Politics & Stuff

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US Supreme Court narrows law used in hundreds of January 6 cases

Obstruction charge was interpreted too broadly, court rules

 

https://www.ft.com/content/99dc5a87-b1d9-4713-87eb-2b89e23de584

 

The US Supreme Court has narrowed the use of an obstruction charge brought against hundreds of individuals in connection with the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 2021, in a decision that poses a new legal hurdle to prosecutors pursuing those cases.

 

The decision centres on a criminal charge — obstruction of an official proceeding — that the US Department of Justice has used against more than 350 defendants who stormed the Capitol in a bid to halt the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

 

The obstruction charge in question stems from a section of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act enacted in 2002 in response to several accounting scandals, including Enron.

 

In a 6-3 opinion, the high court on Friday endorsed a more limited application of that law, saying that a lower court had erred in construing it more broadly.

 

“It would be peculiar to conclude that in closing the Enron gap, Congress created a catch-all provision that reaches beyond the scenarios that prompted the legislation,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.

 

To prove a violation of the law, federal prosecutors “must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so”, the majority held.

 

It resisted what it described as an overly broad reading that would transform an “evidence-focused statute” into a “one-size-fits-all solution to obstruction of justice”.

 

US attorney-general Merrick Garland in a statement said he was “disappointed” by the ruling, “which limits an important federal statute that the department has sought to use to ensure that those most responsible for [the January 6] attack face appropriate consequences”.

 

The “vast majority” of the more than 1,400 defendants linked to January 6 “will not be affected by this decision”, Garland added, stressing that none of the defendants had been charged solely with the offence featured in the Supreme Court case.

 

Prosecutors may now have to reconsider a large number of cases brought against January 6 rioters as a result of the decision, while defendants convicted of the charge in question may seek resentencing.

 

The vote was not split along ideological lines, with liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joining the conservative majority.

 

Conservative Amy Coney Barrett penned the dissent, backed by liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. 

 

Barrett wrote that the legal provision in question was “very broad” and Congress would not have targeted an event like January 6 when writing the statute.

 

“Who could blame Congress for that failure of imagination?” she asked.

 

“But statutes often go further than the problem that inspired them, and under the rules of statutory interpretation, we stick to the text anyway,” she said, adding that the majority “does textual backflips to find some way — any way — to narrow the reach of” the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

 

The obstruction charge in question was also used against Donald Trump in a federal criminal indictment accusing him of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

 

Trump may attempt to leverage Friday’s decision to argue for dismissing that charge — which, if successful, would weaken one of the most serious criminal cases against him.

 

He is still awaiting a decision on his attempt to claim presidential immunity in that case, which will probably be handed down by the Supreme Court next week.

 

The January 6 cases have become a political talking point for Trump on the campaign trail as he seeks another four years in the White House as the Republican candidate.

 

He has pledged to pardon those imprisoned in connection with the riot, whom he has described as “hostages”.

 

A senior campaign adviser for Biden, the Democratic candidate in the 2024 general election, in a statement said the ruling “does not change the fundamental truth that Donald Trump will always put himself over our democracy”, pointing to Trump failing to condemn the January 6 rioters during Thursday’s presidential debate.

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6 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

That would be NSDAP, Peenemunde, Y2 rockets and Jews living in perfect harmony in Germany.
 

 

Like they do now

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45 minutes ago, Vesper said:

it was 4 months after she gave birth to Barron (born March 20, 2006)

Biden fucked up and said 'whilst she was pregnant'
 

 

He was probably fucking someone else though 

[Vesper 27,676]

The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-chevron-regulations-environment-5173bc83d3961a7aaabe415ceaf8d665

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday upended a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections, delivering a far-reaching and potentially lucrative victory to business interests.

The court’s six conservative justices overturned the 1984 decision colloquially known as Chevron, long a target of conservatives who have been motivated as much by weakening the regulatory state as social issues including abortion. The liberal justices were in dissent.

The case was the conservative-dominated court’s clearest and boldest repudiation yet of what critics of regulation call the administrative state.

Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in challenges that could be spawned by the high court’s ruling. The Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer had warned such a move would be an “unwarranted shock to the legal system.”

The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details when laws aren’t crystal clear. Opponents of the decision argued that it gave power that should be wielded by judges to experts who work for the government.

“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.

Roberts wrote that the decision does not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron decision.

But in dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that the assurance rings hollow. “The majority is sanguine; I am not so much,” she wrote.

Kagan called the latest decision “yet another example of the Court’s resolve to roll back agency authority, despite congressional direction to the contrary.” Just a day earlier, the same lineup of justices stripped the Securities and Exchange Commission of a major tool used in fighting fraud.

The court ruled in cases brought by Atlantic herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who challenged a fee requirement. Lower courts used the Chevron decision to uphold a 2020 National Marine Fisheries Service rule that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers who track their fish intake.

Conservative and business interests strongly backed the fishermen’s appeals, betting that a court that was remade during Republican Donald Trump’s presidency would strike another blow at the regulatory state.

The court’s conservative majority has previously reined in environmental regulations and stopped the Democratic Biden administration’s initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines and student loan forgiveness.

The justices hadn’t invoked Chevron since 2016, but lower courts had continued to do so.

