OUR PICKS LAST WEEKIslamist Terrorism Has Taken on a New, Insidious Form | How Civil Litigation Can Hold Hate Groups Accountable | Growing Dollar Doubts | American Panopticon, and more

EXTREMISM

Fake Cures and Vaccine Passports for Sale: the Conspiracy Communities in Brazil Monetizing the Anti-vax Movement  (Gemma Ware, Ergon Cugler, and Igor Sacramento, The Conversation)
Few places on earth are immune to the explosion of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories and health disinformation fuelled by the COVID pandemic. But in countries like Brazil, where the disinformation flowed from the very top of government, the problem is even more acute and some people are exploiting the fear of others to make money.

How Civil Litigation Can Hold Hate Groups Accountable  (Luke Baumgartner, Lawfare)
With sweeping cuts to government agencies and programs designed to counter hate groups, civil rights and advocacy groups can hold the line.

Islamist Terrorism Has Taken on a New, Insidious Form  (Liam Duffy, CAPX)
CEP Strategic Advisor Liam Duffy writes: While the official counter-terror lexicon of most states labels such outbursts as ‘Islamist terrorism’, what authorities usually mean by that is the jihadist violence of the likes of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State (IS). Among the steady trickle of stabbings or vehicle-ramming attacks, there are indeed those either claimed by IS – such as the 2024 Solingen mass stabbings – or those attributed to IS by the perpetrator, such as the vehicle ramming in New Orleans which ushered in the New Year. There are also those where the mental health of the attacker does indeed seem the most pertinent factor.

Trump’s Red-Hot War on Terror  (Economist)
Strikes against jihadis are surging. Is it 2001 all over again?

A ‘Neo-Nazi’ Allegedly Planned to Kill Trump. Federal Cuts Could Slow Foiling Similar Plots.  (Ja’han Jones, MSNBC)
A newly unsealed affidavit from the FBI alleges that a Wisconsin teenager charged with killing his parents earlier this year also appears to be a white supremacist who plotted to set off a race war by assassinating President Donald Trump. The affidavit alleges 17-year-old Nikita Casap of Waukesha, Wisconsin, killed his parents in February to “obtain the financial means and autonomy necessary” to carry out his plan of killing the president. He hoped the assassination would cause the United States to collapse, an outcome he claimed was necessary to topple the “Jewish occupied” government and save the white race, according to a document the FBI referred to as Casap’s “manifesto.”