https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiCfHW3N3vo&ab_channel=TwinPerfect
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
A profile of the conspirators in the Michigan plot
Patrick Martin
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/12/prof-o12.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
There are six men named in the federal indictment charging them with planning to kidnap and murder Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. They face multiple charges that could carry life terms of imprisonment.
Adam Fox
Adam Fox, 37, of Grand Rapids, is a contract worker at Vac Shack, a vacuum cleaner repair shop in Grand Rapids. Fox has worked there for 10 years and recently has lived on the premises, in a basement room where he hosted at least one meeting of the fascist group to discuss plans to attack Governor Whitmer.
Described in the federal indictment and many press accounts as the leader of the group, he is said to have appealed for 200 men to storm the state Capitol in Lansing and take hostages, before downsizing the plot to focus on kidnapping Governor Whitmer, putting her on “trial” for treason and then executing her. He purchased an 800,000-volt Taser for use in the kidnapping.
Barry Croft
Barry Croft, 44, of Bear, Delaware, is a self-employed long-haul truck driver who, according to one report, owes $35,000 to the IRS. He is now jailed in Delaware pending extradition to Michigan. Some press accounts portray him as a link between the Michigan conspirators and a nationwide fascistic milieu. The operation against Whitmer reportedly has its origins when Fox and Croft made contact over social media. Croft has a record of right-wing political views going back a decade, and he has been linked to far-right trends like the Three Percenters and QAnon on social media. He supported Trump in 2016, in large measure because he shared Trump’s anti-immigrant views.
Croft was convicted of a series of felonies, including assault, burglary, and possession of firearms during a felony, from 1994 to 1997, when he was 18 to 21 years of age. His longest prison term from those offenses, all in Delaware, was from December 1997 to November 2000, after which he apparently did not reoffend. At least that was the belief of the Delaware pardon board, which accepted his petition for a full pardon “for employment purposes,” which was issued by Democratic Governor John Carney last year.
Once engaged with the Michigan group, Croft was among the most active, attending weapons training sessions in Michigan and Wisconsin, planning meetings in Ohio, and developing a specialty as a bomb-maker. Using a commercial firework and what he called his “chemistry set,” he built the improvised explosive device that the group tested in Luther, Michigan on September 12.
Ty Garbin
Ty Garbin, 24, of Hartland in Livingston County, is an airplane mechanic, apparently now unemployed. He is now jailed in Kent County (Grand Rapids). He or his family own several rural properties, including a house and surrounding land in Luther in Lake County, which was the base of operations for surveillance of Whitmer’s vacation home. Garbin also owns another piece of property in Cadillac, Michigan, and a boat which was to be used to take Whitmer to Wisconsin.
Federal agents and state police staged a massive raid on the night of October 7 at Garbin’s manufactured home at 1662 Lansing Avenue in Hartland, arresting him, Fox, and other co-conspirators. Garbin shared the home with several older people, whose relationship to him has not been disclosed. (They are not his parents, who live in Wyandotte, Michigan, and they were not arrested.) The home has at least four vehicles, two of them pickup trucks, parked around it. The federal charging document claims Garbin was a member of a militia group and met Fox at a Second Amendment rally at the state Capitol in Lansing, presumably on June 18, where he agreed to take part in further direct action.
Kaleb Franks
Kaleb Franks, 26, of Waterford Township, a northwest suburb of Detroit, is a mental health aide at Meridian Health who studied at Washtenaw County Community College. He is also now in Kent County Jail. According to the federal charging document, he initially expressed reluctance at joining an effort to kidnap and kill Whitmer, but then changed his mind and became an enthusiastic proponent, declaring, when the group met in Luther on September 13, “Kidnapping, arson, death. I don’t care.”
While he purchased his home on Holbrook Avenue in Waterford in 2018 for only $11,660—an indication of straitened financial circumstances—he spent $4,000 during the summer on a helmet and night-vision goggles for use in the surveillance of Governor Whitmer’s vacation home. Where this money came from has not been disclosed. He participated in several tactical training exercises in Munith, Michigan, where the two leaders of the Wolverine Watchmen, Peter Musico and Joseph Morrison, lived.
