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Tag: neo-nazis

  • What to know after Trump classifies antifa as a domestic terror organization

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    President Donald Trump on Monday signed an order designating a decentralized movement known as antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, though whether he can actually do that remained unclear. Trump blames antifa for political violence.The Republican president said on social media last week during a state visit to the United Kingdom that he would be making such a designation. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER” and said he will be “strongly recommending” that its funders be investigated.The White House released Trump’s executive order shortly after he departed for New York, where he was addressing the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.Here are a few things to know about Trump and antifa:What is antifa?Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.Can Trump designate it as a domestic terrorist organization?Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the Justice Department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence.But there is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists.The executive order did not specify how Trump would go about designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.What does antifa do exactly?Literature from the antifa movement encourages followers to pursue lawful protest activity as well as more confrontational acts, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report.The literature suggests that followers monitor the activities of white supremacist groups, publicize online the personal information of perceived enemies, develop self-defense training regimens and compel outside organizations to cancel any speakers or events with “a fascist bent,” the report said.People associated with antifa have been present for significant demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in recent years, including mobilizing against a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. They were also present during clashes with far-right groups in Portland, Oregon.Why did Trump label antifa as domestic terrorists?He says it’s a very bad and “sick” group. The executive order says antifa “uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide” to accomplish its goal of overthrowing the U.S. government. The order calls on relevant government departments and agencies to use every authority to investigate, disrupt and dismantle any and all illegal operations, including terrorist actions conducted by antifa or anyone claiming to act on its behalf.Trump’s history with antifaIn Trump’s first term, he and members of his administration singled out antifa as being responsible for the violence at protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes and held it there even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air.Then-Attorney General William Barr described “antifa-like tactics” by out-of-state agitators and said antifa was instigating violence and engaging in “domestic terrorism” and would be dealt with accordingly.At the time, Trump blamed antifa by name for the violence, along with violent mobs, arsonists and looters.He recently began singling out antifa again by name following the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk, who was a big supporter of the president.In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office last week, Trump said he would pursue a domestic terrorism designation for antifa if such a move had the support of Pam Bondi, the current attorney general, and other Cabinet members.“It’s something I would do, yeah,” Trump said. ”I would do that 100%. Antifa is terrible.”He previously had called for antifa to be designated as a terror organization after skirmishes in Portland, Oregon, during his first term.

    WASHINGTON —

    President Donald Trump on Monday signed an order designating a decentralized movement known as antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, though whether he can actually do that remained unclear. Trump blames antifa for political violence.

    The Republican president said on social media last week during a state visit to the United Kingdom that he would be making such a designation. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER” and said he will be “strongly recommending” that its funders be investigated.

    The White House released Trump’s executive order shortly after he departed for New York, where he was addressing the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

    Here are a few things to know about Trump and antifa:

    What is antifa?

    Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

    Can Trump designate it as a domestic terrorist organization?

    Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the Justice Department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence.

    But there is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists.

    The executive order did not specify how Trump would go about designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

    What does antifa do exactly?

    Literature from the antifa movement encourages followers to pursue lawful protest activity as well as more confrontational acts, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report.

    The literature suggests that followers monitor the activities of white supremacist groups, publicize online the personal information of perceived enemies, develop self-defense training regimens and compel outside organizations to cancel any speakers or events with “a fascist bent,” the report said.

    People associated with antifa have been present for significant demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in recent years, including mobilizing against a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. They were also present during clashes with far-right groups in Portland, Oregon.

    Why did Trump label antifa as domestic terrorists?

    He says it’s a very bad and “sick” group. The executive order says antifa “uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide” to accomplish its goal of overthrowing the U.S. government. The order calls on relevant government departments and agencies to use every authority to investigate, disrupt and dismantle any and all illegal operations, including terrorist actions conducted by antifa or anyone claiming to act on its behalf.

    Trump’s history with antifa

    In Trump’s first term, he and members of his administration singled out antifa as being responsible for the violence at protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes and held it there even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air.

    Then-Attorney General William Barr described “antifa-like tactics” by out-of-state agitators and said antifa was instigating violence and engaging in “domestic terrorism” and would be dealt with accordingly.

    At the time, Trump blamed antifa by name for the violence, along with violent mobs, arsonists and looters.

    He recently began singling out antifa again by name following the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk, who was a big supporter of the president.

