Wednesday, November 10, 2021

This Week in Fascism #122: Boston Shuts It Down, Hundreds Protest Milo, Far-Right Mass Shooter in Boise, National Justice Party Gathers Neo-Nazi Island of Unwanted Goys

photo: @AlissaAzar

And we are back!

Lots to cover in this installment — and happily, a lot of it is action! We’ve got a jammed list of action reports along with the usual doxxes, news, ways to support prisoners, and a few alerts and breaking stories. From leftovers ala Unite the Right attempting to rebrand as the National Justice Party, to Oath Keeper cops being outed by hackers, another far-Right mass shooter, this time in Boise, and much more. There is so much to cover.

Let’s get into it!

Action Report

Antifascists Send Far-Right Rally Packing in Boston

A coalition of anti-fascist, anti-racist, and left-wing groups converged in Boston to confront “Super Happy Fun America,” a re-brand of Resist Marxism, which has multiple links to white nationalists and neo-Nazis and was formed by white nationalist and Proud Boy, Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman. More recently, SHFA organized the “Straight Pride Parade” and its leadership participated in the attempted coup in DC on January 6th.

Last Sunday, a large crowd of more than twice the size of the far-Right rally shouted down the fascists, broke through police barricades, and shut down the demonstration. A rented van, used in transporting equipment used for the far-Right demonstration, had its windows smashed out and sped off, only to have the driver arrested by police for almost hitting people walking through the park. The demonstration also saw an impressive de-arrest from the crowd and shows that antifascists in Boston will not give up the streets to the far-Right no matter who is in office.

Hundreds Turn Out to Protest Disgraced Far-Right Troll Milo in Pennsylvania

Hundreds of students and community members attended a protest event at Penn State in opposition to Milo Yiannopoulos, known for attempting to mainstream white nationalist ideas through Breitbart and being financed by the billionaire Mercer family. Local news reports that the event was attended by upwards of 2,000 students, about 7 times the amount of people who came out to hear Milo speak. Meanwhile, others protested outside of Milo’s talk, chanting, “Nazi scum off our streets!,” facing off against a much smaller crowd of far-Right Milo supporters. The event itself cost the school $18,000 to put on and was centered around Milo’s new grift, the promotion of the long condemned practice of “conversion therapy,” which is already banned across much of the US.

 

Neo-Nazi Graffiti Covered Up in Portland Area; Patriot Front Banners and Flyers Burned in Seattle and Colorado Springs

Graffiti featuring a swastika was quickly covered up in the Portland area while in Seattle, Patriot Front banners quickly came down after community members got their hands on them and in Colorado Springs, PF flyers were removed and soon reduced to ashes.

Park Flyered in Modesto in Lead up to Proud Boy Connected Event

“Community Alert” flyers went up in a park in Modesto, CA, warning community members about a far-Right event directly linked to the local Proud Boys, masquerading as a “Holistic Fair.”

Antifascists Drop Banners in Austin and Atlanta

Antifascists dropped several banners over a freeway marking the entrance to a historic Jewish neighborhood that only days before, had been the site of banner drops from the neo-Nazi group, the Goyim Defense League. The group went on to carry out a series of flash protests and many believe, also an act of arson against a local synagogue.

Meanwhile in Atlanta, a banner was dropped in solidarity with antifascist activists targeted by a far-Right organizer in a car attack.

Antifascists Hold Memorial to Remember the Pittsburgh Pogrom

In New York, antifascists with Outlive Them NYC held a gathering to remember the lives lost in the Pittsburgh Pogrom of 2018, where a neo-Nazi opened fire inside the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood.

News

Far-Right Racist Kills Two After Opening Fire on Shoppers at Mall; Previously Stalked Antifascists at Rallies

Boise, Idaho was rocked by a tragic mass shooting, when a man with a history of posting far-Right and racist material online, opened fire at a mall, killing a Latinx man and a trans security guard while also injuring five others.

