THE BIG STORY

Some Oath Keepers say its founder has betrayed the group’s mission — and them

Elmer Stewart Rhodes III is not a household name outside of far-right circles. The one-time Army paratrooper, disbarred Yale lawyer, constitutionalist, gun enthusiast, and far-right media star founded the group called the Oath Keepers in 2009.

You need to know about the Oath Keepers because the group was involved in the deadly Jan. 6 insurgency, an involvement that brought the group more attention — welcome and unwelcome — than it had ever received.

But since founding the group, numerous people who heeded Rhodes’ calls to action as the leader of the Oath Keepers say he abandoned them — summoning them to dangerous confrontations and leaving them to suffer the criminal consequences.

People who have been involved with the Oath Keepers described a simple business model at work: Wading into more conflict brings more publicity, which in turn brings more revenue from donations, merchandise sales, and $50-a-year membership dues.

One former chapter leader described Rhodes like this: “Like a moth to the flame, he flies in, throws up a PayPal, and then disappears.” As a result, though Rhodes received tremendous publicity from Oath Keepers’ actions, he has so far managed to avoid any consequences himself.

Read our deep-dive into Rhodes, and how the Oath Keepers ended up here.

More of our coverage of the Oath Keepers:

👉 Prosecutors suggested that the Oath Keepers had a special force ready with weapons during the Capitol insurrection.

👉 Oath Keepers members were charged with conspiring to storm the Capitol and planning the assault in advance.

Rhodes speaks at a rally outside the White House in 2017. Susan Walsh / AP

#FOIAFridays

We’re suing the US government for records (again)

We want to know – and we want you to know – the complete story of what happened in the days leading up to the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol. That’s why we’ve filed five FOIA lawsuits against DHS, the Department of Justice, FBI, the Department of Defense, National Guard Bureau, the US Army, the Department of Interior, the National Park Service, and the Federal Aviation Administration, seeking a wide-range of records -- that would lay bare what officials at these agencies knew in the days leading up to the insurrection, what took place behind the scenes at the highest levels of government, and how officials responded when rioters breached the Capitol.

Without these lawsuits, it could take months or years before the records would ever see the light of day.

Help us on our quest for government transparency by contributing to our legal fund here.

SNAPSHOTS

The Biden administration has canceled a Trump-era policy that made it harder for immigrant children to get asylum. The change comes as the White House attempts to deal with more unaccompanied children crossing the US border in recent weeks.

Chris Harrison apologized and said he wants to return to The Bachelor but Michael Strahan isn’t convinced. The longtime host of the Bachelor franchise apologized again for his comments excusing a current contestant's alleged racist past. GMA host Michael Strahan said after the interview, “it felt like I got nothing more than a surface response on any of this.”

An early dad YouTuber reflects on the pranks that made him famous — and the ones he’s since decided to delete. Nalts, who reached YouTube fame in the mid-aughts, wrote in about how he views his old videos — and people in them who were impacted — differently today.

This cat enjoying a spa day is how relaxed I plan to be for the rest of 2021. A viral clip of a cat and its owner enjoying a relaxing spa day might just be one of the purest things online right now. I mean, look at this magic:

TikTok

THE MAP KEEPS THE SCORE

Zillow ghost maps appear to show the neighborhoods “slum clearance” destroyed

In the 20th century, the US government displaced low-income, often Black neighborhoods by building highways through them. But Zillow appears to have unexpectedly made that brutal past visible.

Zillow, a website that connects people with new homes and rentals, appears to be showing the outlines of these ghost neighborhoods displaced by the creation of highways and interstates.

It’s a remarkable sight. In some cities, if a person zooms in on a highway, rendering the map in satellite imagery, white boxes will appear where no houses or buildings currently exist. The white boxes appear to mark where houses and buildings previously stood.

Zillow is apparently showing the ghost neighborhoods by accident — the company says it uses data from multiple sources, and aims to give people the most up-to-date information possible.

A Zillow spokesperson said, “This highlights the long history of displacement and the impact of systemically biased land use policy in America of the 20th century, a story we continue to work to tell.”

The Jane Byrne Interchange in the Greektown neighborhood of Chicago, with white boxes showing where buildings previously had been. Zillow / Via Twitter: @DavidColeAIA

LET OUT A BIG SIGH

Unwind with these weekend longreads

Amy Poehler’s new teen movie is earnest but doesn’t quite work. Lauren Strapagiel wrote about Moxie, a movie that tries hard to be inclusive, but it ends up being awkward. Strapagiel writes that “while Moxie succeeds at showing the power of girls working together, it doesn’t have the wit, bite, and fun of its recent peers.”

The Billie Eilish documentary gets the alchemy behind her stardom. There is a new documentary about the pop superstar, and as Alessa Dominguez writes, “it hews too close to the family mythology to be truly revelatory,” but “the tiny glimpses of the pressure placed on Eilish are arguably the most revealing parts.”

Why Jonah Hill’s response to his paparazzi photos is radical. I wrote about Jonah Hill’s graceful response to shirtless paparazzi photos of him, and why it’s a radical departure from the usual response from larger men in Hollywood — who are expected to grin and bear constant jokes and scrutiny about their weight.

Get in touch with a friend who's been a bit silent today,

Elamin