    In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office last week, Trump said he would pursue a domestic terrorism designation for antifa if such a move had the support of Pam Bondi, the current attorney general, and other Cabinet members.

    “It’s something I would do, yeah,” Trump said. ”I would do that 100%. Antifa is terrible.”

    He previously had called for antifa to be designated as a terror organization after skirmishes in Portland, Oregon, during his first term.

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  • Trump says he’ll designate antifa as a terrorist group but offers few details

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    President Donald Trump said early Thursday that he plans to designate antifa as a “major terrorist organization.”Antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” is an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups and is not a singular entity. They consist of groups that resist fascists and neo-Nazis, especially at demonstrations.It’s unclear how the administration would label what is effectively a decentralized movement as a terrorist organization, and the White House on Wednesday did not immediately offer more details.Trump, who is on a state visit to the United Kingdom, made the announcement in a social media post shortly before 1:30 a.m. Thursday local time. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER.” He also said he will be “strongly recommending” that funders of antifa be investigated.Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the Justice Department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence.There is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists.In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he would pursue a domestic terrorism designation for antifa if such a move had the support of Attorney General Pam Bondi and others in his Cabinet.“It’s something I would do, yeah,” Trump said. ”I would do that 100%. Antifa is terrible.”Wednesday night, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., praised Trump’s announcement, saying: “Antifa seized upon a movement of legitimate grievances to promote violence and anarchy, working against justice for all. The President is right to recognize the destructive role of Antifa by designating them domestic terrorists.” In July 2019, Cassidy and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced a resolution in the Senate to condemn the violent acts of antifa and to designate the group a domestic terror organization.In 2020, in the midst of the George Floyd protests, Trump also raised the idea of designating antifa as a terror organization.Trump’s previous FBI director, Christopher Wray, said in testimony that year that antifa is an ideology, not an organization, lacking the hierarchical structure that would usually allow it to be designated as a terror group by the federal government.

    WASHINGTON —

    President Donald Trump said early Thursday that he plans to designate antifa as a “major terrorist organization.”

    Antifa, short for “anti-fascists,” is an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups and is not a singular entity. They consist of groups that resist fascists and neo-Nazis, especially at demonstrations.

    It’s unclear how the administration would label what is effectively a decentralized movement as a terrorist organization, and the White House on Wednesday did not immediately offer more details.

    Trump, who is on a state visit to the United Kingdom, made the announcement in a social media post shortly before 1:30 a.m. Thursday local time. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER.” He also said he will be “strongly recommending” that funders of antifa be investigated.

    Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the Justice Department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence.

    There is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists.

    In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said he would pursue a domestic terrorism designation for antifa if such a move had the support of Attorney General Pam Bondi and others in his Cabinet.

    “It’s something I would do, yeah,” Trump said. ”I would do that 100%. Antifa is terrible.”

    Wednesday night, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., praised Trump’s announcement, saying: “Antifa seized upon a movement of legitimate grievances to promote violence and anarchy, working against justice for all. The President is right to recognize the destructive role of Antifa by designating them domestic terrorists.” In July 2019, Cassidy and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced a resolution in the Senate to condemn the violent acts of antifa and to designate the group a domestic terror organization.

    In 2020, in the midst of the George Floyd protests, Trump also raised the idea of designating antifa as a terror organization.

    Trump’s previous FBI director, Christopher Wray, said in testimony that year that antifa is an ideology, not an organization, lacking the hierarchical structure that would usually allow it to be designated as a terror group by the federal government.

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  • Neo-Nazi, 2 others face trial in killing of gay Phoenix man

    Neo-Nazi, 2 others face trial in killing of gay Phoenix man

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    Neo-Nazi skinhead Cory Young, his wife Shannon Young and co-defendant Angel Mullooly now face a July 22 trial for their alleged roles in the beating death of Jake Kelly, a 49-year-old gay Phoenix man.

    The trio appeared in court on Tuesday before Maricopa County Superior Judge Daniel Martin for a pretrial conference for their alleged involvement in Kelly’s homicide in August.

    Mullooly, 34, and Young, 44, stood in shackles and dirty orange scrubs as Martin scheduled the trial’s start date for this summer. Shannon Young, no longer in custody, appeared in street clothes. On Dec. 13, the 38-year-old woman’s bond was reduced from $50,000 to $5,000. She made bail a week later, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

    The Youngs each face one felony count of interfering with a police investigation. Mullooly is charged with second-degree murder and is being held on a $1 million bond. Cory Young, a tattoo artist with a violent prison record, is being held on a $100,000 bond.