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-0, with three justices recused, that judges should play a limited, deferential role when evaluating the actions of agency experts in a case brought by environmental groups to challenge a Reagan administration effort to ease regulation of power plants and factories.

“Judges are not experts in the field, and are not part of either political branch of government,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role.

But the current high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all had questioned the Chevron decision.

They were in Friday’s majority, along with Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Roberts’ opinion took direct aim at what Stevens wrote 40 years ago. “That depends, of course, on what the ‘field’ is. If it is legal interpretation, that has been, ‘emphatically,’ ‘the province and duty of the judicial department’ for at least 221 years,” Roberts wrote, quoting from the Marbury v. Madison decision that established the Supreme Court as the last word in interpreting laws and the Constitution.

Kagan, though, said that in getting rid of Chevron “gives courts control over matters they know nothing about.” She read a summary of her dissent aloud in the courtroom to emphasize her disagreement with the majority.

Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor joined Kagan in dissent.

Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges applied it too often to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, the court said Friday, adopting the opponents arguments.

Bill Bright, a Cape May, New Jersey-based fisherman who was part of the lawsuit, said the decision to overturn Chevron would help fishing businesses make a living. “Nothing is more important than protecting the livelihoods of our families and crews,” Bright said in a statement.

Reacting to the decision, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the ruling “is yet another deeply troubling decision that takes our country backwards.

Republican-backed special interests have repeatedly turned to the Supreme Court to block common-sense rules that keep us safe, protect our health and environment, safeguard our financial system, and support American consumers and workers.”

Federal agencies and the Justice Department had already begun reducing their reliance on the Chevron decision in crafting and defending new regulations.

Environmental, health advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, organized labor and Democrats on the national and state level had urged the court to leave the Chevron decision in place.

“The Supreme Court is pushing the nation into uncharted waters as it seizes it seizes power from our elected branches of government to advance its deregulatory agenda,” Sambhav Sankar, a lawyer with the environmental group Earthjustice, said after the ruling.

“The conservative justices are aggressively reshaping the foundations of our government so that the President and Congress have less power to protect the public, and corporations have more power to challenge regulations in search of profits.

This ruling threatens the legitimacy of hundreds of regulations that keep us safe, protect our homes and environment, and create a level playing field for businesses to compete on.” 

Gun, e-cigarette, farm, timber and home-building groups were among the business groups supporting the fishermen. Conservative interests that also intervened in recent high court cases limiting regulation of air and water pollution backed the fishermen as well.

The fisherman sued to contest the 2020 regulation that would have authorized a fee that could have topped $700 a day, though no one ever had to pay it.

In separate lawsuits in New Jersey and Rhode Island, the fishermen argued that Congress never gave federal regulators authority to require the fisherman to pay for monitors. They lost in the lower courts, which relied on the Chevron decision to sustain the regulation.

The justices heard two cases on the same issue because Jackson was recused from the New Jersey case. She took part in it at an earlier stage when she was an appeals court judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,792]

1 hour ago, Vesper said:

they have since 2020

that said

he is BY FAR the best communicator/debater the Democratic Party has atm

he is extraordinarily intelligent, focused, unflappable and quick on his feet

obviously the fact he is a gay white male cuts against him in theDem primaries (talking 2028 now) with a lot of balck and hispanic Dem voters (who tend, especially the blacks in the South, to be fairly conservative)

the US political scene/body politic and structural apparatus are hyper complex, to the point of nightmare scenarios now at damn near every major intersection

I'd imagine black people wouldnt support him more because of the fact that he behaved as a clear White supremacist when stopping black residents in South Bend from going after racist police more so than the fact he sleeps with a man. Theres a reason why gay black people in BLM shut him down during the last primary😂

After last night he'd be a massive improvement over what is left of Biden though.

[Vesper 27,676]

Just now, Sir Mikel OBE said:

he behaved as a clear White supremacist when stopping black residents in South Bend from going after racist police

pure lie

just stop

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,792]

1 minute ago, Vesper said:

pure lie

just stop

Why did BLM shut him down then?

Mayor Pete treated black people the way Elon treats black workers in his Tesla Plantations.  Lets keep it real Vesper

 

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73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve another term

IPSOS

[robsblubot 3,322]

Ironically these debates showcase the absolute LEAST important qualities of a candidate. 🙄

How likable, elegant, eloquent matters little to nothing when running a country.

The most important are the ability to pick the right people for the job, and working well with them. Of course, common sense comes a long way as well as logical thinking. Being a decent human being who respects the rule of law would be a nice bonus. 🙂 All of which would make an unconscious Biden, on a ventilator, still the far better candidate eh.

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,792]

2 minutes ago, robsblubot said:

Ironically these debates showcase the absolute LEAST important qualities of a candidate. 🙄

How likable, elegant, eloquent matters little to nothing when running a country.

The most important are the ability to pick the right people for the job, and working well with them. Of course, common sense comes a long way as well as logical thinking. Being a decent human being who respects the rule of law would be a nice bonus. 🙂 All of which would make an unconscious Biden, on a ventilator, still the far better candidate eh.

Which is the beginning and ending of it.

 

Biden is an old man, but despite his shortcomings he has proven he can surround himself around the right people. He's the right choice, and Kamala would be also for the same reason.

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1 minute ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

Why did BLM shut him down then?

