According to anonymous internet trolls, April 11 will be a day of spontaneous far-right anger. That’s when a supposedly “grassroots” coalition of demonstrators plan “White Lives Matter” rallies in cities across the country. But despite its “grassroots” claims, the movement is secretly being organized by a coalition of Proud Boys and other far-right figures, leaked chat logs reveal. Now some of the rallies are in freefall, […]
Kelly Weill
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On March 20, a frantic Facebook post began circulating on Selma, Alabama, Facebook pages. “Have you seen this chair??” the post asked. “STOLEN between 12 noon and 5 pm Friday 3/19 in Broad Daylight from Confederate Circle in Selma’s Live Oak Cemetery. Would require 3-4 men to load.” Over several days, the post was updated to offer ever-greater rewards for the chair’s return. Finally, after offering […]
Less than an hour after three Masonic lodges burned in Vancouver, Canada, a suspect appeared to take credit for the blazes. “I just cleaned 3 satanic club houses and nobody could do anything,” Ben Kohlman posted on Facebook on Tuesday morning. Kohlman, 42, has been charged with arson in one of the three blazes, and is expected to face similar charges in the attacks on the […]
At a rally next to the Mexican border this month, the chair of the Republican Party of Texas gave a speech about upholding the rule of law. Shortly afterward, the microphone was passed to Stewart Rhodes, head of the far-right paramilitary the Oath Keepers, who announced that he might soon go to jail for his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. […]
On Saturday, on opposite sides of the country, men in black and yellow uniforms took to the streets for various far-right causes. In Sandy, Oregon, they joined a church for an anti-gay event. In Raleigh, North Carolina, they joined supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory for a protest against COVID-19 prevention measures. They were members of the Proud Boys, a far-right paramilitary group, many leaders of […]
In late September 2019, Charles Donohoe took to the encrypted messaging app Telegram with a call to arms. “We need to stop fighting antifa in the streets where the cops are and start fighting them in bars and alleys,” Donohoe, a member of the far-right streetfighting group the Proud Boys, wrote. “We need to stomp them. We need to ruin their lives physically like they have […]
The day after rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol in January, a Fresno, California, man took to his podcast to cheer some of the day’s scenes. “I do get a little giddy inside when I see those people [politicians] hiding behind walls and scared and running in their bunkers because that’s what needs to happen,” a man who went by the moniker “Sheepdog” said on a Jan. […]
In the Park City, Utah, home of a smoothie influencer, Ammon Bundy was telling an old story. His father had been persecuted by the government over a land-use dispute, he said, as part of a plot to drive ranchers out of business. For years, this has been the Bundy family’s account of a 2014 armed standoff between their supporters and the federal government. The government’s side […]
A leader of the Nevada branch of an anti-government group was arrested over Facebook posts wishing “a slow and painful death” on a district attorney and a police officer involved in his past criminal cases. Joshua Martinez, 32, is the Nevada leader of the People’s Rights network, a fast-growing group that has led an escalating series of demonstrations against COVID-19 precautions. But Martinez has been involved […]
On Presidents’ Day, hundreds gathered on a Florida street corner with flags and signs. But they weren’t there to celebrate the current democratically elected president, nor American presidents in general. The crowd was dedicating the holiday to Donald Trump, the twice-impeached political exile who passed through the demonstrators in his motorcade and flashed a thumbs-up. Trump has been out of office for nearly a month, but […]
When Trump supporters flooded D.C. on Jan. 6, many had traveled from hometowns where they felt like political outcasts—and where hate groups like the Proud Boys acted like a beacon for the far right, new research suggests. Nearly 200 people are facing federal charges for their alleged attacks on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Prominent among them are members of the Proud Boys, a far-right […]
In the weeks ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Sam Andrews had a message for the right. “Contact your friends with rifles,” he said in a mid-December appearance on a right-wing podcast. “And tell them to join you. That’s who you contact. And then you get a map and you drive to D.C.” But since rioters stormed the Capitol, leaving five people dead […]
