Tag: qanon

The QAnon Queen Tried to Go Global. It Didn’t Go Well.

Wearing a Florida Gators T-shirt, an Arizona man in his mid-40s attempts to convince the hundreds of thousands of conspiracy theorists watching his laptop livestream that he’s the real leader of the United States. “King” David Carlson explains that he still has a few million people to “take out” before he’s finally done with his plan: installing QAnon kings and queens across the world. 

“We’ve managed to infiltrate large portions of the world’s population and cut the heads off the snake in many places around the world,” said Carlson, hinting at the murder or incarceration of his enemies. “We’ve got a long way to go yet. There are a few million minions we’re having to deal with. But we’re catching up.”

To understand the man claiming to be the King of America, you must first understand the woman claiming to be the Queen of Canada. Romana Didulo is a QAnon influencer who’s convinced a sizable number of people that she’s the ruler of Canada, a leader in the existential fight against an international cabal of globalist pedophiles who control the world, and an extraterrestrial being with healing powers. Some experts even describe the group as a cult. 

Didulo is currently in the midst of a never-ending tour of Canada, driving around the country in a caravan of RVs, making appearances with her followers. Like any good monarch, Didulo decided to expand her kingdom past its borders, and, like any good QAnon figure, her idea massively backfired. The sovereigns she implemented began implementing their own sovereigns, and now a large group has broken off and are threatening regicide. 

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QAnon Followers Are Arguing if the Beatles Were Involved in Witchcraft and Child Sacrifice

AS THE BIGGEST rock band of the 20th century, the Beatles were naturally also the subject of an infamous conspiracy theory. According to urban legend, Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by an imposter, with his surviving bandmates leaving cryptic clues to the coverup in their music and album art.

Decades later, a far-right fringe movement would make this kind of outlandish claim as a matter of course. QAnon followers, who started out as Trump loyalists believing that he was engaged in a secret war with the “deep state” and a cabal of pedophile elites, have floated the idea that JFK Jr. is still alive and suggested that President Biden is actually a robot. They come to these conclusions in much the same way as a Sixties stoner would have “proved” that Paul was dead: by interpreting images and texts in a way that no reasonable person ever would. QAnon, too, holds that the people running the world like to taunt us with hints of their evil influence — that the evidence is always hidden in plain sight.

So it can’t be a surprise that this cult, which now studies any artifact they can to advance a new “satanic panic,” is arguing about whether the Beatles were tied up in witchcraft and child sacrifice.

One lively conversation on the topic unfolded after “anti-woke” conspiracy theorist Sameera Khan shared the controversial “butcher” album cover for the collection Yesterday and Today, which was withdrawn by the band after a dispute with their label. In this attempt at provocation, Khan saw the touch of shaitan, or a demonic spirit in the Islamic tradition. Among the many replies speculating on the meaning of the image, one Twitter user referenced a book that alleges the Beatles were created and financed by the U.K. government. The text, The Conspirators’ Hierarchy: The Committee of 300, lays out the long-standing conspiracy theory that a secret group founded by the British aristocracy in 1727 controls all global affairs. Khan, for her part, has previously called the Beatles a “psyop” to popularize “wokeism.”

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German police arrest 25 people on suspicion of far-right plot to overthrow government

Twenty-five people have been arrested in dawn raids across Germany on suspicion of organising a far-right plot to overthrow the government.

Reports in Germany say the group, made up of far-right and ex-military figures planned to storm the parliament building, the Reichstag, and seize power.

Prosecutors say a German man, referred as a prince called Heinrich XIII, 71, was central to the group’s plans.

Federal prosecutors said some 3,000 officers conducted searches at 130 sites in 11 of Germany’s 16 states against adherents of the so-called Reich Citizens movement. Some members of the grouping reject Germany’s postwar constitution and have called for the overthrow of the government.

Prosecutors said 22 German citizens were detained on suspicion of “membership in a terrorist organization.” Three other people, including a Russian citizen, are suspected of supporting the organization, they said.

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Suspect in assault at Pelosi home had posted about QAnon

The man accused of breaking into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s California home and severely beating her husband with a hammer appears to have made racist and often rambling posts online, including some that questioned the results of the 2020 election, defended former President Donald Trump and echoed QAnon conspiracy theories.

David DePape, 42, grew up in Powell River, British Columbia, before leaving about 20 years ago to follow an older girlfriend to San Francisco. A street address listed for DePape in the Bay Area college town of Berkeley led to a post office box at a UPS Store.

DePape was arrested at the Pelosi home early Friday. San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said she expected to file multiple felony charges, including attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and elder abuse.

Stepfather Gene DePape said the suspect had lived with him in Canada until he was 14 and had been a quiet boy.

“David was never violent that I seen and was never in any trouble although he was very reclusive and played too much video games,” Gene DePape said.

He said he hasn’t seen his stepson since 2003 and tried to get in touch with him several times over the years without success.

