steven monacelli Profile picture
freelance journalist • special investigative correspondent @texasobserver • publisher @proteanmag • cofounder @apprenticedtx • contact me & support my work 👇🔗
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Jun 13 6 tweets 3 min read
Police are investigating homophobic and antisemitic flyers that were recently distributed in Flower Mound. The flyers are a product of the Goyim Defense League, a neo-Nazi organization with active members in North Texas who I recently identified.
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nbcdfw.com/news/local/nor… While it's still unclear exactly who distributed the Goyim Defense League flyers in Flower Mound, there's a solid chance that these guys would know who did.

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texasobserver.org/unmasking-texa…
May 8 8 tweets 2 min read
NEW: A new coalition of Christian nationalist groups, the Remnant Alliance, is mobilizing congregations to take over Texas school boards. Several leaders of the coalition are members of the Council on National Policy.

texasobserver.org/christian-scho… The Remnant Alliance is an amalgam of independent organizations that share goals and sometimes personnel. Its political activism is framed as spiritual warfare against satanic evil in the pursuit of realizing the kingdom of God on earth.
May 8 13 tweets 4 min read
SCOOP: the Princeton school district in Collin County is considering a school voucher program in partnership with Texas Foundation for Education Rights, a nonprofit led by megadonor Monty Bennett—who donated thousands to the campaigns of two Princeton school board trustees.

1/ Image In addition to Bennett, other Texas Foundation for Education Rights board members include Chris Putnam. Putnam, in addition to being the finance committee chair for the Tarrant County GOP, is the current CEO of the Dallas Express, Bennett's right wing website.

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Apr 25 6 tweets 2 min read
I've seen no credible reporting of actual antisemitic incidents at the UT Austin protest. What I can tell you is that I've reported on numerous neo-Nazi events and Greg Abbott never once tried to put any of them in jail. This was less than a year ago.

Apr 22 6 tweets 4 min read
NEW: Early voting for some school board elections in TX starts today, including the Grapevine Colleyville school district where sitting board president Shannon Braun recently made a false police report claiming people who shared some of her old QAnon style posts faked them.

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Shannon Braun, a right wing school board trustee in the Grapevine Colleyville district who was elected with the help of big money PACs and GOP consultants, publicly claimed on April 6 that someone manufactured fake tweets and posted them on Facebook. But the tweets are real.

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Apr 20 10 tweets 4 min read
I'm at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas where Gov. Greg Abbott is about to give the keynote address to the annual Young Conservatives of Texas convention. I guess they let anyone in here! Image Despite the press advisory Gov. Greg Abbott sent out about his speech I'm the only member of the press here at the Young Conservatives of Texas convention where he's about to speak. The lighting on stage is terrible. Image
Apr 10 9 tweets 2 min read
Hotel magnate & publisher of right wing website Dallas Express, Monty Bennett, is under fire from an activist investor that holds shares in one of Bennett's companies, Blackwells Capital. They allege financial misconduct, claim Bennett used the Dallas Express to defame them.
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"Braemar’s external manager, Ashford Hospitality Advisors LLC...collected more than $60 million in advisory and service fees in 2023...a 575% increase over the last decade. During that same period, Braemar’s share price has declined almost 90%."
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nomoremonty.com
Apr 6 13 tweets 7 min read
SCOOPLET: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, who not long ago switched to the Republican party, has hired a staff writer at the Dallas Express, a right wing website funded by GOP megadonor Monty Bennett, who took a leadership course with the Christian Nationalist group Wall Builders.

1/ Image In March, Mayor Eric Johnson hired former Dallas Express writer Noah DeGarmo as a comms and policy specialist. While working at the Dallas Express, DeGarmo wrote a handful of favorable articles about Johnson and his controversial switch to the Republican party.
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Mar 15 6 tweets 2 min read
Texan politicians who made celebratory posts on X about PornHub pulling out of Texas in protest of the age verification law had porn spam bots in their comments. X currently does not have any age verification requirement for users.

My latest for @dailydot
dailydot.com/debug/bots-tex… "Pornhub has now disabled its website in Texas,” Paxton wrote victoriously. “Sites like Pornhub are on the run because Texas has a law that aims to prevent them from showing harmful, obscene material to children."

“P░*░S░S░Y░ ░I░N░ ░B░I░O░,” a bot commented in reply. Image
Mar 14 11 tweets 3 min read
SCOOP: The largest newspaper chain in the U.S. has an ongoing business relationship with a company linked to a sprawling network of "pink slime" publications that do not disclose funding they’ve received from political sources. My first for @NiemanLab
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niemanlab.org/2024/03/a-comp… A Gannett spokesperson confirmed to me the company has a contract to produce “advertorial content” sourced from Advantage Informatics, a blandly named company founded by Brian Timpone, a conservative businessman and former TV reporter based out of Chicago.

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Mar 10 6 tweets 3 min read
This great reporting about a secret society of wealthy right-wing Christian men who want to staff an “aligned future regime” that may come potentially via a “national divorce" notes the Dallas chapter is led by Nate Fischer, who I hadn't heard of but had already blocked me.
Image This report says Nate Fischer, who is a member of a fraternal organization whose founder has spoken of being at war with the US government, is also part-owner of an ammunition company that has contracts with the federal government and law enforcement.

theguardian.com/world/2023/sep…
Mar 7 15 tweets 4 min read
EXCLUSIVE: A new social network built on a vision of Christian supremacy in America gains traction with GOP politicians—including two Congressional candidates in North Carolina who just won their primary elections. My latest for @dailydot.

