Kelly Weill

On February 23, a resident of Otero County, New Mexico sent a worried email to one of the county’s three commissioners. “My neighbor was a volunteer for [children’s aid group] CASA and she recognized someone who came to her door asking how she voted in November 2021 as someone who either was convicted or pleaded guilty to sex with a child,” the Otero County resident wrote. “She is terrified. She has grandchildren she cares for. Did the County perform background checks on the volunteers going to voters homes?” The email came in reference to a then-ongoing “canvass” of local voter rolls, […]

A shady “audit” of the 2020 presidential election has concluded early, with the company behind the recount handing over thousands of dollars and announcing a finding of “no election fraud.” Now the company’s allies are accusing it of “bailing” on the audit, and branding each other as liars and pedophiles. Despite voting overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in 2020, Otero County, New Mexico became a hub for conspiracy theorists who falsely claimed that election fraud had cost Trump his reelection. Otero County’s three commissioners (one of whom would later be convicted for his role in the Capitol riot), hired the company EchoMail […]

They’re accused of stalking and snooping, embezzling and evidence tampering, sextortion and falsifying documents, stealing from a fire department and repeatedly using a Taser on party guests. They’re accused of perjury, data breaches, and obstructing prosecution. They’re accused of illegal vacationing, misappropriating dental funds, and tax evasion. They’re a gaggle of former officials from Armstrong, Iowa, where they’ve racked up more than 100 combined criminal charges. Armstrong, located on the state’s northern border, has a population of approximately 875. But a clique of local officials—including the town’s former mayor, his son-in-law (the town’s former police chief), and a local ex-cop—are accused […]

Fans of Donald Trump’s Twitter account were disappointed again on Sunday night, after Elon Musk chose not to join Twitter’s board, dashing hopes that he would overturn the former leader’s Twitter ban. Trump received a permanent Twitter suspension on Jan. 8, 2021, amid concerns that he was using the platform to incite violence. A year later, he remains banned, much to the consternation of supporters who hope to read new 280-character diatribes from the extremely online ex-president. So when Musk, Trump’s fellow Twitter-obsessed one-percenter, announced plans to join the company’s board this month, conservatives begged him to reverse Trump’s ban, as […]

A high-ranking Proud Boys leader pleaded guilty on Friday over his alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol assault. The plea—the first from a core group of Proud Boys accused of planning the attack—comes amid a recent wave of guilty pleas from Proud Boys involved in the riot. Charles Donohoe, leader of the far-right group’s North Carolina chapter, pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding and assaulting an officer. Donohoe is expected to assist the Justice Department in its ongoing investigation of the Proud Boys and their involvement in the Jan. 6 attack. He is also the third Proud […]

A Tuesday rally by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was supposed to lend support to an embattled conspiracy theorist. But by the rally’s end, Lindell and his colleague were facing new legal peril. A linens salesman by trade, Lindell has become one of the biggest backers of election fraud hoaxes. The pro-Trump conspiracy theory has landed Lindell and his allies in legal trouble. One associate, Tina Peters—clerk for Mesa County Colorado—is facing ten criminal charges over allegations that she helped leak data from voting machines that were under her office’s supervision. Separately, Peters is facing an ethics investigation over her opaque “legal […]

A new video from former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne appears to inadvertently bolster the criminal case against one of Byrne’s allies in the Stop The Steal movement. On March 9, a district attorney announced a laundry list of charges against Mesa County, Colorado clerk Tina Peters and one of her deputies in the clerk’s office. The pair are accused of stealing a local man’s identity and using it to break into county voting machines, which were under the supervision of the clerk’s office. Data from those machines was soon leaked to conspiracy theorists like Ron Watkins and Mike Lindell, who falsely […]

A tech company behind multiple election “audits” is facing a congressional investigation over concerns that its latest audit “illegally interferes with Americans’ right to vote by spreading disinformation about elections and intimidating voters.” A letter from the House Oversight Committee to EchoMail highlights concerns about the tech company’s involvement in Otero County, New Mexico’s “audit” of the 2020 presidential election. EchoMail recently participated in a similar, discredited audit of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 election. The House letter notes potential issues with the ongoing audit—including allegations that EchoMail is spreading election misinformation and contracting “a conspiracist group” to knock on Otero County […]

Leaders of a far-right Telegram group pledged that its members would not misrepresent themselves as county employees when they went knocking on doors in Otero County, New Mexico for a “canvas” of local voter rolls. But just weeks later, state officials say members of the group are misrepresenting themselves—and possibly opening the county up to lawsuits. Otero County is a solidly Republican district, with more than 60 percent of residents voting for Donald Trump in 2020. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud there, or anywhere else in the U.S. Nevertheless, Otero commissioners have spent nearly $50,000 on an “audit” […]