Daniel Harris
Daniel Harris, 23, of Lake Orion, a northwest suburb of Detroit, was a Marine infantryman on active duty from 2014 to 2019, most recently stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. After discharge from the military, he returned to Michigan and was living in his parents’ house while working in construction. He is now in Kent County Jail.
Harris attended a planning meeting in Ohio on July 18 which “discussed attacking a Michigan State Police facility,” according to the federal charging document. Later that month the group decided to focus on kidnapping and killing Whitmer. After a tactical training session in Munith on August 9, Harris reportedly said of the plan to seize Whitmer, that the attack should be straight out execution: “Have one person go to her house. Knock on the door and when she answers it, just cap her.…”
Brandon Caserta
Brandon Caserta, 32, of Canton, in the western Detroit suburbs, lost his job at a Chipotle restaurant some time after Whitmer’s March 16 order closing all restaurants and bars in the state due to the coronavirus, which was later lifted to allow take-out operations, and further lifted to allow limited in-house service. He is now in Kent County Jail.
Caserta had a very active presence on social media, including posts in support of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old Trump supporter who gunned down two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin in August. He appeared on social media in a Hawaiian shirt, in the style of the fascist “Boogaloo Bois,” and on at least one video attacked Trump from the right-wing anarchist standpoint, while depicting the COVID-19 pandemic as a conspiracy against America.
Seven men were named in state indictments charging them with 19 total counts of terrorism, material support for terrorism, gang membership, and various firearms charges, connected with planning an assault on the state Capitol and targeting individual policemen for attack. All are alleged to be members of the Wolverine Watchmen, a recently formed militia, after in some cases belonging to other militia groups previously.
Joseph Morrison
Joseph Morrison, 26, of Munith, about 12 miles northwest of Jackson, was a Marine Corps reservist from 2014 until now, most recently assigned to a military depot in Battle Creek, Michigan. He is now jailed in Jackson County on $10 million bail. He is allegedly the “commander” of the Wolverine Watchmen and uses the online title “Boogaloo Bunyan.”
Morrison shares a house on Dunn Road in Munith with Peter Musico and is reportedly married to Musico’s daughter. He has no apparent employment outside of his Marine reservist duties, which were terminated the day he was arraigned on state felony charges in Jackson. The Marine Corps claimed that the termination had nothing to do with the charges.
Peter Musico
Peter Musico, 42, of Munith, shared the home on Dunn Road with his daughter and Morrison. He is now jailed in Jackson County, held on $10 million bail, and described as the other leading figure in the Wolverine Watchmen. The house is run down, surrounded by vehicles in various states of disrepair, and was recently subject to a tax lien of $1,731, which Musico apparently paid off, although like Morrison he has no reported employment. There is a large Confederate flag visible near the house.
Neighbors have called the police in the past about the condition of the property and the firing of high-powered automatic weapons. By one account, there was a regular Sunday weapons exercise from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. involving dozens of men in military-style fatigues. Musico had a YouTube channel on which he regularly denounced Whitmer and praised President Trump.
Paul Bellar
Paul Bellar, 21, of Milford, was in the Army, stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, until he was discharged last year with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was arrested in South Carolina, where his father lives, and now faces extradition to Michigan. He had lived in a mobile home park in Milford until he was evicted for non-payment of rent during the summer.
According to the state charges, in the Wolverine Watchmen, Bellar was “appointed the role of ‘Sergeant,’ had specific expertise in medical and firearms training and designed tactical exercises for training.” He now faces charges of providing material support for terrorist acts (a 20-year felony), gang membership (a 20-year felony), and carrying or possessing a firearm during the commission of a felony (a two-year felony).
