Lancaster Patriot, a partisan, reactionary Pennsylvania politics blog that first surfaced in April, is mirrored online by a Russian website with the domain oc.binaria.ru, which is affiliated with creators of the pro-Kremlin propaganda website Russia Insider. Three days after Hatewatch reached out to Russia Insider editor Charles Bausman for a comment on this story, someone took both Lancaster Patriot and oc.binaria.ru offline. Local news outlet Lancaster Online reported on Sept. 26 that Lancaster Patriot was edited by Trey Garrison, a 51-year-old Holocaust-mocking Twitter troll who for years embodied the online persona “Spectre,” while podcasting for the white nationalist organization The Right Stuff. Garrison, who once worked as a journalist in the Dallas area, lives in Lancaster now too, based upon the material published on his website and Lancaster Online’s reporting. Hatewatch is unaware of any ties Garrison had to Pennsylvania before moving near Bausman. Hatewatch’s finding marks the fourth website linking the U.S.-based white nationalist members of The Right Stuff to Russia Insider. Like some of the other websites Hatewatch previously reported as having this connection, Lancaster Patriot focused on sensational, negative attention on antiracist protesters and hyped the subject of civil unrest. Lancaster Patriot stands out from the network of other Russia Insider-affiliated websites because it focuses acutely on a swing state considered to be of vital importance in deciding the outcome of the 2020 election. In addition to targeting antiracist protests, Lancaster Patriot also focused on the effort to undo local restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes with a conspiratorial tone.
“We demand to know why [Pennsylvania] Gov. Tom Wolf allowed [Black Lives Matter] protests but not church services,” a Lancaster Patriot post authored by someone with the byline Diane Knight said. “Someone is getting paid and we demand to know who.” Before the site abruptly went dark on Sept. 29, pro-Trump media stars hyped the Russia Insider-linked website. Fox News personality Greg Gutfeld used Lancaster Patriot’s footage from a protest on his Sept. 19 show. Ian Miles Cheong, a Twitter personality who contributes to the far-right junk news website The Post Millennial, repeatedly hyped The Lancaster Patriot to his followers. Far-right pundit Michelle Malkin urged her Twitter followers to “SUPPORT THE LANCASTER PATRIOT,” even after Lancaster Online exposed Garrison as the man editing the site. Russia Insider, which openly promotes Nazism and celebrates the memory of Adolf Hitler, is the creation of a man named Charles Bausman. Emails first published in The Interpreter show that Bausman is connected to pro-Kremlin oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, who has been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury for his involvement in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine, as Hatewatch previously reported. Bausman lived in Russia for three decades and returned to the U.S. around 2018, when he purchased a home in Lancaster for $442,000. Hatewatch has been unable to determine how Bausman earns money. Bausman declined to comment on this investigation after Hatewatch visited him at his home in Lancaster.
via splcenter: Far-Right Pennsylvania Politics Blog Was Mirrored by Obscure Russian Website
siehe auch: U.S. White Nationalist Group Linked to Pro-Kremlin Propagandist. Hatewatch found an email address ending with a Russian domain name referenced across the source code of a network of three extreme, far-right websites that operate primarily in the U.S. Those three websites share the same Google Analytics account, one that was first used by a notorious pro-Kremlin propagandist named Charles Bausman. All three websites feature bylines used by members of The Right Stuff, a white nationalist organization that helped plan and promote the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. The Right Stuff is also the same white nationalist organization for which U.S. State Department Official Matthew Q. Gebert covertly recruited members, as Hatewatch first reported in 2019. At least two of the websites have published inflammatory, racist rhetoric in response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that have erupted across the U.S. in recent months. Members of The Right Stuff have also defended eruptions of far-right violence in response to civil unrest this year. Russia-Insider.com (Russia Insider), National-Justice.com (National Justice) and Truthtopowernews.com (Truth to Power News) share the same account in Google Analytics, which is a tool the proprietors of those websites use to analyze traffic. The Russian email ID Hatewatch found, which ends with the domain “errand.ru,” is buried near the bottom of each website’s source code.