| No Images? Click here   This is HUFFPOST FRINGE, your weekly postcard from the political wilderness, with reporters Luke O'Brien and Christopher Mathias. A non-Muslim white man ended his reign of terror in Austin this week by killing himself with homemade bomb inside his SUV on Wednesday after being surrounded by police. The 23-year-old panicked the Texas state capitol for 19 days by planting a series of explosives that killed two people. Conditt’s motives are still unclear — authorities are reviewing a 25-minute confession he recorded on his phone. But one thing is certain: if Conditt were Muslim, mainstream America would have rushed to call him a terrorist.As Friend of the Fringe (FoF), Ryan Reilly, explained this week in HuffPost:Media coverage often grants white non-Muslim perpetrators a level of humanity not typically seen in coverage of other attackers, and ‘terrorism’ can often be used simply as a stand-in for "Muslim." But it’s more than just politics and privilege that makes authorities ― and in turn, the media ― shy about calling terrorism by its name.The U.S. has no federal law criminalizing acts of domestic terrorism. Without such a statute, the feds are hesitant to call “terrorism” by its name when there’s no link to an officially designated international terrorist organization. And so, as Reilly pointed out, “the government doesn’t call white, non-Muslim terrorists what they are.“ This week, Reilly is in Wichita, Kansas, to cover the trial of three white militia members accused of plotting to massacre Somali Muslim immigrants whom they called “cockroaches.” (A HuffPost Fringe correspondent will be relieving Reilly there soon.) It’s a rare case for a few reasons. First, most terror cases, especially those involving Muslim defendants, never make it to trial. Second, the federal government is using the “T” word to describe white guys, but for a very technical reason: they used bombs.If the defendants did what the government says they did, they’re domestic terrorists. But the only reason they’re facing terrorism-related charges is because their alleged plot involved bombs. Had they decided to go door to door shooting Muslims living in an apartment complex in Garden City, as they are accused of discussing on audiotapes, there would be no basis for a terrorism-related charge and they’d likely be facing only civil rights charges.There is a growing movement among FBI agents to create a domestic terror statute, especially as the threat of right-wing extremism grows. This week, HuffPost looked back at a chilling 2015 FBI intelligence bulletin which warned that armed militia groups in the U.S. were beginning to plot violence against Muslims.The FBI — perhaps better known for entrapping young, mentally ill Muslim men in terror plots they would never have attempted by themselves — was right. Militia groups in the U.S. have repeatedly attacked, harassed and plotted violence against Muslims over the past three years. And it’s something we should all be worried about.Cuck o' the Week  In February, Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, who runs The Right Stuff alt-right podcast platform, got rustled by a Newsweek story written by Friend of the Fringe (FoF) Michael Edison Hayden. The story was about Daniel Kleve, a heavily armed violence-loving white supremacist undergrad at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Kleve’s classmates were understandably spooked by his presence among them. But Enoch, who is known around Fringe headquarters as the “Human Groyper,” got spooked by Hayden’s story and melted down on Twitter. For reasons that remain unclear to your Fringe correspondents, Enoch, who is also known to us as “Button Eyes,” accused us, along with Hayden, of “inciting mobs” against Kleve. Enoch frothed and foamed through the night, issuing strange ominous threats. People alerted Twitter. Yesterday, more than a month later, Twitter sent out this message. Simmer down, Button Eyes.
 It’s been a rough few weeks for Andrew Anglin, the publisher of The Daily Stormer. After the little Nazi propagandist attacked far-right groups the Traditionalist Worker Party and the League of the South, a rift opened up in the alt-right between Anglin’s keyboard warrior “optics cucks” and extremists who take to the streets. The fallout has not been kind to Anglin. He’s taking abuse on Gab, a social media platform overrun by racists and fascists, and in the forum of his own website. Many of his troll flunkies have abandoned him.But it only gets worse for Anglin. On Tuesday, a judge determined that a Montana federal court has jurisdiction in a harassment case the Nazi has been hiding from for almost a year. Anglin and his oil slick of an attorney, Marc Randazza, made a series of ludicrous claims about Anglin’s location — Nigeria, Russia, the Philippines, Greece, Cambodia, anywhere to avoid responsibility for the abuse Anglin urged his followers to direct at a Jewish woman in Whitefish. But the court has had enough, and the lawsuit, which has the potential to shut down Anglin for years, will now move forward. To understand the dangers posed by today’s far-right extremists we need to listen to them. Each week, the Angry White Men blog highlights a snippet of conversation from an “alt-right” podcast to show you how fascists and racists really think. Don't say we didn't warn you, America….Even Nazis get lucky sometimes. Such was the case this week for “Unite the Right” organizer Jason Kessler, who had a judge in Albemarle County, Virginia, dismiss a perjury charge against him over a technicality.To recap: in January 2017, Kessler was collecting petition signatures in Charlottesville to oust then-city councilman Wes Bellamy at the Downtown Mall. After being accosted by James Justin Taylor, a local man, Kessler punched Taylor in the face and told police in a sworn statement that he’d been assaulted first. Both Kessler and Taylor were charged with assaulting the other, but Taylor’s charge was later dropped, while Kessler was charged with perjury after surveillance camera footage proved that he lied to the cops.But Commonwealth Attorney Robert Tracci forgot how to lawyer on his way to the courthouse and failed to establish that the crime took place in Albemarle County. First-year law students could have done better, and Tracci’s error forced Judge Cheryl Higgins to grant Kessler’s motion to throw out the case. Since then, Kessler has been disingenuously crowing about his vindication in court, even claiming victory on “crying Nazi” Christopher Cantwell’s latest “Radical Agenda” podcast.“Look, we beat the thing on a technicality, but we had a strong case for just winning the thing outright, right in front of the jury,” he told Cantwell. Kessler claimed that Tracci wanted to slap him with a felony in order to take away his firearms and voting rights and boasted that he refused to plead guilty because he “wasn’t guilty.”Cantwell, a notoriously unhinged windbag, went on a rant about how he and his fellow fascists like Kessler were blameless in Charlottesville and that without the “Jew media distorting reality,” it would be obvious that the neo-Nazis were the “good guys.” He also vowed to beat his own charges -- Cantwell is facing two charges of illegal use of tear gas, phosgene or other gases -- and make Charlottesville officials and their “many conspirators … pay for their sins.”Big talk from little men who never shut up about free speech. Cantwell is pathologically dishonest. And Kessler brazenly lied to the cops in an attempt to weasel out of responsibility for slugging a critic in the face. The only reason he’s a free man is because a prosecutor dropped the ball. Kessler was just the first of several white supremacists who will have their day in court. Let’s hope the city of Charlottesville can do better next time.  White supremacy won't fall with just a few statues.Did a friend send you this? Subscribe to HuffPost Fringe.©2018 HuffPost | 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 |
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