Morning Briefing: Far Right 'Patriot' Group Targets Veterans Crisis Line
Morning Briefing: Far Right 'Patriot' Group Targets Veterans Crisis Line
Far right activists with the 1776 Restoration Movement launched a coordinated campaign to flood with prank calls the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Veterans Crisis Line.
Morning Briefing: Far right activists launched a coordinated campaign to prank call the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Veterans Crisis Line, and “urged supporters to clog the line with calls complaining that veterans arrested for the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot are being mistreated while in custody.”
Task Force Butler, an organization founded by veterans to oppose facism, is “calling on prosecutors to get more aggressive with the Patriot Front, a far-right, white supremacist group that has been marching in cities across the country, arguing existing laws provide the authority needed to bring criminal charges against its members.”
U.S. District Judge William Campbell, Jr. has “granted a preliminary injunction barring protestors affiliated with the anti-abortion group Operation Save America from the grounds of a Mt. Juliet reproductive health clinic.” Operation Save America is a radical extremists anti-abortion organization that is associated with the so-called anti-abortion “abolition” movement.
The Nationalist Social Club (NSC), a neo-Nazi group with multiple autonomous regional chapters around the United States, “has been investigated in Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. They protested outside two drag queen story hours for children in Boston. They also handed out racist fliers in May. Over the weekend, they held an anti-Semitic banner over Route 1 in Saugus.”
Christopher Hood, leader of the Massachusetts chapter of the neo-Nazi group NSC-131, was in court facing charges related to an altercation outside a children’s drag queen story hour event, reportedly told “Judge Kathleen Coffey that he wants to hold off finding a private attorney and represent himself at this time.”
Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the right-wing militia the Oath Keepers, will be on trial next week, “in what could be the biggest test for the U.S. Justice Department in its quest to hold former President Donald Trump's supporters accountable for their Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that members of the jury in the “upcoming case of a handful of members of the right-wing Oath Keepers extremist group will be allowed to hear most of the exchanges between members that were had on a walkie-talkie-style app during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
Must Reads
Brandy Zadrozny writes that “while the current obsession with Satan was boosted in part by the QAnon community, partisan media and conservative politicians have been instrumental in spreading newfound fears over the so-called ritualistic abuse of children that the devil supposedly inspires, sometimes weaving the allegations together with other culture war issues such as LGBTQ rights. Those fears are powering fresh accusations of ritual abuse online, which are amplified on social media and by partisan media, and can mobilize mobs to seek vigilante justice. Witch hunts have traditionally been associated with courts — even the kangaroo kind — but today, the accused can be branded satanist pedophiles at the speed of the internet. Online accusers can bypass police, therapists and the traditional media and out their alleged abusers straight to audiences of millions. [NBC News]
Chrissy Stroop writes that now that the U.S. Supreme Court has been “unfairly stacked with zealous right-wing Catholic justices, there’s no telling how far the Roberts Court will go. Weaponizing a twisted interpretation of “religious freedom” via the court system is not the only way in which right-wing Christians – whether Protestant, Catholic or Mormon – are successfully asserting their dominance and imposing minority authoritarian rule in the US. Where they control state governments, as in Texas and Florida, the Christian Right has also made massive strides by abusing state bureaucratic agencies, whether to declare supportive parenting of transgender children “child abuse” – as in Texas – or to restrict trans healthcare for adults and minors and move towards banning it for minors – as in Florida.” [openDemocracy]
Sam Kestenbaum writes that “equal parts tent revival, campaign rally, and three-ring circus, this is the latest stop on the ReAwaken America Tour, a monthly MAGA pageant that fills megachurches across the country. Before last year, Clark was a provincial talk-show personality and business guru from Oklahoma; today he is a Vince McMahon frontman of a misinformation megashow. Here, the election was stolen from Trump; the pandemic is a horrific hoax; and a cabal of Luciferian cultists, including George Soros, seek world domination. There are End Times oracles, exorcists, multilevel marketers, New Agey health gurus, naturopathic bodybuilders, and QAnon crusaders all swaying together under one tent.” [Rolling Stone]
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; Research Desk provides monthly highlights research and analysis from academia on the Radical Right; Field Notes delivers research on key organizations and analysis of the strategies and tactics of the Radical Right.