Shawn Fix
Shawn Fix, 38, of Belleville, is a truck driver, employed at a local trucking company for the past seven years. He is now jailed in Antrim County, where Governor Whitmer’s vacation home is located, with the court setting a $250,000 cash bail on charges of providing material support for terrorist acts and carrying or possessing a firearm during commission of a felony.
Fix lived in an old house on a dirt road near the Lower Huron Metro Park, with two “Truckers for Trump” lawn signs, an American flag, and a flag with a coiled snake and the motto “Don’t Tread on Me.” He was apparently not active on social media but participated in weapons training exercises and in surveillance of Governor Whitmer’s summer home.
Eric Molitor
Eric Molitor, 36, of Cadillac, worked for Adelphia, a large telecommunications company, either as a contractor or direct employee. He is now jailed in Antrim County, also on $250,000 bond. He was active on social media, posting about the QAnon conspiracy theory and the ultraright Three Percenters, and praising Kenosha gunman Kyle Rittenhouse.
Molitor is married and has extensive family ties in the Cadillac area in the northern lower peninsula. His residence was closer to Whitmer’s vacation home than any other member of the conspiracy, and he reportedly participated in the surveillance of it.
Michael Null
Michael Null, 38, of Plainwell, was active in the Michigan Liberty Militia prior to joining the Wolverine Watchmen. He is now jailed in Antrim County on charges of providing material support for a terrorist act and felony firearms, with bail set at $250,000 cash. No information has been made public on his occupation or social media activities, but he was photographed carrying an assault rifle on April 30 at the state Capitol in Lansing along with his twin brother William, and at a subsequent anti-lockdown rally in Grand Rapids in May.
William Null
William Null, 38, of Shelbyville, also active in the Michigan Liberty Militia before the Wolverine Watchmen, is also jailed in Antrim County, with bail set at $250,000 cash. He is believed to work for Long & Foster real estate, but in what capacity is not clear. He was photographed along with his twin brother Michael at the April 30 armed rally at the state Capitol, standing next to Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf.
At a subsequent rally against the coronavirus lockdown in Grand Rapids, Sheriff Leaf was speaking to a crowd and pointed out Null, a large man wearing tactical gear and carrying an assault rifle, and declared, “This is our last home defense right here, ladies and gentlemen.”
The crowd of several hundred chanted “USA! USA!” in response. At the June 18 “American Patriot” rally at the Capitol building in Lansing, William Null was photographed working on the security detail for the event, which was attended by Adam Fox, Ty Garbin, and several others of the future conspirators.
We are witnessing a war against democracy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XStMihder2w&ab_channel=ProgressiveInternational
As pandemic surges worldwide, governments resist new lockdowns, step up back-to-work drive
Benjamin Mateus
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/12/covi-o12.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
The past week has seen a substantial shift in the number of new cases of COVID-19 globally. Over the weekend, new highs approaching 360,000 daily cases worldwide were recorded.
The upward trajectory was already evident last month, under conditions where all governments had launched drives to reopen the schools and campuses, with no serious safety measures in place, no approved vaccines and no containment of the pandemic. The result has predictably been a surge in infections and deaths. But the capitalist governments deem the reopening of the schools as essential to forcing workers back onto the job and increasing corporate profits.
Globally there are at present 37.7 million cases and 1.08 million deaths. Active cases now number over 8.3 million, which indicates that the present transmission rate remains remarkably high.
Whereas over the summer the United States, Brazil and India accounted for the highest number of new cases, over the last two weeks Europe has seen an even more rapid rise in new infections, at levels far higher than those experienced by Europe previously. Spain, France and the United Kingdom now equal the United States in daily new confirmed cases per million.
Behind these epidemiological statistics are mounting fears in financial circles, despite the ongoing stock market boom, of a worsening economic crisis. As the Financial Times noted: “With the second wave of coronavirus undermining efforts to return to normal, businesses’, households’ and investors’ confidence shaken, and little scope for additional monetary policy stimulus, most countries have a long way to go before output reaches pre-pandemic levels.”