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dailydot.com/debug/seven-mo… Three candidates for Congress, a candidate for lieutenant governor, three state House candidates, a county commissioner, and a school board trustee are all members of the Nexus Mountain Network, a social media platform created by proponents of the Seven Mountains Mandate.

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Feb 17 9 tweets 5 min read
CEO of the Dallas Express and finance chair for the Tarrant County GOP laments that conservative efforts to take control of the Fort Worth school board haven't been successful and says the answer is to "destroy FWISD with school choice by flooding the city with charter schools" Image Per my @TexasObserver investigation, school privatization supporting megadonors like the publisher of the Dallas Express have sought to influence school board elections across the state. Some say dismantling public schools is the goal.

texasobserver.org/school-board-p…
Feb 15 11 tweets 3 min read
NEW: for @TexasObserver and @bellingcat, I identified the leader of the Parker County Active Club, part of a decentralized network of white nationalist groups, that distributed antisemitic and racist flyers in Weatherford, Mineral Wells, and Eagle Pass.
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texasobserver.org/rhett-murry-lo… In an online conversation with the Observer, Rhett Murry Loftis, a 23-year-old resident of Weatherford, admitted he leads the Parker County Active Club.

“I’m a fascist, there’s no denying that,” Loftis said in a series of direct messages.

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Feb 13 4 tweets 2 min read
The DMN endorsement of Morgan Meyer notes his right wing opponents use anonymous interest groups to viciously attack him with bogus narratives.

Meyers' opponent, Barry Wernick, received 25k from a PAC funded by Tim Dunn and Farris Wilkes, and was profiled by the Dallas Express.
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As I previously reported for the Texas Observer, the Dallas Express has been linked to the right-wing Metric Media network of paid propaganda sites. Tim Dunn sits on the board of Pipeline Media, one of the companies that is a part of the sprawling network.
texasobserver.org/the-dallas-exp…
Feb 10 11 tweets 6 min read
The "objective" Dallas Express, which unsuccessfully sued me for calling it right wing propaganda and is funded by Republican megadonor Monty Bennett who was near the steps of the Capitol on January 6, has a new CEO.

He's the finance chair for the Tarrant County GOP.
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The new Dallas Express CEO Chris Putnam isn't just a Tarrant County GOP operative. In 2022, he formed Texans for Education Rights Institute with Bennett, which unsuccessfully pushed a school voucher scheme in Wimberly. He unsuccessfully ran for Congress.
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Dec 7, 2023 16 tweets 4 min read
SCOOP: The Texas Historical Commission removed books on slavery from plantation site gift shops.
An agency spokesperson claimed that the move had nothing to do with politics. Internal emails show otherwise. My latest for @TexasMonthly.

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texasmonthly.com/news-politics/… Among the literature no longer available for purchase is an autobiography of a slave girl, a book of Texas slave narratives, the celebrated novel Roots by Alex Haley, and the National Book Award–winning Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.

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Nov 13, 2023 11 tweets 4 min read
NEW: Over the last three years an interconnected network of PACs, largely funded by billionaires who support school privatization, has begun to transform the nature of local school board elections across Texas. I mapped it all out for @TexasObserver.

texasobserver.org/school-board-p…
Image The Observer identified 20 PACs formed since late 2020 that, through early September, collectively spent more than $1.5 million to support the campaigns of 105 conservative candidates in 35 districts. 65 of these candidates—or 62 percent— won their elections from 2021 to 2023.
Oct 25, 2023 10 tweets 6 min read
A video of neo-Nazis eating at Torchy's Tacos in Fort Worth went viral earlier this month. With a bit of sleuthing I was able to identify two of them, as well as two other Texas neo-Nazis responsible for antisemitic fliers. My latest for @TexasObserver.
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texasobserver.org/unmasking-texa… One of the Texas neo-Nazis I identified is named Barry Young, seen on the left in these photos. According to his LinkedIn page, he interned for Luke Macias, a GOP consultant who has worked with Jonathan Stickland — another consultant who met with Hitler admirer Nick Fuentes.

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Aug 15, 2023 10 tweets 6 min read
NEW: The True Texas Project, an @splcenter designated extremist group, will be hosting a panel with Dallas Young Republicans chair Chad Cohen, Christian fascist/white nationalist John Doyle, and Jake Colglazier, the head of Keep Dallas Safe who spoke at a Groyper convention.

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The panel featuring the Dallas YR chairman, a white nationalist influencer, and a Groyper will be held at the @CityofUPTX library. It's emceed by a member of Republicans for National Renewal, which has a grassroots director that ran a neo-Nazi podcast.

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https://t.co/8ez2LTK8V7therealnews.com/cpac-and-the-f…
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Jul 30, 2023 25 tweets 10 min read
NOW: I'm at the Flashpoint Live event in Fort Worth, a part of the Southwest Believers' Convention which is host to various members of the New Apostolic Reformation — a form of Christian Nationalism. We are about to hear from Mike Lindell, whose book is being handed out for free.
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Mike Lindell is the first speaker featured at Flashpoint Live and the religious Southwest Believers' Conference. He set the tone by talking about his phone being taken by the government, calls Donald Trump the real president, and compared the response to Jan 6 to Nazi Germany.