The FBI on Monday announced charges against more alleged Capitol attackers, including a Texas member of a far-right militia. Feds have previously unsealed criminal charges against dozens of people accused of storming the Capitol in a pro-Trump riot on January 6. Newly named among them are Nicolas Moncada, who was arrested by the FBI’s New York office, and Guy Reffitt, a Texan. Reffitt was allegedly a […]
Two men who were arrested for allegedly bringing an AR-15 and a samurai sword to a Philadelphia vote-count center in November face a motion to have their bail revoked after prosecutors accused them of participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the nation’s Capitol. Antonio Lamotta and Joshua Macias were first arrested on November 5, after they allegedly drove from Virginia to Philadelphia in a Hummer […]
As law enforcement retook the Capitol building on Wednesday night, the far-right coalition that had breached the building looked to its leaders for cues on their next actions. Those messages were muddled, as the movement sought to advance from a day of unprecedented destruction. The far right has spent months organizing and advertising a series of increasingly chaotic pro-Trump rallies in Washington, D.C., culminating in Wednesday’s […]
In the months and weeks before Aug. 11, 2017, activists in Charlottesville, Virginia, sounded the alarm to anyone who would listen. A violent far-right coalition was about to march on their city, and it wasn’t some political sideshow. “We knew that Charlottesville was going to be violent that day,” Emily Gorscenski, an anti-fascist activist who lived in the Virginia city at the time, told The Daily […]
If you’ve ever dressed up in an anthropomorphic animal suit for fun, there’s a good chance the National Police Association has blocked you on Twitter. The National Police Association is a pro-police nonprofit that actual police organizations have accused of being a scam. Furries, on the other hand, are people who create alternate identities (“fursonas”) as cartoon animals. Since last week, the two groups have been […]
No sooner had Anthony Quinn Warner been named as a person of interest in an apparent Christmas Day suicide bombing in Nashville, Tennessee, than conspiratorial circles began casting doubt on his identity, or else applauding his actions. Warner, 63, is accused of setting off a bomb in downtown Nashville early Christmas morning, damaging more than 40 businesses, killing himself, and injuring several others. Investigators have not […]
Nearly two months after the election, President Donald Trump still has not conceded his loss, even as members of his own party dismiss his voter fraud conspiracy theories. “You’re headed into the cliffs that guard the flat Earth at that time, brother,” Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman recently told Yahoo News, likening Trump’s claims to those of the flat-Earth movement. That is exactly where Trump is headed. […]
Virginia state Senator Amanda Chase and her staff wanted to be clear: She was experiencing a sinus infection, not COVID-19 symptoms. Just a little head cold. In fact, Chase told The Daily Beast on Friday shortly before stating that she would refuse a COVID-19 vaccine, she was already feeling much better. Such a diagnosis would be very good news for Chase, but also her colleagues in […]
Despite betting money on President Donald Trump’s re-election, Helen was unflapped when Joe Biden was declared the victor. She watched press conferences by Trump surrogates who claimed the election was a fraud. She watched a pro-Trump web show that alleged the same. Then, using the online gambling service Betfair, she wagered even more money on a Trump victory after Election Day. “To be honest, the more […]
Crack open your buckets of dehydrated cheese products, fire up the portable stove, and bask in the light of some emergency glow sticks. It’s a constitutional crisis, and you’ll want a well-appointed bunker. As President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election become more fantastical, some of his most diehard fans are urging each other to explore disaster preparation for unspecified political turmoil. Early on Monday, […]
Just shy of 11 p.m., local time on Monday, the Arizona Republican Party fired up its official Twitter account and asked followers if they’d be willing to die for the glorious cause of President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Around midnight, the account tweeted a follow-up: a clip from the movie Rambo, with the caption “this is what we do, who we are. […]
A group that visited Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home on Saturday night is one of many self-described “grassroots” groups working to overturn President Donald Trump’s election loss. But this one lists a local Republican Party office as its own headquarters. Benson had been about to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas with her young child when a crowd of approximately 20 people marched up […]
