All Discussions Tagged 'Left's' - The 4 Freedoms Library2024-03-29T06:45:29Zhttp://4freedoms.com/group/us/forum/topic/listForTag?tag=Left%27s&feed=yes&xn_auth=noThe DC riot and the execution of Ashli Babbitttag:4freedoms.com,2021-01-15:3766518:Topic:2506222021-01-15T22:56:51.731ZAlan Lakehttp://4freedoms.com/profile/AlanLake
<div><div class="css-1vkm6nb ehdk2mb0"><h1 class="css-rsa88z e1h9rw200" id="link-3658a626">Woman Killed in Capitol Embraced Trump and QAnon</h1>
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<p class="css-w6ymp8 e1wiw3jv0" id="article-summary">After 14 years in the military, Ashli Babbitt bought a pool supply company and delved into far-right politics.</p>
<div class="css-18e8msd"><div class="css-vp77d3 epjyd6m0"><div class="css-1baulvz"><p class="css-4z5zii e1jsehar1"><span class="byline-prefix">By<span> …</span></span></p>
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<div><div class="css-1vkm6nb ehdk2mb0"><h1 id="link-3658a626" class="css-rsa88z e1h9rw200">Woman Killed in Capitol Embraced Trump and QAnon</h1>
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<p id="article-summary" class="css-w6ymp8 e1wiw3jv0">After 14 years in the military, Ashli Babbitt bought a pool supply company and delved into far-right politics.</p>
<div class="css-18e8msd"><div class="css-vp77d3 epjyd6m0"><div class="css-1baulvz"><p class="css-4z5zii e1jsehar1"><span class="byline-prefix">By<span> </span></span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/ellen-barry" class="css-brehiz e1jsehar0"><span class="css-1baulvz">Ellen Barry</span></a>,<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/nicholas-bogel-burroughs" class="css-brehiz e1jsehar0"><span class="css-1baulvz">Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs</span></a><span> </span>and<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/dave-philipps" class="css-brehiz e1jsehar0"><span class="css-1baulvz last-byline">Dave Philipps</span></a></p>
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<li class="css-ccw2r3 epjyd6m1"><span class="css-1sbuyqj e16638kd3">Published<span> </span>Jan. 7, 2021</span><span class="css-233int e16638kd4">Updated<span> </span>Jan. 11, 2021</span></li>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Ashli Babbitt had been preparing for this day, the day when world events would turn her way. When a discouraged friend on Twitter asked last week, “When do we start winning?” Ms. Babbitt had an answer: “Jan 6, 2021.”</p>
<div class="css-79elbk"><div class="css-1ipdebz ehw59r12"><div class="css-tux0zj ehw59r13"><div class="css-13yoczh ehw59r14"><div><div class="css-8h527k"><div><a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07capitol-victim/07capitol-victim-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07capitol-victim/07capitol-victim-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&profile=RESIZE_710x" width="350" class="align-right"/></a></div>
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<div class="css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15"><div class="css-zgakxe erfvjey0">Her name will now be connected to that date, and to shaky footage showing a crowd of rioters smashing glass on the door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby of the <a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/politics/capitol-police-howard-liebengood-dies.html" title="">Capitol</a>.</div>
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<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">At the front of that crowd is the small figure of Ms. Babbitt, wearing snow boots, jeans, and a Trump flag wrapped around her neck like a cape.</p>
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<div id="story-ad-1-wrapper" class="css-1r07izm"><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/who-was-ashli-babbitt.html#after-story-ad-1"></a><div class="ad story-ad-1-wrapper" id="story-ad-1"></div>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“Go! Go!” she shouts, and then two men hoist her up to the rim of a broken window. As she sticks her head through the frame, a<span> </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/politics/capitol-police-howard-liebengood-dies.html" title="">Capitol Police</a><span> </span>officer in plain clothes fires a shot, and she falls back into the crowd. Blood starts pouring from her mouth.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">A day after Ms. Babbitt’s death, as<span> </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.tmz.com/2021/01/07/ashli-babbitt-final-video-marching-us-capitol-before-fatally-shot/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">part of a mob storming the Capitol</a><span> </span>amid counting of Electoral College votes, a portrait of her is taking shape.</p>
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<div class="related-links-block css-ywcsxu epkadsg3"><div class="css-13ft82o epkadsg0">THE RIOTERS</div>
<div class="css-1ejo39z epkadsg1"><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/07/us/names-of-rioters-capitol.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage&action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article" title="">The mob that rampaged the halls of Congress</a><span> </span>included infamous white supremacists and conspiracy theorists.</div>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Ms. Babbitt had left the Air Force after two wars and 14 years, settling near the working-class San Diego suburb where she was raised. Life after the military was not easy. After briefly working security at a nuclear power plant, she was struggling to keep a pool-supply company afloat.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">As a civilian, she found herself newly free to express her political views. Her social media feed was a torrent of messages celebrating President Trump; QAnon conspiracy theories; and tirades against immigration, drugs and Democratic leaders in California.</p>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“You guys refuse, refuse to choose America over your stupid political party, I am so tired of it,” she said in<span> </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://nypost.com/2021/01/07/ashli-babbitt-shot-dead-in-us-capitol-posted-tirades-against-politicians/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a video message posted on Twitter,</a><span> </span>addressing California politicians. “You can consider yourself put on notice. Me and the American people. I am so tired of it, I am woke, man, this is absolutely unbelievable.”</p>
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<div class="css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span></div>
