Tag: white nationalism

Swastika found etched into State Department elevator

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A swastika was found on Monday etched into the wall of a State Department elevator near the office of its special envoy to monitor and combat anti-semitism, according to a person familiar with the discovery and a picture obtained by Axios.

Why it matters: The defacement raises troubling questions about security inside the nation’s foreign policy nerve center, and the potential for antisemitism within an outward-facing element of the United States government.

  • Secretary of State Tony Blinken sent an email Tuesday to the entire department that condemned the vandalism. “The hateful graffiti has been removed and this incident will be investigated.” Continue reading.

Current, former police officers charged in new Proud Boys indictment in Capitol riot

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A father and son, who are current and former Florida police officers, and a North Carolina man have been charged with joining alleged Proud Boys members in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to a new, five-co-defendant indictment unsealed in Washington on Friday.

Kevin “Tito” Tuck, 51, and Nathaniel A. Tuck, 29, of central Florida were arrested and released on $25,000 unsecured bond Thursday by a U.S. magistrate judge in Tampa, court records show.

Edward George Jr. was also arrested Thursday and was scheduled to appear in federal court Friday in Raleigh, according to court records. Continue reading.

REVEALED: Cops blame Antifa for Oregon wildfires — and approvingly share Proud Boys propaganda

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Emails revealed police continued blaming wildfires last year in Oregon on anti-fascist activists after the FBI knocked down those rumors.

Messages obtained by the watchdog group Property of the People show a Washington sheriff and other law enforcement officials pushed those rumors last summer to pin the blame for those wildfires on Antifa and Black Lives Matter demonstrators, although federal investigators found no evidence that was true, reported The Daily Beast.

“One of the methods Antifa is using to start fire’s, is to take a mason jar with tinder placed inside the jar, put it in brush with the lid open, so the hot sun light will create a slow start which allows them to be out of the area before the smoke appears [sic],” wrote Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer to officials throughout Washington state. Continue reading.

How Tucker Carlson became the voice of White grievance

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Tucker Carlson huddled in a low-ceilinged dungeon that had served as a holding pen for Africans bound for enslavement in the United States. It was a July day in 2003 in Ghana, and Carlson stood alongside some of America’s most prominent civil rights leaders.

The conservative commentator, who at the time co-hosted the CNN show “Crossfire,” walked through the memorial, where a guide told how the shackled Africans who did not perish during the voyage were sold as human chattel in America.

The civil rights leaders prayed, cried and sang “We Shall Overcome.” They peered toward the sea from the Door of No Return. But Carlson seemed strangely detached, according to two of the civil rights leaders who were present. Continue reading.

Video shows ax-wielding man inflicting damage to George Floyd Square

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The man arrived in a pickup truck and spent several minutes vandalizing the site. 

Displays and a structure at George Floyd Square in south Minneapolis were vandalized late at night over the weekend by a man with an ax in an act captured on video.

The damage occurred about 2 a.m. Sunday at 38th and Chicago, the intersection that has been an informal gathering place and remembrance since Floyd was killed by police on May 25, 2020.

“This was particularly upsetting that this would happen after the historic trial and the upcoming memorial,” said LaToya Evans, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit that is organizing a celebration of Floyd’s life on the anniversary of his killing by convicted murderer Derek Chauvin. Continue reading.

The Memo: America faces long war with extremism

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More than two months after the Capitol riot, the nation is grappling anew with extremism.

The motives of the alleged shooter in Tuesday’s mass killing in the Atlanta area are still being investigated. But six of his eight fatal victims were Asian American women, and he had solely targeted Asian spas.

The following day, an armed man was arrested near Washington’s Naval Observatory, the official residence of Vice President Harris. Paul Murray, 31, of San Antonio, is alleged to have been in possession of an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and more than 100 rounds of unregistered ammunition.  Continue reading.

Proud Boys conspired in multiple encrypted channels ahead of Jan. 6 riot, fearing criminal gang charges, U.S. alleges

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U.S. prosecutors accused Proud Boys leaders from four states of conspiring to overwhelm police and obstruct Congress in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, revealing detailed new encrypted communications between alleged leaders including an “unindicted co-conspirator” and two newly arrested defendants.

An indictment unsealed Friday charging Zach Rehl, 35, a president of the group’s chapter in Philadelphia, and Charles Donohoe, 33, an organizer in Winston-Salem, N.C., alleges they were among 60 others who communicated on an encrypted channel called “Boots on the Ground” and discussed how one already charged defendant wanted to “go over tomorrow’s plan.” Charging papers allege the group feared it was so close to being uncovered by the FBI and hit with criminal gang counts that they erased, or “nuked,” their prior communications on Jan. 4.

The indictment charged Rehl and Donahoe with six counts, including conspiracy to aid and abet the obstruction of Congress’s confirmation of the 2020 presidential election and police trying to prevent civil disorder. Continue reading.

DFL Party Condemns Hate Crimes Directed at AAPI Community

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SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA — DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following statement denouncing the rise in hate crimes directed at the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community: 

“Over the last four years, coinciding with the ascent of Donald Trump, the United States has seen a tragic rise in the number of hate crimes taking place across the country.

“This past year, the AAPI community in particular has seen a dramatic increase in racist attacks and hate crimes due to the bigoted dog-whistling some have engaged in to deflect blame for the COVID-19 pandemic and then-President Trump’s mismanagement of it. These attacks and the dog-whistling that helps inspire them has to stop. The AAPI community here in Minnesota does so much each and every day to contribute to the rich tapestry of life in our great state and it is incumbent upon leaders across the political spectrum to speak out against this hate and against this violence.”

What the policing response to the KKK in the 1960s can teach about dismantling white supremacist groups today

During his confirmation hearing in February, Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland pledged that his first order of business would be to “supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6.” 

On that day, thousands of Trump supporters – including members of white nationalist and militia groups – gathered to support and defend a series of fabricated and conspiracy-laden claims around the purportedly “rigged” 2020 election. 

As a social scientist who researches how white supremacist groups are policed, I understand both the need to vigorously address threats of violence from racist and anti-democratic elements and the calls from some Justice Department officials to expand police powers to do so. Continue reading.

Democrats eye action on threat of white nationalism

The Hill logoDemocrats on Capitol Hill are pressing hard to adopt tougher gun laws following a pair of mass shootings this month that horrified the country and rekindled the on-again, off-again push to install higher barriers to owning firearms.

But as Congress prepares to return to Washington next month from the long summer recess, Democrats also want to go a step further to tackle another scourge they consider to be related: the threat of violent white nationalism that, according to federal law enforcers, is on the rise.

The lawmakers’ ultimate goal is to strengthen the nation’s hate crime laws and weed out race-based incidents of domestic terrorism. As a first step, they’re pushing legislation designed to log the frequency of such cases around the country — data they say has gone neglected as the Trump administration has focused more squarely on foreign-based threats to homeland security.

View the complete August 28 article by Mike Lillis on The Hill website here.