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Ally of Rep. Greene participated in the Capitol breach

By Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck | CNN

A close ally of Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene took part in the January 6 mob at the Capitol and said he was among those who eventually made their way into the building.

Greene, a freshman congresswoman with a history of promoting dangerous and violent conspiracies and comments, encouraged the big lie that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump by voting to object to the election certification and fanned the flames of the insurrection by telling her supporters to “fight for Trump.”

In tweets after the Capitol insurrection, Greene falsely suggested that those who had broken into the Capitol were not Republicans and instead falsely implied so-called “Antifa” dressed as Trump supporters were to blame.

In fact, Anthony Aguero, a conservative livestreamer, activist and associate of Greene, said on video following the January 6 assault on the Capitol that he had been among those who entered and attacked those who falsely claimed it was done by “Antifa.”

“We were all there. It was not Antifa and it was not BLM. It was Trump supporters that did that yesterday. I’m the first to admit it, being one myself,” said Aguero in a video posted on January 7.

“I walked amongst all those people,” he added, later defending entering the Capitol.

Greene and Aguero have worked closely together over the years on causes such as immigration and the border wall and have attended pro-Trump rallies together. In many since-deleted videos saved by CNN’s KFile, Greene repeatedly calls Aguero “amazing” and a “friend.” On social media, Aguero has called Greene “one of my closest friends.”

“A message was sent,” Aguero said in the video streamed live on January 6 while walking away from the Capitol on Pennsylvania Avenue following the riot. “These politicians are not going to continue to get away with the abuse as they’ve been doing. We will continue to press on these individuals.”

“The National Guard has just been called in,” he continued. “A woman was shot in the face earlier. There was blood all over the floor. I recorded it for y’all. I could not go live during the whole event because the signal was either jammed purposely or there was just too many, too many people out there. Guys, I was able to make it inside the chambers and I have footage that I’m going to provide for you guys as we made our way in there.”

Congress held its first hearing on the Capitol riots on Tuesday, in which law enforcement officials testified the attacks were likely coordinated.

In a video posted by Aguero on January 6 on Instagram, he can be heard cheering on, from a distance, those trying to enter the Capitol, chanting “heave ho” as a mob of rioters push against Capitol Police. In a comment, Aguero wrote “MAGA” under the video.

In another video, posted from the steps of the Capitol, he can be heard chanting “our house.” He later described those who broke in as “patriots,” and commented “#PatriotsSaveAmerica2021! Not Antifa/BLM!!!” immediately following the ransacking of the Capitol by rioters.

Aguero posted one video on January 10 of someone entering the Capitol, though it is unclear if Aguero himself took the footage.

When reached for comment, Aguero told CNN that the “videos uploaded compiled [sic] are not mine. They’re screen recorded from other posts that I saw.” Aguero did not respond to further questions asking to specify which videos were screen recorded. He appears on camera in two videos and can be heard speaking in others.

Before publication, it appears Aguero deleted the video from January 6 in which he appears on camera and says he “was able to make it inside the chambers.” He did not respond to CNN’s questions on this.

Aguero confirmed to CNN he was at the Capitol on January 6 and said he was an “independent journalist” there reporting the events. He also reiterated his support for Greene.

“I fully support Marjorie Taylor Greene. We need more great people like her. God bless her and her family,” said Aguero.

Greene did not respond to requests for comment.

The FBI said last month that it had received nearly 200,000 digital tips from the public related to the Capitol riot, mainly from people who documented it. The FBI declined to comment on whether it was investigating Aguero.

“We have no comment, keeping with our standard practice of neither confirming nor denying the existence of an investigation,” said the FBI’s national press office in an email.

In the video he posted on January 7, Aguero claimed he had been among those who entered the Capitol and attacked those who falsely claimed it was done by “Antifa.”

“People that were saying, ‘We need to stand up for our rights,’ ” he added. “We need to stand up for our country. So patriots stand up for their country and they come out here to physically try to take back their house. The House of the people.”

“Now you have people on the right acting like they’re holier than thou, holier than holy,” he continued. ” ‘Oh, I’m appalled. I don’t condone this.’ What the hell do you expect conservatives to do? Do you want us to continue to sit there? Complacent, continue to take the higher route and keep getting f**ked in the a**. I’m sorry for using that language, but I’m sick and tired of the hypocrisy.”

Later in the video, Aguero praised Greene for her actions contesting the election.

