Morning Briefing: Masked Members of Patriot Front March Through Tallahassee
Morning Briefing: Masked Members of Patriot Front March Through Tallahassee
At least two dozen members of Patriot Front, the neo-fascist White Nationalist group, were reportedly 'marching with masks over their faces' in downtown Tallahassee, Florida.
Morning Briefing: At least two dozen members of Patriot Front, the neo-fascist White Nationalist group, were reportedly “marching with masks over their faces along the Tallahassee Downtown Market, atop the Cascades Park bridge and later gathered outside the Old Florida Capitol.”
Patriot Front propaganda was also reportedly identified along “Ward’s Creek trail at the Mall of Louisiana” in Baton Rouge, and the stickers reporting included the phrases "America is Not for Sale" and "One Nation Against Invasion.”
Local law enforcement is reportedly “investigating separate reports of antisemitism” in Berkeley, California, including “the assault of a woman during a pro-Israel demonstration and the distribution of more than a dozen baggies containing hateful messages targeting Jews.”
The flyers include antisemitic propaganda and conspiracy theories and QR codes and links to websites published by Goyim Defense League (GDL), the White Supremacists neo-Nazi group.
The Lafayette School District reportedly notified parents that “antisemitic fliers were distributed in front of homes in several Lafayette neighborhoods, as well as in surrounding communities,” and the propaganda was also attributed to the GDL.
Domagoj Patkovic was “charged in an alleged swatting and hoax bomb threat scheme that targeted Jewish hospitals around New York,” and allegedly the bomb threats “prompted repeated emergency responses from local law enforcement and a partial evacuation from at least one hospital.” If convicted, Patkovic could be sentenced to 155 years in prison.
Russell Vane, who reportedly “who alarmed fellow members of an anti-government militia with his talk of assassinations, bombs and ties to the Russian government,” pleaded guilty to “possessing a deadly toxin he had manufactured at home.”
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James Bandler, A.C. Thompson, and Karina Meier write that “Telegram’s ease of use, its huge public channels and the ability to encrypt private conversations have helped fuel its global appeal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used the app to rally his compatriots to repel the Russian invasion. Activists in Hong Kong turned to Telegram to organize demonstrations against a repressive law. In Belarus, pro-democracy forces used the platform to fight back against election fraud. But the platform has also served as the online home of the Russian mercenary company Wagner Group, which has posted gruesome videos of extrajudicial killings. In April, the British government targeted the Terrorgram Collective, a subset of Telegram users who promote racially and ethnically motivated terrorism to people like Lightner, making it a crime to support or belong to the group. And more recently, the service played a key role in fomenting the anti-immigrant riots that swept across the United Kingdom. ProPublica and FRONTLINE have been investigating Telegram’s role in a string of recent alleged far-right acts of sabotage and murder, and how the company’s inaction allowed extremists to plan and even advertise their crimes.” [ProPublica]
Josh Kovensky writes that “many MAGA influencers have an apocalyptic story to tell about the country, the political divide, and where we’re all headed, and they’re already using it to lay the groundwork for crossing what has long been a red line: deploying the military for domestic law enforcement purposes. In this MAGA fever dream, everyone has their part to play. They believe that they’ll be caught up in it; you might be, too. It goes something like this: If Donald Trump wins in November, people will protest. Riots will break out. The left, they theorize, will go all-out to stoke organized violence around the country, clearing the way for a newly inaugurated Trump administration to step in and make unprecedented, widespread use of the U.S. military to restore law and order. This dark vision of the future draws on deeply pessimistic theorizing, on lectures about Marxist anti-government ideology seemingly ripped from the Cold War, on memories of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and on claims that Democrats and the left will be unable to accept a Trump victory. It all comes against the backdrop of senior officials around Trump and Trump himself reportedly having been eager to invoke the Insurrection Act while he was in office, and mulling its actual use if he’s re-elected.” [Talking Points Memo]
Devin Burghart writes that “unwilling to wait for election results to be tallied in November, some far-rightists are already making plans for another insurrection. One effort emerging in Florida is inspired by a founding member of one of the groups that led the January 6th insurrection and the writings of an anti-abortion terror promoter. ‘The culmination of all the work we will have done in each sphere of influence to create the momentum we need to mobilize ‘We the People’ to reestablish our Constitutional Republic,’ signals a document the IREHR research team has uncovered outlining plans to target sheriffs, county commissioners, and supervisors of elections. The plan: ‘Take back the states, one constitutional sheriff at a time.’ The effort has fused far-right fascination with the county sheriff, anti-immigrant sentiment, COVID denial, and election denial into a plan for the next insurrection. Instead of a January 6th-style centralized mass insurrection, these Florida activists developed a blueprint for a county-by-county-style revolt. They hope it becomes a national model for sustained insurrection, ‘the template for the rest of the country to follow.’” [IREHR]
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.
If any means possible had been used to stop the overrun of our capitol and the attempted overthrow of our elected government there wouldn’t be any danger of this ever happening again. Anyone left alive should have been hung for treason.