Members of the American Front – a well-armed, militia-style white supremacist group in Florida – were planning acts of violence and preparing for “an inevitable race war” when 11 of them were arrested last week, court documents say.

The documents, the outgrowth of a two-year investigation, also say American Front members received paramilitary training at a fortified compound near St. Cloud, Fla., from one of its Missouri members who is a U.S. military reservist. He was not among those arrested.

The American Front compound is on 10 acres in Florida’s Osceola County and is owned by group leader Marcus Faella, 39, and his wife, Patricia, 36, who were among those arrested on state charges of conducting illegal paramilitary training, attempting to shoot into an occupied dwelling, and prejudice while committing a crime. ( continue to full post… )

Conservatives tend to object when the gay rights movement is compared to the civil rights movement, often claiming that LGBT activists are trying to “hijack” a unique moment in American history.

It had been our impression here at Hatewatch that this objection was underpinned by an antipathy toward being compared to racist reactionaries who protested desegregation, the end of laws barring mixed-race marriage, and the other triumphs of the civil rights movement.

So it’s a little mystifying that in the last two weeks, two prominent anti-gay activists have compared their crusade to the Civil War – and themselves to the Confederacy. ( continue to full post… )

The FBI in 2010 disrupted what its agents now believe was a terrorist plot that involved killing President Obama, according to testimony and court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Spokane, Wash.

The revelation came at the two-day sentencing hearing for white supremacist Wayde Lynn Kurt, the accused mastermind of an alleged plot that was foiled with his arrest on federal firearms and forgery charges.

At the time of his arrest on Aug. 30, 2010, Kurt was associated with a gang of violent neo-Nazi skinheads and white supremacist Odinists who proudly talked of carrying out “coon-hunting” racial attacks in the Pacific Northwest. Their conversations were captured on a videotape that was later turned over to the FBI and shown in court during Kurt’s sentencing hearing. ( continue to full post… )

A hard-hitting propaganda campaign unleashed this year by Wayne LaPierre, executive director of the National Rifle Association, may be convincing Americans that President Obama will crack down on gun ownership if he’s re-elected and becomes a lame duck.

Skyrocketing sales of guns and ammunition, along with some shortages due to stockpiling, are reported by many U.S. shops. ( continue to full post… )

The Justice Department has cut a deal with a former member of the Alaska Peacemaker Militia to bolster its case against the group’s leader Schaeffer Cox and two others on trial in U.S. District Court in Anchorage.

Michael O. Anderson, who was arrested with Cox and co-defendants Lonnie Vernon and Coleman Barney in March 2011, will testify for the prosecution, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Tuesday as opening arguments were heard. ( continue to full post… )

J.T. Ready, the infamous neo-Nazi and border vigilante who killed himself and four others last week in a suburban Phoenix home, was the subject of a federal criminal domestic terrorism investigation into activities on the border, an Arizona television station has reported.

James Turgal, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Phoenix, told KPNX-TV that Ready had been under an investigation dating to his days as a swastika-wearing Nazi targeting ethnic groups. Turgal also confirmed that the FBI had looked at arresting Ready but was never able to develop enough evidence.

“He certainly … rode the edge of that dividing line between protected speech and criminal activity,” Turgal said. ( continue to full post… )

Three Florida leaders of the American Front, a California-based group of racist skinheads known for its predilection for violence, have been arrested on conspiracy and hate crime charges, along with four other members of the gang. ( continue to full post… )

One of the most prominent ex-gay organizations in the country, Exodus International, has been experiencing an exodus of a different sort, one it surely isn’t pleased to see. The group canceled its next Love Won Out (LWO) conference, which was scheduled for May 19 at Legacy Church in Albuquerque, N.M. ( continue to full post… )

Investigators examining the bloody scene near Phoenix where an anti-immigrant neo-Nazi murdered four people, including a 15-month-old baby girl, turned up “chemicals and military grade munitions,” authorities just announced.

J.T. Ready, a 39-year-old former National Socialist Movement leader who formed the nativist, militia-like U.S. Border Guard, was the apparent shooter before taking his own life in the murder-suicide, Gilbert Police Sgt. Bill Balafas said in a statement released today. ( continue to full post… )

Updated 5.04.12

Nativist extremists and white supremacists wasted little time responding with half-cocked conspiracy theories to the news that J.T. Ready, a neo-Nazi border vigilante, had died in an apparent murder-suicide outside Phoenix. For some, the blame lay with Mexican drug cartels. For others, it was the Zionist Occupied Government, or ZOG, once again silencing a critic. ( continue to full post… )