    Martin asked about a motion to have Cory Young’s bail lowered. The motion was filed in mid-January by Young’s then-attorney, Jacob Fausette, who recently left the case. Veteran defense attorney Richard Gaxiola replaced Fausette as Young’s counsel on Jan. 31.

    Gaxiola told the judge that he was withdrawing the motion to lower Young’s bail. He was waiting to receive the case file and said he needed to review it before proceeding.

    Gaxiola is known for successfully defending violent career criminals, alleged murderers, gang members and, most notably, members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

    After the hearing, Gaxiola declined to discuss the case with Phoenix New Times.

    “I can tell you at the onset that Cory is presumed innocent under the law, and we will present a defense in accordance to the actual facts,” he said.

    Kelly’s face was “completely pulverized” and he suffered multiple fractures of his skull, face, sternum and ribs, when he was attacked on Aug. 27. He also received numerous internal injuries, underwent several surgeries and was placed on life support.

    Kelly’s mother, Jan, later authorized the withdrawal of life support. Kelly was pronounced dead on Sep. 8.

    click to enlarge

    Jake Kelly was beaten and left in the driveway of his north Phoenix home on Aug. 27. He died from his injuries on Sept. 8.

    Courtesy Jan Kelly

    ‘He killed my Jake’

    Jake Kelly shared a house with the Youngs near Cave Creek Road and Union Hills Drive. He officiated at Shannon Young’s wedding to Cory Young. All three were friends with Mullooly, who lived nearby.

    In interviews with police, the Youngs allegedly said they did not know how Kelly came to be battered and bloodied to the point of near death. The couple said all three of them went to a party on Aug. 27 and returned home drunk. The Youngs said they heard a loud bang outside, went to investigate and discovered Kelly lying in the driveway, semiconscious and nonverbal.

    They did not call 911. Instead, they brought Kelly in, bathed him, changed his clothes, put him on a couch and waited 16 hours before taking him to the hospital. They claimed no one else was present when they found Kelly.

    But in court documents, police described texts and statements to witnesses that contradict the Youngs’ account.

    One witness said Shannon Young texted her a photo of Kelly in a bathtub, bleeding from his injuries. The witness said Young allegedly told her later that “Cory and Angel fucked him up.”

    In cell phone data obtained by a police warrant, Mullooly allegedly sent a text message to his girlfriend, saying, “I fucked up Jake 2X babe.” Another text from Mullooly to the same woman supposedly showed a photo of Kelly bleeding in front of a garage door, with Cory Young “crouched down, holding Jake’s head” and Shannon Young standing to the side.

    As she has for nearly all hearings in the case, Jan Kelly attended the status conference on Tuesday. Kelly has said her son’s killing was a hate crime.

    Kelly said Cory Young looked at her twice during Tuesday’s hearing.

    Is Kelly concerned for her own safety if Young is released?

    “No, I’m really not,” she said. “He killed my Jake. He’s already done the worst he could do to me.”

    Jake Kelly’s remains were cremated and are in her possession. She explained that one of her other sons also died young and wanted his ashes transported to Costa Rica, where she had taken her boys to Tamarindo, a popular surfing destination.

    “Jake’s little brother died and wanted his ashes spread in Costa Rica,” she said. “I’m thinking if I get the chance to do that, I’ll take Jake, too.”



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    Stephen Lemons

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  • Inside The Online Community Where Home-Schoolers Learn How To Turn Their Kids Into ‘Wonderful Nazis’

    Inside The Online Community Where Home-Schoolers Learn How To Turn Their Kids Into ‘Wonderful Nazis’

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    On Nov. 5, 2021, a married couple calling themselves “Mr. and Mrs. Saxon” appeared on the neo-Nazi podcast “Achtung Amerikaner” to plug a new project: a social media channel dedicated to helping American parents home-school their children.

    “We are so deeply invested into making sure that that child becomes a wonderful Nazi,” Mrs. Saxon told the podcast’s host. “And by home-schooling, we’re going to get that done.”

    The Saxons said they launched the “Dissident Homeschool” channel on Telegram after years of searching for and developing “Nazi-approved material” for their own home-schooled children — material they were eager to share.

