Ray Epps--International Man of Mystery

I continue my series discussing claims related to election fraud and the riot at the Capitol last year, which is part of a discussion I am having with an old friend via text. In the most recent exchange, my pal brought up a person I had not heard of before, but who seems to be figuring large in the right wing media-o-sphere at the moment: Ray Epps.

one question. answer why ray epps was never investigated by the fbi in spite of being caught on camera instigating the run on the capitol. most people said get lost.

I looked up Ray Epps on Snopes, and sent that to my friend. The Snopes article is only two days old, so this really is a very recent story that's going around. Snopes concludes:

Ray Epps is a retired Marine with connections to a far-right anti-government militia group who traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally in support of Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election had been stolen. While in D.C., Epps was filmed telling other Trump supporters to go “into” the U.S. Capitol “peacefully.” In another video, Epps is seen de-escalating a fight between police and protesters. 

There’s no evidence to indicate that Epps went into the Capitol himself or that he committed other criminal offenses. As of this writing, Epps has not been charged with any crimes related to the Jan. 6 attack.

My friend continued:

Inciting an insurrection is illegal. Just because the guy didn’t go into the capitol, allegedly, doesn’t preclude him from having broken other laws. I would say a more legitimate analysis would look at what the many other protesters were charged with. There are likely plenty of people charged that did less than what epps did. 

Being a member of Oathkeepers doesn’t preclude him from being a fed agent. The government likely has planted agents in militia-type group before 

Alright, a big issue here is that we are now talking about legally charging people with a crime, and I know from any number of cases that the legal meaning of a word may be different from its colloquial use. 

According to Suzanne Spalding (a lawyer) and Devi Nair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the law states that seditious conspiracy is to:

conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof. 

Notice, however, that the crime is "seditious conspiracy." Conspiracy is defined as:

An agreement between two or more people to commit an illegal act, along with an intent to achieve the agreement's goal.  

Would you say that shouting in a room full of Trumpist yobbos is an agreement? I think it's a hard case to make, especially if, as my friend says, people mostly told him to pound sand. And the language of the law seems to be designed this way for a reason, to protect First Amendment activity. According to CSIS:

It is important to consider that federal law refers to “seditious conspiracy” as opposed to just “sedition.” There is the added burden of proof that an individual must actively be conspiring and taking steps toward a violent action against the government, not just making comments that seem to merely reflect that desire. This is to ensure that First Amendment activity is protected under the Constitution, and only actions that overtly demonstrate individuals’ plans to take dangerous steps toward overthrowing the United States’ constitutional government are charged.

Given that Epps seems to encourage people to go into the Capitol "peacefully," and since he is seen deescalating a confrontation between cops and protesters, it's perhaps not surprising that he has not been charged. Until there is evidence that he was in the Capitol, he deserves to live his life unmolested. It certainly doesn't mean that the FBI is "protecting" him any more than the FBI is "protecting" my friend. 

One further note before I go on: if Epps "incited an insurrection" and deserves to be arrested then Trump certainly does.  

Back to my discussion with my friend. He says:

the reality is it may or may not have been encouraged by feds. 

This is a weak version of the appeal to ignorance, in essence saying, "We don't know, but in the absence of evidence we assume it's true." But that's now how coming to conclusions works. My pal points out that the FBI has infiltrated white supremacist and militia groups before, and this is true, but unless the vast majority of the members of the Oath Keepers are known to be FBI, it makes no sense to assume that any individual is a fed. 

definitely lack of clear ROA (rules of engagement) by capitol police leadership, and a few knuckleheads that got caught up in the mania in the crowd. by and far 99.99% of the people there said fuck this and left. 

It looks like about an upper limit of 40,000 people showed up for the rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol, based in part on the 25,000 people who passed through Secret Service screening to attend. the low estimate of the number of people on the Capitol grounds illegally, who got there by beating their way past a police line, is about 2000. Suggesting that at least 1 in 20 participants ended up committing a crime that day, 3 orders of magnitude bigger than my friend seems to think. Some 700 hundred have been charged. 

you likely took the 1st article from a google search that placated what cognitive dissonance you have momentarily felt. Conveniently google placed that article at the top for you.

The first Google result I found was for a Ray Epps who was a former basketball player. I was pretty damned confused for a minute there. I teach about the Google algorithm (and other algorithms) in my first year seminar classes. I talk about the dangers of using services that feed you things that it thinks you want to over things that you need to hear. I know Google-Fu. My buddy then sent me a screenshot of his search from another website: 

This is the front page of [the] Quant search engine search of ray epps. Much different results. There are facts and views in those article that the snopes article naturally leaves out.