Until late 2021, the TikTok account mostly featured videos of motorcycles careening around English roads. Then in February, something changed: the account began uploading purported war footage of Ukraine, earning tens of millions of views. But this motorcycle enthusiast hadn’t traveled to a war zone. Instead, he was uploading video game footage to TikTok and tagging it with a Ukrainian flag. As Russia’s attack on Ukraine dominates headlines, some social media grifters are passing off video game clips as battle footage. They’re amassing huge viewerships—and playing into the Kremlin’s nefarious conspiracy theories about the war. The British motorcyclist’s video, which showed […]

Until recently, Reddit’s r/Survival subreddit has maintained a longstanding dictate: “Keep all posts on the topic of Wilderness Survival,” the large forum’s Rule #2 reads. “r/survival defines Wilderness Survival as the philosophies, knowledge, techniques, and actions applied in a Wilderness environment, in a short-term survival scenario, which serve to increase the likelihood of survival of the individual or group. This means no posts about urban survival, EDC, bug out, prepping, get home bags, teotwawki [the end of the world as we know it], zombies, collapse, etc.” But earlier this week, moderators announced a change. “We are temporarily easing rule 2,” a […]

A high-ranking D.C. police officer who is accused of improper contact with the leader of the Proud Boys was copied on a series of emails and conference call invitations related to the planning of a pro-Trump rally on Jan. 6, 2021, emails show. Lt. Shane Lamond, an officer in the D.C. police’s intelligence branch, is on administrative leave pending an investigation into his contacts with Enrique Tarrio, the Washington Post first reported. Tarrio is the former leader of the far-right paramilitary group the Proud Boys and was the organization’s chairman at the time of the Jan. 6 riot. The nature of […]

A buzzy right-wing truckers convoy—in an imitation of Canada’s anti-vaxx trucker protests—has conservatives thrilled about clogging U.S. roads. Followers have proposed hitting the Super Bowl, the southern border, and Washington D.C., yet no clear plans for a demonstration have emerged so far. But the lack of concrete action hasn’t stopped the U.S. convoy from becoming a cash cow for people who promoted it online. One online fundraiser has raked in nearly $70,000, despite the convoy’s most prominent organizers claiming that they’re not asking for money. It’s not the only campaign cashing in on the embryonic protest. A constellation of cryptocurrency fundraisers, […]

On Thursday morning, Tina Peters, the embattled clerk pushing Donald Trump’s false election claims, turned herself in to police and walked free on a $500 bond. By Thursday evening, she was onstage at a far-right event where another speaker had just endorsed hangings for people involved in “election fraud.” Peters, a clerk from Mesa County, Colorado, has become a microcelebrity in far-right circles after the solidly red district in which she works became the focus of an election-fraud panic last summer when its voter data leaked to conservative conspiracy theorists like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. She is now the subject of […]

For months, fringe groups have been knocking on doors across the country, inquiring about residents’ 2020 votes. But in Otero County, New Mexico, those door-knocks might soon come as part of a nearly $50,000 contract between the county, a conspiracy-peddling tech group, and an even further-right Telegram channel. Otero County is a Republican stronghold in New Mexico. More than 60 percent of Otero voters cast ballots for Donald Trump in 2020, in contrast to the state’s pro-Biden majority. That hasn’t stopped some locals, chiefly an Otero County commissioner currently facing charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, from calling for […]

It happened every time a school board member spoke up about changes to the Central York School District’s COVID-19 plan. “Meow!” a group of four people would taunt from the back of the room. “Cat!” Amelia McMillan, a parent in the Pennsylvania district, recognized the four people. They’d supported Central York’s recent (and now overturned) ban on certain school books, many of them about race. After the mid-January meeting ended, McMillan said she saw the group corner a local father in a hallway. “They were yelling at him about his kid being a furry,” McMillan told The Daily Beast. The group […]

Marianne Wright was halfway through a conference call on Jan. 21 when she received a startling message from her son. Two women were on their property and were demanding her son open a gate so that they could go see “illegals crossing on rafts.” The women, Wright later claimed in an affidavit, said they were a congressional candidate and a Secret Service agent. “Immediately, we knew what that was about,” Wright told The Daily Beast on Thursday. “It was an echo and reiteration of the lies Steve Bannon’s ‘We Build The Wall’ campaign published and promoted against us for years.” Wright […]

Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman, a mascot for alt-right violence during the early Trump presidency, became famous brawling with leftist activists in California. He got probation for giving a man a brain hemorrhage with a barstool in Texas. Now he might have violated the terms of his probation by allegedly attacking health care workers in Idaho. Chapman was a leader in far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the New England-based “Resist Marxism.” Since then, he has pleaded guilty or no contest to a series of crimes, ranging from violent attacks to trespassing on federal land—sometimes while on probation for previous offenses. […]

Is your anti-worm medication failing to treat COVID-19? Not to worry, says one of the loudest organizations promoting anti-worm medication for COVID patients: Try adding a cocktail of anti-depressants and androgen inhibitors to your medical mix. No major health organizations recommend the use of ivermectin (an anti-parasitic drug) in the treatment of COVID-19 (a virus). “Ivermectin has not been shown to be safe or effective for these indications,” the Food and Drug Administration advises. Nevertheless, the medication has found an avid fanbase, especially in alternative medicine and anti-vaccine circles, where ivermectin enthusiasts have taken veterinary versions of the drug and led […]

Even in a non-plague year, moderating a Facebook group for parents could be a challenging job. “In 2016, we had a ton of drama,” said Sandra Zichermann, founder of the Facebook group The MOM Rant and Rave. But not even an election year could match the clamor that set in with COVID-19. “You have a group with so many differing opinions and it’s heightened now because of the pandemic,” Zichermann said. It’s not just moderators’ imaginations: Parent-focused Facebook groups have become quantifiably tenser during the pandemic, a new study from George Washington University shows. The study, which examined a broad swath […]

After a disastrous day in court on Thursday, the company behind Arizona’s chaotic Maricopa County election “audit” is disbanding, and now some rightwing fans are furiously wondering if it was all just a big scam. Cyber Ninjas, a small Florida-based cybersecurity firm, was always a controversial choice to handle Maricopa County voters’ ballots. The company had no elections experience and its founder, Doug Logan, was involved in promoting 2020 election fraud hoaxes online. When it finally released its findings this fall, Cyber Ninjas found President Joe Biden did indeed win the election. But the group did not turn over court-ordered materials, […]

Wildfires in Boulder County, Colorado, might have destroyed 1,000 homes, officials announced on Friday—but no casualties have been reported. The fast-moving Marshall Fire is suspected to have started when heavy winds knocked down power lines and blew the flames into residential areas. Lower-than-usual Autumn rainfall left county grass dry and brittle, easy for spreading fires, experts said. Tens of thousands of Boulder-area residents are believed to have evacuated on Thursday, before cooler temperatures and snowfall limited the fire’s spread. In a Friday press conference, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said the fires had caused serious damage […]

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, is a “total loss” after a devastating fire broke out early on New Year’s Eve morning, local officials say. The clinic, which provides abortions, was reported ablaze around 6:30 a.m., the Knoxville Fire Department said in a 9:30 statement. “On arrival companies found a large single story commercial building fully involved with fire through the roof,” the department statement read. “Crews initially attacked the fire defensively from the exterior. Currently the fire is under control and should be declared out shortly. The building was being renovated at the time of the fire. The building […]

A well-funded far-right group—that made inroads with Stop The Steal organizations, paid a former police captain more than $200,000 to hunt ballots, and became entangled in a roadside stickup—was making war plans for Election Day 2020 months ahead of time, documents reveal. The fringe group, the Liberty Center for God and Country (LCGC), led a lucrative fundraising blitz in the run-up to the election and quietly networked with now-notorious election denialists. Their work came to light in October of that year when former Houston Police captain Mark Aguirre allegedly rammed his SUV into a man’s truck, forced the man onto the […]

On Sunday, as New York City set its single-day record for new COVID-19 cases, a small crowd traveled across the city’s boroughs in search of Panera Bread franchises. “When they ask me for my passport,” one man said, in reference to the proof of vaccination required for indoor New York City dining, “this is what I’m gonna give to them.” He held up a pamphlet with the texts of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. COVID-19 cases are up, fueled by the virus’s highly contagious Omicron variant. Also swarming the nation’s malls and chain restaurants are anti-vaccine activists who […]

Election vigilantes are knocking on doors, filming homeowners, and interrogating them on their 2020 votes. But at least some of these pro-Trump groups say they’ve started screening out volunteers with “pedophilic leanings.” More than a year after Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, his diehard fans remain convinced that he is still the rightful president, even though their claims are flimsier than they were in December 2020. Repeated election reviews, including those by pro-Trump conspiracy theorists, have upheld President Joe Biden’s victory. So now, election denialists are pitching themselves into voter “canvassing,” a tactic that involves ringing doorbells and asking people how […]

