April 21, 2021 Screenshot: ABC News Extremists consistently use mainstream news stories as opportunities to share their racist, often violent, views on a range of social media and online platforms. The April 20, 2021 verdict in the Derek Chauvin murder trial was no exception. Chauvin was found guilty on all three charges in the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. Note: Many of the comments documented in this piece include racist, violent and otherwise disturbing language. Prior to the…

April 21, 2021 Burt Colucci speaks during private NSM gathering on April 16, 2021 UPDATE: On January 4, 2022, the Maricopa County Attorney’s office indicted Colucci on two counts of misdemeanor disorderly conduct and one count of felony disorderly conduct. On April 19, 2021, police in Chandler, Arizona, arrested the leader of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement (NSM), Burt Colucci of Kissimmee, Florida, for aggravated assault after he allegedly pointed a handgun at a Black…

April 09, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Cameron Shea, a 25-year-old leader of the neo-Nazi extremist group Atomwaffen, pleaded guilty to threatening journalists and activists with Nazi posters and menacing messages. Coronavirus lockdowns last year shifted some antisemitic hatred online, where conspiracy theories blaming Jews for the pandemic’s medical and economic devastation abounded, researchers reported. The Arkansas Senate on Wednesday approved a stripped-down hate crimes bill…

April 06, 2021 The best-known images from the January 6 rally and assault on the U.S. Capitol largely feature men, decked out in camouflage, MAGA hats and QAnon paraphernalia. But women made up about 14 percent of those who have been charged in relation to activity that day. This is an unusually high number of women for a right-wing extremist event, which is attributable at least in part to the high concentration of QAnon supporters at the January 6 events, and to the significant number of…

March 31, 2021 4.12.21 UPDATE:   The White Lives Matter marches that took place on Sunday, April 11 were very sparsely attended. Counter-protesters made up the majority of attendees -- and in some cases were the only attendees.  Huntington Beach saw the largest rally, with around 10 WLM marchers, some bearing extremist symbols and others with various right-wing flags, and 500 counter-protesters at its peak before being…

March 25, 2021 UPDATE: According to the TruNews website, the channel was banned from Facebook on April 3, 2021, and the TruNews page has been removed from the platform.  In early 2020, ADL wrote about TruNews and its host and founder, Rick Wiles, detailing the fundamentalist Christian video streaming site’s consistently antisemitic, anti-Zionist, anti-LGBTQ+ and Islamophobic rhetoric. In July 2020, a follow-up piece focused on TruNews’ use of…

March 25, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Asian Americans reported the single biggest increase in serious incidents of online hate and harassment as racist and xenophobic slurs blaming people of Asian descent for the coronavirus pandemic spread over the past year, according to a new survey from ADL. ADL is asking for an independent investigation into a Massachusetts high school football team that used Holocaust-related language including “Auschwitz” and Jewish words in its on-field…

March 18, 2021 From March 6-12, 2021, anti-Israel groups American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) and UK-based Friends of Al-Aqsa held an all-virtual Aqsa Week, described on AMP’s website as “programs and educational webinars... that focused on Jerusalem, its Islamic significance...the Prophetic connection to Palestine to[sic] the dark era of the Crusades and US/UK policy towards Jerusalem.” Many events, however, featured speakers who veered into inflammatory rhetoric,…

March 09, 2021 Extremist movements pose many problems to society, from spreading hate and intolerance to engaging in significant and deadly violence.  It is particularly problematic when adherents of extreme causes are able to persist in key institutions dedicated to protecting the people of the United States, institutions such as emergency response units, law enforcement and the military. Of these institutions, the U.S. military is the largest, with more than two million active duty…

March 05, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 U.S. House leaders canceled Thursday’s legislative session and rescheduled morning votes after police officials warned of a possible plot by a militia group to storm Capitol Hill. A suspect ADL identified as an alleged white supremacist was arrested after the FBI raided the Florida home he was renting after moving from New Jersey. Jewish groups called for an investigation into allegations that a Frontier Airlines flight crew made antisemitic…

February 26, 2021 Young Pharaoh, whose real name is Marshall Daniels, is an antisemitic conspiracy theorist who promotes racist theories about the superiority of Black people. He has also touted QAnon conspiracy theories, including Pizzagate and Frazzledrip (which accuses high profile Democrats of cutting a child’s face off and wearing it like a mask in a Satanic ritual) and uses popular QAnon hashtags. In 2021, he was invited and then disinvited from speaking at the annual CPAC…

February 26, 2021 As of February 25, 2021, more than 30 virtual events celebrating Black History Month have been disrupted by racist Zoombombing attacks. Zoombombing first gained attention nearly a year ago, during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as extremists and anonymous online trolls took advantage of the new reliance on virtual conferencing technology by disrupting a wide range of events, often targeting marginalized communities. In this most recent spate of virtual…

February 22, 2021 On February 5, 2021, the FBI arrested Christian Michael Mackey, an alleged member of neo-Nazi  group Iron Youth, on charges of an unlawful sale of a firearm. Mackey allegedly attempted to sell his gun to someone identified to him as a known felon, but Mackey seemed primarily concerned that the buyer was “based”— which in this case means that he subscribes to white supremacist beliefs. According to the affidavit, Mackey allegedly incited others in an…

February 19, 2021 THE WEEK’S BIG 3 Authorities in Poland, Russia, Hungary and some lawmakers in Britain’s Labour Party used antisemitism for political means, according to a new ADL report. ADL has positively identified 212 of the estimated 800 individuals who are believed to have breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, revealing a wide array of domestic extremists were among those who unleashed their fury on legislators and Capitol police, leading to five deaths and scores of…

February 17, 2021 It’s been more than a month since a horde of extremists forced their way into the U.S. Capitol, protesting the outcome of a national election and intent on disrupting a time-honored democratic process. At least five people died during the violent attack, including one Capitol Police officer. ADL’s Center on Extremism (COE) has identified 212 of the roughly 800 individuals who are believed to have breached the building on January 6. The emerging snapshot…