    The Dissident Homeschool channel — which now has nearly 2,500 subscribers — is replete with this material, including ready-made lesson plans authored by the Saxons on various subjects, like Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee (a “grand role model for young, white men”) and Martin Luther King Jr. (“the antithesis of our civilization and our people”).

    There are copywork assignments available for parents to print out, so that their children can learn cursive by writing out quotes from Adolf Hitler. There are recommended reading lists with bits of advice like “do not give them Jewish media content,” and there are tips for ensuring that home-schooling parents are in “full compliance with the law” so that “the state” doesn’t interfere.

    The Saxons also frequently update their followers on their progress home-schooling their own children. In one since-deleted post to Telegram, they posted an audio message of their kids shouting “Sieg Heil” — the German phrase for “hail victory” that was used by the Nazis.

    Over the past year, the Dissident Homeschool channel has become a community for like-minded fascists who see home schooling as integral to whites wresting control of America. The Saxons created this community while hiding behind a fake last name, but HuffPost has reviewed evidence indicating they are Logan and Katja Lawrence of Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Logan, until earlier this week, worked for his family’s insurance company while Katja taught the kids at home.

    The Anonymous Comrades Collective, a group of anti-fascist researchers, first uncovered evidence suggesting the Lawrences are behind Dissident Homeschool. HuffPost has verified the collective’s research.

    The Lawrences did not respond to repeated requests for comment made via phone calls, text messages and emails. A HuffPost reporter also left a message in the Dissident Homeschool channel asking Mr. and Mrs. Saxon for comment about the Anonymous Comrades Collective’s research. That message was immediately deleted by the channel’s administrators, who then disabled the channel’s comment and chat functions.

    A short time later, Katja Lawrence deleted her Facebook page.

    Although the Lawrences will now surely face some public scorn and accountability, it’s likely their neo-Nazi curriculum is legal. A concerted, decades-long campaign by right-wing Christian groups to deregulate home schooling has afforded parents wide latitude in how they teach their kids — even if that means indoctrinating them with explicit fascism.

    Meanwhile major right-wing figures are increasingly promoting home schooling as a way to save children from alleged “wokeness” — or liberal ideas about race and gender — in public and private schools. As extreme as the Dissident Homeschool channel is, the propaganda it shares targeting the American education system is just a more explicit and crass articulation of talking points made by Fox News hosts or by major figures in the Republican Party.

    “Without homeschooling our children,” Mrs. Saxon once wrote, “our children are left defenseless to the schools and the Gay Afro Zionist scum that run them.”

    Unmasking The Saxons

    A photo Mrs. Saxon posted to the Dissident Homeschool channel of a completed home-school assignment in which her children wrote a quote by Adolf Hitler.

    After Anonymous Comrades Collective published its research suggesting Mr. and Mrs. Saxon are actually Logan and Katja Lawrence, two of the couple’s relatives talked to HuffPost. Both asked not to be identified.

    Both of these relatives confirmed to HuffPost that the voices of Mr. and Mrs. Saxon on the neo-Nazi podcast “Amerikaner” belonged to Logan and Katja. “They have very distinct voices to me,” one of the relatives said. “It was absolutely Logan … no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t them.”

    The relatives confirmed that Logan and Katja home-school their children and that they have a German shepherd named Blondi, which is the same name as Hitler’s dog — something “Mrs. Saxon” had mentioned once on Telegram. According to a search of dog licenses in Wyandot County, Ohio, a woman named Katja Lawrence is the owner of a “black/tan” German shepherd.

    Despite their best efforts to keep their real, offline identities hidden, over the past year, Mr. and Mrs. Saxon had revealed similar pieces of biographical information in Telegram posts, blogs and podcast appearances — information the Anonymous Comrades Collective filed away.

    Like when Mr. Saxon revealed that he and his wife live in a small farming community in the Great Lakes area. “A town of 6,000 people, in the middle of a cornfield that, up until about five years ago, was essentially 100% white,” he said on a podcast, lamenting that the area was growing more diverse. “Until 1945, there was a sign on the city limits that said ‘no negroes allowed within the city limits,’” he added.

