Laura Loomer

Laura Elizabeth Loomer (born May 21, 1993) is a far-rightVorlage:Efn or alt-right American political activist, conspiracy theorist, and Internet personality. She was a reporter for Canadian far-right website The Rebel Media during the summer of 2017, resigning that September. Prior to June 2017, she worked for Project Veritas with James O'Keefe.

Early life

Loomer was raised in Arizona. She attended Mount Holyoke College and, after transferring schools, graduated from Barry University with a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism. She is Jewish.

Views

Loomer has described herself as a nationalist, and has described immigration as a threat to American heritage. Fortune has described Loomer as a "far-right provocateur".

Loomer has denounced the alt-right, and has publicly repudiated white supremacist Richard B. Spencer, who coined the term, and has refused to share a stage with him. Loomer has received anti-semitic threats and harassment from the alt-right following this dispute. Despite this, Loomer has been described as being part of the alt-right movement,Vorlage:Efn as well as alt-lite.

Loomer has promoted a number of conspiracy theories, mostly related to mass shootings; falsely insinuating that school shootings in Santa Fe, Texas and Parkland, Florida were staged, and that the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooter was affiliated with ISIS.

Career

Loomer is a former employee of James O'Keefe, a conservative activist known for producing selectively edited undercover video investigations. Until her resignation in September 2017, Loomer was the New York correspondent for the conservative Canadian far-right news site The Rebel Media, which has been referred to as the "Canadian Breitbart."

Activism

In March 2015, Loomer used a concealed video camera to record her conversations with Barry University officials, discussing the idea of starting a club called "Sympathetic Students in Support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria." The official responded by asking her to change the name to "Students in Support of the Middle East." The video of her encounter was released by James O'Keefe with Project Veritas. O'Keefe alleged that Loomer's video captured a university official unfazed at the notion of starting an on-campus organization that would support ISIS. Shortly after the edited video was released by O'Keefe, Loomer was suspended by Barry University for violating the student code of conduct rules; criminal charges were also filed against her for taping university officials without their knowledge or consent. At the time, Loomer was an honors student in her senior year, the president of Barry University's Young Republicans Club, and majoring in communications.

According to a Clinton campaign official, in July 2015 Loomer and two other women posing as supporters of Hillary Clinton attempted to "entrap" campaign workers into accepting illegal cash donations. The official said that the campaign had complied with the law.

On November 8, 2016, the day of the presidential election, Loomer went to a polling station dressed in a burqa and asked for a ballot under the name of Huma Abedin.

In June 2017, Loomer gave a speech to a crowd of anti-sharia marchers in New York City and condemned "liberals who aligned themselves with sharia law." Loomer put a burqa on the Fearless Girl statue adjacent to the Merrill Lynch building.

On June 7, 2017, at a Chelsea Clinton book signing event in New York City, Loomer asked Chelsea to sign a copy of her new children's book She Persisted to Juanita Broaddrick, one of former President Bill Clinton's most persistent accusers. The former first daughter refused to sign it.

In January 2018, an associate recorded Loomer riding the service elevator that Stephen Paddock had used to transport numerous firearms used in the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. Loomer rode the elevator from the ground floor to the 32nd floor four times without permission of the hotel and was not engaged by Mandalay Bay hotel security. Wynn had previously said, "No public person has ever ridden a service elevator (at a Wynn property) unless they were accompanied by security."

Loomer attended the March 2018 trial of Noor Salman under press credentials, which were revoked after Loomer harassed Salman's family. Loomer returned to the trial the next day and was removed by a U.S. marshal.

Loomer disrupted an event promoting James Comey's book A Higher Loyalty. She was taken out of the building by security.

In August 2018, Loomer disrupted a campaign event for Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar attended by Michigan House candidate Rashida Tlaib. Loomer shouted questions which implied that Tlaib was anti-Semitic, and repeated as fact an unsubstantiated rumor that Tlaib had married her brother for immigration purposes.

In September 2018, Loomer briefly disrupted a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing. Loomer accused Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who was giving testimony before the committee, of censoring conservatives on the platform and of attempting to influence the election in favor of Democrats. Republican Representative Billy Long, who was an auctioneer before joining Congress, drowned her shouting out with an auction chant until she was escorted from the building.

Handcuff incident

In November 2018, Loomer was banned from Twitter for a tweet criticizing Ilhan Omar. The tweet called Omar "anti Jewish", and said that she is a member of a religion in which "homosexuals are oppressed" and women are "abused" and "forced to wear the hijab." A week following the ban, she handcuffed herself to the front door of the Twitter headquarters in New York City in protest while wearing a yellow "Jude" patch. After approximately two hours, police removed the handcuffs with a bolt cutter. Loomer was not arrested.

Julius Caesar play disruption

On June 16, 2017, Loomer disrupted the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar in New York City, by walking on stage during the live performance shortly after Caesar was assassinated. Before being escorted off the stage by security, Loomer shouted "Stop the normalization of political violence against the right! This is unacceptable!" The play portrayed a "Trump-like" Caesar with a Slovenian-accented wife. Loomer, who is pro-Trump, was arrested for disorderly conduct and trespassing. The Public Theater responded by saying although they're "champions" of the First Amendment, the disruption was caused by "social media". On June 19, 2017, Alyssa Rosenberg of The Washington Post wrote that she didn't believe Loomer was genuinely offended by the play, and that she disrupted it for attention and to collect a $1,000 bounty that was offered to anyone who would disrupt the production.

On June 19, 2017, as a guest on the Fox News program Hannity, Loomer admitted she knew that disrupting the Shakespeare in the Park play would result in criminal charges against her. During the interview, Loomer compared the "Trump-like" Caesar assassination to a May 2017 video of former CNN host Kathy Griffin holding a mask of a bloody severed head of President Donald Trump, Loomer called the Caesar play and the Griffin video "assassination porn" and accused the "left" of a systematic pattern of using free speech and art as a pretext to promote violence against Donald Trump and the "right".

On June 20, 2017, The Daily Beast reported that 'Free Laura', a website for soliciting donations for her arrest, was purchased by Loomer's employer Ezra Levant, the owner of The Rebel Media, six hours before the play started, according to domain records. Loomer was also promoting separately a WeSearchr page for donations, that had received $12,385 from 241 contributors, receiving more money in donations than the normal penalties for the charges she was facing.

Spreading conspiracy theories on social media

On November 1, 2017, Loomer tweeted that she was late to a conference because she could not find a "non Muslim cab or @Uber @lyft driver". Following this, both Uber and Lyft announced that she had violated their guidelines and was banned from using their services.

After the May 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting, Loomer implied on Twitter that the tragedy was actually staged, prompting concerns about the spread of misleading information and conspiracy theories by troll farms and social bots.

In July 2018, Loomer promoted the false narrative that a man arrested with bomb-making equipment and illegal weapons had been a "leftist antifa terrorist". The individual in question was instead a conservative whose Facebook profile was littered with pro-Second Amendment memes.

In October, during the October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts, targeted at prominent Democratic politicians, Loomer tried to spread the false conspiracy theory that the bombing attacks were a "false flag" operation by the Democrats.

On November 21, 2018, The Daily Beast reported Loomer was permanently banned from Twitter for violating their rules on hate speech in a tweet referencing Ilhan Omar, a recently elected Democratic US congresswoman. In the tweet, Loomer described Omar, a Muslim, as "pro Sharia", "pro FGM", and "anti Jewish". On November 29, Loomer handcuffed herself to the door of Twitter's New York City office and announced she was joining a lawsuit that alleged bias by social media companies against conservatives.

References

Informational notes Vorlage:Notelist

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