From Daily Kos:

The man who opened fire at a mall in Boise, Idaho, on Monday, killing two people and injuring five others before being fatally wounded by police, was a far-right gun extremist who had expressed an animus towards Latinos and other minorities—and who not only carried a gun into the Idaho governor’s office, but also turned up armed at an April antifascist protest in Boise and menaced demonstrators, Daily Kos has learned.

Jacob Bergquist, 27, was a convicted felon who had moved to Idaho a few years ago and had apparently developed an obsession with establishing his right to carry a firearm under Idaho law, a review of his social media posts indicates. He died Monday at a Boise hospital after being shot during the culmination of a shooting rampage inside Boise Towne Square, the state’s largest shopping mall.

Bergquist shot and killed a security guard, Jo Acker, 26, of Caldwell, and a Latino man, Roberto Padilla Arguelles, 49, who lived in Rupert. (Acker was transgender; the family of Arguelles, an immigrant from Mexico, is holding a fundraiser so that his remains can be returned home.) Bergquist also wounded two women inside a store in the mall, then proceeded outside where he exchanged gunfire with police; a woman inside a nearby car was wounded, as was one of the police officers.

Law Enforcement Within Oath Keepers Exposed

Thanks to a hack from Distributed Denial of Secrets (DD0S), members of law enforcement within the far-Right Oath Keepers militia were exposed. According to USA Today:

The data, some of which the whistleblower group Distributed Denial of Secrets made available to journalists, includes a file that purportedly provides names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of almost 40,000 members.

A search of that list revealed more than 200 people who identified themselves as active or retired law enforcement officers when signing up. USA TODAY confirmed 21 of them are still serving, from Alabama to California. Another 23 have retired since joining the Oath Keepers.

One man who filled out the form claimed he was a federal police officer and worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

These men are probably a small fraction of the law enforcement officers who joined the militia over the years, since the majority of people listed did not volunteer information about their employment. The leaked data does not indicate whether the people on the list are dues-paying members.

Ammon Bundy’s ‘Army’ Continues to Grow

A year after the IREHR and the Montana Human Rights Network (MHRN) released their report on Ammon Bundy’s ‘People’s Rights Network,’ the group continues to grow. According to a new report:

Ammon Bundy used politicization of the pandemic to build up a national membership base of 21,851 and a cadre of 153 on-the-ground activists in thirteen states.

One year later, the People’s Rights network continues to expand, according to new IREHR data. This report examines the latest membership data on the People’s Rights network. Since the release of Ammon’s Army, the People’s Rights network increased its national membership by 53% to 33,431 members in the last year.[1] Moreover, the group’s official activist base grew by more than 160% to 398 activists in 38 states.

Read the full report here.

Bannon Publicly Bragged About Organizing January 6th

According to a report by Media Matters, on his podcast that aired days before the January 6th white riot, Trump advisor Steve Bannon admitted that he had advance knowledge of the events that were set (and then did) take place on January 6th. Media Matters reports that Bannon stoked violence by using language of war that instigated his followers to participate in the white riot in an effort to overturn the election in favor of a second term for disgraced president Donald Trump. Bannon effectively encouraged his followers to travel to Washington DC to participate in the violence:

A Media Matters review has found that in addition to repeatedly boasting about his involvement with and insider knowledge of the Trump legal team’s strategy to overturn the election results in Congress on January 6, Bannon previewed the events in dramatic and violent historical context and singled out then-Vice President Mike Pence as the figure who could steal the election for Trump. He also used the language of war to describe how Trump supporters should view the events of January 6 and encouraged them to travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in the rallies taking place that day.

In addition to his own tirades, Bannon invited John Eastman and Rudy Guiliani onto his podcast episode on January 2nd. Both of them are said to have been present at “the war room” at the Williard Hotel in DC, (a place where extensive planning by Trump surrogates is said to have occurred) located across the street from Freedom Plaza, in the days leading up to January 6th. Media Matters states that Bannon:

He also described Eastman as “the lead sled dog” in the effort to overturn the election, asked him about Pence’s role, and then laughed, saying, “I don’t want to put you on the spot like that, John.” In an interview with Giuliani, Bannon claimed Giuliani was “putting in 20 hours a day”and “working in the Senate” to get votes to stop the certification of the election.

