-right conspiracy theorists now believe UFOs are a 'distraction' from voter fraud





www.rawstory.com

https://www.rawstory.com/qanon-and-...ieve-ufos-are-a-distraction-from-voter-fraud/

 

Truth is the enemy.

Hundreds of conservative activists demand ouster of GOP 'traitor' who dared to say Trump is responsible for losing in 2020

Sky Palma
May 26, 2021



Shutterstock


More than 550 conservative activists are backing a move to censure and remove a high-ranking Michigan Republican Party official for daring to reject the notion that the 2020 election was stolen and instead blaming Donald Trump for his loss, MLive reports.

According to rallygoers who gathered outside the state party's headquarters in Lansing on Tuesday, Michigan GOP Executive Director Jason Roe is a "traitor."

Roe's trouble with his party stem from remarks he made where he said Trump "blew" the 2020 election.

"My frustration in hearing people be so angry about the outcome is that up until about two weeks until the end of the election, the president was seemingly doing everything he could to lose a winnable race. So, yeah, I do feel that way," Roe told MIRS News.

According to MLive, conservative activists "have been on a hunt to purge the RINOs -- Republicans in name only -- within their party."

"Heads need to roll," national delegate for Trump Debra Ell said in an interview.

"Ell claimed 550 precinct delegates signed on the resolution to remove Roe, which would represent less than one-tenth of the more than 4,800 precincts in Michigan," MLive reports. "A former precinct delegate told MLive they were asked for their signature despite no longer holding the position. Ell said roughly 50 people attended the Tuesday rally."

Read the full article over at MLive.

https://www.rawstory.com/michigan-gop-executive-director-jason-roe/

 

Liz Cheney Says Her Reelection Bid Will Be Important Marker for 'Future of Our Republic' and the GOP