Twitter announced a new privacy policy last week as a win for women, minorities, and activists. But the policy has already inspired a wave of trolling, with far-right groups organizing around the tactic, and antiracist activists and women on the left experiencing the brunt of the attacks. Under a set of newly revamped rules, Twitter banned photographs and videos “of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) depicted.” On its face, the policy was an attempt to combat harassment on the social media site. But critics warned that the policy’s language was too vague, and would allow powerful figures and […]

A Charlottesville, Virginia, jury on Tuesday ruled that white supremacists engaged in a conspiracy and were responsible for attacks at the Unite the Right rally in 2017. The decision was a costly one for prominent racists like Richard Spencer, Christopher Cantwell, and Jason Kessler, forcing them to pay a combined millions to their victims. The jury did not reach a decision on two of the case’s largest claims, which argued that defendants participated in a conspiracy to commit racial violence that violated federal law. The ruling followed 22 days of tense testimony and deliberation over Unite the Right, the deadly 2017 […]

On Wednesday, as New York City’s 12-and-up vaccination rate neared 80 percent, a small crowd gathered outside a Staten Island hospital to listen to an Illinois white nationalist rail against vaccines. “Ninety-eight percent of the people in that building are vaccinated,” Nick Fuentes announced of the hospital. The crowd booed. Fuentes is a leader of the Groyper movement, a youth-focused white nationalist collective with ties to far-right elected officials like Rep. Paul Gosar. Fuentes is also on an anti-vaccine speaking tour, promoting vaccine hoaxes to fans who travel interstate to stand inside police barricades with him. He’s not the only far-right […]

On August 11, 2017, University of Virginia student Natalie Romero returned to campus after a summer break in Houston. She remembers the drive into Charlottesville. “I was like a dog at the window, smelling the air,” she told a courtroom on Friday. The college sophomore spent the day reuniting with friends. “I took my last selfie there without my face—well, what it looks like now,” Romero testified. Hours after she arrived on campus, she and her friends would be staring down hundreds of white supremacists in the beginning of a two-day rally that left one woman dead and dozens, including Romero, […]

On the morning of Jan. 6, hours before rioters would break into the Capitol, another, quieter breach appeared to be underway. “I am publishing the Dominion audit raw data from Antrim County machines,” pro-Trump activist Joe Oltmann wrote in an email to a Newsmax correspondent. “Sitting with Matt DePerno and his information overlays this diagram.. perfectly.” This would not be the last time that apparent voting machine data from Antrim County, Michigan, was distributed through conservative conspiracy circles. Despite voting for Trump in the 2020 presidential election, the northern Michigan county has become central to election fraud conspiracy theories, including new […]

MAGA megafans are still determined to reinstall Donald Trump as president—but they’re divided over how to do so. As far-right efforts to “audit” the 2020 election fizzle, some of the movement’s biggest names have accused each other of being communists, FBI informants, and “homewreckers.” On this week’s episode of Fever Dreams, hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill dive into the feuds roiling the Republican Party. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon-hyping congresswoman from Georgia, went on the attack against a former ally this weekend when she implied that conspiratorial attorney Lin Wood might be cooperating in investigations into the Jan. 6 […]

Days before the long-delayed conclusion of an Arizona vote “audit” of the 2020 election—one that conspiracy blogs trumpeted as the “MOST TRANSPARENT AUDIT EVER”—the conspiratorial group behind the effort is fighting a court order to turn over internal documents. Cyber Ninjas, an obscure Florida tech company with no prior elections experience, has been leading a chaotic review of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 presidential election since April. The months-long effort has been a fiasco both technically (auditors caused nearly $3 million in damage to voting machines and caught COVID en masse) and politically (Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan was revealed to be […]

By September 2020, police officer Robert Black was at his wit’s end. Over his year of service in the department of Millersville, Tennessee, Black had allegedly been subjected to sexual harassment, including from a female officer who used a racist slur while grabbing his genitals. The police chief, whom Black suspected of harboring Ku Klux Klan ties, had allegedly made disparaging comments about Black’s biracial son. The assistant police chief was under investigation for allegedly assaulting his wife during a dispute over an alleged affair with a drug suspect. Through it all, management allegedly silenced officers’ complaints by instructing them to […]

Korey Rowe was climbing into the car to report for Army basic training when his best friend stopped him. “He was kind of like, ‘Dude, what are you doing?’” Rowe recalled. “I was like, ‘Don’t worry, man. There’s not going to be a war.’” It was late August 2001. By the end of the year, Rowe was in Afghanistan. Later, he was deployed to Iraq. “As I traveled from the southern border through Iraq, watching innocent people die who had nothing to do with 9/11 or Afghanistan or Osama bin Laden, my viewpoint on America’s international affairs started to shape very […]