While Kyle Rittenhouse awaits trial for killing two people at a Kenosha, Wisconsin, Black Lives Matter protest this summer, his lawyers are in prosecutors’ crosshairs. From the start of the high-profile case, Rittenhouse’s lawyers have attracted nearly as much attention as he has. Now, the 17-year-old’s main lawyer, John Pierce, is off the case, after prosecutors argued that fundraisers for Rittenhouse could act as a “slush […]
In a typical year, retail workers have plenty of reasons to hate Black Friday. The crowds, the combative customers, and the long hours all add up to a mall employee’s nightmare. Then came the pandemic. “We don’t dare even considering refusing to work on Black Friday,” one worker, who like other retail employees interviewed for this story requested anonymity for fear of professional retaliation, told The […]
A safe, effective COVID-19 vaccination is finally on the horizon. Cue the people who say they won’t take it—or that vaccines are the harbingers of a dictatorship. On Monday, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer released early analysis that suggested its COVID-19 vaccine was 90 percent effective. The announcement, while no guarantee of a vaccine, was a ray of hope for Americans awaiting an end to the pandemic […]
Drivers in a pro-Trump caravan shouted obscenities as they cruised through an intersection near Jennifer Merritt’s home in Larchmont, New York, on Sunday. Some flipped the bird at bystanders. Then one of Merritt’s neighbors saw something more alarming than rude hand gestures. “That guy has a gun!” the woman told Merritt of a man in a black pickup truck. As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on and […]
Eighteen Trump rallies may have led to more than 700 COVID-19 deaths, including among people who did not attend the rallies, according to a new working paper from Stanford University researchers. While Joe Biden has tailored his presidential campaign toward smaller, more socially distanced events during the pandemic, President Donald Trump has made a selling point of his packed rallies, where mask use is often scarce. […]
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign canceled a Friday event in Austin, Texas, after harassment from a pro-Trump contingent. Texas has emerged as a battleground state in Tuesday’s presidential election, with polls showing the typically Republican stronghold now only marginally favoring President Donald Trump. The Biden campaign scheduled a Friday event in the state, in a bid to drum up last-minute support. But when the Biden campaign bus […]
The apocalypse wasn’t happening fast enough. “Nov 2nd Boogaloo start date,” one person posted in a private chat group in October 2019. “Bring your kit and weapons to your hotel room just in case.” November 2 came and went without incident. “The Virginia luau kicks off in one month so start training as you fight,” a second person—a then-school security guard—posted a month ahead of a […]
A member of the far-right “Boogaloo” movement allegedly opened fire on a Minneapolis Police building in May at the height of protests over the killing of George Floyd, according to federal charges announced Friday. Ivan Hunter, 26, is accused of one count of riot for his alleged participation in the protests, during which prosecutors say he fired 13 rounds from a semi-automatic rifle into the Minneapolis […]
You can add rogue landlords to the list of potentially sinister characters, along with far-right Proud Boys, Boogaloos, and militia members, looming over one of the most fraught elections in American history. Two weeks before Election Day, voters in New York and Colorado received letters from their landlords. Democratic candidates were sure to raise taxes, the landlords warned in the letters, and it would be a […]
Threatening emails. Weird recruitment text messages. A website with an “assault weapon” raffle. In the weeks immediately preceding and following President Donald Trump’s debate-night nod to the Proud Boys, voters have reported a slew of spam messages that claim to come from the far-right paramilitary group. But many or all of those messages are hoaxes, some of which originate from a serial prankster who has previously […]
QAnon—an unhinged conspiracy theory falsely accusing President Donald Trump’s foes of Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism—has become so enmeshed in the GOP that at least one Q-loving Republican is expected to win a congressional seat this year. But in more level-headed industries, the theory is so toxic that few U.S. companies want anything to do with it. That includes an Oregon-based web services company that severed ties […]
Nine immigrant-rights activists who’d been extradited across state lines on misdemeanor charges of trespass and littering gathered outside the Henrico County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Office on Thursday with supporters, waving flags and calling for their charges to be dropped. An hour away in Newport News, Virginia, heavily armed men—some associated with the right-wing “Boogaloo” movement—also gathered outside a police station to protest a misdemeanor trespassing charge against […]