<span class="css-16f3y1r e13ogyst0">A mob stormed the Capitol building on Wednesday. Ms. Babbitt died after being shot by a Capitol Police officer while inside, officials said.</span><span class="css-cnj6d5 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span><span>Win Mcnamee/Getty Images</span></span></div>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">The people close to Ms. Babbitt have all responded with shock. Her husband, Aaron Babbitt, 39,<span> </span><a class="css-1g7m0tk" href="https://fox5sandiego.com/news/local-news/san-diego-man-says-woman-killed-in-capitol-siege-was-his-wife/" title="" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">told a Fox affiliate in San Diego</a><span> </span>that he had sent his wife a message about 30 minutes before the shooting, and she never responded.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Her brother, Roger Witthoeft, 32, said Ms. Babbitt had not told her family that she was planning to go to Washington. But he was not surprised that she would protest.</p>
<div class="css-1q1hscp"><div class="css-1xk4eoy"><div id="LL">“My sister was 35 and served 14 years — to me that’s the majority of your conscious adult life,” said Mr. Witthoeft, of Lakeside, Calif. “If you feel like you gave the majority of your life to your country and you’re not being listened to, that is a hard pill to swallow. That’s why she was upset.”</div>
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<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Ms. Babbitt, who had four younger brothers, was raised in a mostly apolitical household, Mr. Witthoeft said. Their father worked in commercial flooring and their mother in a school program. Ms. Babbitt enlisted in the Air Force after finishing high school.</p>
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<div class="related-links-block css-pmf53q epkadsg3"><div class="css-1pwaef6 epkadsg2"><div class="css-144xwsw e16ij5yr7"><div class="css-1l19kgc e16ij5yr5"><div class="css-1j8dw05 e16ij5yr3">Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage</div>
<div class="css-x7rtpa e16638kd1">Jan. 8, 2021</div>
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<div class="css-oc28eq e16ij5yr0"><a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/08/world/08capitol-police-1/merlin_182105067_f5454ea6-ecb2-4a15-a532-5907a787e339-threeByTwoSmallAt2X.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/08/world/08capitol-police-1/merlin_182105067_f5454ea6-ecb2-4a15-a532-5907a787e339-threeByTwoSmallAt2X.jpg?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="400" class="align-left"/></a></div>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">While on active duty from 2004 to 2008, she met and married her first husband, Timothy McEntee. She worked as an enlisted security forces controller, a job whose duties include guarding gates at Air Force bases, and was deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq.</p>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">She then served in the Air Force Reserves and the Air National Guard. In the Guard, she was assigned to a unit based near Washington that is known as the “Capital Guardians,” because one of their primary missions is defending the city. Security forces in the squadron regularly train with riot shields and clubs for what the Air Force calls “civil disturbance missions.” She was deployed twice more, to the United Arab Emirates in 2012 and 2014, according to an Air Force spokeswoman.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Ms. Babbitt left the military as a relatively low-ranking senior airman in 2016, several years before she would have become eligible for a pension and other benefits.</p>
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<div class="css-79elbk"><div class="css-1t1qvpw ehw59r12"><div class="css-tux0zj ehw59r13"><div class="css-1fu52rt ehw59r14"><div><div class="css-8h527k"><div><a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07capitol-victim3/07capitol-victim3-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07capitol-victim3/07capitol-victim3-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&profile=RESIZE_710x" width="400" class="align-right"/></a></div>
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<div class="css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><div class="css-8h527k"><span class="css-16f3y1r e13ogyst0">Ms. Babbitt, in the second row, fourth from left, with other airmen of the 113th Wing, D.C. Air National Guard, after returning from a deployment in 2014.</span><span class="css-cnj6d5 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span>113th Wing, D.C. Air National Guard, via Facebook</span></div>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">By then, she had found another source of income, working in security at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Plant in Maryland. She was employed there from 2015 to 2017, according to a representative for Exelon, the energy company that runs the plant.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">It was there that she met Mr. Babbitt, who had been employed at the facility since 2007 and left in 2017, the representative said. The two moved back to her native California. She filed for divorce from Mr. McEntee in 2018.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">The transition was not entirely smooth. In 2016, Mr. Babbitt’s former girlfriend applied to a court for a protection order, telling the court that Ms. Babbitt, then known as Ashli McEntee, had approached her on a roadway and had rear-ended her car three times.</p>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“She was screaming at me and verbally threatening,” the complaint says. The court granted a protection order. The following year, the former girlfriend again applied for a protection order, which the court granted.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Shortly after that, Ms. Babbitt relocated to California, where she helped purchase Fowlers Pool Service and Supply, a company where her brother, Mr. Witthoeft, said he had worked.</p>
<div id="NYT_MAIN_CONTENT_3_REGION" class="css-9tf9ac"><div><div class="css-17ih8de interactive-body"><div id="prism-freeform-block-18273" class="css-1cs27wo"><div class="css-k9atqk"><h3 class="css-c7gg1r">Capitol Riot Fallout</h3>
<h4 class="css-yoay6m">From Riot to Impeachment</h4>
<p class="css-rqynmc">The<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/us/capitol-rioters.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform">riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6,</a> followed a rally at which President Trump made<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/trump-speech-riot.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform">an inflammatory speech</a> to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:</p>