On January 5th, Bannon boasted about posting bail for leader of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, who had been arrested only days earlier:

Then, seemingly referring to the same meeting from the evening prior, Bannon later said that “we put calls out last night trying to put bail up” for the leader of the Proud Boys Enrique Tarrio, who had recently been arrested for burning a Black Lives Matter flag torn from a historic Black church during pro-Trump demonstrations the previous month. At least two dozen members of Proud Boys, a violent neo-fascist street gang, face federal charges in connection with the attack on the Capitol, including four who were charged with conspiracy. Proud Boy Dominic Pezzola was among the first of the insurrectionists to break into the Capitol by smashing a window with a riot shield he stole from a police officer.

Click the link above for a reverse timeline of Bannon’s admissions and involvement in the planning of the January 6th attempted coup.

Canadian Member of Neo-Nazi Terrorist Group ‘The Base’ Sentenced to 9 Years

Former Canadian army reserve member and member of the neo-Nazi accelerationist cell The Base has been sentenced to 9 years in prison. Vice reports that Patrik Mathews, former Canadian military combat engineer, was handed down a nine-year sentence he will serve in a U.S. prison for his participation and recruitment for the neo-Nazi group.

Mathews was exposed by journalists working for the Winnipeg Free Press. Later that day, his home was raided by the RCMP where they seized firearms. Mathews was arrested and released. He then fled Canada and came into the United States where he was ferried to from safe-houses to a paramilitary camp. Audio recordings from inside Mathews apartment indicate disturbing and violent beliefs. The Winnipeg Free Press reports:

Those recordings — snippets of which were played in court by prosecutor Thomas P. Windom — were rife with racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic rants, where Mathews expressed a desire to murder ethnic minorities, law enforcement, and political enemies.

Mathews and his co-defendant Brian Lemley Jr. both pleaded guilty to firearms and obstruction charges and were both handed nine-year prison sentences. The judge added terrorism enhancements to both sentences. Vice states:

Lemley bragged that he daydreamed about killing people. Mathews compiled a list of mass shootings and expressed a desire to hunt people. They discussed targeting Black children and assassinating a political figure. The pair even spoke about trying to free a convicted mass murderer from prison.

The Base is a neo-Nazi accelerationist network that hopes to bring about a violent race war through terroristic means.

Major QAnon Influencer Obsessed With Tracking Pedophiles – Turns Out To Be A Pedophile

Right Wing Watch has discovered that major far-Right and QAnon influencer David Todeschini who, under the pseudonym David Trent, baselessly accuses Democrats of being pedophiles to his 21,000 followers on the video hosting website BitChute, is listed on New York’s sex offender registry as a “level three threat” for coercing an eight year old boy into sexual acts. Todeschini was convicted in 1999. According to Right Wing Watch, a level three threat indicates “high risk of repeat offense and threat to public safety exists.” RWW reports:

In his videos, Todeschini calls for Democratic politicians in D.C. to be “taken out at gunpoint,” alleges children are being trafficked, and claims Hillary Clinton, Bill Barr, and others have been convicted of treason and sentenced to hang. The introduction for his videos displays QAnon slogans and the symbol of the Three Percenters, a paramilitary extremist group.

In one video dated Sept. 9, Todeschini railed against a report that President Joe Biden would require federal government employees to be vaccinated, stating, “Why this country hasn’t risen up and hung these bastards by now is beyond me.” He added, “These treasonous rat bastards need to be taken out of Washington, D.C. I say get all the children out and nuke it for [inaudible].” The title of that video accused Biden of being a “Cho-mo”—prison slang for a pedophile.

In another video dated Aug. 14, Todeschini and fellow conspiracy theorist “Stoney Stone” interviewed “mini” Mike Lindell—a 13-year-old whose hero appears to be election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell—complimenting him for being “well spoken” and for his passion for politics.

