Episodes

  • Arrested Democracy, Part 2
    Nov 21 2024

    When Oath Keeper Darren Huff returned to Madisonville, Tennessee on April 20, 2010, he was planning to take control of the courthouse. It didn't quite work out that way. He didn't even see the inside of a courthouse until his own arrest a week later.

    Sources:

    https://www.politico.com/story/2010/04/army-birther-under-investigation-035823

    https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/army-birther-lakin-released-from-leavenworth/

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/04/26/gordon-liddy-on-shooting-from-the-lip/75754676-030f-4191-a9e3-a421855aea1f/

    https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-six-g-gordon-liddy-the-126130442/

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/08/roger-stone-kristin-davis-robert-mueller/

    https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democratic-party-accuses-republicans-voter-intimidation-federal-court

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/attorney-for-birther-army-doc-is-former-gop-staffer-and-anti-gay-crusader

    https://www.justice.gov/archive/usao/gan/press/2011/11-01-11.html

    https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/14/fewer-than-1-of-defendants-in-federal-criminal-cases-were-acquitted-in-2022/

    https://time.com/archive/6597707/the-secret-world-of-extreme-militias/

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-vaxxers-charge-followers-to-join-fake-anthony-fauci-grand-jury/

    https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4382623/fitzpatrick-v-bivins/

    https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/5092131/united-states-v-huff-tv1/

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Arrested Democracy, Pt .1
    Nov 14 2024

    In 2010, conspiracy theorists around the country were convinced that Barack Obama was not the rightful president. Some of them filed lawsuits. Some of them tried to have the President indicted. And when none of that worked, some of them took matters into their own hands and tried to arrest the county court employees they thought were standing in their way. In the first half of this story, Walter Fitzpatrick unsuccessfully storms the courtroom in Madisonville, Tennessee. The outcry over his arrest would motivate Oath Keeper Darren Huff to rally supporters for a second attempt.

    Sources:

    Jardina A, Traugott M. The Genesis of the Birther Rumor: Partisanship, Racial Attitudes, and Political Knowledge. The Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. 2019;4(1):60-80. doi:10.1017/rep.2018.25

    Josh Pasek, Tobias H. Stark, Jon A. Krosnick, Trevor Tompson, What motivates a conspiracy theory? Birther beliefs, partisanship, liberal-conservative ideology, and anti-Black attitudes, Electoral Studies, Volume 40, 2015

    Hughey, M.W. Show Me Your Papers! Obama’s Birth and the Whiteness of Belonging. Qual Sociol 35, 163–181 (2012).

    https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/birther-movement-founder-trump-clinton-228304

    https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33388485

    https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/us/12alabama.html

    https://www.newsherald.com/story/news/crime/2018/10/19/vigilante-group-oath-keepers-arrested-in-mexico-beach-following-hurricane-michael/9509280007/

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/oath-keepers-poll-watching_n_58122566e4b0990edc2f8178

    https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/hate-group-expert-daniel-levitas-discusses-posse-comitatus-christian-identity-movement-and

    https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/district-of-columbia/dcdce/1:2009mc00346/137380/2/0.pdf

    https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/25/judge-lamberth-jan-6-trump-00137960

    https://www.tncourts.gov/rules/rules-criminal-procedure/6

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    53 mins
  • A Deal With the Devil: Ethan Melzer, Pt. 2
    Nov 7 2024

    In 2022, Ethan Melzer pleaded guilty to plotting to help al Qaeda ambush and kill his entire unit while on a sensitive mission in Turkey. But Melzer's co-conspirators turned out to be a Canadian teenager and a government informant, not members of al Qaeda. And the satanic cult that drew him down this nazi rabbit hole turned out to have been run by a man on the FBI payroll.

    Sources

    https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/17286246/united-states-v-melzer

    https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69307006/united-states-of-america-v-melzer/

    https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-satanist-neo-nazi-plot-to-murder-u-s-soldiers-1352629/

    https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/neo-nazi-1378280

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/jack-teixiera-case-military-extremism-1234724461

    https://www.wired.com/story/the-dangerous-exploits-of-an-extremist-fbi-informant/

    https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/black-sky-thinking/ona-fascism-nazis-folk-horror-underground-occult/

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    1 hr
  • The Devil's Chat Room: Ethan Melzer, Pt. 1
    Oct 31 2024

    In June of 2020, US Army Private Ethan Melzer was arrested for leaking information about his unit's deployment to Turkey with the intention of causing a mass casualty incident. The plot was hatched in a Telegram chat room for a group calling itself Rapewaffen, an Atomwaffen splinter cell that was committed to the beliefs of a neonazi satanic cult called the Order of Nine Angles. This episode follows the rise of satanism within Atomwaffen and the chaos that influence caused.