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<li class="css-rqynmc">As<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/politics/capitol-siege-security.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform">this video shows</a>, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.</li>
<li class="css-rqynmc">A<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/12/us/capitol-mob-timeline.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform">two hour period</a> was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.</li>
<li class="css-rqynmc">Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao,<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-resignations.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform">announced that they were stepping down</a> as a result of the riot.</li>
<li class="css-rqynmc">Federal prosecutors<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/12/us/capitol-riot-trump/as-they-weigh-sedition-and-conspiracy-charges-prosecutors-expect-to-arrest-hundreds-tied-to-capitol-riot?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform">have charged more than 70 people</a>, including some who<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/10/us/politics/capitol-arrests.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform">appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot</a>. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.</li>
<li class="css-rqynmc">The House<span> </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/13/us/politics/trump-second-impeachment-vote.html?action=click&action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob-inline&region=MAIN_CONTENT_3&context=styln-freeform&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage">voted to impeach the president</a> on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.</li>
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<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“We all worked together as a family — my other little brother, me, her husband, me, my uncle,” Mr. Witthoeft said. “It was kind of nice, a family affair.”</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Ms. Babbitt appeared to struggle in business. In 2017 she took out a costly short-term business loan. In effect, it meant her pool business would have to pay an interest rate that she later calculated in court filings to be 169 percent.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Within days of signing the loan agreement, she stopped making payments, only repaying about $3,400 of the $65,000 borrowed from the lender, EBF Partners, records show. The lender soon sued her.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Ms. Babbitt’s politics were emphatically pro-Trump. On the door of the pool-supply company, a poster declares it to be a “mask free autonomous zone, better known as America,” where “we shake hands like men, fist bump like homies.”</p>
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<div class="css-79elbk"><div class="css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><div class="css-8h527k"><div><a href="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07capitol-victim5/merlin_182095326_63c163bd-a578-409f-a0ce-1b5e2158e308-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07capitol-victim5/merlin_182095326_63c163bd-a578-409f-a0ce-1b5e2158e308-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale&profile=RESIZE_710x" width="400" class="align-left"/></a></div>
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<span class="css-16f3y1r e13ogyst0">The door to Ms. Babbitt’s pool supply company.</span><span class="css-cnj6d5 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span><span>Gregory Bull/Associated Press</span></span></div>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Leaving the military had freed her to participate in politics, something she savored, her brother said.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“That was one of her things — for the first time in her life, she could actually say what she wanted to say, and didn’t have to bottle it up,” he said. She was frustrated, he said, with the number of homeless people in San Diego, and the difficulty of running a small business.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“My sister was a normal Californian,” he said. “The issues she was mad about were the things all of us are mad about.”</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Her social media accounts suggest that she also, increasingly, embraced the conspiratorial thinking of QAnon, which has asserted that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by an elite Satan-worshiping cabal, and that it was up to ordinary people to reinstate Mr. Trump.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">She retweeted a post that promised a violent uprising that would lead to Mr. Trump’s second inauguration.</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“Nothing will stop us,” she wrote on Twitter the day before her death. “They can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours …. dark to light!”</p>
<p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">Her brother said she was passionate about Mr. Trump’s cause, and believed she was standing up for the American people.</p>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-axufdj evys1bk0">“I know it mattered to her a lot at the end of her life,” he said. “It mattered so much that she died for it.”</p>
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<div class="css-79elbk"><div class="css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0"><div class="css-8h527k"><div><img alt="A mourner at a memorial for Ms. Babbitt near the Capitol on Thursday." class="css-1m50asq" src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/01/07/us/07capitol-victim6-sub/07capitol-victim6-sub-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale"/></div>
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<span class="css-16f3y1r e13ogyst0">A mourner at a memorial for Ms. Babbitt near the Capitol on Thursday.</span><span class="css-cnj6d5 e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span><span>Todd Heisler/The New York Times</span></span></div>
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<div class="css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-pncxxs etfikam0">Candice Reed contributed reporting.<span> </span>Susan C. Beachy<span> </span>and<span> </span>Jack Begg<span> </span>contributed research.</p>
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