As the University of Miami campus filled up again for an uncertain new school year last month, a group of students, faculty, and on-campus workers acted out a grim warning. On Sept. 4, demonstrators lay on the ground as if dead, some of them holding tombstones, while a Birkenstock-clad person in a grim reaper costume patrolled the scene. The protesters were targeting what they said were […]
A Madison Heights, Michigan, man killed by FBI agents during a still-murky standoff over a weapons warrant. Thirteen other Michigan and Delaware men arrested in state and federal busts over alleged plots to take over the state government. A Maryland man busted on federal weapons charges. A Virginia man arrested for allegedly violating a local open-carry law. At least four state and federal busts—and, in one […]
The truck-revving, banner-waving, loudspeaker-blaring pro-Trump rally took place, conveniently, on Sept. 19, the first Saturday of early voting in the swing state of Virginia, in a parking lot where voters in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County were lined up to cast their ballots. Some Trump supporters drove circles around the voters while others—many without face masks—mingled with the line, chanting and waving flags. “We had a couple poll […]
Four people are dead. One criminal trial is pending, while a second will never take place. And amid all that death and uncertainty, the two shooters at the heart of the incidents are enjoying spectacular martyr status on the right. Jake Gardner, an Omaha, Nebraska, bar owner, who shot and killed a Black man during local Black Lives Matter protests in May, died of suicide this […]
Downplay the white supremacist threat. Hype up rhetoric about anti-fascists and other “left-wing” groups stoking violence. That’s what the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership ordered one of its top intelligence officials to do, according to a complaint from that staffer, Brian Murphy, released Tuesday. In a filing with the Department’s Inspector General, Murphy, until recently a top official in the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, […]
One hundred days into sometimes chaotic protests over police brutality, with federal agents throwing protesters into unmarked vans and recent political clashes between demonstrators leading to two deaths, even some of Portland, Oregon’s more extreme actors think things are getting out of hand. Now they could get even worse. Portland, a longtime hotbed for political clashes, veered into its latest protest escalation last Saturday, when a […]
Maine’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak is linked to a wedding officiated by the pastor of a distancing-defying church who says masks are part of a “socialistic platform.” Now more than 144 COVID-19 patients have been linked to the event, and three people are dead. Todd Bell is pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Sanford, Maine. Famous for flying between ministries in multiple states on his private […]
Daniel Prude was naked when Rochester, New York, police ordered him onto the snowy ground in March. The only thing besides handcuffs that officers placed on his body before he went unconscious? A white mesh bag commonly known as a “spit hood.” Prude, 41, died of homicide asphyxiation on March 30, after a week in a coma. His demise began after he experienced an apparent mental […]
After two months of protests across from the State Capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee lawmakers voted for a tidy way to disperse their new neighbors: making it illegal to camp there. The law, which also targets protests on public property, makes convictions punishable by up to six years in prison—and even loss of voting rights. The Tennessee bill, passed by the state legislature last week, was […]
For nearly a month, Riot Ribs served barbecue, tacos, jalapeno poppers—whatever they had on hand—from a series of tents near the site of ongoing protests in Portland, Oregon. Then, on Tuesday, the food collective announced an abrupt closure. Someone was impersonating the group and swindling money, members said. Riot Ribs was among an emerging network of mutual aid groups aimed at distributing free food to protesters […]
Members of the so-called “men’s rights” movement want to get one thing straight: while a prominent member allegedly killed a judge’s son, seriously wounded her husband, and was implicated in the killing of another activist, it should not reflect badly on their community. In fact, the most deranged strand of the insular crowd’s alternately panicked and dismissive reaction to a bizarre internal beef spilling out into […]
Even in a time of record unemployment, some of Dan’s colleagues at an Indiana Walmart have walked off the job. They aren’t quitting over fears of catching COVID-19, he explained. They’re quitting because of customers who become abusive when asked to wear face masks. “A lot of our people have been verbally harassed to the point of breaking down and just quitting,” Dan, who like other […]
