Sen. Wendy Rogers Wants An Anti-Vaxxer Trucker Shutdown Of The Super Bowl – Because of Colin Kaepernick?

Seditious insurrectionist Oath Keeper and QAnon cultist Sen. Wendy Rogers (Q-Flagstaff) is nuttier than a Christmas fruitcake, but she really let her freak flag fly in advance of Sunday’s Super Bowl.

The Super Bowl haftime show this year is a lineup of hip-hop heavyweights, led by N.W.A rapper and producer Dr. Dre, and rappers Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem, along with the “Queen of Hip-Hop Soul” Mary J. Blige, are joining Dre for the performance, as teased in a nearly 4-minute trailer that dropped last month. Super Bowl 2022: Everything to know about the halftime show and other musical performances:

Dr. Dre emerged from the West Coast gangster rap scene alongside Eazy-E and Ice Cube to form the group N.W.A., which made a major mark in hip-hop culture and the music industry with controversial lyrics in the late 1980s. Dre is responsible for bringing forth rap stars such as Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent and Lamar. Dre also produced Blige’s No. 1 hit song “Family Affair.”

Snoop Dogg said in an interview with The Associated Press that the opportunity to perform at the Super Bowl is important for the legacy of hip-hop culture.

“I’m still thinking I’m in a dream because I can’t believe that they will let a real hip-hop artist grace the stage in an NFL Super Bowl,” he said. “We’re just going to wait for that moment and put something together that’s spectacular, and do what we’re known for doing and add on to the legacy.”

Sen. Wendy Rogers is not a hip-hop or rap fan. I get it. Nor am I. But this is just nuts. Far-right conspiracy theorists are warning the Super Bowl halftime show is ‘Satanic’: report:

On Wednesday, in a Daily Beast podcast with Asawin Suebsaeng, reporter Kelly Weill explored how far-right conspiracy theorists are warning about the “Satanic” threat from the Super Bowl halftime show.

“With Stop-the-Steal fanatics like Arizona wingnut Wendy Rogers hyperventilating that the Super Bowl show exposes children to ‘evil, wicked, Satanic’ things (her words), there’s a very real ‘performance-related Satanic Panic that’s been brewing for a little while now in the U.S.,’ Weill says, adding that the same fears bubbled up after the deadly Travis Scott concert at Astroworld in December,” said the report. “Of course it’s not hard to map the influence of QAnon onto the latest anti-Super Bowl crusade, nor the longstanding backlash from the right when Black artists perform at the halftime show (like when Beyonce’s backup dancers were criticized as supposed Trojan horses for Communism).”

This white Christian nationalist apparently sees Satan everywhere. This sounds like a classic case of psychological projection to me. Her social media posts are reson enough to remove this nutjob from office.

There are a lot of freaks in the Metaverse. It is like if Satan created a world what would it be. All kinds of weirdness going on. No rules. Not morals. Evil and wicked.

— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) February 8, 2022

“In fact, this backlash ‘happens every time there’s a major Black artist performing at the Super Bowl,’ Weill points out,” said the report. “‘They’re not explicitly linked but somehow whenever a Black artist takes the field… it’s evil, it’s Satanic, and I don’t think there’s any doubt that the people pushing the Travis Scott Satanic Panic conspiracy theories were also not reacting one of the most popular Black artists of the current moment.'”

Rogers, who has previously called for the arrest of Democrats for an imagined plot to rig the election, has also suggested that the Canadian truckers behind the anti-vaccine siege of Ottawa could storm the Super Bowl as a punishment for Colin Kaepernick kneeling to protest police brutality.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Wait, say what now?

Rolling Stone reports, Republican Lawmaker Basically Begs Anti-Vax Truckers to Blockade the Super Bowl:

For the past 11 days, hundreds of protestors, many of whom are driving big-rig trucks have occupied Canada’s capital city of Ottawa, blocking streets and disrupting the city with raucous demonstrations. These trucker protests, led by the so-called “Freedom Convoy” now besieging Ottawa, began after the Canadian and U.S. government enacted a rule requiring cross-border truckers to be fully vaccinated in order to get into either of the two countries.

The protests, like massive, heavily polarized movements are wont to do, spiraled into a wider, incoherent demonstration against public health measures as a whole. And now, they may be coming to the U.S.