According to the latest Brookings-Financial Times tracking index, significant doubts remain of a “robust” recovery. The stock market surge has depended on near-zero interest rates maintained by the Federal Reserve in the US and central banks around the world, plus trillions of dollars in public funds handed over to the corporate-financial oligarchy during the pandemic. But the real economy is in the deepest slump since the Great Depression. Brookings and the Financial Times write that “private consumption growth has slowed as fiscal stimulus measures wind down, which has led to a decline in household disposable income, and prospects of further stimulus remain uncertain.”
The euro zone, including Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan, are in perilous shape as they face severe and prolonged economic contractions. Despite remarks in the press about China leading a global recovery, there is doubt that China will provide a substantial lift to international demand. Meanwhile, poorer nations face a calamitous situation.
At the same time, rising cases and growing hospitalizations are placing significant pressures to respond to the crisis. Nevertheless, the policy of “herd immunity” continues to be prosecuted as every government emphatically resists future lockdowns or other broad-based containment efforts. The European governments are following the same basic path spearheaded by the Trump administration in the US, no less dictated by the interests of the banks and corporations.
In the face of an explosive growth of infections, the Spanish government imposed a state of emergency allowing it to maintain a partial lockdown on Madrid, affecting nearly 4.8 million people. The city’s hospitals have seen a surge of new patients admitted with COVID-19.
There were over 12,000 new cases on October 8 and 241 deaths on October 9. COVID-19 patients account for 40 percent of all ICU beds.
Businesses and local authorities, however, are resisting these new restrictions. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Spanish economy, heavily reliant on tourism, is expected to contract between 10.5 and 12.6 percent in 2020 . The Journal added that “the center-right regional government opposed the restrictions and appealed to the courts to overturn the order.” The Madrid High Court ruled that the restrictions would infringe on “citizen's fundamental rights,” creating a situation ripe for social strife.
COVID-19 cases in France are rising at a substantial pace, three times higher than the April peaks. On Saturday, health authorities reported close to 27,000 new cases. According to the Associated Press , 40 percent of the Paris region’s ICU beds are now occupied by COVID-19 patients. As in Spain, the number of deaths has been rising. Dr. Karim Debbat, who runs a small ICU ward in the Southern city of Arles, told the AP that he simply did not have additional places for patients. He said he was scrambling to convert recovery rooms and delaying elective surgeries.
President Macron has defended his abysmal record. When confronted by protesting Paris health care workers demanding increased investments in hospital systems, he disparagingly said, “It’s no longer a question of resources, it’s a question of organization.” Little has been done to prepare for a second wave and, after years of austerity, the health system has been left in shambles. France’s ICU capacity stands at 6,000 and over 1,400 ICU beds are already occupied.
The United Kingdom has also seen an explosion of new cases, with a single-day high of 17,540 infections on October 8. There were 81 fatalities on Saturday, with trends edging higher after summer lows in single digits. Hospital admissions have climbed by 50 percent. With more than 3,000 COVID-19 patients being treated in British hospitals, Britain’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, told members of parliament (MPs) that the ICUs in the North West could reach capacity in the next few weeks.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to make a statement to parliament today on implementing partial lockdowns to stem the rapid rise in cases of COVID-19. The new wave has devastated the UK’s testing and tracing program, as delays in results hamper efforts to get ahead of the deluge.
Sean Donnelly, deputy leader of Knowsley Council, said to the Financial Times, “The virus has spread right across the community. We are seeing lots among the older population. I wish we could pinpoint how it is spreading. We don’t know. We need a total lockdown.”
Much of the blame for the surge is being placed on the return of university students to large campuses and packed residence halls.
Johnson is expected to face significant opposition from within his Conservative Party. Dozens of Tory MPs oppose his plans for new restrictions, claiming that rules to prevent “social mixing” are not working. Some have aligned themselves with the so-called “Swedish model” policy of “herd immunity,” which claims, falsely, to protect the elderly while allowing the virus to infect the younger population. Graham Brady, a Tory MP, said that “these rules are a massive intrusion into the liberty and private lives of the whole British people, and they’re having a devastating economic effect as well.”