A Wilmington, North Carolina police officer who was fired for taking part in a violently racist conversation has filed an appeal, claiming his comments were protected religious speech. Wilmington Police officer James “Brian” Gilmore was one of three officers fired last month for taking part in recorded racist conversations. One of those conversations, for which Gilmore was not present, involved racist slurs and talk of massacring […]
Take a gander at any of the public social media groups for enthusiasts of Orlando, Florida’s Walt Disney World and you’ll find a common refrain: the theme park, which re-opened on Friday amid a COVID-19 catastrophe, has super-short lines for all its top roller coasters right now. Disney World closed in mid-March, when COVID-19 cases began sweeping the country. Then on Friday, the same day Florida […]
The leader of Florida’s biggest sham “church” network peddling bleach as a miracle drug says he’s camped out in Colombia while his sons face arrest for allegedly selling a fake COVID-19 cure and threatening a judge with a “Waco”-style standoff. For years, the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing has been at the center of a lucrative, world-wide network that claims—falsely—that drinking glorified Clorox can […]
Facebook had the chance to curb voter suppression targeting Black Americans ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Instead, it stumbled on that and other civil liberties issues, according to a new independent civil rights audit released on Wednesday. The audit, commissioned by Facebook and conducted over two years by civil rights experts and lawyers, comes as Facebook faces public ire for racism and disinformation on the […]
When one of Bloomington, Indiana’s most prominent Black activists filmed a harrowing encounter by men who allegedly threatened to hang him, locals held a protest in his defense. But that same Monday night, the protest was met with a car plowing through demonstrators. Bloomington, like many American cities, is undergoing a public reckoning over racism. One Bloomington incident made national news this week, after activist Vauhxx […]
Dozens of residents of a St. Louis neighborhood have signed a letter condemning the actions of the couple who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter marchers on Sunday. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a pair of personal injury attorneys, made headlines this week after they were filmed waving weapons at Black Lives Matter activists who walked in their gated neighborhood en route to a protest at the […]
After a week of lusting for conflict in a six-block activist zone in Seattle, far-right figures went and made their own trouble. Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone—or CHAZ, although some newer stylings refer to it as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP—is a small protest area that emerged last week, after police vacated a nearby precinct and city leaders agreed to leave the streets open […]
President Donald Trump says Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, a largely police-free community space fashioned amid protests, is run by “domestic terrorists.” Seattle’s police department made (and walked back) a claim about anarchists “extorting” businesses in the area. But actual businesses around the zone say they’re watching Ava DuVernay films, handing out granola bars, and having a nice time. Following several nights of showdowns between police […]
One week before the Minnesota National Guard was deployed to racial justice protests in Minneapolis, the organization released a statement about two members who’d made racist statements in a Snapchat video. “You’ll learn the military is racist as shit, so get used to it now you fucking piece of shit,” one of the guards-members said in the clip. The remark did not appear to be issued […]
The people behind Advanced Placement (AP) tests would like to make one thing very clear: they are not secretly posing as a teenage Redditor named “Dinosauce313” in a plot to catch kids cheating on their exams. The high-pressure tests, which help decide who gets into America’s elite colleges, are not being used for entrapment-style stings. But as the APs—like every other aspect of schooling—move online amid […]
A Queens, New York, man accused of threatening mass shootings and buying illegal weapons was also a prolific internet troll targeting Jews and people of color online. Joseph Miner was arrested Tuesday along with another man, Daniel Jou, after allegedly trying to buy assault-style weapons with the serial numbers removed from an undercover agent at an airport hotel. Miner allegedly used Instagram to post about “martyring” […]
Morningside USA was supposed to be apocalypse-proof. A gated, stucco fortress in the southwest corner of Missouri’s Ozark mountains, Morningside is an evangelical Christian community built to rent condos right through the end of the world. “Where are you going to go when the world’s on fire? Where are you going to go? This place is for God’s people and this place, we need some farmers […]