    The Anonymous Comrades Collective, already suspecting the Saxons might live in Ohio, found that census records indicated the town of Upper Sandusky had about 6,000 people. And according to a Tougaloo College database of former Sundown Towns — all-white communities that warned Black people not to be seen there after sunset, lest they be murdered — Upper Sandusky was once home to a racist sign with a message similar to the one Mr. Saxon described. (According to the database, the sign actually said: “N****r don’t let the sun set on you.”)

    In that same podcast episode, Mr. Saxon grew angry while discussing how a company near his home had offered employment to refugees from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. The company, he said, was “bringing third world, tropical people into our little white ethnostate of a town.” A search of news reports after Hurricane Maria shows that in 2018, Kasai North America, an automotive supplier in Upper Sandusky, had recruited workers displaced by the storm.

    Mrs. Saxon also revealed that she was a naturalized immigrant from Europe, and her posts suggested that she might be from the Netherlands, as she frequently discussed Dutch politics and food. A 2017 article in The Toledo Blade states that Katja Lawrence was among 51 people sworn in as U.S. citizens during a naturalization ceremony at a local high school. Her country of origin: the Netherlands.

    After Anonymous Comrades Collective published its research earlier this week, neo-Nazis on Telegram mourned that the Saxons had been doxxed. A man going by the name “Gordon Kahl,” who hosts the “Amerikaner” podcast, wrote that “nothing bad happens to anyone who deserves it, just people like the Saxons who have never wronged anyone. What’s the fucking point.”

    This was a seeming admission by Gordon Kahl that the Anonymous Comrades Collective research was correct. Kahl and Mr. Saxon, after all, knew each other offline, according to an episode of the “Amerikaner” in which they discussed going to a neo-Nazi party together.

    When HuffPost talked to the Lawrences’ two relatives, they were also in a type of mourning — shocked and saddened that two of their family members seemed to be secret neo-Nazis.

    The relatives were mostly worried, though, about the Lawrences’ children being home-schooled this way. “That these kids don’t know anything different and probably won’t get to know anything different is just heartbreaking,” one of the relatives said.

    Plus, the relative said, it’s not just the Lawrences’ children they’re worried about: It’s all the home-schooled children who have parents sourcing lesson plans from the Dissident Homeschool channel.

    “It’s just horrifying,” the relative said. “It’s disgusting. It’s heartbreaking for their children and who knows how many other children that are affected by these actions.”

    Nazi Groomers

    A post from Dissident Homeschool, a channel on Telegram where neo-Nazis learn to indoctrinate their children.
    A post from Dissident Homeschool, a channel on Telegram where neo-Nazis learn to indoctrinate their children.

    Mr. and Mrs. Saxon appeared to be thrilled to see their Dissident Homeschool channel gain a larger following. When the channel reached 1,000 subscribers, Mrs. Saxon posted a Nazi-era photo from Germany of uniformed schoolchildren throwing up fascist salutes. “It fills my heart with joy to know there is such a strong base of homeschoolers and homeschool-interested national socialists,” she wrote to mark the occasion. “Hail victory.”

    Mrs. Saxon does the bulk of the posting in Dissident Homeschool, and developed extensive lesson plans that other neo-Nazi parents could use for their children. These lesson plans — about Christopher Columbus, the history of Thanksgiving and German Appreciation Day, as well as a “math assignment” about “crime statistics” that is meant to teach kids which “demographics to be cautious around” — are deeply racist.

    One lesson plan about Martin Luther King Jr. tells parents to teach their kids that the revered civil rights leader was “a degenerate anti-white criminal whose life’s work was to make it impossible for white communities to protect their own way of life and keep their people safe from black crime.”

    “Typically speaking,” Mrs. Saxon wrote in a post, “whites build societies whereas blacks destroy them.”

    Included in the lesson plan is a copywork assignment for parents to print out, so that their kids can practice cursive while writing out a racist quote by George Lincoln Rockwell, the infamous American neo-Nazi.

    “A leopard doesn’t change his spots just because you bring him in from the jungle and try to housebreak him and turn him into a pet,” reads the Rockwell quote. “He may learn to sheathe his claws in order to beg a few scraps off the dinner table, and you may teach him to be a beast of burden, but it doesn’t pay to forget that he’ll always be what he was born: a wild animal.”

    A copywork assignment posted to the Dissident Homeschool channel by Mrs. Saxon. It's designed for kids to write out a quote by infamous neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell.
    A copywork assignment posted to the Dissident Homeschool channel by Mrs. Saxon. It’s designed for kids to write out a quote by infamous neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell.

