Morning Briefing: White Nationalist Group 'Preparing for War,' Marches on the South Carolina Statehouse
In South Carolina, Patriot Front marched on the state capitol building, and in Tennessee, the neo-fascist White Nationalist group is reportedly 'preparing for war.'
Morning Briefing: Members of Patriot Front, the neo-fascists White Nationalist group, reportedly “marched on the South Carolina Statehouse during a weekly street market,” and witnesses reported that “approximately 40 individuals marched up Columbia's Main Street late that morning bearing banners with the insignia of the organization.”
Corey Allen, a South Carolina-based right-wing podcast host, repeated the false claim that members of Patriot Front are “federal agents,” and called the group’s protest “manufactured outrage by the deep state.”
In Tennessee, Patriot Front is reportedly “preparing for war” and building a compound “where they train men for battles that sometimes play out on the streets of America,” and members of the group “are also active in plastering communities across the country with their hate-filled flyers and graffiti.”
The Washington, D.C., Attorney General’s Office has reportedly “moved to dismiss — with prejudice — a civil lawsuit against two far-right extremist groups and several other individuals” for participating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, and in court filing told the court that the “government no longer believes the case is worth pursuing.”
Also, in Washington, D.C., the DOJ’s top federal prosecutor reportedly “demoted several senior leaders to entry-level positions,” and “told top leaders in the fraud, public corruption and civil rights section that they would be assigned to handle relatively low-level cases.”
Must Reads
Annika Brockschmidt writes that “it was a line that even his arch-nemesis Steve Bannon echoed happily when he took to the stage, despite the fact that just a couple of days earlier he’d called Musk a ‘parasitic illegal immigrant.’ ‘Zelenskyy got put in his place,’ Bannon shouted to the delight of the audience. True to fascist form, Bannon was one of the most successful speakers at riling up the audience. His diatribe also gave chilling insight into how he sees Europe—not as an ally, but as an adversary: ‘You know why they fear you in Beijing, in Riyadh, in Berlin, in London,’ he bellowed. ‘Because they know you won’t stop!’ Had there been any lingering questions, CPAC 2025 once again demonstrated that the Old Guard of the Republican Party is well and truly gone. Mitch McConnell, who was instrumental in orchestrating the Supreme Court majority that delivered MAGA its most important victories, was booed and mocked as a RINO (Republican in name only), just like Nikki Haley. Bannon dredged up some of MAGA’s greatest hits. ‘It was a Fedsurrection,’ he thundered, making clear that not only is this kind of talk acceptable within the GOP mainstream, but that this is the GOP mainstream.” [Religion Dispatches]
Matt Shuham writes that “three months after reacting with giddiness that Donald Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ campaign promise would make them boatloads of money, private prison executives are as optimistic as ever ― and they’re licking their lips at a potentially massive immigration enforcement budget from the Republican-controlled Congress… The optimism from the prison executives comes as Congress could dramatically increase the money that Trump can use to arrest, jail and deport undocumented people. Recent data shows that the pure numbers behind Trump’s deportation record are, so far, actually pretty similar to those during former President Joe Biden’s tenure. Still, Trump has tremendous power to detain and deport far more people than he did in his first term ― but the details of how he’ll do so are still fuzzy. ‘I don’t doubt that they’re going to grow this detention system a lot,’ said Silky Shah, executive director of Detention Watch Network, a coalition of advocacy groups campaigning for the end of immigration detention in the United States.” [Huffington Post]
Brandy Zadrozny writes that “just two weeks after his confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces the public health crisis that experts have long warned would come. Little is known about the child, besides that they were school-age, unvaccinated and lived in an area of West Texas with a large Mennonite community, where vaccine refusal is among the highest in the country. In another administration, the death of this child, and the growing outbreak that has sickened more than 150 across Texas and New Mexico and hospitalized 20, would likely have been met with urgent calls from the president and health secretary for parents in Texas and beyond to vaccinate their children. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is safe, well studied and the only effective method of preventing an illness that can cause a high fever, pneumonia and, in rare cases, brain swelling that is disabling or fatal. But this is public health in the Kennedy era, where the secretary’s life’s work has been dismantling trust in the very vaccines that could have prevented this outbreak, and where the public official now in charge of the agencies that regulate and advise on vaccines wrote in a 2021 book that measles outbreaks had been “fabricated to create fear that in turn forces government officials to ‘do something.’”And so, at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Kennedy’s response to the child’s death offered something else entirely: an unconcerned and casual reply.” [NBC News]
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.
So students protesting at universities can’t wear masks, but these clowns can.
Let these mother fuckers try. Bunch of tiny dicked pieces of SHIT. If we stand together, we WILL BEAT THEM at their own game.