In fact, the first page of the Quant search first throws up a number of unintentionally hilarious, auto-generated T-shirt ideas based on my search:

After that, however, I do get the same list of articles/sources that my pal does. But--and this is important--I've literally never heard of almost any them. They have, from my perspective, no reputation, no authority. What are their standards of evidence? Do they have editors? What are their newsroom practices like? And when they are making an extraordinary claim, why should I take it seriously? From my POV, there seems to be no inherent reason to trust them.

So, let's click on a few links to see where my friend is getting his information from.

The first article I see is from the World Tribune and attributes unhelpfully to "Staff" "Who is Ray Epps and why has the FBI protected him?". No bias there. No siree.

And the basis for the conclusion that they've reached by the end of their headline, and I'm not making this up, is that some Republican badgered the Attorney General about him during a hearing, knowing full well that the AG can't comment on individual cases. That silence is not coverup; even if they weren't covering something up, he still wouldn't say anything about it. Also, the congresscritter seems to be concerned that the picture of Epps that was on a Most Wanted page had disappeared. But it's not like he's considered a top 10 criminal: his anonymous photo appears among hundreds of other anonymous people there at the Capitol. It would take Rain Man to notice that his photo had been taken down. This is an example of "anomaly hunting," which is common in conspiracy theories, paranormal investigations and other forms pseudo-research. The form is very similar to the argument from ignorance: "I don't understand something, therefore I understand that something nefarious is happening." No, you don't understand something so you don't understand something; you just can't insert a conclusion of the basis of nothing. 

Here's another poser that nobody seems to be asking: How could a group like the FBI be so adept at masterminding a coup but so inept that they'd post an image (and video) of one of their agents committing a crime? It's a classic, "They're omnipotent and also foolish" gambit that we see in conspiracy theories.

What about the next article in the Quant search results, Revolver? Welp, this is at the top
of their page:

Ah, a conspiracy theory site. The Deep State is not a thing. It's a phrase that started in Turkey to describe an entrenched military that actively slowed down reforms. It's now used to mean "any career employee of the government who does not instantly bend to the will of the executive." So it's a conspiracy theory site. Dismissed.

So, if a Quant web search is turning up crummy results, maybe we should go over and click the News tab... Oh dear:

To my good friend who said that Google "conveniently" put the Snopes article at the top for me, I say:

For Whom the Falun Gong Tolls

One of the things I have thought about as I plan my new course, American Conspiracy Theories, is whether or not I should announce on the first day that people who think that the 2020 presidential election was stolen are going to have a hard semester. The whole class is prompted by--in fact it's my response-- to the violence that took place a year ago. It's a question that is inextricable from the course's existence. I suspect that I will, because everyone needs a fair warning: I have standards.

Part of my preparation for what is sure to follow from that announcement is this short series about claims that the election was stolen. It's prompted by a conversation with a friend who has doubts and, when asked for evidence, kindly provided me with that evidence. I shall now, not knowing what exactly to expect, shall look at the second source on his list. 

This is a story from The Epoch Times called, "Undeliverable Mail-in Ballots in Georgia Were Double the Official Margin of Victory, Report Says." Because context matters, it is proper to evaluate the source because insight about their perspective may help you understand why the article was written. The Epoch Times is affiliated with the Falun Gong movement, a New Age movement that appeared in China in the 1990s and has been the target of the Chinese government's religious repression, which I agree is very naughty of China. That said, this paper is a consistently anti-Chinese government paper. As evidence of this, I refer you to when, in 2006, a reporter from the paper interrupted a White House event with the visiting Chinese president by shouting: "Evil people will die early." Fair and balanced? You decide. 

They are also a steadfast supporter and exponent of far-right politics, and they have grown popular in Trump world for their support of the Spygate conspiracy theory (which was debunked by the DoJ in 2019, i.e., under Trump). They also seem to have an obsession with communist subversion a la the 1950s, though they have every reason to not like communism, as mentioned above. The non-partisan News Literacy Project notes that the Epoch Times has run some questionable election stories. So, with their right-wing perspective in mind, let's look at the story. 

And the paywall is in the way. So I look up the first line and find where it has been posted elsewhere and land on a page that is trying to sell me a lot of bullets. The story is based on a report from a group I have never heard of, the Public Interest Legal Foundation. So, following the trail, I'm gonna leave the Epoch Times and look at PILF, which sounds more dirty than it in fact is. 