Mayor Pete treated black people the way Elon treats black workers in his Tesla Plantations.  Lets keep it real Vesper

 

Many of those BLM protestors/professional agitators (The BLM movement is a completely mixed bag, many great people but also many disruptors/wrecker/paid trolls) were part of coordinated attacks orchestrated by the far left and the most toxic of the Bernie Sanders penumbra, aided by the other extremely overtly hostile presence from another campaign, the K-Hivers from the Kamala Harris campaign.

All their so-called grievances against were the stuff of fiction and poltically-motivated false attacks.

All one needs to do to see some back-up for what I say is to go look at the 2020 primaries and the absolute shitshow of skulduggery that the most radical of the social media K-Hivers (Harris supporters) perpetrated towards all the main candidates, especially Buttigieg, with aid from the far left environs of the Sanders universe.

They engaged in raw open homophobia, including pushing some raging homophobic political rival, an ex South Bend city councilman (Henry Davis, Jr) who posted a picture of a man having sex with an animal on his official Facebook account to rip Pete and other LGBTQ folk about being gay and in the military, (Davis was all over mainstream media for weeks attacking Buttigieg with fountains of bullshit) and other false attacks (far from just Davis) about Pete in South Bend, including absolute bollocks about a tear-down of long vacant derelict housing and the justified demotion of the black police chief).

The K-Hivers also had a go at Biden (the busing stuff fro the 1970s and his relationships with old Dem Southern US Senators were used by the K-Hive to try to make him look like a KKKlanner), Sanders (they pushed antisemitic and commie scare tropes), and Elizabeth Warren (commie scare with Native American mocking tossed in for added spice, with the founder/leader of the K-Hive, an ultra troll, an antisemitic POS named Bianca DeLaRosa, even calling a latina Warren campaign worker a coon, complete with a racist AF picture), etc etc.

The worst of the social media K-Hivers were the most toxic group, followed closely by the worst of the social media and alt left media Sanders crowd, with the two groups even teaming up (enemy of my enemy and all that) as I stated above, at times, when they were having a go at Buttigieg and Biden.

 

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,792]

2 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Many of those BLM protestors/professional agitators (The BLM movement is a completely mixed bag, many great people but also many disruptors/wrecker/paid trolls) were part of coordinated attacks orchestrated by the far left and the most toxic of the Bernie Sanders penumbra, aided by the other extremely overtly hostile presence from another campaign, the K-Hivers from the Kamala Harris campaign.

All their so-called grievances against were the stuff of fiction and poltically-motivated false attacks.

All one needs to do to see some back-up for what I say is to go look at the 2020 primaries and the absolute shitshow of skulduggery that the most radical of the social media K-Hivers (Harris supporters) perpetrated towards all the main candidates, especially Buttigieg, with aid from the far left environs of the Sanders universe.

They engaged in raw open homophobia, including pushing some raging homophobic political rival, an ex South Bend city councilman (Henry Davis, Jr) who posted a picture of a man having sex with an animal on his official Facebook account to rip Pete and other LGBTQ folk about being gay and in the military, (Davis was all over mainstream media for weeks attacking Buttigieg with fountains of bullshit) and other false attacks (far from just Davis) about Pete in South Bend, including absolute bollocks about a tear-down of long vacant derelict housing and the justified demotion of the black police chief).

The K-Hivers also had a go at Biden (the busing stuff fro the 1970s and his relationships with old Dem Southern US Senators were used by the K-Hive to try to make him look like a KKKlanner), Sanders (they pushed antisemitic and commie scare tropes), and Elizabeth Warren (commie scare with Native American mocking tossed in for added spice, with the founder/leader of the K-Hive, an ultra troll, an antisemitic POS named Bianca DeLaRosa, even calling a latina Warren campaign worker a coon, complete with a racist AF picture), etc etc.

The worst of the social media K-Hivers were the most toxic group, followed closely by the worst of the social media and alt left media Sanders crowd, with the two groups even teaming up (enemy of my enemy and all that) as I stated above, at times, when they were having a go at Buttigieg and Biden.

 

Oh I agree that clown Sanders had his hands all over the attacks people faced in the Democrat party, all for a guy that isnt in the party, and with the decades he has spent in politics has nothing to show for it. I dont agree the demoting of Darryl Boykins was justified while keeping all of the white cops who made racist statements on the force. It shows the clear work of a guy who doesnt care what that group feels, and how they experienced life under his local government. I feel that entire action was Buttigieg trying to show his white voters he could be "tough against the blacks"(a la Clinton executing Rector in 92), and while that works perfectly in small town middle america, it looks bad under a national magnified glass.

Kamala is only an online phenom though because she had(has?) like 12 actual supporters though IRL. Any true power she had in bringing out the vote was mute because she is inauthentic and despite having black and Indian roots was never really able to make a base with either group. Theres a reason why with all the talk of replacing Biden no one has really thought of her.  My sister is in the same sorority as Kamala, and even then I can name the actual people I know who like her in real life on one hand.😂

I'd have to see what the context was for the coon comment though. I think sometimes its offensive, but sometimes its a statement for a clear sellout. Like Kanye "Slavery was a choice" West has been called a coon and given the modern definition he would fit it.

[Vesper 27,676]

 

wow, first time in its 172 year history this has happened with the NYT:

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/opinion/biden-election-debate-trump.html

 

President Biden has repeatedly and rightfully described the stakes in this November’s presidential election as nothing less than the future of American democracy.