Analysts watching right-wing chatter on apps like Telegram [Wendy Rogers has her own channel] have recently seen an outpouring of organizing around direct actions similar to Canada’s trucker protests, which spread from the Ottawa occupation to large disruptive actions across the country, including at a border crossing to the U.S. in Alberta. In particular, some right wingers seem to be plotting to shut down the Super Bowl this weekend. Trump megafan and Arizona State Senator Wendy Rogers took up that mantle yesterday, giving us this particularly bizarre take:

If truckers shut down the Super Bowl it would partially be payback for Colin Kaepernick and the kneeling.

— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) February 7, 2022

Colin Kaepernick hasn’t played a down in the NFL since 2016, because of a racist NFL owners lockout inspired by white supremacist Donald Trump. I get that Wendy Rogers is a white Christian nationalist, but what does this have to do with QAnon anti-vaxxer truckers in Canada?

Apparently QAnon, anti-vaxxer, and white supremacist is a unified theory of the modern international fascist movement.

The Guardian reports, 5G and QAnon: how conspiracy theorists steered Canada’s anti-vaccine trucker protest:

Thousands of demonstrators have successfully occupied Canada’s frigid capital for days, and say they plan on staying as long as it takes to thwart the country’s vaccine requirements.

The brazen occupation of Ottawa came as a result of unprecedented coordination between various anti-vaccine and anti-government organizations and activists, and has been seized on by similar groups around the world.

It may herald the revenge of the anti-vaxxers.

The so-called “freedom convoy” – which departed for Ottawa on 23 January – was the brainchild of James Bauder, an admitted conspiracy theorist who has endorsed the QAnon movement and called Covid-19 “the biggest political scam in history”. Bauder’s group, Canada Unity, contends that vaccine mandates and passports are illegal under Canada’s constitution, the Nuremberg Code and a host of other international conventions.

Bauder has long been a fringe figure, but his movement caught a gulf stream of support after the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, announced last year that truckers crossing the US-Canada border would need to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19. The supposed plight of the truckers proved to be a compelling public relations angle and attracted an array of fellow travelers.

Until now, a litany of organizations had protested Canada’s strict public health measures, but largely in isolation. One such group, Hold Fast Canada, had organized pickets of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s headquarters, where they claimed that concentration camps had already been introduced in the country.

Another group, Action4Canada, launched legal challenges to mask and vaccine mandates. In one 400-page court filing, they allege that the “false pronouncement of a Covid-19 ‘pandemic’” was carried out, at least in part, by Bill Gates and a “New World (Economic) Order” to facilitate the injection of 5G-enabled microchips into the population.

Both groups are listed as “participating groups” on the Canada Unity website, and sent vehicles and personnel to join the convoy.

Other organizers joined Bauder, including Chris Barber, a Saskatchewan trucker who was fined $14,000 in October for violating provincial public health measures; Tamara Lich, an activist for a fringe political party advocating that western Canada should become an independent state; Benjamin Dichter, who has warned of the “growing Islamization of Canada”; and Pat King, an anti-government agitator who has repeatedly called for Trudeau to be arrested.

Since they have arrived in Ottawa, the extreme elements of the protest have been visible: neo-Nazi and Confederate flags were seen flying, QAnon logos were emblazoned on trucks and signs and stickers were pasted to telephone poles around the occupied area bear Trudeau’s face, reading: “Wanted for crimes against humanity.”

The official line from Bauder and his co-organizers, however, has remained focused; in a Facebook live broadcast, Bauder instructed his supporters to “stop talking about the vaccine” and instead stick to message of “freedom.”

Such strict message control has attracted mainstream support. Numerous members of the Conservative party, Canada’s official opposition, have come out to meet the protesters. Elon Musk and Donald Trump have both endorsed the convoy. Fox broadcasters Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have provided glowing updates on the continuing occupation.

Bauder vowed the convoy would camp out in Ottawa until their demands are met, insisting to his followers that a “memorandum of understanding” would force the government’s hand, possibly even triggering fresh elections, if enough people sign.

[T]he occupiers have deliberately made life difficult for anyone in Ottawa’s downtown core. Trucks have been laying on their air horns throughout the day, often well into the early morning hours. An Ottawa court granted an injunction on Monday afternoon, ordering that the honking must cease.

In the shadow of parliament, a flatbed truck was converted into a stage – functioning as a speaker’s corner during the day, where far-right politicians and occupiers took the microphone to decry Trudeau and Covid vaccines. At night, the stage functions as a DJ booth for raucous dance parties.

Technology has made the occupation even easier: drivers share information on routes and the best ways to evade police barricades via the walkie-talkie app Zello. Organizers in other cities use the secure messaging app Telegram to share information, coordinate messaging and plan solidarity protests.