So, who is this group? Well, Politifact has only covered them once, and found that their 2017 press release claiming that Bryan County, GA voter rolls were "corrupted" was false, specifically:

The Public Interest Legal Foundation said Bryan County had corrupted voter rolls because it had more voters registered than the eligible population in the county. The foundation relied on the number of voters listed as inactive to reach that conclusion. 

That is a worst-case approach that does not account for the reality of voter roll maintenance in Georgia. Based on all the data, there’s no evidence that the Bryan County rolls are corrupted. The group took a number that reflected an effort to keep the voter rolls current and used it to cast the county in a bad light.

Not an auspicious start. So, let's go to the report... hang on, it's...literally 2 pages long.  It's main argument is 27,287 ballots were reported as "undeliverable" and that that number is larger than the margin by which Biden defeated Trump. The question that naturally follows is: 

SO? 

It was a tight race. Having a small margin of victory is the definition of a tight race. This is not a news story; it's not even slightly suspicious given the vast expansion of mail-in voting during the pandemic. You expect the number of undeliverable ballots to go up too, don't you? This simply is not an argument for doubting the veracity of the totals in Georgia. Furthermore, it's not especially surprising that the winning presidential candidate belonged to the party that also took two Georgia's two Senate seats. 

I wonder what it would take to convince someone to accept that the election was not tampered with? I mean, I guess you might if you literally called the Secretary of State of each state and got them to affirm on the record the integrity of their state election outcome, that would work. It just so happens that is precisely what the New York Times did. 

Since the report the news coverage relies on does not make a case for the unreliability of the election results, I simply can't conclude the election was fixed or fraudulent based on it. Sites and reporters who do should have to sit at the kids' table at the next White House Correspondents' Dinner.   

B

"Ghost Votes" in Arizona

I've recently been discussing election matters with a friend of mine who has doubts about the outcome of the 2020 presidential race. I asked for his evidence (as is my wont), and he took the time to send me a number of bits of evidence. For this reason, I'm taking each claim seriously and one at a time.

The first example was from The New American, who claimed:

A Grassroots Canvass Report of the 2020 election proves what we have been saying all along. The election was stolen and Biden is illegitimate. This is massive evidence of voter fraud.

They also claim:

TNA is not responsible for, and does not verify the accuracy of, any information presented.

This disclaimer makes sense since Dominion, the much maligned outfit that provided voting systems for the election, is suing large corporations for billions in damages and seems to have a good chance at winning. Smartmatic already has made Lou Dobbs grovel like a little bitch. 

I looked up “96,389 GHOST VOTES” and found a number of references to a report that was generated by what was described as a “grassroots” organization, the Voter Integrity Project. This group was founded by Liz Harris, a realtor who says she conducted a house to house survey. I can’t find a webpage for them. I found her realtor page, which she uses to promote her survey. So, yeah, it’s her. And I found the original report she submitted.

The expert commentary on the report uniformly says that her methodology is poor. She talked to 964 registered voters who did not cast ballots in the 2020 election. When asked if they voted, 330 claimed they did. So on the basis of that, she takes the number of registered voters who did not cast ballots and claims that ⅓ of all of their ballots were lost.

Some problems pointed out by election officials and outside experts:

• The sample was not a random sample of the population (notice it focuses on a subgroup).
• The study does not acknowledge that the fraction of people who are willing to talk to a canvasser is likely different from the fraction of people who aren’t.
• Lastly, some areas are oversampled. To get a sense of what this meant, I went to find a map of the Maricopa County precincts.

All of those little tiny subdivisions are voting precincts. After a frustrating game of Where’s Waldo, I found all 4 that were canvassed: Waggoner, Rittenhouse, Dunbar, Warner. The canvassers visited every house in Warner. Then there is a category called “Countywide,” which I guess is distributed throughout the district (in the words of the study: “A partial canvass was also conducted in precincts throughout the county”). Suddenly, what “oversampled” means is much clearer. Assuming (a big assumption) that “County Wide” represents a random sample of the whole district, these 4 districts hold their thumb on the scale. Not stating criteria for why you decide to survey certain districts is not the same as having a random sample. Different parts of town may be different or unique among the city. Are these affluent areas? Are these more walkable for some reason? Are there more houses? Who knows? That sort of thing would be in a professional report, but there is no guidance in the 11-page document Harris authored.

One other huge problem is that there is no accounting for the perceived social pressure placed on registered voters to affirm that they voted when they are asked about their voting habits. Polling is fricken hard.

Harris repeatedly says, “The canvass team can make sworn affidavits supporting these findings readily available.” Ok. Affidavits are nice, I guess. So I reached out to Harris to look at them. I have not yet heard back but will update this post if I hear back from her.

