Tales of the Hardin and Riley cattle operations
The large California cattle partnership expanded into Central and Eastern Oregon
James Hardin was born in Kentucky in 1830. He came west with his family by ox team in 1853 and settled in Sonoma County, California.
He soon started raising cattle and expanded his operations during the next 40 years. Before the transcontinental railroad was completed, he had crossed the plains six times with herds of cattle.
He opened a general mercantile store in Petaluma, California, in 1859. In 1861, he formed a partnership with Amos Riley and opened several more stores in adjacent counties. Riley was born in Maryland in 1826. He helped supply capital for the expanding business operations.
Richard Read, our Seattle bureau chief, who together with Hennessy-Fiske has been closely covering right-wing extremism.
We spent yesterday afternoon discussing how social media, a very online president and far-right groups came together to feed not just the events of Jan. 6 but an ongoing national security threat. What emerged was a portrait of an extremist movement that despite having lost Trump as a rallying point and become a target of law enforcement remains determined to build long-term political clout.
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Far-right leaders across the nation disillusioned by former President Trump’s defeat and banished from mainstream social media have launched recruitment drives in new radicalization efforts that have turned into a “meme war” among groups such as the Boogaloo Bois, the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters.
In the days following the Capitol riot, right-wing extremists who lost Parler accounts or were suspended from Facebook and Twitter migrated to Telegram and gained a following of tens of thousands of Trump supporters looking to vent anger and promote extremist views. The groups are competing for a surge of new users on alternative platforms while refocusing their messages on militant nationalism, white supremacy and conspiracy theories.