At a Sunday rally against masks and vaccines, aspiring Pennsylvania politician Steve Lynch issued an ultimatum to school board members who vote to require masks. “I’m going in with 20 strong men,” Lynch, the Republican nominee in the upcoming Northampton county executive, told the crowd. “I’m going to speak to the school board and I’m going to give them an option. They can leave or they can be removed. And then after that we’re going to replace them with nine parents and we’re going to vote down the mask mandates that evening. ” As the school year returns, alongside a surge […]

Seated onstage at the most-hyped election conspiracy event of the year, the clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, Tina Peters, described herself as a crusader for election security. “I’ve looked at it objectively,” Peters said of supposed issues in election data during her speech at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium” this month. “There’s some discrepancies there that I cannot deny, and I tell people, ‘I cannot unsee some of these things.’ If I’m going to be honest with the people of Mesa County and Colorado and all of you, I cannot unsee some of these things.” But at home in Mesa […]

An internal Department of Homeland Security document reviewed by The Daily Beast describes “advanced preparations” by Capitol rioters ahead of the Jan. 6 attack—and appears to go further than recent descriptions of the FBI’s characterization of the Capitol riot. “The tactics used by domestic violent extremists (DVEs) to assault law enforcement and security personnel and ultimately breach the US Capitol suggests that some of the participants engaged in pre-operational coordination and planning activities,” reads the April 8 DHS document, entitled “Tactics Used to Breach the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 Highlight Advanced Preparations.” The internal document was obtained by […]

On November 27, 2020, as then-president Donald Trump promoted election fraud hoaxes, one Twitter user appeared to share exclusive pictures from inside the rightwing Stop the Steal operation. The user, @We_Have_Risen, tweeted pictures of what he implied were raw vote tallies photographed in Antrim County, Michigan, a key swing state at the center of the stolen election fantasy. Among other offerings, he included photos of a dissected Dominion voting machine (Republicans accused Dominion of helping rig the election, and the company is now suing pro-Trump outlets over these false claims). The conspiratorial captions were well received by his followers, some of […]

A month after organizing a rally that led to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Ali Alexander and his organization Stop The Steal finally got around to blaming eight people for the day’s violence. In a report titled “agitators,” the group uploaded pictures of seven men and one woman it accused of being infiltrators who lured unsuspecting “patriots” into the Capitol. Those supposed outsiders were missing from an FBI database, the report claimed. But, in fact, the woman pictured is not off the FBI’s radar; the agency has released wanted posters with her face. And far from being a mysterious entity, she […]

After the abrupt departure of an anti-mask, ex-UFC fighter city council member, Huntington Beach, California, is careening toward a wild special election highlighted by a candidate who filmed herself at a protest with men who would later go on to storm the U.S. Capitol and drink goat blood in a pagan ritual. From late December until June 1, Tito Ortiz served as a Huntington Beach city councilor and “mayor pro tem.” The months-long term was unusually headline-worthy even for Ortiz, a former UFC champion. Before quitting last month, he claimed the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was a “false flag,” called for […]

A Florida man arrested for allegedly breaking into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and hitting a police officer inside is himself a former cop who joined the Proud Boys while still serving on the force, chat logs tied to the far-right group reveal. Nathan Tuck, 29, was arrested this week in connection with the storming of the Capitol, as was his father, Kevin. The elder Tuck was a police officer with the Windermere, Florida, police department until he resigned after his arrest on Thursday. Nathan Tuck, meanwhile, served as a police officer in Apopka, Florida, until September 2020. Following his […]

A Pennsylvania woman who allegedly stormed the Capitol and told a police officer to “bring Nancy Pelosi out here now… we want to hang that fucking bitch” has filed court documents claiming to be a divinely empowered entity immune from laws. Pauline Bauer, a Pennsylvania pizzeria owner, is accused of multiple counts of violent entry, disruptive conduct, and obstruction of Congress after she allegedly broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6. Prosecutors allege that Bauer tried organizing buses to transport people to D.C. for a rally that preceded the riot, and that while in the Capitol rotunda she told police that […]

Days after a bizarre armed highway standoff in Massachusetts involving a group called Rise Of The Moors, prosecutors face an unusual problem: at least two of the 11 defendants in the case refuse to identify themselves. “I am a free Moor, a national, a free, living man,” one unidentified defendant told a judge during his arraignment on Tuesday. The testimony was faux-legal nonsense. But in some seemingly widening circles, this jargon verges on religion. Over the past year, from Massachusetts to Washington, a growing slate of court officials and bystanders have found themselves muddling through conspiratorial legalese from people who claim […]