Donald Trump has proved himself to be a significant jeopardy to that democracy — an erratic and self-interested figure unworthy of the public trust. He systematically attempted to undermine the integrity of elections. His supporters have described, publicly, a 2025 agenda that would give him the power to carry out the most extreme of his promises and threats. If he is returned to office, he has vowed to be a different kind of president, unrestrained by the checks on power built into the American political system.

Mr. Biden has said that he is the candidate with the best chance of taking on this threat of tyranny and defeating it. His argument rests largely on the fact that he beat Mr. Trump in 2020. That is no longer a sufficient rationale for why Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee this year.

At Thursday’s debate, the president needed to convince the American public that he was equal to the formidable demands of the office he is seeking to hold for another term. Voters, however, cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago.

The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence.

Mr. Biden has been an admirable president. Under his leadership, the nation has prospered and begun to address a range of long-term challenges, and the wounds ripped open by Mr. Trump have begun to heal. But the greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.

As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency. There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.

If the race comes down to a choice between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden, the sitting president would be this board’s unequivocal pick. That is how much of a danger Mr. Trump poses. But given that very danger, the stakes for the country and the uneven abilities of Mr. Biden, the United States needs a stronger opponent to the presumptive Republican nominee. To make a call for a new Democratic nominee this late in a campaign is a decision not taken lightly, but it reflects the scale and seriousness of Mr. Trump’s challenge to the values and institutions of this country and the inadequacy of Mr. Biden to confront him.

Ending his candidacy would be against all of Mr. Biden’s personal and political instincts. He has picked himself up from tragedies and setbacks in the past and clearly believes he can do so again. Supporters of the president are already explaining away Thursday’s debate as one data point compared with three years of accomplishments. But the president’s performance cannot be written off as a bad night or blamed on a supposed cold, because it affirmed concerns that have been mounting for months or even years. Even when Mr. Biden tried to lay out his policy proposals, he stumbled. It cannot be outweighed by other public appearances because he has limited and carefully controlled his public appearances.

It should be remembered that Mr. Biden challenged Mr. Trump to this verbal duel. He set the rules, and he insisted on a date months earlier than any previous general election debate. He understood that he needed to address longstanding public concerns about his mental acuity and that he needed to do so as soon as possible.

The truth Mr. Biden needs to confront now is that he failed his own test.

In polls and interviews, voters say they are seeking fresh voices to take on Mr. Trump. And the consolation for Mr. Biden and his supporters is that there is still time to rally behind a different candidate. While Americans are conditioned to the long slog of multiyear presidential elections, in many democracies, campaigns are staged in the space of a few months.

It is a tragedy that Republicans themselves are not engaged in deeper soul-searching after Thursday’s debate. Mr. Trump’s own performance ought to be regarded as disqualifying. He lied brazenly and repeatedly about his own actions, his record as president and his opponent. He described plans that would harm the American economy, undermine civil liberties and fray America’s relationships with other nations. He refused to promise that he would accept defeat, returning instead to the kind of rhetoric that incited the Jan. 6 attack on Congress.

The Republican Party, however, has been co-opted by Mr. Trump’s ambitions. The burden rests on the Democratic Party to put the interests of the nation above the ambitions of a single man.

Democrats who have deferred to Mr. Biden must now find the courage to speak plain truths to the party’s leader. The confidantes and aides who have encouraged the president’s candidacy, and who sheltered him from unscripted appearances in public, should recognize the damage to Mr. Biden’s standing and the unlikelihood that he can repair it.

Mr. Biden answered an urgent question on Thursday night. It was not the answer that he and his supporters were hoping for. But if the risk of a second Trump term is as great as he says it is — and we agree with him that the danger is enormous — then his dedication to this country leaves him and his party only one choice.

The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November.

It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long.

 

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7 minutes ago, Sir Mikel OBE said:

I'd have to see what the context was for the coon comment though. I think sometimes its offensive, but sometimes its a statement for a clear sellout. Like Kanye "Slavery was a choice" West has been called a coon and given the modern definition he would fit it.

Kamala Harris Has A Vibrant Online Fan Club. But It Also Has A Toxic Side.

The KHive aims to amplify and support the Democratic vice presidential nominee, but some of its members have crossed the line from ardent fandom to overt harassment.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-khive-toxic-side_n_5f4fa573c5b69eb5c037473e

Luverta Jeffrey’s son used to be on Twitter all the time. The 19-year-old was a big Kamala Harris supporter and loved discussing the then-presidential candidate online last year with fellow fans. But, after some research, he decided Harris was no longer his candidate.

“We don’t need you fags anyway,” a tweet popped up on his phone from someone identifying themselves as a member of Harris’ digital army of fans, dubbed the KHive. The loosely organized fan group is an online community of ardent Harris supporters who backed the Democratic senator from California first during her presidential run and now as Joe Biden’s pick for vice president.

Jeffrey came to her son’s defense, thinking that she was up against a few online trolls ― nothing she hasn’t seen on Twitter herself. But things quickly got ugly.

Self-identified members of the KHive started replying to and retweeting Jeffrey’s tweets about her son, Jeffrey said, which led to her getting swarmed — when anywhere from several to dozens of accounts start tweeting at or retweeting one person at the same time.