Those who would investigate any allegations of fraud have apparently asked Harris for this promised evidence, but she has not provided it. According to AZ Central:

AFP also reported this:

The Maricopa County Recorder's Office and the Maricopa County Assessor's Office also took aim at the report. The offices "have repeatedly asked Ms Harris to provide details that support the findings of her report. While we investigate any and all allegations of wrongdoing made, we cannot do so without credible evidence being provided," they said in a joint statement.

What are these two specific pieces of evidence? Two examples that showed up in the report itself were reported by AZ Central. The first was an address of a vacant lot that appeared on the cover of the original report, where supposedly unexplainable two votes had come from:

But an aerial map of the property, available online at the Maricopa County Assessor’s website, shows a house with a pool on the 4.3-acre property. Looks like a pretty nice house, too. According to realtor.com, it has five bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms and upgraded maple cabinets in the kitchen. It was last sold in 2010. 

It also has two registered voters, according to county records.

Yikes! So, Harris updated the image to another vacant lot. This also did not go well:

But that property was a mobile home park in December 2019 and a person was properly registered to vote at that address. The voter requested that his ballot be sent to a temporary address within the county, which can be done legally for a year, according to Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Assessor Eddie Cook.

Those are the only two actual examples of “fraud” offered in the report.

On the basis of this truly shoddy data, the guy currently running for the office responsible for Arizona state elections called for the slate of Arizona’s electors to be recalled and the election to be invalidated. Because of a skewed, nonrepresentative map of those little specks on the electoral map of a single county in the State of Arizona. I genuinely have questions about these people’s judgment. In the absence of proportionately extraordinary evidence, or really any evidence, to substantiate Harris’ extraordinary claim, I must conclude that this report is unproved and should be dismissed until better evidence appears.

What about the litigation over Maricopa County’s election results? Well, the Office of Elections has a list of the legal cases that were filed disputing the election. It’s devastating:

• Aguilera v. Fontes: voluntarily dismissed (7 Nov 2020)

• Donald J. Trump v. Hobbs: dismissed with prejudice following an evidentiary hearing (13 Nov 2020)

• Arizona Republican Party v. Fontes: dismissed with prejudice, and the Secretary of State was given permission to file for fees on the basis it being a frivolous lawsuit (18 Nov 2020)

• Aguilera v. Fontes II: dismissed with prejudice after an evidentiary hearing “for failing to state a claim upon which relief can be granted; or alternatively, denying the relief sought by Plaintiffs given their failure to produce evidence demonstrating entitlement to same.” (29 Nov 2020)

• Kelli Ward v. Jackson: dismissed with prejudice following an evidentiary hearing, in which the judge found “the evidence did not show fraud, misconduct, illegal votes, or an erroneous vote count.” The appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court affirmed this decision, “conclude[ing], unanimously, that . . . . the challenge fails to present any evidence of ‘misconduct,’ ‘illegal votes’ or that the Biden Electors ‘did not in fact receive the highest number of votes for office.’” (9 Dec 2020)

• Bowyer, et al., v. Ducey, et al.: This sought to decertify the election and to give Arizona’s votes to Trump. After hearing the case the Court ruled to “dismiss this matter in its entirety”, because “[p]laintiffs failed to provide the Court with factual support for their extraordinary claims[.]” Additionally, the court noted that “[a]llegations that find favor in the public sphere of gossip and innuendo cannot be a substitute for earnest pleadings and procedure in federal court[,]” and, “cannot be the basis for upending Arizona’s 2020 General Election.” SCOTUS denied cert and the matter was closed. (13 April 2021)

• Burk v. Ducey: Made the same case as Bowyer, et al., v. Ducey, et al., which made dismissing it very easy. Also, the plaintiff didn’t have standing, it seems. (15 Dec 2020)

The person who denies the outcome of the election not only needs to make their own argument, but also needs to explain how all of these cases were roundly rejected. They are setting a very high bar for themselves.

Just for Shits and Giggles:

As one does, I was browsing the Liz Harris' campaign website, you know, just to see. And if you will indulge me, I came across the following nugget:

As someone who teaches a seminar on the history of alternative medicine at a Middle States accredited university, I found the Doctorate of Integrative Medicine fascinating. Washington, D.C. is in the Middle States region too. So I went to the Middle States website, if you’ll indulge me, and I looked up “Capital”. There are 2 results: 

Capital University of Integrative Medicine (or CUIM--teehee) is a former candidate for accreditation. Not formerly accredited, mind you. Former candidate. And gave up. It closed in 2006, after 10 years of … whatever the hell they did there. It says it was a “licensed graduate professional university,” but a google search of that phrase suggests that it is the only site in the history of the internet to have ever used it and that it is not a legally protected or especially meaningful term. But what about the campus of this august and storied institution of higher learning? Google Maps is revealing: 

It reminds me of the used book store in Philly that was the first place I visited after I was fully vaccinated. And I’m willing to bet that any degree granted by the bookstore is as meaningful as the one from CUIM. It now houses a handwriting camp, which is at least a useful skill. 

