I’m in #Lafayette, Louisiana where the all-Black #NFAC militia is planning to march at 4pm EST.
A number of opposing militia groups are also here, setting up across the parade route.
Here, the “Cajun Guard” forms up with officers near the beginning of the march route.
Under police guard, the #NFAC is forming up at Lafayette Public Library.
They are expected to march 3 hours from now, 4pm local time (apologies, in an earlier tweet I said 4pm est.)
For now, they don’t want press nearby.
Police erected barricades that track the entire planned #NFAC march route. Theoretically, the group will march to Parc San Souci which is only a few blocks away.
After a rally there, they are expected to perform the same march in reverse back to the library.
Here at the park itself, folks who aren’t in the NFAC are gathering as well. Some are armed, but most are just hanging out.
A voter registration drive is taking place as well.
Some militia guys are marching / standing outside the park where the #NFAC will expectedly end up.
The few I’ve spoken to today have all referred to themselves as “independent” rather than connecting themselves to a specific militia organization.
About 100 #NFAC members here gathered at library about 2 hours before their anticipated march.
Something usual: they’ve agreed to disarm.
None are carrying guns right now, and just before this clip, as one went to join his friends with a rifle, they made him out it away.
Near the park that the NFAC will show up at, militia groups are hanging out.
One sat down with his gun and his Bible and said a prayer.
I asked about their plans for the day:
As some NFAC members roll up with rifles, a member ran over to them to tell them “no guns, no guns!”
It seems this event will actually proceed unarmed.
Right wing militias and some Black Panther types outside the NFAC are still plenty armed around Lafayette.
NFAC’s “Grandmaster Jay” scolds some members of his group.
“Grandmaster Jay” checks members’ ID’s.
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VIDEO THREAD: White Nationalist group Patriot Front marched into Washington DC to hand out flyers and rally alongside the annual March for Life, their third time doing so in four years.
Thomas Rousseau, the group's founder, was among a few out of the approximately hundred who went unmasked.
He reiterated his group's belief to press that only people with "European" heritage qualify as American.
2) A man using a puppet to perform interviews criticized Patriot Front by calling them "law enforcement agents."
"If it's such a good cause, take off the mask!" he said to Rousseau through the puppet. "Take your mask off!"
3) Independent journalist @RichieMcGinniss asked Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau how he feels about Trump's FBI director nominee @Kash_Patel.
Rousseau said "I don't think Indians should be in charge of any departments of the United States, because he's a foreigner."
Pressed on why Patel is a "foreigner" despite being born here, Rousseau reiterated his platform (white nationalism) that only people with European ancestry qualify as American, regardless of birth or citizenship.
VIDEO THREAD: Activists dressed as contractors took down a banner outside the National Archives in Washington DC this morning and replaced it with their own demanding Biden publish the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into the Constitution before leaving office.
The activists brought two additional banners which they had also planned to put up in the place of existing ones, but police arrived and confiscated them before the group could get those two up.
2) Kamala Lopez, founder and president of Equal Means Equal, explained that the ERA has already been ratified by 38 states, so she insists that Biden can be a "hero" by publishing it into the Constitution to be enforced.
Without doing this, she calls Biden a "zero."
3) Responding officers told the activists to sit down on the sidewalk and disputed whether their truck had been legally parked.
Additional activists arrived dressed as women from the science-fiction Dune series to advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment.
VIDEO THREAD: Craig Sicknick, brother of Brian Sicknick who died of a stroke the day after fighting on January 6, 2021, spoke at a rally demanding Congress refuse to certify Trump's electoral victory on January 6, 2025.
"I came here today to urge Congress to do its job and block Mr Trump from taking office just a few short weeks from now," Sicknick said.
"They can do this by upholding their oath of office and acting under Article III of the 13th Amendment which clearly states that no person who was involved in trying to overthrow our government can hold any office, state or federal."
2) @JessicaDenson07, a 2017 campaign staffer for Trump who ultimately sued him, is an organizer of this weekend's rallies demanding Congress block him from retaking the White House.
"Donald Trump is an adjudicated insurrectionist disqualified and the only mechanism to remove that disability is by a 2/3 vote of both houses. That's it. We don't need new legislation," she said.
"It only takes 1/5 of both houses of congress... to raise an objection and a simple majority to sustain it!"
She says there was "mixed" reception as she and others lobbies for this idea to members of Congress.
3) "Congresspeople, keep us safe, Hallelujah!" sang protesters demanding Congress block Trump from the White House on January 6.
"Do your duty to the states, Hallelujah!"
"Insurrectionists can't be president!" they chanted. "Call your representatives!"
Now: Anti-Trump protesters gather at the Lincoln Memorial to demand Congress block Trump’s January 6, 2025 certification for being an “Insurrectionist” over his actions on January 6, 2021.
“Insurrectionists can’t be president, call your representatives!” chant protesters on the National Mall.
BIG THREAD: Today, I attended the preliminary/detention hearing for Brad Spafford, charged with possessing a short barrel rifle.
Federal prosecutors say more charges are coming and that his arrest yielded the "largest seizure of finished explosive devices in FBI history."
2) I first reported the case December 19 following Spafford's arrest by the feds, who used a Confidential Human Source (CHS) for two years to get the warrant to arrest Spafford for the alleged Short Barrel Rifle.
3) Rachelann Cardwell, a Suffolk Detective assigned as an officer on the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, took the stand today.
She testified that the investigation into Spafford began in January 2023 when the CHS reported Spafford disfiguring his hand with a homemade explosive.
THREAD: On Tuesday, Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) officers with the Norfolk FBI and assistance from the ATF arrested Virginia man Brad Spafford for possessing an unregistered short barrel rifle (SBR).
The arrest was the result of a multi-year Confidential Human Source (CHS).
2) A Confidential Human Source (CHS, commonly known as "informant" or colloquially as "snitch") reported in January 2023 that Spafford lost fingers on Independence Day 2021 "while working with a homemade explosive device."
He says Spafford and friends were making ammunition for "something that Spafford would not be able to do alone."
The informant reportedly saw Spafford's hands "before and after the event" which is confusingly worded; if he saw them in person, then the informant has been around the defendant for more than three years.
If he saw them pre- disfigurement some other way, like a photo, then he still has been around him for at least nearly two years.
3) In May 2023, the informant and Spafford went to a gun range together, each with "their own weapons."
The informant brought his own Short Barrel Rifle, but it was registered.
The now-defendant allegedly brought what the informant believed was also an SBR.