They used her past tweets about being a victim of sexual assault and domestic abuse to harass her. Multiple people also told her she should try to kill herself, citing prior tweets in which she discussed having suicidal thoughts.

“They spent time retweeting my posts and calling me a white supremacist, a coon and all sorts of derogatory names, fueling others who began to DM me telling me I was a sell out because I was Black and I should’ve killed myself when I had the chance,” Jeffrey said. “I was mocked and harassed for being a sexual assault survivor, a domestic abuse survivor, and was told by the KHive that it was good for me and they hope it happens again, since I don’t support Harris.”

Members of the KHive, which one member estimated is made up of 50,000 to 60,000 Twitter accounts, see themselves as defenders and boosters of Harris, particularly as she faces an onslaught of racist and misogynistic harassment as the first Black and first Asian American woman to be nominated for vice president by either major party. Harris and her allies have shouted out the group multiple times.

 

It’s not surprising Harris has such a devoted group of supporters and defenders, given the historical significance of her candidacy. And the inevitable vitriol faced by women, particularly women of color, in politics helps to explain why some supporters are passionate in their defense of her reputation online. But, according to nearly a dozen people who spoke with HuffPost, some members of the KHive have crossed the line from ardent fandom to overt harassment and threatening language.

Nearly a dozen people said accounts identified as part of the KHive often kicked off or instigated harassment campaigns against them for originally backing Democratic candidates other than Harris. Often, after the harassment began, self-identified KHive members and other accounts swarmed them on Twitter.

The harassment included slurs about people’s ethnicity, including calling Black people “house slaves” for backing other Democrats. One Elizabeth Warren supporter, who identifies as gay, said he was told that all “Warren gays should be chemically castrated,” after he was the target of a harassment campaign kicked off by a KHive member. A recent high school graduate who supported Bernie Sanders said a volunteer organizer for Harris’s presidential campaign tweeted that he “hoped I would be raped in a gas chamber by MAGA nazis” (the teen is Jewish). The Harris supporter deleted the tweet minutes after posting it, according to the teen.

Multiple people said their personal information was published online, forcing some to move their families to a different location temporarily for fear they were in physical danger. Two women said KHive members made veiled threats toward their children. One of the women said she received a call from child protective services about her 17-month-old child after an incident with the KHive.

This behavior is not reflective of Harris as a candidate or Harris supporters as a whole. No politician or celebrity is responsible for every tweet by a supporter, nor is every member of an online movement responsible for its most aggressive element.

And it can be difficult to cleanly sum up the behavior of loosely organized political fan groups that form, often online, around our most popular political candidates, like the Yang Gang or the Bernie Bros.

A former aide on the Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, who experienced the fallout from the sometimes harmful behavior of the Bernie Bros, said he believes the toxicity in political fan groups is a reflection of the nature of online fandom, not the politician or celebrity themselves.

“Between 2016 and 2020 we’ve seen this happening on the internet much more. Politics is only one sphere of where this [online fan culture] happens,” said the former aide. “You see it with celebrities who have stans who can be extremely hostile, like [fans of] Ariana Grande or Taylor Swift.”

But Harris could be one of the most powerful politicians in the country come January, and her rise has in part been shaped by her online image.

“Obviously, politicians cannot be held accountable for an individual’s behavior, but they can certainly influence it and make it clear that they denounce that sort of behavior,” said one Warren Democrat who asked to remain anonymous since they have received death threats from KHive members.

In response to a HuffPost inquiry about this article, Sabrina Singh, press secretary for Harris, said: “The campaign does not condone doxxing, derogatory language or harassment of any kind.”

Harassment Moves Offline

Some of the KHive’s highest-profile members have said the group is close-knit and has led to lasting friendships, often between Black women and other people of color who are excited to see a Black and Asian American woman have a chance at the office.

“I’ve seen a lot of situations where people who are KHive were going through difficult things ― medically, financially, emotionally, whatever the case might be ― and a lot of us will rally around them and support them,” said Chris Evans, a KHive member with over 55,000 followers on Twitter.

Julie Zebrak, KHive member and co-founder of Joe Mamas 2020 and Mamas4Kamala, said there’s “a lot of love on a personal level” for Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. “The KHive has been there both to support her, to support each other in our support for her, and to connect with each other,” she said.

 

Reecie Colbert, another member of the KHive with a large profile, added that the KHive’s mission to defend Harris was born in response to the intense scrutiny she’s faced.

Harris had one of her strongest moments during the last round of the Democratic debates in late June when she criticized Biden for his record on busing. Although she was widely applauded for her standout moment, Harris immediately received an onslaught of attacks on Twitter, including that she was a fraud and sellout, as well as racist birther accusations that she was not authentically American or Black.

“It’s really important that the KHive is out there fighting for Kamala,” said Colbert. “That’s something I think people are very unaccustomed to, particularly when it comes to a Black woman.”

The KHive has made its mission clear: amplifying and celebrating Harris while defending her against the onslaught of harassment and misinformation she faces online. But, as with most loosely-organized online groups, it does not have a unified set of tactics, and bad actors are hard or impossible to control.

While many self-identified KHive accounts tweet praise of Harris and criticism of her detractors, some veer into abusive and threatening language. Some of the online harassment reviewed by HuffPost appears to be from smaller Twitter accounts that self-identify as part of the KHive. In other cases, it came from accounts that did not identify themselves as KHive members in their profiles.

