Morning Briefing: U.S. Military Has No Social Media Vetting Process to 'Identify Extremists Trying to Join the Ranks'
Morning Briefing: U.S. Military Has No Social Media Vetting Process to 'Identify Extremists Trying to Join the Ranks'
A new report has found that despite promises to root out extremists, the U.S. military has yet to to implement a social media vetting processes to "identify extremists trying to join the ranks."
Morning Briefing: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin promised to root out extremists activity in the military, however, the “Pentagon still hasn't implemented a social media vetting process to identify extremists trying to join the ranks,” according to a new report.
The Center for a New American Security (CNAS) report found that “even though the DoD has a formal structure to address DVE, the department still faces challenges similar to those of the law enforcement community in managing participation in DVE organizations and activities by current and former service members.”
An attack on a pair of North Carolina electrical substations “raised new concerns over a mounting threat posed by radical homegrown extremists declaring open war on the United States power grid.”
Emily Grace Rainey, a former U.S. Army officer and participant in the Capitol Riot, reportedly said that “deputies questioned her about mass power outages in North Carolina after she posted on social media that she knew why they occurred.”
Potential attacks on the power grid have been the “subject of extremist chatter for some time, notably ticking up in 2020, the same year a 14-page how-to on low tech attacks, including assaulting power grids with guns, circulated amongst extremist communication channels.”
Peyton O'Conner, the first transgender member of the Asheville City Board of Education, “announced her resignation from the board Dec. 5 after an anti-LGBTQ group made several appearances during public comment periods, repeatedly misgendering O'Conner… and spreading homophobic and transphobic rhetoric.”
The Proud Boys, the far right violent extremists street gang, has promised to target additional drag queen events around the country.
This Week in Extremism - Join the discussion Friday, December 9nd at 12:00pm EST (11:00am CST / 9:00am PST).
Must Reads
Robert Draper writes that “the Munns had become something of a national curiosity. After all, there had been married couples at the Capitol on January 6, as well as fathers and sons. No other family this size was known to have participated in the invasion, however. How had six members of the same family—Tom and his wife, Dawn, along with four of their eight children—become so swept up in Donald Trump’s baseless claims about the 2020 election that they drove 1,600 miles from a small Texas town to help disrupt the peaceful transfer of power? It was, as the federal judge who presided over their case would later say with stoic understatement, ‘a puzzle.’” [Texas Monthly]
Annika Brockschmidt writes that “Germany saw its biggest anti-terrorism operation carried out by the police in its post world war II history. 3000 police officers searched 130 sites this morning in connection with a plot to overthrow the government. 25 people in total have been detained by law enforcement, on suspicion of an attempted violent coup. The group includes former and current law enforcement members, members of special forces units of both the police and military, as well as (former) soldiers. The group has strong ties to the ‘Reichsbürger’ movement, the German version of the “sovereign citizen’s” movement. Its members don’t believe that Germany is an independent country, and believe that it is still governed by the United States, and not a country but a company… In short: They wanted to overthrow our current government and establish a new ‘Reich’.” [Threats to Democracy]
Jason Colavito writes that “Ancient Apocalypse sits alongside Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and the so-called ‘intellectual dark web’ in casting doubt on expertise, privileging emotion over evidence, and bending history to ideological ends—in this case, making common cause with the right against academia, science, and the very idea of shared reality. That it did so on one of the biggest media platforms in the world should give us all pause. ‘History’ isn’t just about what happened in the past. It’s also about whose stories get told and how we think about them. In recent years, we have seen far too many battles over these priorities.” [The New Republic]
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.