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Satanic panic is making a comeback, fueled by QAnon believers and GOP influencers

On June 1, David Leavitt, the prosecuting attorney for Utah County, stood behind a lectern in his windowless Provo office before a gaggle of reporters. Wearing a gray suit and an exasperated look, he wanted to make something categorically clear: Neither he nor his wife were guilty of murdering or cannibalizing young children.

It was, by all accounts, a strange declaration from the progressive Republican prosecutor, a Mormon and younger brother of a former Utah governor, Mike Leavitt, who had earned a name for himself by prosecuting a well-known polygamist in 2001. But David Leavitt was up for re-election, Utah County voters would start casting ballots the next week, and the allegations, ridiculous as they may have sounded, had started to spread online and throughout the community. 

Some of Leavitt’s most high-profile political opponents were willing to at least wink at the allegations against him: Utahns for Safer Communities, a political action committee opposing Leavitt’s re-election, posted his news conference to YouTube with the caption, “Wethinks He Doth Protest Too Much,” and on their website, the group wrote that Leavitt “seems to know more than he says.” 

Leavitt lost the election, most likely not just because of the allegations against him but because of his liberal style of prosecution in a deeply conservative county where opponents labeled him as “soft on crime.” But the allegations’ impact on Leavitt was clear. After decades of serving as a city and county attorney with grander plans for public office, Leavitt now doesn’t think he’ll run again. 

“The cost is too high,” he said recently in an interview from his home.

Leavitt’s experience is one of a spate of recent examples in which individuals have been targeted with accusations of Satanism or so-called ritualistic abuse, marking what some see as a modern day version of the moral panic of the 1980s, when hysteria and hypervigilance over protecting children led to false allegations, wrongful imprisonments, decimated communities and wasted resources to the neglect of actual cases of abuse.

While the current obsession with Satan was boosted in part by the QAnon community, partisan media and conservative politicians have been instrumental in spreading newfound fears over the so-called ritualistic abuse of children that the devil supposedly inspires, sometimes weaving the allegations together with other culture war issues such as LGBTQ rights. Those fears are powering fresh accusations of ritual abuse online, which are amplified on social media and by partisan media, and can mobilize mobs to seek vigilante justice. 

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This QAnon Secretary of State Candidate Is Promising to Reinstall Trump in 2024

Jim Marchant, the GOP candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, appeared on stage alongside former President Donald Trump this weekend and openly boasted that he and his QAnon coalition of candidates would put Trump back in the White House in 2024.

“When my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected, we’re gonna fix the whole country and President Trump is gonna be president again,” Marchant promised as Trump stood next to him during a rally in Minden on Saturday night.

Marchant, who is currently the front-runner to win next month’s race, told the crowd that he and the ex-president had something in common.

“President Trump and I lost an election in 2020 because of a rigged election,” Marchant said, failing to add that a court dismissed his efforts to re-run the election for a U.S. House seat.

From the very first hours after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, Marchant has led the effort to spread the falsehood that the election was stolen. “I have been working since November 4, 2020, to expose what happened and what I found out was horrifying. When I am secretary of state of Nevada, we’re going to fix it.”

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How the QAnon Queen Funds Her Cult: ‘She’s Scamming People’

Despite escaping the cultlike grasp of the so-called QAnon Queen of Canada months ago, two of her closest former followers had their bank accounts closed and say they may lose their children’s college funds after working for their former sovereign.

On Sept. 3, Corey and Daisy, who are married, received a letter in the mail from their bank that said they were now “an unacceptable risk” and their accounts would be closed. Earlier in the year, Romana Didulo, the self-described “queen,” had used their bank accounts to raise over a hundred thousand dollars for the cross-country RV tour of Canada she’s currently on. 

After opening accounts at a new bank, Daisy said the institution told her she could lose as much as $8,000 CAD ($5,952 USD) in government contributions from their education savings plans. They’re trying to fight it but don’t have high hopes. 

“I’m probably going to lose my children’s education fund because of it,” Daisy, who asked that her last name be withheld to protect her children from retribution, told VICE News. “We weren’t prepared for that happening. It is horrible because she [Didulo] cost us money.” 

For months, Didulo used the couple as her personal bank account. The queen either can’t or refuses to use her own. Since she was kicked off typical crowdfunding sources, like GoFundMe, her followers have to send donations via electronic transfer. She posted Daisy’s email on Telegram numerous times—without permission, according to Daisy—and asked followers to send money to her account. 

“She would just do it. She’s the queen, so she doesn’t need to ask permission from anyone or ask me if it’s OK,” Daisy said. “What was I supposed to say? I was already committed at that point.” 

In total, Didulo raised more than $142,000 CAD ($105,726 USD) during a two-month period earlier this year, according to documents seen by VICE News. And she spent even more, including tens of thousands on hotel rooms paid for in her followers’ names. They once kept a $300-a-night room booked just in case Russian President Vladimir Putin showed up.

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QAnon Follower Killed Wife and Shot Daughter Before Cops Shot Him Dead

A 53-year-old Michigan man who was consumed by “Stop the steal” and QAnon conspiracies allegedly shot his wife, daughter, and their dog at their suburban Detroit home early Sunday morning, killing his wife and the dog.