One alleged bad actor, in particular, stands out. Bianca Delarosa, who has a large following and multiple Twitter accounts, claims to be the founder of the KHive. Nearly all of the people HuffPost spoke with said much of the harassment they experienced started with Delarosa.

“She definitely encouraged the harassment,” one former Warren Democrat said of Delarosa. “She was constantly trying to bait Warren Dems into interacting with her by tweeting about us from various accounts with our Twitter information so that her followers and fellow KHive members would tweet and message us.”

 

“The KHive has made its mission clear: amplifying and celebrating Harris, while defending her against the onslaught of harassment and misinformation she faces online. But, as with most loosely-organized online groups, it does not have a unified set of tactics, and bad actors are hard or impossible to control.”

Evans and Colbert both disputed Delarosa’s recent claim that she’s “the only one who speaks for KHive.”

“She absolutely is not the only person who speaks for the KHive because there is no spokesperson,” Colbert said. “She has a faction of fans who consider her their leader, but a vast majority of KHive is simply people who support Kamala.”

“No one person speaks for the KHive ― including myself. Regardless of what they might claim,” Evans added.

Delarosa has amplified harassment against almost all of the people HuffPost spoke with. She has also encouraged harassment, they said, and called non-Harris supporters “Nazis,” “leader of the Lynch mob,” and “Stephen from Django” (Samuel L. Jackson’s character in “Django Unchained”).

Delarosa denied accusations of doxxing and harassment in a comment to HuffPost. “I admit to being a deliberate pain in the ass, but nothing I ever did went beyond basic overzealous championing, and perhaps a bit of ridicule,” she said. (Delarosa tweeted after receiving the request for comment that she was being targeted by an “anti-Bianca smear campaign.”)

Alex Lawson, a Warren supporter who says she was harassed and later doxxed by KHive members, told HuffPost that Delarosa instigated much of the harassment she experienced. After Lawson reported one of Delarosa’s tweets in which Delarosa claimed she was going to write a blog post on “Warrenites that will explain how what they’re saying is white supremacy,” multiple accounts lifted and doctored Lawson’s profile image.

The doctored photos showed Lawson wearing a fake Ku Klux Klan hood, with big letters spelling “white supremacist” and “KKKunt” across the images. Lawson said Delarosa retweeted the image, which was created by another KHive member.

Delarosa confirmed it was a friend of hers who photoshopped the image of Lawson and wrote “white supremacist” on it. Delarosa also said she immediately blocked Lawson after the initial “Warrenites” tweet. Lawson said that Delarosa did not block her until August.

Multiple accounts lifted and photoshopped Lawson's profile image to show her wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood with the words "KKKunt" and "white supremacist."

 

Lawson filed a copyright removal report to Twitter to get the photoshopped images taken down. But the Twitter account that originally doctored Lawson’s profile image released all of her personal information included in the copyright removal report.

Delarosa also shared Lawson’s full name, which was not available on Twitter. Other Twitter users tweeted out the name of Lawson’s employer and her work address. A fake Twitter account was created in Lawson’s name, she was signed up for dating websites, and people continued to label her a Nazi and white supremacist.

In response, Lawson hired an attorney who sent a cease-and-desist letter to Delarosa. Delarosa made the cease-and-desist letter public, which Lawson said only continued the harassment campaign against her.

Someone contacted Lawson’s ex-husband at his place of employment and said Lawson “does not seem stable at all,” so he should check on their 11-year-old daughter. A few self-identified KHive members made veiled threats toward Lawson’s daughter, tweeting: “Take care of your daughter, Alexis.”

Lawson bought a security system and moved her daughter out of her house as a safety precaution. “I was scrambling because I thought some crazy person was going to think I’m a white supremacist and come kill me and my daughter,” said Lawson, who added that she’s still experiencing harassment.

 

“Any online stan group is going to ― at its most extreme end ― have some people who are bad actors. I’m sure the KHive is not immune to that.”

- Chris Evans, KHive member with large Twitter following

“Considering Bianca had a high visibility account I would say her promoting tweets like the one showing Alex with a KKK hood on or with the words ‘white supremacist’ across her photo was the very reason the harassment campaign against Alex was started,” said another Warren supporter, who asked to be anonymous for fear of further harassment.

Delarosa denied doxxing Lawson. “Twitter rules, in fact, do NOT consider it doxxing to say someone’s NAME; this also applies to their profession, where they work, or any publicly available [information],” Delarosa wrote in an email. (Twitter rules state that “You may not publish or post other people’s private information without their express authorization and permission,” but that it may not treat information as private if an individual has shared it elsewhere online.)

Erica, a Navy veteran who originally supported Sanders, said she had under 1,000 Twitter followers when the KHive swarmed one of her tweets that was critical of Harris (she asked to withhold her last name to prevent further harassment).

Erica said she was added to multiple Twitter lists by KHive members, including Delarosa, which is how she suspects some KHive members target and harass non-Harris supporters. She said nearly a dozen accounts, including KHive members and non-Hive members, swarmed her, retweeting not just her tweet about Harris but all of her past tweets.

