Morning Briefing: Cowboys for Trump Founder Removed From Elected Office
Morning Briefing: Cowboys for Trump Founder Removed From Elected Office
Couy Griffin, the founder of Cowboys for Trump who participated in the January 6th Capitol Riot, has been ordered by a New Mexico judge to be removed from elected office.
Morning Briefing: Couy Griffin, founder of Cowboys for Trump and New Mexico County Commissioner for Otero County, has been order by a judge to be “removed from office, effective immediately, as a result of Griffin's participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the United States Capitol.” Griffin is among “57 elected Republican officials who participated in the riot,” and the first elected official to face any accountability or consequences.
Cloudflare announced that it had “blocked Kiwi Farms, an online forum known for hateful content,” and the announcement places the “future of the fringe internet forum in doubt.” However, Parler, the far right social media platform, is “returning to the Google Play Store after being kicked off following the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.”
A new report by the Organization for the Prevention of Violence found that “extremists are increasingly picking and choosing elements of different violent ideologies to form their own idiosyncratic belief system. This ‘salad bar’ extremism, originally used to describe an emerging phenomenon in the U.S., is now present in Canada.”
Shane Hernandez, GOP candidates for Michigan lieutenant governor, posted and then deleted a “photo of himself with the flag of an anti-government militia movement in the background.”
Taylor Rose, a former Montana political candidate long accused by a major anti-hate group of pushing white nationalist views, “was commissioned into the Montana National Guard as a new infantry officer in 2020 and is still in the service.”
Former President Donald Trump “alleged that he’s now offering a growing suite of services for Jan. 6 defendants: financial support, and — if he makes it back into the White House — pardons and formal government apologies.”
Must Reads
Andy Kroll, Justin Elliott, and Andrew Perez report that Barre Seid has become “one of the most important donors to conservative causes,” and “emails and interviews with people who know Seid, sheds light on one of the country’s least-known megadonors, revealing how an intensely private billionaire has secretly used his wealth to try to influence the lives of millions. Seid has funded climate denialism as well as a national network of state-level think tanks that promote business deregulation and fight Medicaid expansion. He’s also supported efforts to remake the higher education system in a conservative mold, including to turn one of the nation’s most politically influential law schools into a training ground for future generations of right-wing judges and justices.” [ProPublica]
Will Carless writes that “accounts, pages and groups associated with the violent extremist movement ‘Boogaloo Bois’ are re-emerging on Facebook, despite the platform vowing to remove references to the movement more than two years ago. A new report from the Tech Transparency Project, provided exclusively to USA TODAY, details several Boogaloo-affiliated groups and pages, including a group with more than 4,000 members, who have been on Facebook in recent weeks. has popped up. The meme-focused boogaloo movement, with deep distrust and hatred of the federal government at its core, has been tied to dozens of arrests and at least two deadly attacks on police, but the ideology faded in the wake of January. 6 rebellions last year.” [USA Today]
David Gilbert writes that “Kiwi Farms users have been laser focused on attacking trans people and others—oftentimes with horrific consequences. In 2019, Kiwi Farms gained notoriety after it refused to take down the livestream video of the Christchurch massacre posted on its site or hand over information about the user who had posted the video. Moon responded to police inquiries and called New Zealand “a small, irrelevant island nation” and “shithole country.” The hate site has also been allegedly linked to the suicides of at least three people and the vicious harassment of hundreds more.” [Vice]
What to expect from Radical Reports: Morning Briefing provides a daily round-up of reporting on the Radical Right; Extremist Links offers a weekly round-up of extremists activities including the white supremacist and militia movements; Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right; Field Notes delivers research on key organizations and analysis of the strategies and tactics of the Radical Right.