Oath Keeper Board Member Holding State-Approved Trainings for Law Enforcement in Texas

In an illuminating report by Mother Jones, Richard Mack, former sheriff and member of the Board of Directors for far-Right militia, the Oath Keepers, is now holding state-approved trainings for law enforcement throughout Texas. Mother Jones details Mack’s backstory and movement into constitutionalist politics and connections to far-Right militia organizing. From the report:

Mack has been a familiar face on the far-right extremist circuit since the mid-1990s, when he first emerged as a Second Amendment activist. He has been doing events like the one in Maryland promoting the supremacy of the county sheriff for more than a decade. In 2011, a group called Patriots of Gillespie County, in Fredericksburg, Texas, hired him to start CSPOA to focus on recruiting law enforcement into the patriot movement. The group moved him and his wife to Texas, where he also made an unsuccessful run at unseating the incumbent GOP congressman, Lamar Smith. But since the beginning of the pandemic, he tells me, he’s been in high demand as sheriffs have been asked to enforce the “tyranny of the good intentions of our leaders” and their public health mandates.

Despite major concerns about far-Right organizing in local law enforcement and despite there being an alarming number of local and state law enforcement involved in the January 6th storming of the Capitol, the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement has approved Mack’s trainings to local law enforcement agencies throughout the state. His presentations are a mash-up of weird and dangerous far-right talking points:

Over the course of 90 minutes, he covers everything from sex scandals at the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Agriculture Department’s persecution of the Amish for selling raw milk. He rails against the tyranny of government requiring “face diapers” and vaccine mandates and claims hospitals have fabricated statistics about the number of people who have died of COVID. He doesn’t mention that he had the disease himself in December.

Mack has connections to the neo-Confederate and white nationalist group, the League of the South and a host of other fascist groupings, including anti-LGBT individual Jake McCauley and Randy Weaver, a supporter of the Aryan Nations who’s wife and son were murdered in the “Ruby Ridge” standoff with the ATF after Weaver sold a sawed-off shotgun to federal agents. His connections, his rhetoric, the support he received from the state of Texas and his continued access to law enforcement are a major concern worth paying very close attention to. Check out the full story for all the details.

Proud Boys Intimidate People Outside TPUSA Event in Eugene, Oregon

Double Sided Media (DSM) in partnership with Left Coast Right Watch published a report following Charlie Kirk’s organization TPUSA’s Eugene, Oregon stop. Kirk, who was slated to speak originally at University of Oregon and then Springfield’s Holiday Inn Express, ended up speaking at the Emerald Valley Golf-course in Creswell, Oregon. Because of antifascist organizing, TPUSA was forced to move it’s events twice before the golf-course gave them the green-light. Journalists from DSM were in attendance to report on the event and observed adults and children also in attendance and no one observing the golf-course’ stated mask policy. Kirk was meant to speak against critical race theory in schools.

DSM observed members of the pro-Trump street gang the Proud Boys in attendance as well. DSM reports that Proud Boys, many who were recognized as being from the Portland chapter, providing security in full Proud Boys uniform. The journalists indicated that as they were smoking outside, a large group of Proud Boys came out of the building and surrounded them in a clear act of intimidation. One of the journalists, Mary Bell, recounted her experience to DSM:

As I was leaving the group of Proud Boys lingered near the exit of the parking lot. One Proud Boy tried to stop me while I was driving in my vehicle by stepping into the driveway with his phone poised to take my picture. I slowly drove around him, avoiding any pedestrians, and other Proud Boys, knowing full well he had taken my picture of me and my vehicle. This is another intimidation tactic and though I could have covered my face or flipped them the bird, I chose instead to just keep driving. I don’t know what they intend to do with that picture but hopefully it’s blurry! In any case, their actions won’t stop me from doing my job as a journalist and reporting on their activities.

All the journalists affiliated with DSM were able to leave the group of Proud Boys and the event safely. Check out the blog post for the full story.