Over the course of a few days, people tweeted out photos of Erica and her son (which she believes they took from her Facebook page before she made it private). Her naval command at the time received at least 15 calls trying to get her fired, and multiple accounts tweeted out her old address.

Eventually, someone filed a false report with child protective services alleging that Erica was abusing her 17-month-old son. She suspects someone used her past social media posts about her struggles with PTSD to file the false report. Erica believes the report was from someone in the KHive because she saw tweets alluding to the incident from someone who had participated in the harassment.

“I was legitimately afraid, mainly for my son. Going after our children is a new low,” she said. “I was always terrified that someone was going to show up to my house or my command.”

Albert Molina, a Warren supporter, told HuffPost that the KHive repeatedly said he was white and accused him of being a white supremacist, even though he identifies as Hispanic. In other instances, some KHive members have attempted to counter people of color who back other Democrats by accusing them of using “digital blackface” to fake that they are Black.

“They ignore all people of color by blocking them, and then just attack the white people,” Molina said. “It was working really well for them, actually, because it was silencing a lot of people, especially white supporters because what are they gonna say?”

Delarosa tweeted an image of a raccoon with the caption: “What’s the Latin version of this? Cause it’s y’all.” "Coon," when used by white people, is a derogatory term for Black people; when used by other people of color, it's often defined as a Black person who is ignorant of white supremacy.

 

Several people who spoke with HuffPost said that Delarosa uses multiple accounts to harass non-Harris supporters, and has been suspended from Twitter multiple times. Two of Delarosa’s main accounts were suspended at least once during the reporting of this article. (Twitter told HuffPost the company could not comment on personal account information.)

This week, Delarosa tweeted that she’s “holding online virtual campaign rallies” on one of her Twitter accounts with the profile name “Official KHive for Biden-Harris.”

“I need to use this account for business after today,” she tweeted. “So, I’ll probably be deleting everything and starting fresh.” The rallies do not appear to be sanctioned by the campaign.

In a follow-up email, Delarosa said much of the harassment came from others who are no longer part of the KHive. “As a Black woman, I have tended to be blamed for anything anyone does who was KHive,” Delarosa said.

‘A Fraction Of Her Support’

Colbert, Evans and Zebrak cautioned that the behavior of a few KHive members is not representative of the entire fan group. All three KHive members denied accusations that the stan group would dox non-Harris supporters.

“I know that there’s this narrative that particularly people who support Bernie, and some Warren supporters as well, have tried to put out there that the KHive is toxic,” Evans said, adding that he himself has witnessed very little toxic behavior. “Any online stan group is going to ― at its most extreme end ― have some people who are bad actors. I’m sure the KHive is not immune to that.”

Colbert added that anyone doxxing and harassing people in the name of KHive is not doing so in the spirit most KHive members abide by. “Anything that’s not focused on supporting Kamala is not KHive even if that person considers themselves KHive,” she said.

The former 2020 Sanders campaign aide also cautioned not to paint a picture of Harris’ online fans with such a broad stroke. Similar to Sanders’ supporters, the people doing this type of online harassment are most likely “a fraction of her support,” the aide said.

It’s also important to remember who Biden and Harris are up against, he cautioned: “[Trump] has the most hostile online supporters of any politician ever,” he added. “Their leader and their media leaders continue to egg them on.”

Asked what he would tell these toxic fans ― whether of Sanders or Harris ― if he had the chance, the former Sanders campaign aide responded: “On a personal level, I’m as passionate about this stuff as they are but this is not the way to build power for us. This is not the way to win.”

[Vesper 27,676]

Bianca Delarosa is literally insane. That article is just the tip of the iceberg.

She has hundreds, probably thousands, of fake social media and website accounts, she has been banned from dozens of sites, and just keeps coming back. She does (or at least did) nothing but troll post and threatened/hurt people in real life for at least 10 years, sometimes for days straight on end.

She needs major psych help.

 

 

Edited Friday at 22:57 by Vesper

[Vesper 27,676]

Kamala’s KHive trolls boosted by bots while media defends harassment campaigns

While the media defends KHive’s disturbing attacks on critics of Kamala Harris, new findings reveal a Democratic Party-linked bot farm amplified its leaders.

https://thegrayzone.com/2021/04/16/kamalas-khive-trolls-harassment/

An April 8 LA Times profile of the “KHive” attempted to put a positive spin on Twitter’s nest of Vice President Kamala Harris super fans, omitting the group’s online abuses, offline harassment, and alarming origins. Describing the KHive as “the type of modern political army that politicians increasingly rely on for both support and defense,” the LA Times painted its members as political realists united by a desire to defend one of the most powerful politicians in the country from unfair attacks. 

It turns out that Harris’ “modern political army” was manufactured with the aid of an army of fake Twitter accounts. After the term “KHive” was formally branded by MSNBC pundits like Joy Reid, KHive leaders received a boost from a Democratic Party operative-controlled bot farm. One of the people most advanced by the botnet is the widely recognized founder of KHive, Bianca Delarosa.

 

According to Vox, KHive credited Delarosa with organizing KHive in a Facebook group that started in 2017. Bustle confirmed that many KHive accounts point to Delarosa as the creator of KHive, as did the LA Times’ source, Reecie Colbert, whom it identified as “one of the more prominent members.” During an appearance on  CNN pundit Bakari Sellers’ podcast , Colbert credited Delarosa with creating KHive.