For a time, Edward Wilson was the model Oath Keeper. Like many members of the far-right, paramilitary organization, he was a military veteran, and he issued statements on behalf of the group. Then, in 2015, Wilson started doing the Oath Keepers’ information technology work. The militia’s behind-the-scenes workings permanently soured him on the group. “I was a lifetime member,” Wilson told The Daily Beast. “Then when I got into their IT and figured out everything that was going on, I was done with them.” Wilson had developed concerns about the group’s finances, some of which, as The Wall Street Journal recently […]

The Medicare For All activists knew something was amiss when a man joined a Zoom meeting posing as an organizer who was already on the conference call. Their suspicions were only heightened when the interloper started talking about licking balls. It was Sunday, and the activists—who are trying to organize a nationwide Medicare For All event—were already on edge. Earlier that day, they’d come under fire for accidentally announcing a notorious neo-Nazi (as well as, unrelatedly, “Garfield” cartoonist Jim Davis) as keynote speakers. Now the group says it’s being attacked by infiltrators, including trolls and an unsanctioned chapter of the Green […]

As a nurses’ strike stretched into its 107th day on Tuesday, people gathered in a Worcester, Massachusetts, hospital to perform an unusual operation. Waving a banner and sprinkling holy water from a balcony, the assembled activists conducted an exorcism. “God, Creator, and defender of the human race, who made us in your own image, look down in pity on these your servants, the executives of Tenet Corporation, now in the coils of the unclean spirit of corporate greed and disdain for safe conditions for the nurses and patients of this hospital,” members of the group intoned. The rite, first reported by […]

In 1954, the year after Florida adopted a hardline anti-communist curriculum, feverish stories hit a northeast Florida newspaper. “School Text Praises Communist Fronts,” read one Putnam Sun headline. What, exactly, were those secret communist messages? A trio of concerned mothers later elaborated to another Florida paper: the textbook American Problems Today painted a favorable picture of the American Civil Liberties Union, and “advocated FEPC [the Fair Employment Practice Committee] and other forms of integration.” A state senator claimed that the textbook taught principles “opposite” to those in the Constitution, and the northeastern Florida teacher who introduced the book to his class […]

On June 8, the day before attending a forum alongside his fellow candidates, New York gubernatorial hopeful Derrick Gibson tweeted an advertisement for a campaign event. The lead image showed Gibson on a motorcycle next to a seal with two acronyms: “POYB” and “FAFO.” Or, in the language of the far-right group the Proud Boys, which popularized the acronyms, “Proud of your boy” and “fuck around and find out.” New York’s November 2022 gubernatorial race should—in theory—pose a promising opportunity for the state’s Republicans. Their possible eventual opponent, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, is currently weathering scandals over sexual harassment allegations and […]

The 1776 Project PAC has been in operation for approximately two weeks. It has not yet tapped any of the school-board candidates it hopes to run in its crusade against the teaching of so-called “critical race theory” in American schools, a cascading source of cultural panic on the right. The group has, nevertheless, raised more than $55,000, its president claims. As in-person school-board meetings return across America, some of these oft-sleepy gatherings have grown crowded and contentious, with parents decrying what they claim is an insidious new teaching method. More than anything else, this novel threat is evidenced, they say, by […]

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts is on a statewide speaking tour to denounce what he and some far-right allies are portraying as an outrageous intrusion by the Biden administration: a conservation program that he says will seize lands from local control. There’s one problem: The program proposes nothing of the sort, and its chief opponents are not local at all. They include a Texas-based organization whose most vocal associates—including one who met with Ricketts—have likened conservation programs to Nazi and Soviet atrocities. The “America the Beautiful” or “30×30” initiative is a Biden administration plan to conserve 30 percent of U.S. land by […]

When Stephen Lloyd showed up at the Multnomah County, Oregon, Republican Party’s most recent meeting on May 17, he was not treated like a man who, until earlier this month, had been the group’s chairman. “I was met by a group of Proud Boys who had their arms crossed in front of their chest, kind of all puffed up in front of the doorways,” Lloyd told The Daily Beast. Lloyd was allowed into the meeting, where he began passing out documents detailing his concerns with the party’s recent lurch to the far right. Others in his wing of the Portland, Oregon-based […]

On Tuesday, May 25, Nevada’s Clark County Republican Party was scheduled to hold a meeting guarded by an armed security force. But on Monday, the party abruptly canceled the gathering altogether. “Our management team has decided the risk to our members outweighs the value of this meeting,” Clark County Republican Party Vice Chair Stephen Sliberkraus said in a press conference. The alleged threat was not from opponents across the aisle but from the far right. For months, Clark County Republican meetings have played host to intra-party warfare, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported last week. At those meetings, an insurgent group […]

