Morning Briefing: Texas Man Pleads Guilty To Arson And Hate Crime Targeting Austin Synagogue
Morning Briefing: Texas Man Pleads Guilty To Arson And Hate Crime Targeting Austin Synagogue
Franklin Barrett Sechriest 'pleaded guilty in federal court to arson and a hate crime' for allegedly setting on fire the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Austin, Texas.
Morning Briefing: Franklin Barrett Sechriest “pleaded guilty in federal court to arson and a hate crime” for allegedly setting on fire the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Austin, Texas. At the time of the incident, Sechriest was reportedly “a member of the Texas State Guard.” Sechriest is scheduled to be sentenced on June 23, and “faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.”
The number of antiemetic incidents in Texas has increased significantly in recent years, and the state “now ranks fifth in the country for this type of hate,” according to a recently published report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Residents of the Nashville, Tennessee neighborhoods in the Belmont–Hillsboro, including Beechwood, Ashwood, Linden, and Cedar, reported and documented the distribution of white supremacists propaganda. The distribution of the “propaganda in Belmont-Hillsboro follows an outbreak of public displays of white supremacy and antisemitism across Nashville.”
Heath Gorham, the interim police chief of the police department in Portland, Maine, defended the actions of police officers as acting "fairly and safely” in response to staged protest by the Nationalist Social Club (NSC) 131. Members of the white supremacist neo-Nazi group reportedly engaged in altercations with counter protest and local law enforcement.
Contra Costa County Judge Clare Maier “released the names of 17 Antioch police officers accused of using racist slurs, jokes and memes in text messages over a period of more than two years,” and the text messages were revealed as “evidence in an ongoing federal investigation into alleged fraud, bribery, drug distribution, and civil rights violations regarding the use of force throughout the Antioch and Pittsburg police departments.”
Must Reads
Brandy Zadrozny writes that she has been “following Tiffany [Dover] since that day, Dec. 17, 2020. Like thousands of others, I first saw her on a livestream during the national rollout of Covid vaccines to front-line workers, where Tiffany became one of the first people in the U.S. to get a shot. I was also watching when she fainted immediately after, launching a wave of misinformation and conspiracy theories that would eventually unravel her life. The modern anti-vaccine movement was powered by unverified stories of the dead and damaged. Tiffany wasn’t the first person to be swallowed up in an anti-vaccine propaganda campaign, and she wouldn’t be the last. The unsettling thing about it — to me and the more well-meaning conspiracy theorists who took up an interest in Tiffany’s case — was that she seemed to just disappear.” [NBC News]
Alex Thomas writes that “today, Republicans are somewhat divided in their approach to the aftermath of January 6. There is a pro-insurrection faction, which counts figures like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson in its coterie, who are actively trying to rewrite history. In their version of the Capitol attack, the rioters were only tourists who smashed windows and assaulted the police not out of malice but with feelings of reverence. They claim the rioters are ‘political prisoners’ or even ‘prisoners of war.’ Greene has said that if she had organized the Capitol attack, ‘we would have won.’ She believes it was an honorably fought battle within a larger, ongoing war. And then there are the silent Republicans, figures like Governors Ron DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin—those who have been deafeningly mum on January 6.” [The New Republic]
Henry Giroux writes that “this is a war on memory and historical consciousness. The legitimation of state violence in all of its registers is now connected to the destruction of historical memory, the covering up of dark truths and the residues of collective resistance. This ongoing management of terror directed at the American public is now organized through a systemic attack on civic culture, critical education and historical consciousness. At work here are forms of domination that employ repressive pedagogical models, rely on cultural apparatuses and avenues of power such as Fox News that engage in full-time propaganda, and systemically construct policies that reduce educational institutions to indoctrination factories engaged in what right-wing extremists euphemistically label as ‘patriotic education.’” [TruthOut]
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.