    Dissident Homeschool subscribers often thanked Mrs. Saxon for her lesson plans. “This is perfect,” one subscriber wrote. “My wife and I are always looking for good pro-white lesson plans for our kiddos.”

    “I love the work you are doing on this channel,” wrote another subscriber. “You are doing great work for our race.”

    Mr. and Mrs. Saxon often discussed indoctrinating their own children with Nazism. On April 20, 2022, Mrs. Saxon wrote that “Our children celebrated Adolf’s birthday today by learning about Germany and eating our favorite German foods. Recipe included.”

    “We are living life and enjoying the beauty left behind by our ancestors,” she continued. “Heil Hitler to you all. Alles Gute zum Geburtstag unserer Führer!”

    Another time Mrs. Saxon posted a photo of a copywork assignment her children had just completed. It showed her kids’ cursive spelling out a quote from a man who, as Mrs. Saxon noted, “fought a great struggle for our people and dedicated his life to securing the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

    The quote read, in part: “I fell down on my knees and thanked heaven … for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time.”

    It was from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

    A Seething Hatred For American Public Education

    Mr. and Mrs. Saxon are clear that they don’t have a problem, per se, with public schools — just with public schools in their current incarnation. “I have said this before: if we lived in Nazi Germany my children would attend school and after school extra curricular activities,” Mrs. Saxon wrote once.

    But Mr. and Mrs. Saxon don’t live in Nazi Germany — they live in America in 2023, where they see schools as hellbent on turning children into everything they despise.

    The Dissident Homeschool channel, beyond being a repository for neo-Nazi lesson plans, is also a clearinghouse for anti-education propaganda — namely memes and videos that paint public schools as havens for liberalism and “degeneracy,” as the Saxons often put it.

    They frequently post videos and memes in the channel from far-right influencers like LibsOfTikTok, the popular hate account run by Chaya Raichik. LibsOfTikTok has been at the center of a conservative uproar over how schools talk about the existence of queer people, with Raichik’s memes and videos falsely depicting the LGBTQ community as using the classroom to “groom” children. Raichik is now famous on the right, appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox Nation, and getting a shoutout on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which is the most-listened-to in America.

    This week on Twitter, Raichik reposted a video of a teacher talking to kids about gender identity. “Homeschool your kids,” she wrote.

    A growing chorus of right-wing figures have latched onto this anti-LGBTQ moral panic — along with a corresponding panic over “critical race theory” being taught in schools — to encourage their followers to home-school their children.

    “There’s a lot of interconnectedness between the home-schooling movement and the current attacks you’re seeing on public schools,” Carmen Longoria-Green, a lawyer who serves as the board president of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, told HuffPost. “The calls for books bans, the attacks on libraries, the attacks on public school teachers and limiting their ability to provide instruction about American history and so forth. It’s all quite interconnected.”

    Longoria-Green, who was home-schooled herself, said the right-wing push to home-school kids started over half a century ago in response to Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruling that desegregated America’s schools. White fundamentalist Christian parents were upset over their kids having to attend school with Black kids. Moreover, Longoria-Green said, these parents saw home schooling as a way to make sure their children’s education aligned with their religious ideology.

    “They realized that it was a way to restrict access to information about science they disagreed with, so it was a response to their concerns about the teaching of evolution in public schools, and it also had to with desires to restrict children’s access to information about sexual orientation and sexuality,” Longoria-Green said. “And it answered their desire to restrict info about American history, specifically America’s colonialist, racist, genocidal past.”

    The 1980s and 1990s saw right-wing organizations like the Home School Legal Defense Association effectively lobby legislators to deregulate home schooling across the country.

    “They activated home-schooling parents and basically bullied the legislators into removing all types of restrictions or protections that would have ensured that home-schooled children were receiving a good education and were safe,” Longoria-Green said. “So it is very, very easy in this country now to claim to be home schooling but to not actually be providing your children with an adequate education. And I’m not even saying a non-racist education. I’m saying it is quite possible in this country to claim that you’re home-schooling and then never teach your child how to read.”

    Longoria-Green wasn’t optimistic when asked about whether there might be a way for the government to intervene to stop Mr. and Mrs. Saxon, or other parents in the Dissident Homeschool channel, from indoctrinating their kids to Nazism.

