You rarely think of words like terrifying used in a headline for anything smaller than a natural disaster. This is for one man, and it fits. We continue to be surprised by such people, and we wish we weren’t. They exist, and do so worldwide. We are just fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your viewpoint) to not know about most of them. We get hints, but usually, words are dry and can’t express the actual horror. This time, they actually work. With thanks to Raw Story:
A neo-Nazi who embraces terrorism has been ordered held in pre-trial detention as a danger to the community by a federal magistrate judge following his arrest for illegally possessing a firearm. Mathew David Bair, a leader of the neo-Nazi accelerationist group Injekt Division, was arrested in Pennsylvania by the FBI last week. A former Marine who was court-martialed out of the service for larceny and sale of classified materials, Bair joined the riot at the U.S. Capitol as a member of First Capitol Proud Boys, as Trump supporters attempted to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6.
That’s just part of it. Just part. He’s bonkers. Even so, he has a whole lot of power in the “underground”. Yet even the underground is becoming more public, and that’s something we need to be concerned about. They have a wider “audience” with the potential for wider recruitment. Public also generally means easier to follow and track. There are many disturbing organizations in this country that need to be watched. It means we can hope to get a warning about what they’re going to do and stop them.
From his time as a Proud Boy, Bair increasingly gravitated to a violent brand of white supremacist extremism. He told Raw Story in 2024 that “the fascist pipeline is very real,” and that he had been “in a direct pipeline chapter.” Bair’s radicalization led him to Injekt Division, a neo-Nazi accelerationist group whose former leader was arrested in May 2021 for allegedly plotting to carry out a mass shooting at a Texas Walmart. “I would say they’re very much in line with the Terrorgram milieu,” Hannah Gais, a senior researcher and journalist at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told Raw Story. “I think obviously given their origin, they have clear ties to violence.”
If they want to be violent, send them overseas. That’s a couple fewer servicepeople we have to lose. Yes, that’s my own extremist view. They should get along very well with ICE, which also needs to be sent there. On the other hand, they could go after civilians for the sheer joy of terror and bloodshed, so that’s likely a bad idea. But they go after civilians here, too. Bits of news here and there seem to indicate that’s a thing for a whole lot of these neo-Nazi and worse organizations. There’s no point to it here, either. Bloodshed and terror just because.
Terrorgram Collective is a global network that has encouraged mass shootings, political assassinations, and infrastructure attacks through online propaganda, which inspired a deadly school shooting spree in Brazil, a fatal mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ bar in Slovakia, and a mass stabbing in Turkey, as well as assassination attempts and thwarted attacks on electrical substations. Dallas Humber, one of the group’s leaders, is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to soliciting hate crimes and murder.
Extremist researchers and antifascist activists have closely monitored Bair due, in part, to his provocative online presence. They include a Telegram message showing members posing in tactical gear and skull masks outside what appears to be a power plant while displaying firearms and their group flag. A magistrate judge in Harrisburg, Pa. ordered Bair to be held in pre-trial detention, partly on the basis that his release poses serious danger to a person or the community. The magistrate also cited Bair’s prior criminal history, prior parole violations, prior failures to appear in court, and the strength of evidence supporting the gun charge.
Definitely a nasty guy. Frightening. What is the likelihood that he could get a message out to go after the people who arrested him and the judge? The guards in the jail are going to have to be super cautious, too. I wouldn’t put it past this guy to pull something. Wouldn’t it be grand if they could put him away somewhere and keep him away from the rest of us? There is never a good reason for terror. At least it backfired on ICE in Minneapolis. I hope it backfires everywhere else. But keep this guy in jail. Please.
See you soon!
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise that among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