Lander County, Nevada, is shelling out $2,500 for lifetime membership to a controversial, far-right law-enforcement group, The Daily Beast has learned. For their money, residents will get some lapel pins, a plaque, and a big party featuring an alleged participant in the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol. A former mining boom community in the Nevada desert, Lander County is the rural home to fewer than 10,000 residents. But after a 4-1 vote by its board of commissioners, it’s the first in the nation with a dubious distinction: Lander will become a county-level member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and […]

On Tuesday evening, as the Los Alamitos, California, Unified School District board convened for a virtual meeting about sensitivity training for teachers, a crowd of protesters gathered outside their vacant offices. “This is part of a large indoctrination mess that you see going on from the progressive left, from decrepit, corrupt government entities wanting to destroy the family and push the culture of death,” one of the demonstrators, self-described anti-LGBT activist Arthur Schaper, said on a livestream. Another demonstrator, Jesse Suave, was wearing a shirt that read “fuck antifa” and “death to antifa, free helo rides,” in reference to Chilean dictator […]

David Jones spent 14 months in jail, on charges that were later dropped. While behind bars, he lost his home, his job, his car, he said. Then, when he was finally released, his jailers sent him a bill: he owed more than $4,000 for his time in custody. Kentucky is one of at least 43 states that allow jails to charge inmates for their food and housing—even if the inmate is found innocent or their case is dismissed, those facilities say. Now 51, Jones found himself in a legalistic nightmare after a shoddy investigation saw him wrongly accused of downloading child […]

The graffiti on a port-a-potty in a gravel pit was, in the opinion of one Washington state resident, a sign that anti-fascists might blow up a nearby dam. Another local was convinced that a young man reading signs was actually an “Antifa or BLM scout.” A third person warned, via an anonymous email tip, that her ex-husband was part of an anti-fascist group that was coming to burn down the town. All these complaints were forwarded throughout police ranks in Washington, where officials urged vigilance against the leftist threat. As racial justice protests flared across the country in summer 2020, so […]

Nearly a year after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police, critics of police brutality have won some legislative victories. But in that same time, waves of anti-protest laws targeting people enraged at police violence have hit statehouses nationwide. And now, just as jurors are set to begin deliberations in the murder trial over Floyd’s death, the crackdown on protesters is getting enshrined into law. As racial justice protests saw renewed momentum following deadly shootings by police in Minnesota and Illinois this month, legislators in Minnesota and Florida considered bills that would introduce new penalties for protesters. […]

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, with members of their groups being outed as neo-Nazis. That’s bad news for organizers, who spent weeks trying to make the rallies appear as tame as possible in order to attract new recruits. In late […]

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 a $5,000 reward on Monday, the post was updated again. The chair “is being held for political ransom by a criminal leftist group,” the post now reads. “Steps are being taken in attempt to resolve.” […]

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 other two buildings, the Vancouver Sun reported. And although police have not announced a motive in the arsons, Kohlman’s Facebook page contains anti-Freemason attacks that he shared from conspiracy pages, particularly pages about flat earth […]

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. The March 26 “We The People Stand For Border Security” rally hosted hours of speakers who claimed (contrary to expert opinion) that immigration was out of control under President Joe Biden. Among them were prominent […]

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 which have been charged with planning and taking part in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (The group may face additional legal challenges, with a top prosecutor suggesting sedition charges for unnamed rioters.) […]

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 ruined ours financially with doxxing. We need to rack up their hospital bills. We need to use special operations tactics and lightning strike them.” At the time of the post, Donohoe’s Telegram profile picture was […]

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. 7 podcast. “They need to be afraid.” That man appears to be a police officer who was placed on temporary leave from the Fresno Police Department on Monday, after he was accused of attending a […]

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 of the story is somewhat different: Bundy’s father Cliven was avoiding more than $1 million in fines for keeping his cattle on public lands, and enlisted help from militia groups to remain on the property. […]

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 in his own series of escalating feuds with local law enforcement, beginning with spats over his right to film inside a courthouse, and escalating to convictions on gun charges in 2019. His animosity toward a […]

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 some of his most diehard supporters remain convinced, falsely, that he won re-election—or at least that he will run again in 2024. Last week, after senators acquitted the ex-president of inciting the deadly mob that […]

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 paramilitary group that Canada designated as a terrorist organization on Wednesday. Even though most of the rioters were not Proud Boys, researchers from the University of Chicago and University of Michigan found that people who […]

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 in the melee, Andrews has changed his tune. “I have rescinded the idea that patriots should go to D.C. in protest,” he told The Daily Beast on Wednesday. “Americans going armed to D.C. to protest […]

