Morning Briefing: Another Mass Shooting, Continued Mourning, Relentless Deaths
Morning Briefing: Another Mass Shooting, Continued Mourning, Relentless Deaths
At least 21 people were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde County, Texas, following the recent mass shootings which targeted the Black and Taiwanese communities.
Morning Briefing: At least nineteen children and two adults were killed in a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in the “worst school shooting since Sandy Hook.”
The families of the students, “roiled by the deadliest school shooting in modern Texas history, waited for hours on the lawn of a civic center,” to receive news about their students.
In the wake of mass shootings which targeted the Black and Taiwanese communities, the Justice Department “announced new guidelines for law enforcement officials and local leaders in conjunction with a slew of state grants focused on hate crime prevention programs and data gathering.”
Since January 2020, a government report found “there have been nine publicly reported current or former service members charged with crimes related to violent and/or supremacist-leaning extremist groups.”
During the CPAC conference in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that “conservatives in Europe and the United States must fight together to ‘reconquer’ institutions in Washington and Brussels from liberals who threaten Western civilisation ahead of votes in 2024.”
In Idaho, “while the far-right’s slate of statewide candidates suffered significant losses for the most part, its legislative picks managed far more success.”
Aaron Jonathan Hurley, an anti-abortion activist that has allegedly previously stalked an abortion provider, has been criminally charged with “participating in the invasion of a clinic and vandalizing a statue of the Madonna and Child with fake blood at the San Francisco General Hospital.”
U.S. federal law enforcement agencies are reportedly preparing for a “potential surge in political violence once the Supreme Court hands down the ruling that's expected to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
Must Reads
Natasha Ishak writes the “link between white nationalism and U.S. politics has become increasingly defined as many public officials become part of these far-right groups. In a recent report, the IREHR identified 875 state legislators—nearly 12% of state legislators in the U.S.—who joined far-right groups on Facebook. These groups are dedicated to extremist activity such as attacking so-called critical race theory and promoting racist and anti-Semitic conspiracies, COVID-19 denialism, and even paramilitary action. The report noted that lawmakers with extremist links were responsible for introducing or sponsoring nearly 1,000 pieces of anti-human rights laws in the country in the last year. Sanitized and abstracted language that is often used to promote white extremist ideas is a big part of how those ideas can end up in the highest echelons of power.” [Prism]
Dan Friedman reports that “some of the attorneys in Powell’s network have been involved in post-election legal battles since the very beginning. In 2020, Haller, who had worked in the Trump administration, helped Powell promote vote fraud claims in court. In filings connected to election lawsuits in Georgia and Texas, Haller indicated that she worked with Defending the Republic, listing addresses for the nonprofit as her mailing address. A federal judge in Michigan last year sanctioned Powell, Haller, and seven and other attorneys for acting “in bad faith and for an improper purpose” in a lawsuit they filed that sought to overturn Michigan’s presidential election results.” [Mother Jones]
Robert P. Jones writes that “there is a troubling religious double standard in the U.S.—one which threatens our safety and our democracy. If these same kinds of appeals and violent actions were being made and committed by Muslims, for example, most white Americans would be demanding actions to eradicate a domestic threat from “radical Islamic terrorism,” a term we heard relentlessly during the Trump era. But because Christianity is the dominant religion in this country, its role in supporting domestic terrorism has been literally unspeakable. The clear historical record, and contemporary attitudinal data, merit an urgent discussion of white Christian nationalism as a serious and growing threat to our democracy. if we are to understand the danger in which we find ourselves today, we will have to be able to use the words white Christian nationalism and domestic terrorism in the same sentence.” [Time]
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.