Germany has seen a surge of new COVID-19 cases in line with the rest of the major European nations. German politicians and Merkel will meet Wednesday to discuss the imposition of further restrictions.
Russia saw a single-day high on Saturday, with 12,846 COVID-19 cases, but the Kremlin resisted lockdowns, merely warning people to stay home over the weekend. The health minister told Reuters that the government is hoping to begin mass vaccinations this month, despite the fact that the Russian-developed vaccine has not been fully tested.
In line with global developments, the United States has seen a sudden surge in daily cases, exceeding 60,000 on Friday. As the New York Times reported, there has been a 12 percent increase over a two-week period.
With the US poised to reach eight million cumulative cases today and 220,000 deaths, many in the media are referring to the situation as a “third wave,” a product of school and university openings. Eleven states have set records for seven-day moving averages of new cases, and 13 states have reported positivity rates higher than 10 percent. Over the past week, New York City reported an average of 574 cases per day, an increase of 60 percent from the average two weeks earlier and the highest number since June.
Nancy Pelosi Profiteering Off Russia-Gate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1NEexEintU&ab_channel=TheJimmyDoreShow
Poverty to soar after Labor backs Australian budget
Mike Head
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/10/12/budg-o12.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws
Thanks to the Labor Party opposition’s support, the Liberal-National Coalition government’s budget tax handouts, which funnel billions more dollars into the pockets of the corporate elite and wealthy individuals, were passed last Friday.
It took less than three days to push the $50 billion worth of business tax concessions and income tax cuts through both houses of parliament. Under the cynical slogan of creating “jobs, jobs, jobs,” the two ruling parties imposed another dramatic shift in favour of the rich, at the direct expense of working class households.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison boasted of the outcome, saying the tax cuts formed the backbone of the budget. “This was all in the budget speech on Tuesday night from the treasurer, and it’s law on Friday. This is real change,” he said.
The swift passage of the budget’s key measures demonstrates a close political partnership. Whatever their tactical differences, the Coalition and Labor agree on using the mass unemployment and acute social distress triggered by the still-worsening global COVID-19 pandemic to further restructure economic and social relations in the interests of the capitalist class.
It is no wonder that the sharemarkets, corporate boardrooms and financial media are rejoicing in the budget’s “tsunami” of investment incentives, tax write-offs and cheap labour wage subsidies—all agreed by Labor.
What is not being reported, however, is the further widening of the gulf between the super-rich and the vast majority of ordinary people.
The bipartisan lineup, in response to the most colossal economic breakdown since the 1930s Great Depression, is already throwing hundreds of thousands more people into poverty and coercing jobless workers, especially the young, into insecure, low-paid work.
According to Foodbank Australia’s hunger report, released today, demand for food relief has risen by 47 percent, on average, since the pandemic began. The soaring toll has been driven by emergency assistance requests from international students, visa holders and casual workers, more than two million of whom continue to be denied wage subsidies or welfare payments.
The severity of hunger has also worsened. Currently, 43 percent of all food insecure people are going a whole day without eating at least once a week, compared to 30 percent in 2019. Last year, 15 percent of people experiencing food insecurity were seeking food relief at least once a week. In 2020, this has doubled to 31 percent.
Wider layers of the working class are affected as well. Almost a third of people suffering food insecurity in 2020 (28 percent) had never experienced it before COVID-19.
This social catastrophe will worsen in coming months. The budget confirmed the slashing of wage subsidies and welfare payments that had kept about five million households barely surviving since March.
Australian National University (ANU) modelling estimates that 740,000 more people have already been thrown into poverty—even by a conservative measure—through cuts to JobKeeper and JobSeeker rates. As a result, almost 16 percent of the population, or more than 4 million people, are living in poverty.
