Ron Paul, the libertarian former Texas congressman whose hard-line views are widely admired on the radical right but who claims to reject racism, has started a new organization stacked with a hodgepodge of far-right extremists.

As The Daily Beast reported yesterday, the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is ostensibly designed to promote a discourse about U.S. foreign policy. But its advisory board is stacked with what writer James Kirchik characterized as “a bevy of conspiracy theorists, cranks, and apologists for some of the worst regimes on the planet.” ( continue to full post… )

A convicted felon from Ohio with neo-Nazi sympathies and an illegal arsenal of assault rifles, semi-automatic pistols and other weapons was tracking Jewish and African-American community leaders in Detroit before his recent arrest by a federal anti-terrorism task force, according to a report by Michael Isikoff of NBC News.

“The FBI averted a catastrophe in this case, there’s no doubt about it,” Steven M. Dettelbach, the U.S. Attorney in Cleveland, told NBC News. ( continue to full post… )

Two white supremacists tied to the brutal murders of four people on the West Coast now face a federal indictment filed in Oregon alleging that they embarked on their rampage in order to “purify and preserve the white race.”

David “Joey” Pedersen, 32, and Holly Ann Grigsby, 24, both from Oregon, were named in a racketeering conspiracy indictment returned by a federal grand last Thursday in Portland. The umbrella-style racketeering charge alleges the pair committed various criminal acts in Washington, Oregon and California including murder, kidnapping, use of firearms during crimes of violence, transporting a stolen vehicle, unauthorized use of bank cards, aggravated identity theft, carjacking resulting in death and felon in possession of a firearm. ( continue to full post… )

We used to think the $20 million-a-year American Family Association (AFA) acted as crazy as it does mainly because it allowed mostly free rein to its best-known spokesman, the truly nutty Bryan Fischer. Fischer, after all, spends his days raving about how gay people were behind the Holocaust, how black people on welfare “rut like animals,” how the cure for promiscuity is to kill the promiscuous, even the idea, completely contradicted by science, that the HIV virus doesn’t cause AIDS.

Sure, there was wacky old Don Wildmon, who founded the Tupelo, Miss.-based group back in 1977 and was given to an occasional anti-Semitic diatribe about how Jews control the media and hate Christians. But that was mostly forgotten years ago, and Wildmon and his son generally sound a little calmer these days.

But the extremist bench at the AFA turns out to be deeper than that. ( continue to full post… )

As one of the key players in the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), Kyle Rogers has never backed down from urging politicians to stand up for whites. But in recent months, when not mugging for the camera in an ill-fitting suit, the modern face of the council has another life posting anti-Semitic tirades to the Internet’s largest white nationalist message board.

According to several anti-racist websites, including One People’s Project, Rogers regularly posts to Stormfront.org –– one of the oldest and largest racist message boards online –– under the name “Valhalla.” In one post, in fact, Rogers signs his name as “Kyle” and includes a link to his business, which sells white nationalist and racist flags. ( continue to full post… )

The New Black Panther Party (NBPP) and New Black Liberation Militia (NBLM) are planning an armed rally in Sanford, Fla. later this month, Hatewatch has learned.

Speaking via phone from Jacksonville, where his group was holding a press conference with NBPP area spokesman Mikhail Muhammad, NBLM head Minister Prince Najee Shaka Muhammad today told Hatewatch that the armed rally, planned for April 21, is part of a crusade to obtain “justice” for Trayvon Martin, the black teenager whose shooting death in Sanford at the hands of a neighborhood watch volunteer has caused waves of outrage across America. ( continue to full post… )

A Jewish community center in Paramus, N.J., apparently was a potential target of a 19-year-old New Jersey man arrested for two synagogue firebombings, authorities say.  In one of those bombings, a rabbi and eight members of his family narrowly awoke in time to escape their burning living quarters.

Anthony M. Graziano, who apparently acted as a “lone wolf,” was arrested last Monday, just three days after Bergen County authorities and the FBI released surveillance video and photos and posted a $7,500 reward.

Graziano’s arrest led authorities to search 70 other synagogues and Jewish community centers within 10 miles of the suspect’s home. As part of that expanded search, investigators found multiple Molotov cocktails and a bicycle in a wooded area near the Jewish Community Center of Paramus, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said at a Friday press conference. ( continue to full post… )

Concern is mounting over an apparent wave of anti-Semitic assaults and vandalism in the New York City area since November, with the latest two incidents being investigated as hate crimes.

At about 4:30 a.m. today, several Molotov cocktails and other explosive devices were thrown into the rabbi’s residence at Congregation Beth El in Rutherford, N.J., according to the Associated Press. Rabbi Nosson Schuman told CBS 880 Radio that he saw a flash of fire outside his bedroom window before the bedspread caught fire. The rabbi said his five children and wife made it out safely, and that the damage to the building was minimal. Bergen County prosecutor John Molinelli said the incident is being investigated as attempted murder and bias-related arson. ( continue to full post… )

As the Occupy Wall Street protesters are swept out of their encampments around the nation, many are asking what the movement’s next step will be and if the police actions might actually help the two-month-old populist outburst grow.

But even for those seeking to discern the future of the OWS movement, a more instructive question might be: What was OWS, anyway?

To hear the denizens of the far right tell it, the protesters who filled public spaces in cities around the country and even abroad were unwashed hippies, lazy potheads incapable of holding a job, homeless opportunists scarfing up free food and shelter. They were Nazis. They were Marxists. They were anarchists. ( continue to full post… )

The FBI undercover tapes of four North Georgia militiamen arrested Tuesday offer an extraordinary glimpse of the terrorism the group is accused of planning. Details of how they allegedly intended to commit mass murder with deadly ricin, carry out assassinations of officials, and bomb government buildings abound in government affidavits that directly quote the men talking to undercover informants.

But there’s one thing the affidavits don’t tell you: What did these four elderly Georgians allegedly hope to accomplish? About as close as you get to an answer is this cryptic quote from the alleged ringleader, 73-year-old Frederick W. Thomas: “When it comes to saving the Constitution, that means some people gotta die.”

Although the group is not mentioned in the court papers, the organization the men belonged to is certainly the Georgia Militia, which on its Web page identifies one of the accused terrorists, Dan Roberts, 67, as a contact. And the Georgia Militia is one of the hardest line such groups around, going far beyond most militias’ hatred of the federal government to traffic in open racism and anti-Semitism. ( continue to full post… )