    “I think what they’re doing is perfectly legal,” she said.

    A meme posted to the Dissident Homeschool channel.
    A meme posted to the Dissident Homeschool channel.

    In Ohio, parents who want to home-school are required to submit “a brief outline of the intended curriculum” and a “list of teaching materials” to the local public school superintendent, according to the state Department of Education.

    Then, if the “home education plan” meets the basic requirements of state law, the superintendent must excuse the child from public school attendance.

    But even in states with these types of requirements, there’s little to no enforcement mechanism to ensure that parents are actually teaching the curriculum they submitted to the superintendent.

    It’s unlikely, after all, that Mr. and Mrs. Saxon would send their local superintendent the lesson plans they created praising Hitler.

    Eric Landversicht, the superintendent in Wyandot County, where the Lawrences live, told HuffPost in a statement that he “cannot discuss the personally identifiable information of specific students due to state and federal privacy laws.”

    He pointed HuffPost to Ohio’s home-schooling statute and noted that “parents who decide to home educate their child are responsible for choosing the curriculum and course of study.”

    The Saxons frequently post material in the Dissident Homeschool channel instructing parents how to interact with superintendents or other officials who might assess their curricula.

    “For many states in America, it is so very easy to be in compliance,” Mrs. Saxon wrote once. “You send a letter … Just find out what you have to do, and quickly do it. After that, you can sit down and relax, and figure out how you will homeschool the children.”

    Another time, Mrs. Saxon grew reflective about Dissident Homeschool and its goals.

    “I just work hard to homeschool the children, live life, enjoy the children, do the whole homestead bit AND secretly anonymously share homeschool information with a group of fellow nazis on a private little corner of the internet so that our children can all become super race aware and fight for their race,” she wrote.

    She seemed excited for the future, and eager to create new lesson plans for her kids and for her subscribers.

    “We have given the oldest kids tidbits on WWI and WWII,” Mrs. Saxon wrote during a chat in the Dissident Homeschool channel. “And hopefully in a year or so we will have a grand unit study to offer all the dissident-right children about Hitler.”

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  • Amazon Removes Some Nazi-Linked Products After Complaints From Jewish Center

    Amazon Removes Some Nazi-Linked Products After Complaints From Jewish Center

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    Amazon has dropped some Nazi and neo-Nazi sales items after angry complaints from a prominent international Jewish organization.

    The Los-Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center sharply criticized Amazon in a statement on its website Thursday for “monetizing Nazi and neo-Nazi paraphernalia” — and said it demanded in an email to the company that it “remove these items immediately.”

    “In an era when 63% of all religious-based hate crimes in America target America’s Jews — 2.4% of the US population — at a time when Blacks are again the number one target of race-based hate crimes, Amazon should not be using its business model to market hateful symbols and neo-Nazi paraphernalia,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action at the center, said in a statement.

    The center provided screenshots of some of the products for sale, including a swastika necklace and bracelets, other jewelry, badges and pins featuring Nazi symbols or evocative of them.

    Amazon said in a statement to The New York Post that it utilizes “proactive mechanisms” to “catch offensive listings before a customer ever sees them. Our technology continuously scans all products listed for sale looking for text and images that we have determined violate our policies, and immediately removes them.”

    Company officials also noted that the “realm of potentially offensive products is nuanced and diverse” and the number of products offered on the site massive.

    Though Amazon has removed a number of the items, similar products were still being offered for sale, Gizmodo reported Friday. Cooper told Gizmodo then that Amazon had to respond to the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He said he’s angry the company can’t be proactive in keeping hate off the site.

    “It’s simply not acceptable for the biggest economic giant on the block to play games of Wack-a-mole rather than fix things,” Cooper told Gizmodo.

    Amazon has a policy on offensive and controversial materials. It prohibits products that promote intolerance toward race, religion, or sexual orientation.

    In a similar controversy, Walmart just last week stopped selling “KKK” marked boots online. Walmart deleted an online listing for hiking boots with a red “KKK” on the tongue, telling Business Insider it would review how the “inappropriate merchandise” got on its platform in the first place.

    It’s not the first time Amazon has been in trouble for antisemitic products.

    A year ago the Simon Wiesenthal Center sent a letter to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos demanding Amazon removed more than 20 Nazi propaganda films that were either on sale in Amazon’s online portal or available for streaming on its Amazon Prime video network.

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