    Sources:

    https://unicornriot.ninja/2020/national-guard-soldier-who-deployed-to-dc-identified-as-neo-nazi/

    https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/ohio-national-guard-member-sent-home-for-white-supremacist-views-is-likely-a-fascist-youtuber

    https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/post/ohio-national-guard-soldier-pulled-from-mission-in-d-c-appears-on-neo-fascist-podcast-says-hes-being-discharged

    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/05/fbi-national-guardsman-expressed-white-supremacist-ideology-303924

    https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/the-satanist-neo-nazi-plot-to-murder-u-s-soldiers-1352629/

    https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/neo-nazi-1378280

    https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2020-06-02/military-begins-staging-around-washington-to-quell-george-floyd-protests

    https://hopenothate.org.uk/2020/06/23/the-rapewaffen-telegram-channel/

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/soldiers-cases-highlight-reach-of-white-extremism-into-us-military/2020/06/25/0203532e-b582-11ea-9b0f-c797548c1154_story.html

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    54 mins
  • Weird Little Check-in
    Oct 24 2024

    There's no new weird little guy this week, but I wanted to check in with you about how the show is going so far and squeeze in a few weird little facts that got left on the cutting room floor of past episodes.

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    44 mins
  • Burning Hate: Tyler Dykes
    Oct 17 2024

    Tyler Bradley Dykes entered a guilty plea last year on the charge of burning an object with the intent to intimidate for his participation in the 2017 Nazi torch march in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was sentenced to just six months and was probably expecting to see his parents waiting for him outside the jail on his scheduled release date... but it was the FBI who picked him up.

    Sources:

    https://atlantaantifa.org/2023/04/19/inside-southern-sons-active-club-part-i/ https://atlantaantifa.org/2023/04/19/inside-southern-sons-active-club-part-ii/ https://sunlight161.noblogs.org/technology-king-lowcountry-ceo-tyler-dykes-bluffton-sc-marine-nazi/

    https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67681795/united-states-v-dykes/

    https://the-devils-advocates.ghost.io/burning-hate-bond-review/

    https://the-devils-advocates.ghost.io/unite-the-right-marcher-pleads-guilty-to-j6-charges/

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/white-nationalist-active-clubs-1234835015/

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/charlottesville-tiki-torch-rioter-endorses-donald-trump-jan-6-sentenci-rcna162209

    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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    45 mins
  • Freedom to Burn: Barry Black, Pt. 2
    Oct 10 2024

    In part two of the story of Barry Black, we finally get to the landmark supreme court case that won the klansman the right to burn crosses. Barry's Keystone Knights faded into relative obscurity after the high profile case and Virginia passed a new law aimed to prevent men like Barry from using fire as a tool of intimidation.

    Sources:

    https://law.duke.edu/voices/virginia https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/01-1107 https://unprecedented.substack.com/p/transcript-bodily-harm-is-coming https://time.com/archive/6615465/south-carolina-backfire/ https://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/us/georgia-kkk-adopt-a-highway-lawsuit/index.html https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/former-kkk-headquarters-terrorized-town-years-now-will-become-diversit-rcna20865

    https://www.kait8.com/story/3384156/prison-officer-fired-for-kkk-membership-sues-arkansas-correction-department/

    Unite the Right audio from videos by photojournalist Zach D Roberts & publicly available video recorded by the marchers themselves

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    47 mins
  • The Fire Will Not Consume Us: Barry Black, Pt. 1
    Oct 3 2024

    In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that the mere act of burning a cross, absent evidence of specific intent to intimidate, is protected by the first amendment. But who was the klansman who got his case all the way to the highest court in the land? This is the first half of the story of Barry Black, a Pennsylvania Ku Klux Klan leader who won two write-in campaigns for constable, waged war on a rural gay bar, and spent decades fighting for his right to intimidate.

    Sources:

    https://www.salon.com/2009/07/24/liddy/

    https://www.fec.gov/resources/legal-resources/litigation/berg_ac_berg_emerg_mot_proh_cert.pdf https://www.wethepeoplefoundation.org/PROJECTS/Obama/Evidence/AFFIDAVIT-Bishop.pdf

    https://barthsnotes.com/2009/08/25/meet-ron-mcrae-the-birther-bishop/ https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/278475/dykudrama/ https://digdc.dclibrary.org/islandora/object/dcplislandora%3A266739/datastream/OCR/view https://archives.rainbowhistory.org/files/original/367cf04d6456e9b3c311296a806863cd.pdf https://youtu.be/o4o0tZPETAc

    https://archive.org/details/BarryE.Black/mode/2up

    Heibel, Todd (2004). Blame It on the Casa Nova?: “Good Scenery and Sodomy” in Rural Southwestern Pennsylvania. In Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A. Routledge.

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    48 mins