Beyond its omission of this obviously salient fact, the Times failed to inform readers that Colbert and the Twitter account @BlackWomenViews were the same person. Instead, the Times quoted Colbert as two separate people.

Democratic Party-connected Twitter bots helped drive KHive

The LA Times let KHive describe themselves as “truth tellers” when, in fact, they are notorious for spreading noxious lies about their political opponents. For instance, KHive spread a baseless lie that journalist Walker Bragman was “literally caught running fake black Twitter accounts.” In reality, it was KHive members who were connected to a network of fake Twitter accounts — some of which used the profile photos of deceased women of color.

In 2018, a forensically detailed investigation discovered a network of Twitter bots run by Democratic Party communications consultant, Sally Albright. Delarosa (then @BravenakBlog) and her fellow KHive ringleader, @WonderKing82, formerly known as @MrDane1982 and @MrWeeks1982, were among the Twitter accounts most promoted by the bot network.

The bots’ “most commonly retweeted negative or positive word” was “racist”, artificially boosting tweets accusing Bernie Sanders supporters of racism.

 

In 2019, Albright was again caught gaming Twitter “for fraudulent purposes”. However, her Twitter account was not banned until late 2020, near the end of the election.

At least three of Delarosa’s accounts (@Bravenak, @BravenakBlog, @BiancaNDelarosa) were eventually suspended by Twitter for violations, including “abuse and harassment.” Delarosa’s current Twitter handle is @RealKHiveQueenB. She also uses @QueenBDelarosa, and has used many others, including @KHiveQueenB, @KHiveQueenBee, and @WonderBitch81.

Using multiple accounts to circumvent suspension violates Twitter’s rules. In fact, KHive uses the very same tactics that Twitter banned Q-Anon accounts for using. Yet still to this day, KHive proudly admits to circumventing suspensions as far back as 2015, and remains on Twitter.

One of the LA Times’ KHive sources, Kenny Walden, tweets under @2RawTooReal. Notorious for calling for the death of Bernie Sanders, Walden has been banned on Twitter at least three times before under various aliases –– @KenneyEyes, @KingOfClapBacks, and @KENNYBOO93 –– for reasons such as “managing multiple Twitter accounts for abusive purposes.”

 

Violent inspiration

In June 2020, Delarosa unleashed a call for murderous violence: “Like actually killing people for not agreeing”; mocked people promoting MLK as “too soft”; and laughed about breaking someone’s nose with one punch, while blaming the victim – “It’s his fault,” she stated.

 

Such declarations of violence may be why the Harris-friendly media makes little to no mention of the Queen Bee. However, there was one particularly ironic exception to the code of silence around the KHive’s menacing behavior: MSNBC’s Malcolm Nance. On Twitter, the network’s national security contributor acknowledged that some KHive tweets “openly expressed racism & violent threats”, and asked his followers to report Delarosa.

Instead of being suspended, Delarosa was hailed as KHive’s “brilliant” inspiration.

 

Threats of harm

In its fawning depiction of KHive, the LA Times failed to mention that its members have taken their harassment campaigns beyond Twitter and into people’s personal lives. Two women told HuffPost that KHive members made threats against their children.

KHive contacted one woman’s ex-husband at his place of employment to tell him he should check on their 11-year old daughter. KHive members accused another woman of being a “white supremacist,” calling her place of work 15 times to get her fired. Then someone filed a report with child protection services and falsely accused her of child abuse.

The LA Times reported that KHiver Chantay Berry denied making threats when she tweeted a list of Harris critics who “may go through some things pretty soon…” However, in a video published on Twitter, the paper’s other KHive source, Kenny Walden, threatened everyone on Berry’s list.

“Something is about to happen to y’all. Ya’ll bout to lose your mother fucking job”, Walden promised. “Every mother fucker who was on Chantay’s list is a fucking revisionist and a white supremacist.”

(The KHive list of alleged “white supremacists” happens to include people of color.)

KHive often insults people for being “white”. Sometimes they’re anti-semitic. Delarosa says “The jews ran off…We’re mad at them for abandoning us to go be white with white people.” In another post, she suggested Jewish people hate Black people.

Albert Molina told HuffPost that KHive repeatedly said he was white and accused him of being a white supremacist, even though he identifies as Hispanic.

Delarosa taunted Molina with a racial slur.

 

According to LA Times’ the KHive is just a bunch of moderates who “tend to promote pragmatic liberalism.”

Media hypocrisy

The LA Times cast blame on Bernie Sanders, during his 2020 campaign, for his supporters’ “abusive behavior”, To this day, however, the Times defends Kamala Harris from association with the verified “abusive behavior” of KHive. There is literally no mention of “abuse”, and scarcely any allusion to it in the paper’s Kamala stan coverage.

As national political campaigns fight for social media dominance, it is natural that the online bases they establish will attract some deranged individuals. But inside the KHive, the most violently unhinged voices tend to earn the most praise while mainstream media looks the other way. Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, have openly embraced and encouraged the KHive, praising its members as “pretty awesome.”

[Vesper 27,676]

I think that is enough receipts, lolol

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,792]

Yea thats enough receipts, absolutely wild though. They sound like Beyonce fans lmao.

 

Never would have thought "Sista Gurl" Kamala had some online killers behind her.😂