Ultra-Conservative Christian Church in Idaho Plans to Take Over Town

The Guardian reports that elders of the Christian Nationalist Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho have been steadily embedding or taking over different parts of the community in an effort to turn Moscow in to a “theocracy.” Christ Church elders have created businesses, embedded themselves in local government, joined food co-ops, school boards, buying up property and aggressively pushing back against COVID vaccine and mask mandates:

Christ Church was founded in Moscow in the 1990s, and experts who have studied the church estimate the size of the congregation and its offshoot churches at about 2,000, or 10% of the city’s total population…But they also say that the church is increasingly drawing people to the area who are attracted to the idea of northern Idaho as a conservative “redoubt” against American modernity, and by the church’s “reconstructionist” position, which holds that the world will need to be governed according to their interpretation of biblical morality before Christ returns to earth.

Christ Church has incredible reach into the community of Moscow. It’s current generation of church leaders include the founder and pastor’s son Douglas Wilson, his brother’s-in-law Ben Merkle and Nathan Wilson (who in addition to being church elders, are also staff at the ultra-conservative christian college New Saint Andrews College. Brother Gordon Wilson is also a faculty member at NSAC. Wilson’s other son-in-law Luke Jancovic sits on NSAC’s board of trustees. All of the men just mentioned are also church elders.

Christ Church draws it’s revenue from church members as well as a handful of affiliated businesses including a publisher and school:

Christ Church itself is an unincorporated nonprofit, which means that it is not obliged to provide details of its finances to government authorities. Many entities associated with the church are either also unincorporated, like the Logos School, or, like publisher Canon Press, are operated by a network of limited liability companies (LLCs) which are similarly limited in their accountability.

But insiders who spoke on condition of anonymity said that all members tithe 10% of their household income, and wealthier members are expected to make an even larger contribution.

Within a network of educational institutions, publishing houses, churches, and national associations that Wilson has founded or led, a small number of men, from a small number of families, have come to exert significant power within the organization and Moscow.

Wilson’s family and businesses aren’t the only cause for alarm. Wilson rubs elbows with other racist, ultra-conservative individuals and groups across the country and even co-authored a book about slavery with J Steven Wilkins, co-founder of the neo-Confederate, white nationalist group League of the South, which marched in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA, that resulted in the murder of leftist activist Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others:

In the early 2000s, Wilson received criticism over a book, Southern Slavery as it Was, which he had co-written in the previous decade with J Steven Wilkins. Wilkins is a Louisiana pastor who was a co-founder of the neo-Confederate organization, the League of the South. His church is a member of Wilson’s congregational umbrella group, the CREC.

The book depicted slavery in the antebellum southern United States as “a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence,” and argued that the enslaved enjoyed “a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care.”

Click the linked text above for the full story.

Antifascist Alerts

Nick Fuentes to Hold Anti-Vaxx Rally on Staten Island on November 10th

Antifascists in New York are reporting that Nick Fuentes and other white nationalists such as neo-Nazi troll Baked Alaska are holding an anti-vaxx rally on Staten Island on November 10th and then plan to march to a local pub co-owned by a far-Right anti-vaxx organizer. More info here.

National Justice Party Active in Pennsylvania; Tied to Russian Blogger and ‘Stop the Steal’ Promoter

The National Justice Party (NJP), a collection B list Unite the Right celebs and island of unwanted neo-Nazi toys, led by podcast shock-jock Mike “Enoch” Peinovich (best known for having a Jewish ex-wife), ex-Richard Spencer bro Greg Conte, former Matthew Heimbach minion Tony Hovater, and Daily Stormer troll Joseph “Eric Striker” Jordan, who’s family are South American immigrants, seems to have had a recent event at a Four Seasons Lodge at a park in Pennsylvania. Local antifascists documented the meet-up.

National Justice Party founding event. Same faces, different barn.  PHOTO: Lancaster Online

Also, the Lancaster Online also recently reported on the origins of the group:

That rally announcing the creation of the National Justice Party, captured in a video posted online by its organizers, happened right here in Lancaster County 14 months ago. It was held in a historic barn on Millersville Pike just outside Lancaster city.

The gathering of some of the nation’s most notorious white supremacists here, which went largely unnoticed at the time by neighbors and law enforcement, suggests the group sees this traditionally conservative region as fertile ground for recruiting new members as the population grows more ethnically and politically diverse, experts said.

