Morning Briefing: Failed Republican Candidate Arrested for New Mexico Shootings
Morning Briefing: Failed Republican Candidate Arrested for New Mexico Shootings
Solomon Pena, a failed GOP candidate, was arrested in 'connection with the shootings at local Democratic politicians’ homes.'
Morning Briefing: Solomon Pena, an unsuccessful Republican candidate for the New Mexico State House of Representatives, was arrested in “connection with the shootings at local Democratic politicians’ homes.”
Pena “is accused of conspiring with four other men whom he allegedly paid to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislators.”
The shootings “targeted the homes of New Mexico’s House Speaker Javier Martinez, former Bernalillo County Commissioner Debbie O’Malley, Bernalillo County Commissioner Adriann Barboa, and state Senator Linda Lopez.”
No one was reportedly injured in the shootings, as multiple rounds were “fired into the doors and walls of buildings — in some cases while elected officials were inside with their families.”
Must Reads
Jack Nicas and Simon Romero report that attack on Brazil government institutional buildings “bore an unsettling resemblance to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol: Hundreds of right-wing protesters, claiming an election was rigged, stomping through the halls of power. Each episode rattled one of the world’s largest democracies, and almost two years to the day after the U.S. attack, last Sunday’s assault showed that far-right extremism, inspired by antidemocratic leaders and fed by conspiracy theories, remains a grave threat. Mr. Lula and judicial authorities have moved swiftly to reassert control, arresting more than 1,150 rioters, clearing the encampments that gave them refuge, searching for their funders and organizers and, on Friday, opening an investigation into how Mr. Bolsonaro may have inspired them. But questions continue to swirl about how a relatively small band of unarmed protesters, who had largely publicized their plans, were able so easily to storm the country’s most important government buildings.” [The New York Times]
Sarah Posner writes that anti-trans bills in more than a dozen states “share similar roots. The Family Policy Council is a state ‘ally’ of the Family Policy Alliance, the political arm of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, which has long fought against LGBTQ rights. When Idaho passed the first law of this kind in 2020, the Family Policy Alliance boasted that it “helped pass the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act to keep sports fair for female athletes in Idaho.” After a trans student challenged it in court, a federal judge temporarily halted the law’s enforcement, and the case remains in litigation. Despite these questions about the law’s constitutionality, nine states, including West Virginia, inspired by Idaho, passed anti-trans sports bans in 2021. Another eight states followed suit in 2022. Although often dressed up as based on “biology” or “common sense,” the driving force of these bills is a religious fervor that seeks to impose narrow right-wing Christian beliefs on everyone else.: [MSNBC]
Robert Misik writes that “the extreme right today does not want to conquer empires but to say ‘stop the world: we want to get off’. So how is it similar to historical fascism and what distinguishes it? Historical fascism was reactionary as a form of rule, in its stated goals and in reality. It was explicitly against democracy and parliamentarism and also in favour of an authoritarian cult of the Führer. While it invoked ‘common sense’ and the supposedly unified opinion of the Volk, it rarely appropriated democratic inclinations. It was born out of war and shaped by the ‘discipline’ of the military. Today’s fascism, on the other hand, invokes democratic values and claims to be the voice of the great mass oppressed by a powerful minority ‘elite’. Its protagonists even know how to use the values of liberalism and hedonistic consumerism, which means that it even radiates into anti-authoritarian milieux, as the sociologists Oliver Nachtwey and Carolin Amlinger have pointed out: values such as ‘autonomy’, ‘self-determination’ and ‘self-realisation’ can be integrated surprisingly well into authoritarian movements.” [International Politics & Society]
Radical Reports Book Club: Jesus and John Wayne
Discussion on Twitter Spaces: Jesus and John Wayne: Chapters 6 — 10 (Thursday, January 19th at 12:00pm EST)
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.