At the end of last month, JobKeeper wage allotments were cut from $750 a week to the minimum wage level of $650, while the JobSeeker dole rate was reduced from $650 to the poverty-level of $400. JobKeeper will be eliminated by March. On December 31, JobSeeker is due to revert back to the pre-pandemic level of just $40 per day.
According to the ANU modelling, the number of people in poverty, after housing costs are included, is set to rise to 5.8 million, or about a quarter of the population, once these cuts are complete.
In the lead-up to the budget, charities and other groups campaigned for a government commitment, in the budget itself, not to reduce JobSeeker—on which 1.6 million people currently depend—to the pre-COVID level. Their pleas fell on deaf ears.
Buoyed by Labor’s support for the budget, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg yesterday reiterated that no decision would be made before December on whether to go back to $40 a day. That would depend on the “labour market dynamics” closer to Christmas.
In other words, the rate will be calculated on the basis of pushing jobless workers into cheap labour. This is part of the broader bipartisan “return to work” drive, regardless of the danger of COVID-19 infection and the resurgence of the pandemic, as seen across Europe, India and the US.
Frydenberg further ruled out “saving” all the jobs and businesses kept afloat by the JobKeeper scheme. “Some business will not survive and some jobs will be lost,” he declared. Even by Christmas, unemployment and underemployment are expected to deepen.
This is a deliberate offensive to gut wages and working conditions. In another “backbone” of the budget, employers will be offered a total of $4 billion to hire unemployed workers aged up to 35. Businesses will receive a weekly subsidy of up to $200 to pay half of what will be the minimum wage.
Employers will need to employ recipients for only 20 hours a week, permitting them to double their reward to $400 a week, while reducing young workers to half-time employment. Predictably, employers will exploit the scheme to replace older workers with super-exploited youth.
With Labor’s blessing, big business will benefit from a plethora of corporate tax concessions in the budget, on top of the more than $400 billion handed to it, by federal and state governments since March, in wage subsidies, “support” packages and cheap loans.
To camouflage the bonanza for the wealthy elite, the government, Labor and the corporate media have claimed that “around 11.6 million Australians” will feel some quick benefit from the budget. But new analysis from the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling has found that some households will receive as much as 10 times more from the budget than others.
Via income tax cuts alone, a household of two high-income recipients with no children will receive a benefit of $4,860 annually, while another childless household, where one is a low-income earner and the other is unemployed, will receive $500.
In fact, the gap is even wider, because the jobless receive nothing. A household with no children where both adults are unemployed will see no benefit. Moreover, the tax cuts for those on less than $90,000 a year (almost double the median wage of $57,000) last only one year.
Frydenberg yesterday reaffirmed that the government remained “fully committed” to $130 billion worth of income tax cuts left out of the budget, but due to commence in 2024. Labor voted last year for these “stage 3”cuts, which will give a dual-income household on $400,000 an annual tax cut of $23,280.
Buried in the budget papers is a range of social spending cuts, showing that the process of making the working class pay for the $1.8 trillion government debt, expected by 2030-31, is well underway. These include:
a $41 million cut in the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement from 2021/22.
$1.4 billion in savings through “streamlining” employment services.
total expenditure on recreation and culture to be reduced from $4.364 billion this year, to $3.9 billion in 2023-24.
a $14 million cut to the Australian National Audit Office, which is meant to scrutinise government spending.
a cut in the annual refugee intake from 18,750 to 13,750, combined with halving the funds for supporting people seeking asylum.
With Labor’s support, the budget included no extra money for aged care facilities, where chronic under-funding and under-staffing contributed to 677 of the nearly 900 COVID-19 deaths officially recorded in the country so far.
Labor’s political assistance to the government takes to a new level the de facto coalition formed by the establishment of the unconstitutional “national cabinet” of Coalition and Labor leaders on March 13. More fundamentally, it flows from the decades of service provided to the ruling class by successive Labor governments.
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