“I stand with people like Marjorie Taylor Greene proudly,” he added. “That woman has more courage than most of the men that were in that building. No, not most. That woman has more courage than every single man that was in that Capitol yesterday.”

Strong ties to GreeneAguero and Greene have worked closely together over the years, particularly before her run for Congress.

The pair spoke at a small pro-border wall rally in Washington in February 2019, visited lawmakers’ offices together, made a trip along the border together and sat together in the special backstage section of a Trump rally in February 2019.

Aguero frequently spoke of working with and supporting Greene throughout 2019.

The El Paso-based videographer, who sometimes goes by the moniker “Conservative Anthony” online, frequently documents the activities of right-wing activists and militias, including the Guardian Patriots, the border militia group formerly known as the United Constitutional Patriots, and the Proud Boys.

Aguero also has a history of criminal violence, according to online court records. In 2010, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor family violence assault causing serious bodily injury. In 2015, he was convicted of felony vehicular assault while intoxicated and sentenced to two years in Texas state prison.

When Greene was temporarily banned from her personal Facebook page in May 2019, she used Aguero’s page to livestream. He has spent much of January and February expressing support for Greene on social media.

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She was recently photographed with Aguero in Washington at the “March for Trump” rally, also known as the Million MAGA March, on November 14, 2020, where Greene spoke. Following Greene’s speech, Aguero can be seen accompanying her off the stage in a video of the rally. A November tweet of the pair at the rally was liked by Greene.

Aguero was also with Greene in February 2019 when she delivered a petition to impeach House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for treason and suggested the speaker could be executed or imprisoned.

Aguero frequently posted on social media ahead of the January 6 rally that preceded the Capitol riot. In archived posts from the conservative social media website Parler, Aguero shared posts from conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio.

Health care workers get COVID-19 in the community more often than the workplace, Cedars-Sinai study finds

Health care workers might not be that different from the general population in the factors that determine their risk of getting COVID-19, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Wednesday.

A study led by Cedars-Sinai shows that health care workers are more likely to have antibodies to COVID-19 in their blood if they are Black or Latino or have hypertension.

But it suggests that the community — rather than the workplace — is the more common source of coronavirus exposure.

The research, published online in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ Open, was based on blood tests and a survey of more than 6,000 employees in the Cedars-Sinai Health System starting last May.

LOS ANGELES — Health care workers might not be that different from the general population in the factors that determine their risk of getting COVID-19, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Wednesday.

A study led by Cedars-Sinai shows that health care workers are more likely to have antibodies to COVID-19 in their blood if they are Black or Latino or have hypertension.

But it suggests that the community — rather than the workplace — is the more common source of coronavirus exposure.

The research, published online in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ Open, was based on blood tests and a survey of more than 6,000 employees in the Cedars-Sinai Health System starting last May.

During that first wave of the pandemic, about 4% of the employees were found to have antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus in their blood, indicating they had been exposed to COVID-19.

“Our study shows that we started out last summer with a relatively low exposure rate to SARS-CoV-2,” said Dr. Susan Cheng, associate professor of cardiology at the hospital and director of the Institute for Research on Healthy Aging in the Department of Cardiology at the Smidt Heart Institute. “This fact means the vast majority of our communities have remained vulnerable to infection, and therefore vaccination and continued vigilance are critical.”

Across the board, regardless of whether they had been diagnosed with COVID-19, blood tests showed that health care workers were significantly more likely to have antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus if they were Black or Latino rather than of other racial or ethnic groups.

“These disparities underscore the ongoing, urgent need for us to understand why certain demographics and communities remain at higher risk in the pandemic than others,” said Kimia Sobhani, medical director of the clinical core laboratories and associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Cedars-Sinai. “The reasons may well include structural and societal factors that we were unable to capture.”

Another significant finding was that having antibodies to the virus was related more to having had community-based exposure, including a household member previously diagnosed with COVID-19, than to workplace exposure.

“Our data show that public health measures work,” said study co-author Dr. Peggy Miles, medical director of Employee Health Services at Cedars-Sinai. “Our workers are taking care of the sickest people, including high-risk patients, and yet we see very little transmission of coronavirus in the hospital.”

The study also found:

— Not all workers with antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 reported experiencing symptoms, but among those who did, the most common symptom was loss of smell.