The occupiers now have the resources to stay for an extended period of time: they have raised more than C$6m (US$4.7m) through various crowdfunding platforms, in cash and bitcoin, despite having been booted from GoFundMe’s platform after raising over C$10m.

The Ottawa occupation is proof that a few thousand determined protesters can overwhelm police and shut down major cities with enough vehicles and coordination. Solidarity convoys have shut down the busy Coutts border crossing between Alberta and Montana, strained police resources in Toronto and Quebec City, and activists as far away as Helsinki, Canberra, London and Brussels have taken note. On the convoy channels, protesters warn this is just the beginning.

Politico adds, Ottawa truckers’ convoy galvanizes far-right worldwide:

[W]hat started as a rally of Canadian truckers angry at cross-border vaccine mandates has fast become a magnet for far-right grievances around the world.

The protests in Ottawa are now into their second week, with hundreds of trucks clogging the streets of the capital and large groups of protesters building camps for the long haul. The city’s mayor has declared a state of emergency. Local law enforcement has vowed to crack down on the “increasingly dangerous” protests.

But while the Canadian standoff against Covid-19 restrictions paralyzes Ottawa, it’s becoming viral online as a rallying cry for leading U.S. Republican politicians, far-right influencers and white supremacist groups who have transposed the criticism of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to an international audience for their own political gain.

Politicians from former President Donald Trump to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) have championed the nationwide protests in Canada, which began in response to Ottawa’s vaccine mandate for truckers entering Canada. It has quickly escalated into a global movement incorporating a loose set of anti-establishment causes, coordinated on social media and encrypted messaging groups.

On Telegram, a social network favored by the far-right because of its lack of content moderation, groups of tens of thousands of supporters have quickly mobilized to support the Canadian protests from across the United States, European Union and farther afield, based on POLITICO’s review of these channels.

On multiple crowdfunding platforms, people from around the globe — often directed to the cause by American far-right influencers like Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro — have collectively donated millions of dollars in support of the Canadian movement and started similar crowdfunding campaigns for like-minded protests in U.S. states and European countries.

“[R]ightwing U.S. political figures and content creators … really gave it a boost that made it global,” said Ciaran O’Connor, an analyst from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks online extremism and which has been following the Canadian protests against the Covid-19 restrictions.

“Donations from abroad are quite a common part of any large crowdfunding campaign,” he added. “But the scale of this one is unprecedented.”

The global backing of Canada’s so-called truckers’ convoy comes amid a growing level of sophistication among anti-vaccine groups in coordinating operations online and in the real world.

Since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, people opposed to government mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other public health measures have built close ties across social media, often turning to fringe networks after the likes of Facebook and Twitter began to clamp down on anti-vaccine misinformation in 2021.

This movement — which has primarily skewed toward right-wing politics — has been quick to jump on the latest anti-vaccine protests to promote a coordinated global message that policymakers’ efforts to keep people safe from the coronavirus are, instead, anti-democratic restrictions on individual freedoms.

Ottawa’s global reach

National security officials and researchers have seen this global coordination jump into gear during Canada’s ongoing protests — in a country that boasts one of the world’s highest vaccine rates.

Since late January, the likes of Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee have used their large online followings to spread the word about the truckers’ convoy, garnering tens of thousands of engagements including likes, shares and comments on social media posts in favor of the protests, based on data from Crowdtangle, a social media analytics firm owned by Meta, Facebook’s parent company.

In a post from late January, Eric Trump questioned why media outlets were not discussing the Canadian protests. Franklin Graham, an American evangelical leader, praised the convoy in a post that read: “I love these guys — Canadian truckers standing for freedom.”

Between Jan. 22 and Feb. 5, more than 7,000 Facebook posts, which collectively garnered almost 10 million social media interactions, mentioned the truckers’ convoy on U.S.-based Facebook pages, based on Crowdtangle data provided to POLITICO by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

The demonstrators are “highly organized, well funded, extremely committed to resisting all attempts to end the demonstrations safely,” said Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly, who added that a “significant element from the United States” was involved in the funding and organization of the truckers’ convoy.

On Telegram, groups with tens of thousands of members routinely swap the latest gossip about how the Canadian protests are going and share tips on how to spread the word beyond the country’s borders.

From social media to crowdfunding

Social media support has snowballed with protest coverage from right-leaning media like Fox News and more extreme outlets like Canada’s Rebel News. It also has translated into international donors backing the Canadian protests via crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe.

