Morning Briefing: Founder of Atomwaffen Division on Trial for Terrorist Plot
This week, the former leader and founder of the Atomwaffen Division is on trial for an 'alleged terrorist plot to destroy the power grid in Baltimore.'
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Morning Briefing: Brandon Clint Russell, the former leader and founder of the neo-Nazi violent extremists accelerationist group Atomwaffen Division, is on trial this week for an “alleged terrorist plot to destroy the power grid in the Baltimore region,” and “the attack would have caused power outages across much of Maryland and resulted in $75 million in damages.”
Patriot Front, the neo-fascist White Nationalist group, has been spreading propaganda on the campus of Baylor University, and a spokesperson for the college said they had received a “criminal mischief report regarding a group placing the stickers on campus, which is private property,” and “facility services then removed around 180 stickers across campus.”
In King County, Washington, racist graffiti which included references to Nazis and Hitler was reportedly “found alongside the East Lake Sammamish bike trail,” and it was not the “first time hateful language was tagged in that area.”
A federal judge has apparently reversed an order that banned Stewart Rhodes, the former leader of the far right militia group the Oath Keepers, from traveling to Washington, D.C., and wrote that “it is not for this court to divine why President Trump commuted Defendants' sentences, or to assess whether it was sensible.”
In Pennsylvania, Laura Smith, the Republican vice chair of the Towamencin Township Board of Supervisors, has reportedly resigned from her supervisor position after seemingly mimicking “Elon Musk's apparent Nazi salute, in a post on TikTok.”
Must Reads
David Gilbert writes that “the Rainbow Youth Project, an organization focused on helping young LGBTQ+ people, received over 6,000 calls in just the first couple of days after Trump’s November election win. That’s up from the usual 3,600 calls a month. It didn’t stop: The hotline received over 8,000 calls in December. Now, after Trump’s comment and actions on the first day of his presidency, the group’s crisis helpline is once again receiving a torrent of calls. Sixty-two percent of incoming calls this week, the group tells WIRED, are from trans and gender-nonconforming adolescents age 14 to 17. The callers are expressing varying degrees of emotional and mental distress, often expressing feelings of hopelessness and fear. One of the most common sentiments shared is ‘my country does not want me to exist.’ While the Trump administration’s actions are causing huge distress for the trans community and their families, a stark increase in the attacks, both online and offline, are already coming from Trump supporters who feel emboldened.” [Wired]
Chrissy Stroop writes that “when you’re raised in an authoritarian Christian community you can never quite comfortably fit into, you learn early on about the ambiguity of language. Words like ‘love,’ for example, mean very different things to a person who respects others’ bodily autonomy and a person who associates loving their children with subjecting them to corporal punishment in order to break their will. For Jesus, of course. Words like ‘unity,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘political’ mean very different things to different kinds of people too. This is not my original insight, but it’s particularly relevant in the United States today. This issue has been on my mind since I got a press release inviting me to set up an interview with Lee Greenwood ahead of Donald Trump’s second inauguration, which featured the 82-year-old country star singing his kitschy hit ‘God Bless the USA’—released in 1984 and now a staple at Trump rallies and similarly tacky events. To mark the occasion, Greenwood has also released an inauguration edition of his trashy Trump-endorsed ‘God Bless the USA’ Bible, because of course he has.” [Religion Dispatches]
Bob Smietana writes that “since the start of the federal fiscal year on Oct. 1, 2024, more than 32,000 refugees have arrived in the United States, as well as an additional 10,000 Afghans with special visas. They are all entitled to 90 days of housing and other basic support to help them resettle in the United States, find employment and enroll their children in school. Danilo Zak, director of policy at Church World Service, a faith-based refugee resettlement agency that contracts with the federal government to resettle refugees, said that in the week before Trump’s inauguration alone, more than 5,000 refugees and 1,000 Afghans on Special Immigrant Visas were resettled across the country. The administration then canceled flights that were supposed to bring in refugees before the Jan. 27 pause. Then it ordered a halt to all assistance for those already here. ‘That’s just cruel and heartless,’ said the Rev. Randy Carter, pastor of Temple Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, and the interim director of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina’s Welcome Network, which provides temporary housing to refugees and others. ‘They’re telling them not to treat them anymore as clients, not to spend more to assist them getting resettled into the United States.’ Carter said he plans to encourage the 60 or so churches in the Welcome Network to make a grant to the refugee agencies it works with to supplement whatever funds the government may be abruptly ending.” [Religion News Service]
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; Narratives of the Right delivers weekly analysis of the current narratives in far right online spaces and promoted by right-wing media; and Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right.