— The degree of antibody response to the virus was related not only to the magnitude of exposure and severity of illness but also to the presence of hypertension, or high blood pressure, for reasons that are not yet clear.

— Asthma patients had lower antibody levels that were less often above the threshold of detection used in the study. The reason was unclear.

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Japan won’t require Olympic vaccinations despite appeal

Seems dumb not to require vaccinations… of competitors, staff and coaches.

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Japan’s Olympics minister said Wednesday that coronavirus vaccinations would not be a prerequisite for participation at this summer’s Olympics and Paralympics, despite a World Anti-Doping Agency appeal that athletes be inoculated.

“We are putting together a number of comprehensive measures to realize a safe and secure event without needing vaccinations to be a prerequisite,” Tamayo Marukawa, who last week took over as Olympics minister, told a press conference.

Read full story here

Boris Johnson ‘a liar’ who will blame Brexit costs on Covid, says diplomat

Sylvie Bermann, former French ambassador, puts PM’s handling of pandemic alongside Donald Trump’s

Boris Johnson is “an unrepentant and inveterate liar” who feels he is not subject to the same rules as others, Sylvie Bermann, the former French ambassador to the UK during the Brexit vote, says in a new book.

She also claims some Brexiters are consumed with hatred for Germany and gripped by a myth that they liberated Europe on their own, describing Brexit as a triumph of emotion over reason, won by a campaign full of lies in which negative attitudes to migration were exploited by figures such as Johnson and Michael Gove.

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Sylvie Bermann, former French ambassador, puts PM’s handling of pandemic alongside Donald Trump’s

Boris Johnson is “an unrepentant and inveterate liar” who feels he is not subject to the same rules as others, Sylvie Bermann, the former French ambassador to the UK during the Brexit vote, says in a new book.

She also claims some Brexiters are consumed with hatred for Germany and gripped by a myth that they liberated Europe on their own, describing Brexit as a triumph of emotion over reason, won by a campaign full of lies in which negative attitudes to migration were exploited by figures such as Johnson and Michael Gove.

Continue reading…

‘Like a bad joke’: Al Jazeera staff bemused at rightwing US venture

Subsidize news for right-wing terrorists – no thanks…

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Rightly, a digital platform for conservatives, goes down awkwardly in Qatari-funded news organisation

Al Jazeera’s surprise decision to launch a digital platform for conservatives in the US has left many within the Qatar-based news organisation dumbfounded and confused, staff have told the Guardian.

The network has announced the launch of Rightly, a platform that will host programmes and produce online content aimed at “audiences currently underrepresented in today’s media environment”, in this case right-of-centre Americans.

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US navy veteran having mental health crisis died after officer knelt on his neck

Family of Angelo Quinto said police officer knelt on his neck for almost five minutes after they called for help

A US navy veteran who was experiencing a mental health crisis died after a police officer called out to help him knelt on his neck for several minutes, asphyxiating him, lawyers for his family have said.

Angelo Quinto, 30, was suffering a bout of paranoia, anxiety and depression in his family home in Antioch, northern California, when his sister Isabella Collins called police on 23 December.

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Family of Angelo Quinto said police officer knelt on his neck for almost five minutes after they called for help

A US navy veteran who was experiencing a mental health crisis died after a police officer called out to help him knelt on his neck for several minutes, asphyxiating him, lawyers for his family have said.

Angelo Quinto, 30, was suffering a bout of paranoia, anxiety and depression in his family home in Antioch, northern California, when his sister Isabella Collins called police on 23 December.

Continue reading…

Alexei Navalny loses Amnesty ‘prisoner of conscience’ label

Someone has their head in sand. Putin tries to kill him, he’s jailed for opposing Putin – and not prisoner of conscience because he is not pure on all issues – just gave Putin a ready excuse to go on oppressing whomever he wants…

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Rights group has been under pressure to condemn past statements by Navalny as hate speech

Amnesty International has said it will cease calling Alexei Navalny a “prisoner of conscience”, following pressure to condemn anti-migrant statements he made in the 2000s as hate speech.

Employees of Amnesty International said the organisation had received messages about Navalny’s past remarks that they felt “were part of a coordinated campaign to discredit him abroad”, but nonetheless felt compelled to change his designation.

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Asylum seekers rush to register for US border processing

In the first five days since the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden began to process the thousands of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees registered 12,000 people

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In the first five days since the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden began to process the thousands of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees registered 12,000 people