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 member of the militia group “Texas Freedom Force,” and threatened to shoot his children if they became “traitors” who turned him in. Moncada is the latest of several men arrested in New York in connection […]

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 festooned with a QAnon decal. The men, who allegedly brought a rifle, ammunition, and a sword with them, were vocal proponents of conspiracy theories that falsely claim President-elect Joe Biden cheated to win the election. […]

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 attack on the Capitol. Ahead of that January 6 putsch, organizers announced plans to “occupy” the area outside the Capitol building, while others screen-printed “MAGA Civil War January 6, 2021” hoodies to wear to the […]

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 Beast. But the calls from Gorscenski and other Charlottesville activists were not enough for officials to cancel Unite The Right, a white supremacist rally in the city. On Aug. 12, the rally’s second day, a […]

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 in a raging catfight, with the NPA accusing furries of sending them “obscene” images, and furries accusing the NPA of preemptively blocking people with cartoon animal avatars. Buried amid the dogpile of feuding accounts are […]

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 yet identified a motive for the attack. Nevertheless, a certain pro-Trump segment appears to have taken up the bomber’s side, with another Tennessee man allegedly attempting a similar threat—albeit without any actual explosives—on Sunday. Officials […]

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. While no modern president has refused to concede an election, his tactics are not without precedent in American politics. Along with an 1873 Texas governor who barricaded himself in office after losing re-election, Trump enjoys […]

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 the Virginia General Assembly. Chase, a far-right Republican and 2021 gubernatorial candidate, refuses to wear a mask during government session, forcing her at times to sit alone in a plexiglass quarantine box that she calls […]

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 likely it looked like fraud, the more I bet,” Helen, an Amsterdam-based British woman who declined to give her last name, told The Daily Beast. Had Trump won re-election, Helen would have won nearly 2.7 […]

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, shortly before various states’ Electoral College votes began to formalize President-Elect Joe Biden’s victory, pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood took to Twitter to imply looming disaster. He urged followers to “make sure you have PLENTY of […]

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. Live for nothing, or die for something.” The AZ GOP Twitter account later deleted the Rambo clip. But it couldn’t delete the growing death-fetish that has stalked pro-Trump media in recent weeks, as the president’s […]

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 to her home with bullhorns and Trump flags. The group was there to falsely accuse Benson of rigging the election against Trump. Benson, who serves as Michigan’s chief elections officer, claimed in a statement that […]

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 fund” for the embattled attorney. Another prominent attorney who has associated himself with Rittenhouse, Lin Wood, also appears to have pivoted away from the case in order to focus his efforts on overturning President Donald […]

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 Daily Beast of her job at The Children’s Place, a mall-based clothing store in Illinois. “We’ve already been informed that if we don’t work that day, we are immediately terminated and no amount of contesting […]

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 at a time when new cases are setting records nationally by the day. But a vocal crowd—which has drawn support from the anti-lockdown movement and other conspiratorial scenes—is already voicing its opposition to a coronavirus […]

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 the election looms, fans of President Donald Trump have increasingly turned to vehicle parades or “Trump trains” in support of their candidate, who has openly encouraged voter intimidation. And as one of the most hotly-contested […]

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. The Stanford paper studied 18 Trump rallies this year, and linked them to a significant spike in COVID-19 cases—approximately 30,000—in surrounding counties. The paper, from the school’s economics department, has not been peer reviewed, leading […]

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 drove to Austin, it was greeted by a blockade of pro-Trump demonstrators, leading to what one Texas House representative described as an escalation “well beyond safe limits.” The cancelation comes amid national anxiety about voter […]

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 January 2020 pro-gun protest. “Nobody booged today and I am disappointed,” another posted when that event, too, concluded non-violently. By March 2020, desperation was setting in. “I hate to say this but is there 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 Police Department’s Third Precinct. Hunter is also accused of close contact with a man accused of two murders earlier this year. Both are self-described members of the “Boogaloo” movement, a loosely affiliated far-right and libertarian […]

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 shame if those candidates won and the landlords had to, say, jack up rent. While election security experts sound alarms about partisan “poll watchers” potentially intimidating voters, letters from landlords represent a grayer area of […]

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 posed as anti-fascists. The result is a murky, threat-ridden state of affairs with some voters more worried than ever about election security amid Trump’s calls for supporters—including the Proud Boys in particular—to monitor polls. “We […]

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 with the main QAnon-associated website on Sunday night, temporarily taking the site offline. 8kun, a seedy forum previously known as 8chan, is the current ground zero for QAnon. The site is home to Q, a […]