“You cannot have a nation of justice, a nation of liberty, without a white majority forever,” Peinovich announced to raucous applause from the crowd in the barn, also stating that “races don’t necessarily need to mix together all the time.”

That the National Justice Party chose a small, suburban Lancaster County barn to launch its organization also raises scores of questions – some of which can be answered and some of which remain a mystery despite months of research and reporting for this story.

All of those questions, however, circle back to Charles Bausman, a figure with ties to the “Stop the Steal” movement who has spent much of his adult life in Russia. Bausman quietly settled in Lancaster, the home of his ancestors, in late 2018, months after penning a lengthy essay on the “Jew taboo” that drew international backlash.

While it’s unclear what role Bausman intends to play as the group travels the country seeking new members — and potential influence in electoral politics — Bausman, who is the publisher and editor of the pro-Kremlin website Russia Insider, openly discusses his ties to the party’s founding members and his general support for many of their political and social views.

Mobilize Against the White Nationalist American Renaissance Conference

Anti-racist and antifascist groups are mobilizing to oppose the American Renaissance conference in Burns, Tennessee. From the Facebook:

The American Renaissance Conference (AmRen) will be taking place at Montgomery Bell Park Inn in Burns, Tennessee, 45 minutes outside of Nashville, and the Antifascist Unity Coalition has called for actions against the conference as it does. In addition, the Tennessee State Parks are trying to pass new rules to make anti-racist/anti-fascist counter-demonstrations more difficult, violating free speech protections that they have defended for the White supremacists that have used their parks year after year. We will work to oppose the new restrictions and to oppose the AmRen Conference!

The AmRen Conference that was slated to be held May 29-31, 2020 was to include speakers and attendees such as Reynaud Camus of France who is cited on the AmRen website as the originator of “The Great Replacement” conspiracy theory that white people are being replaced by people of color, and Dries Van Langenhove, Belgum’s youngest Member of Parliament, and the founder and leader of the neo-fascist youth organization Schild & Vrienden. Because of the COVID-19 restrictions, organizers were forced to cancel the conference this year, but while they have not made official announcements yet, they did say that the conference will return on May 21-23, 2021. They then decided to push it up even further to Nov. 12-14.

Originally, the White supremacists who organize this conference chose this park because unlike the private hotels that have barred them from hosting their event in their establishments, publicly owned facilities such as the conference hall in the park that they use do not have the luxury of doing so, as anyone in the public is to have access to the Inn and the park. However, since 2017, the year where they promoted the tragic “Unite the Right” rally taking place two weeks later, the Montgomery Bell Park Inn is closed to the general public, protesters are relegated to a barricaded section of the park, and only those attending the conference is allowed the space. It is a betrayal of the local community and residents if this conference is preventing them enjoying their park. In addition, there is now an effort by some Tennessee officials to introduce legislation disallowing protests in parks and other public places. That effort needs to and will be fought!

For more info, go here. Also, see past AmRen coverage from Unicorn Riot here.

Doxxes

  • Dion Edmund Clark, founder of the now-defunct ‘Radio Wehrwolf,’ of Madison, Fitchburg, and Kewaskum, Wisconsin.

Support Our Prisoners

  • Support those arrested during the ongoing rebellion! Check the In Contempt column on It’s Going Down for a list of prisoners.
  • Support Gage Halupowski! Currently serving a six year sentence. There is currently an outbreak at his prison, so please step up and support! More info here.
  • Support Dan Baker! Currently facing federal charges for posts online in response to armed far-Right rally at the capitol building in Florida. More info here.
  • Support Eric King! Anarchist and antifascist prisoner who has been targeted by the State and neo-Nazi inmates for being ‘ANTIFA.’ More info here. Donate here.
  • Support J.W. and TC! Antifascists arrested in San Diego following rally against far-Right and white supremacists. Donate here and here.
  • Support Scottie! Facing charges steaming from altercation with far-Right Trump supporters in LA. More info here.

by This Week in Fascism via It's Going Down
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