On Feb. 4, GoFundMe removed the donation page for the “Freedom Convoy 2022,” noting that the demonstrations had changed from peaceful demonstrations into an occupation, violating the company’s terms of service.

Analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found multiple U.S. right-wing groups, including those associated with the Tea Party Movement and others opposing U.S. vaccine mandates, had donated to the now-defunct GoFundMe page, as well as similar groups from Europe and Australia.

That international backing, in part, was driven by several U.S.-focused white supremacist channels on Telegram, which had repeatedly shared a link to the GoFundMe page. On 4Chan, an online message board favored by extremists groups, the same link had been posted at least 25 times between Jan. 28 and Feb. 5, based on research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

The removal of the GoFundMe donation page has not stopped the international financial support from flowing in.

On GiveSendGo — a rival crowdfunding site that was previously used to raise money for the legal defense of Kyle Rittenhouse, the U.S. teenager acquitted of shooting and killing two men, and wounding a third, during the riots in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020 — a new page linked to the Canadian protests has already raised more than $2.1 million. The goal is to collect $16 million.

American right-wing influencers like Jack Posobiec — who has a Twitter following of 1.6 million — heavily promoted that crowdfunding page. People living in the U.S., Israel and the United Kingdom have donated to the cause, based on a review of the GiveSendGo site.

First Canada, next the world

Similar “convoys” are now being organized across the U.S. A Telegram channel boasting almost 40,000 followers is sharing updates on regional protests planned in states from Alabama to Wyoming, based on POLITICO’s review of social media activity.

The social media group provides regular updates on how to support the Canadian movement, including posts from more mainstream social media about the ongoing protests. It also acts as a rallying point for diverse communities who oppose official government vaccine policies. The goal, based on reams of social media messages, is to organize similar nationwide protests that will eventually descend on Washington, sometime in early March.

“Canada took eight months to plan their [protest,]” one of the Telegram channel organizers wrote on Feb. 5. “The U.S. is planning this all in weeks.”

The mass anti-vaccine organizing is not limited to just North America.

Since early February, similar protests have also sprouted up across Europe — often using encrypted Telegram channels and country-specific hashtags under which supporters can rally.

Many of these Telegram channels have voiced their opposition to violent protests. But the groups also have seen an influx of more extreme content, including the posting and resharing of antisemitic and white supremacist material.

Far-right groups have taken advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to tap into the anti-government rhetoric of the anti-vaccine movement, repeatedly posting claims in these social media channels in favor of their extremist beliefs, based on POLITICO’s analysis of six months of social media activity.

Upcoming convoys are being planned in all 27 European Union countries. Organizers are also preparing to descend on Brussels — home to the EU’s main institutions — in force on Feb. 14.

They are already encamped at the Australian Parliament in Canberrra. The extremists the Canberra freedom convoy needs to remove: “Last week, I described the protest movement as Woodstock for Q-cooked middle-aged saddos, but Woodstock only ran for three days. We are now more than a week into this social experiment and the results are quietly terrifying.”

In at least eight of these national Telegram groups, social media users shared advice on how to donate to local protest organizations, offered suggestions on how to push back against alleged government efforts to force people to be vaccinated and posted debunked claims about the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and potential curbs on people’s freedoms.

In Ottawa, the trucker protests may be settling in for the long haul. But for supporters in the U.S. and elsewhere, they have offered a case study in how to bring anti-establishment sentiment into the mainstream.

“The Freedom Convoy paved the way,” said one of the organizers of the France-focused Telegram channel, with more than 22,000 followers, in reference to the Canadian protests. “Rest assured, we are not alone. We are in permanent contact with the Europe group in the organization of this liberation (sic) movement.”

Liberation? This is an anti-intellectual, anti-science, anti-government, QAnon conspiracy theorist, white supremacist movement. The Coronavirus pandemic, like the Black Plague of the Middle Ages, is setting the world back into a new Dark Ages after centuries of human progress.

Stupid humans will be the death of us all. The Holocene Extinction – Earth’s sixth mass extinction has begun according to scientists:

It is no secret that extinctions have been happening at an alarming rate in recent decades with human involvement and climate change blamed for creating habitats unsuitable for many species of wildlife.

Even more worrying is the findings of a major study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and BirdLife International which found that the earth may be on the brink of a mass extinction event.

Brought to you by ignorance, fear, superstitions, religion and greed.

Go nuts on that one, Senator! Oh wait, you already are.