Morning Briefing: White Supremacist Arrested for Planning 'Mass Casualty Event'
Morning Briefing: White Supremacist Arrested for Planning 'Mass Casualty Event'
The FBI arrested a White Supremacist who allegedly made online post claiming that he was planning to 'conduct a racially or ethnically motivated mass casualty event.'
Morning Briefing: Alexander Lightner has been reportedly “accused of posting online threats to carry out mass violence has been arrested and charged with making an interstate threat and a weapon violation, federal court records show,” and a search of Lightner’s home by law enforcement found “propaganda regarding white supremacist and accelerationist ideology.”
Lightner allegedly used an internet messaging platform and “made several concerning posts that, taken together, were intended to convey the message that he was planning to conduct a racially or ethnically motivated mass casualty event,” according to court documents.
U.S. prosecutors reportedly “urged a court in Arizona to reject a request” by Donald Day Jr, a far right extremist and conspiracy theorist, to drop charges against him for inciting threats of violence online. Day was arrested and charged in “connection to religiously motivated shootings by an Australian family in Queensland later used the killings to bolster his alleged threats against public figures.”
MAGA Republicans, “are more likely than other groups to endorse political violence,” according to a recently published study. However, the study also found that “personal willingness to engage in such violence was low across all groups,” including MAGA Republicans.
On the campus of Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana, there where reportedly “stickers and fliers linked to a white nationalist group” connected to the Big Sky Active Club, a neo-fascist White Nationalist associate with other groups including White Lives Montana, Vinland Rebels, and other active clubs.
In Corvallis, Oregon, city council members received by mail “two versions of postcards dripping in antisemitic and anti-transgender messaging,” and local law enforcement is reportedly “in contact with each of the recipients and are also consulting with the FBI.”
In Andersonville, a neighborhood outside of Chicago, Illinois, there were reportedly “dozens of antisemitic flyers were spotted on cars,” and according to local law enforcement “an investigation into the hateful flyers is underway, with no one currently in custody.”
Must Reads
Sarah Posner writes that Donald Trump’s “ardent supporters see his and their ‘wars’ as tied together. When he was indicted in a Manhattan court on charges that he illegally covered up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, his backers compared this supposed persecution to that of Jesus Christ. In a Truth Social video two days after his Iowa speech, Trump made this persecution pact complete. He contended that under Biden, ‘Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted like nothing this nation has ever seen before.’ Trump has also echoed wild and debunked claims from congressional Republicans about anti-Catholic bias by the Biden administration and the FBI in particular. Ramping up his authoritarian rhetoric, Trump pledged in the Iowa speech to institutionalize an authoritarian crackdown of the same sort he falsely accuses the Biden administration of implementing. ‘Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that’s fair and equitable,’ he promised. ‘Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America.’” [MSNBC]
Chrissy Stroop writes that “as 2024 dawns, such vicious state-level persecution of transgender Americans is only increasing. Ohio has become the latest state to ban care for trans adults via prohibitive and absurd regulations, including the head-scratching provision that the care team for any trans individual must include a bioethicist. Meanwhile, state legislators in Florida, not to be outdone, are set to consider initiatives such as an extremely broad ‘lascivious grooming’ ban that could be used to stamp out any public existence of LGBTIQ individuals, as well as a bill that would deprive trans Floridians of the right to have drivers’ licenses that show their correct gender. In fact, as journalist and trans rights advocate Erin Reed wrote last week, five days into January, ‘legislators have already submitted 125 bills targeting the transgender community this year’. That’s more than double the 50 bills filed in the same period at the start of 2023.” [openDemocracy]
Ruth Graham and Charles Homans write that “White evangelical Christian voters have lined up behind Republican candidates for decades, driving conservative cultural issues into the heart of the party’s politics and making nominees and presidents of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. But no Republican has had a closer — or more counterintuitive — relationship with evangelicals than Mr. Trump. The twice-divorced casino magnate made little pretense of being particularly religious before his presidency. The ardent support he received from evangelical voters in 2016 and 2020 is often described as largely transactional: an investment in his appointment of Supreme Court justices who would abolish the federal right to abortion and advance the group’s other top priorities. Evangelical supporters themselves often compare Mr. Trump to the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great, who freed a population of Jews even though he was not one of them. But religion scholars, drawing on a growing body of data, suggest another explanation: Evangelicals are not exactly who they used to be.” [The New York Times]
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.
Wow! Thank you for your precise, stellar coverage!
I don’t know how serious this clown really is. If you were planning a terrorist attack you wouldn’t brag about it online. That being said the potential for the posts inspiring a heavily armed psychopath are to great to ignore.