B

I'm not feeling resilient...

Today I emailed the university's "resilience" committee, which is responsible for managing the pandemic. I asked:

I am curious about the status of the decision to open in person for the spring. I would like lead time to adjust if necessary (I'm sure students would too), and if we are opening as normal, are we going to be providing high-quality masks like N95s to students, since vaccination no longer prevents disease? Are we considering moving the testing site near to where the people are? Are the unvaccinated going to be on campus? That sort of thing. When will we know what's changed, since the threat has changed?

The reply I received was...not very satisfying. I won't post it without my colleagues' permission but in essence, as far as I can tell, literally nothing has changed at all between last semester and this semester. 

I don't know if I feel distraught or despair or maybe just numb. 

I postponed surgery anticipating that we were going to have the largest spike yet. We're having the largest spike yet. And I can't point to a single thing that is going to be different next semester. That seems crazy. Shouldn't there be a change in procedures when the bug becomes more virulent and dodges the vaccines? Am I wrong about that? 

B

Coping Object 3: Ninja Shoes!

 Alright not actually ninja shoes. There's a story. 

About in about April of 2020, when the nostalgia was hitting hard, I found myself wondering about a pair of shoes I acquired when I was in Spain for the first time, shoes that had soles made of rope. So I searched for a similar pair. The closest thing that I could find was tai-chi shoes, and they look like this:

These are super cheap. Suuuuper cheap. I have had about 6 pairs of them, and since I never go anywhere in them, the fact that they can be so beaten up just by farting around the house really speaks to their quality. And they have no grip. I fully expect to be found dead on linoleum one day wearing a pair of these. The only reason I mention them is that they are feature unique since my pandemic life began. 

Last night, by the way, Eve mentioned that some neighbors were talking about how their houses had all had covid. That's 2 or 3 houses in the neighborhood. This is a pretty conservative part of the state, and when you are out (or at least when I was going out regularly), you rarely see people masking up. This, I'm afraid, is going to bite us in the backside.

B

3 Nights in a Row Counts as a Compulsion....

 The next item that has sustained me through the pandemic only became important when my school reopened and I was heading back to school. Campus had a vaccine mandate and I believe that when the delta variant arrived we also returned to mandatory masks. I had only removed my mask in the presence of others at a single orientation/registration event anyway, and even then only for a few minutes, so it was no big change for me. 

I do teach, however, and I wear glasses. I had KN95s enough for every class, and I was only on campus on teaching days unless something really pressing called me in. So, this was my teaching combo this fall:

That's it. Hey, it counts as a post. 

B

See? Two nights in a row.

 It's like a trend or something.

In my quest to loosen up my pen and get the creative juices pumping, I want to record for posterity a couple of objects that have helped me through the pandemic. I'll do one a day for a couple of days. 

The first object made absolutely no material difference to my health in the pandemic, but it served the purpose of a talisman or good luck charm or similar psychological crutch. It was my little bottle of hand sanitizer:

 

Behold its glory.

I think I got this at Walmart during my first pre-pandemic freak-out. I bought about three 32oz bottles of hand sanitizer and a tiny, portable one that I would refill. To get you in the sort of mindset I was in--my weirdness manifests in strange ways-- I got it in my mind that I needed a funnel to fill the little bottle, so I headed off to the automotive section to find the right one. It was completely unnecessary. Who thinks, damn it, I need a funnel for this apocalypse? A similar buy was a big thing of instant coffee. My reasoning went: I'm addicted to Diet Pepsi, and it's probably because of the caffeine. When I quit drinking coffee, I had headaches for a few weeks. I must never have another headache. Therefore, I must buy a buttload of instant coffee to somehow step down if I need to. Never touched it. This bottle was with me whenever I went anywhere, which was mostly nowhere with occasional runs to the grocery store. You can see that the printing has rubbed off it has been toted around so much. Whenever I touched anything, I gave myself a little squirt of sanitizer; it was like I was training for the OCD Olympics. It turns out that COVID-19 doesn't spread by fomites, but handwashing stations and handwipes remain everywhere. Hygiene theater, they call it. 

B