He was shot dead by police officers moments later when he exited his home and began firing at the officers. While police said Sunday they don’t know what led to Igor Lanis shooting his wife, Tina, 56, and one of their daughters, Rachel, 25, another daughter who was not in the house at the time has claimed that QAnon is to blame.

“My Qdad snapped and killed my family this morning,” Rebecca Lanis, 21, wrote in a thread on the QAnon Casualties subreddit on Sunday, hours before the Detroit police and media first reported the details of the shooting.

She wrote that “growing up, my parents were extremely loving and happy people. I always had a special bond with both my parents.” But, she said, things began to change with her father a couple of years ago, after former President Donald Trump contested the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“In 2020 after Trump lost, my dad started going down the Q rabbit hole,” she wrote in the forum, which provides support to the families of those who’ve been affected by QAnon believers. “He kept reading conspiracy theories about the stolen election, Trump, vaccines, etc. It kept getting worse and he verbally snapped at us a few times. Nothing physical though. He never got physical with anybody.”

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A Former Member of the JFK QAnon Cult Tried to Kidnap Her Own Children

When Samantha Ricks was kicked out of the JFK-QAnon cult led by Michael Protzman at the beginning of December, she was already in a downward spiral. 

A couple of weeks later, Ricks was accused of substance abuse by the woman who had taken her family in. Then, child protective services said she had exposed her children to “inappropriate sexual behavior.” Three days before Christmas, Oklahoma Child Protective Services knocked on her door and took her 6-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son into foster care. 

Ricks then raged online about how child protective services was secretly trafficking children. She accused everyone, including those who tried to help her, of collaborating to take her children away from her, beliefs founded in QAnon conspiracies about global child sex trafficking rings that are reinforced by extremist groups who have made it their mission to prey on vulnerable parents.

After months of spreading misinformation, lashing out at everyone around her, and even fundraising, Ricks took matters into her own hands. 

What happened next was the culmination of her extremist views and desperate outlook: On August 8, Ricks tried to kidnap her own children. 

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QAnon Conspiracy Theorists Are Going Bonkers Over Anne Heche’s Death

Last week, the actress Anne Heche died at the age of 53 after a devastating car crash in her Los Angeles neighborhood. Heche was a celebrated actor with film credits like Six Days, Seven Nights and Donnie Brasco under her belt, and had also turned in acclaimed performances in shows like Men in Trees and Hung. Yet her accomplishments had consistently been overshadowed by two things: her three-year relationship with Ellen DeGeneres in the late 1990s; her struggles with substance abuse and mental illness; and her erratic behavior, such as an interview she gave to Barbra Walters about embodying an alien named Celestia, often garnering headlines.

From what we know thus far about Heche’s death, it seems that she continued to struggle up to the last moments of her life. Footage from the accident shows that she had been driving at high speeds at the time of the crash, and a blood test taken shortly afterward found the presence of drugs in her system. The story of her life and death seems like a tragic yet clear-cut case of an explosive talent struggling with addiction and mental illness, who ultimately succumbed to her demons.

Yet conspiracy theorists on the internet did not see it that way. Instead, they saw the death of Anne Heche as proof of something else: that she had been murdered to cover up the crimes of Hollywood power players and “elites” like Jeffrey Epstein and Amber Heard.

Shortly after Heche died, a post started circulating on Twitter that garnered about 4,000 shares before it was deleted. The post read: “So actress Anne Heche, who died in a fiery car crash, was working on a movie titled The Girl In Room 13 about the Jeffrey Epstein ring.” The claim also circulated on Facebook, where many speculated that Heche had been murdered to cover up the truth about the disgraced billionaire financier, whose 2020 death by hanging in a New York prison has been ruled a suicide.

There was one problem with the claim: The Girl In Room 13, which is set to air on Lifetime in October, is not about Epstein, as a network spokesperson later confirmed. According to an IMDB synopsis, the film is about sex trafficking in general, as it tells the story of a woman (Heche’s daughter in the film) being held captive in a hotel room for the purpose of being sold for sex. But it’s not at all clear that the story is based on him (there is no evidence, for instance, that Epstein ever held a woman in a motel room against her will).

The Epstein rumor is not the only one surrounding Heche’s passing. QAnon influencer Liz Crokin, who has promoted the claim that Chrissy Teigen is connected to Pizzagate as well as the ludicrous idea that John F. Kennedy, Jr. faked his own death, recently posted that at the time of her death, Heche was working on the HBO show The Idol, which is produced by the Weeknd and is rumored to be inspired by Britney Spears (a prominent figure in the QAnon ecosystem). Crokin then baselessly speculated that Heche — who had publicly spoken in support of Heard’s ex and her former costar Johnny Depp earlier this year — was killed days after online rumors had started circulating that Heard used to throw Satanic sex parties in the apartment she’d shared with Depp. “What did Anne know?” Crokin’s post ominously concluded.

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