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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:15:13 GMT
'This is MAGA country:' Police investigate alleged bullying incident at Ohio middle schoolYahoo Lifestyle Lauren Holter,Yahoo Lifestyle 5 hours ago
An incident report said the bullying made the girl “fear for her life.” (Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)
Police are investigating after a biracial middle schooler in Ohio was reportedly bullied by a group of boys who said “this is MAGA country” and that “all black people should die,” The Canton Repository reported. Ten sixth-grade boys allegedly surrounded an 11-year-old girl and her friend in the Jackson Memorial Middle School cafeteria, saying they were “the wall.”
The Jackson Township Police Department’s detective bureau is working with school district officials to investigate. An incident report filed with police on Tuesday and shared with Yahoo Lifestyle said the bullying made the girl “fear for her life.”
“It really scared her, you know,” Nicole Arnold, the girl’s mom, told Cleveland news station WJW. “She’s never had to deal with an issue where it’s been about her skin color and that’s disturbing to me and it’s disturbing to her.”
Because the boys mentioned race, Arnold reported the incident as a hate crime to the FBI and contacted the NAACP, according to The Canton Repository.
In a statement, the school district said it was aware of the alleged incident and would be interviewing students who can provide information.
“School safety continues to be a priority at Jackson Schools,” Jackson Local Schools Superintendent Chris DiLoreto said in a statement to The Canton Repository.
The incident was reportedly recorded by a security camera, and Arnold reviewed the tape with school officials, The Canton Repository reported. She said her daughter wasn’t familiar with the term “MAGA,” but said the alleged bullies used President Donald Trump’s campaign slogan repeatedly.
www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/maga-country-police-investigate-alleged-bullying-incident-ohio-middle-school-143445550.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:15:57 GMT
How Far-Right Extremists Abroad Have Adopted Trump's Symbols As Their OwnNick Robins-Early 57 minutes ago www.yahoo.com/news/far-extremists-abroad-adopted-trumps-231051798.html
Alexandre Bissonnette obsessively searched for Donald Trump on social media and posed with a MAGA hat in the months before he killed six Muslim men at a mosque in Quebec City. (Tumblr)
Alexandre Bissonette wore the hat.
A Canadian, Bissonette hadn’t voted for Donald Trump. He lived in a French-speaking province, far from the U.S. president’s campaign rallies and “America first” appeals. But some of the first photos to emerge of the 27-year-old after he stormed a Quebec City mosque and killed six Muslim men in January 2017 showed him wide-eyed with a slight smirk and a red “Make America Great Again” cap casting a shadow over his pallid face.
“Make America Great Again” has become more than a U.S. political slogan. For Bissonette and other white nationalist, radical right and anti-immigrant extremists all over the world, it’s a symbol; a kind of political messaging that transcends the specifics of country and language.
“The hat and the MAGA acronym have really become shorthand for this white nationalist movement,” said Barbara Perry, a professor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and an expert on the far right.
Searching for MAGA symbolism is one of the easiest ways to notice online extremists and members of hate groups, Perry and other researchers have found — a game of “Where’s Waldo?” for racists. A 2018 study by extremism researcher J.M. Berger that analyzed tens of thousands of alt-right Twitter accounts found the most common word in their profiles was “MAGA” and the most frequent pairing of words was “Trump supporter.”
And this embrace of pro-Trump symbols isn’t limited to social media. MAGA hats and slogans have shown up in Britain at rallies supporting anti-Muslim activist Tommy Robinson, on banners in Australia following the terror attack in Christchurch, New Zealand, and as an accessory for prominent European white nationalists who wear it to troll their fellow citizens.
A man at a Tommy Robinson rally in London holds an alt-right
Canada’s far right has a particular affinity for MAGA apparel. It often appears on white nationalist media personalities and far-right trolls attempting to disrupt anti-racism demonstrations. The head of the World Coalition Against Islam, a Canadian extremist group that openly refers to Muslims as “sewage,” routinely wears a MAGA hat at rallies.
“In Canada, the MAGA hat is widely seen as a hate symbol — a middle finger to other Canadians, especially to women and people of colour,” Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which monitors extremism, wrote in an email. The country’s oldest retailer, the Hudson’s Bay Company, recently apologized for selling “Make Canada Great Again” hats and removed them from its stores after public backlash.
MAGA symbols abroad aren’t solely the province of extremists, but they tend to attract a certain type. Anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim politicians, in particular, have adopted the Trump-associated slogans and paraphernalia.
Leader of Italy’s far-right League party Matteo Salvini posed with a MAGA hat on his office shelf and held an “Italians first” rally, while Islamophobic Dutch politician Geert Wilders promised to “make the Netherlands great again.” The anti-immigrant Alternative For Germany party’s deputy leader Beatrix Von Storch, whom German prosecutors investigated for inciting hatred against Muslims, wore a red “Make Germany Safe Again” hat during an election campaign.
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Beyond mimicking Trump’s rhetoric to rile up nationalist sentiment in their own countries, the international far right embraces the U.S. president because he helps bolster the narrative of rising support for a global anti-immigrant, anti-establishment movement. When the most powerful person in the world says that “Islam hates us” and attempts to ban Muslim immigration, it’s proof that perhaps other world leaders can achieve a similar goal.
“Trump’s campaign was anti-Muslim, and he has enacted anti-Muslim policies while in office,” said Matthew McGregor, campaign director for the British-based anti-racism advocacy group Hope Not Hate. “He has given the far right encouragement and left them with the impression that things are going their way.”
Far-right extremists have also long attached themselves to symbols, slogans and anything that identifies them as an in-group separate from the broader public. Some extremist groups have taken up Nordic symbols; others use thinly veiled references to Nazism, such as “88” for “Heil Hitler,” as a wink to others in the movement. European neo-Nazi groups even sometimes carry Confederate flags in their demonstrations. In that sense, it’s natural that extremists who view Trump as a gateway to white nationalism have embraced his emblems.
“It gives them credibility that if this is from the president of the United States, then it must be all right to have those views,” said Amira Elghawaby, a human rights advocate and board member of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.
But if the support of mass shooters and violent neo-Nazis would make the average politician issue forceful condemnations and distance themselves from rhetoric and symbols that appeal to extremists, Trump has essentially done the opposite. He has claimed there are “very fine people on both sides” of Charlottesville’s white nationalist Unite The Right rally, helped promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about George Soros and broadcast white supremacist talking points from the Oval Office.
The Christchurch attacker’s manifesto included a section on Trump that encapsulates many far-right extremists’ views of the U.S. president. Although the attacker disagreed with some of Trump’s policies, he claimed he supported Trump as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.”
The day after the attack, however, Trump again dismissed the threat of white nationalism, even as he borrowed its language to describe immigration as an “invasion” that must be stopped. It was another example of why Trump’s symbolism still resonates with extremists — he has done little to convince them that his views are not their own.
Or, as Perry puts it: “He still wears the hats.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:16:46 GMT
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it just might be a DUCK. Republiconservatives are playing a very dangerous game. Being corporate shills for transnationals isn't enough so they aim for the lowest of the low.At a white nationalist hearing on Capitol Hill, GOP witnesses dispute there's a threat Alexander NazaryanNational Correspondent ,Yahoo News•April 9, 2019 news.yahoo.com/house-white-nationalism-hearing-candace-owens-183811012.html?.tsrc=bell-brknews
WASHINGTON — It was supposed to be a hearing on white supremacy and the faltering efforts of the Trump administration to quell violent expressions of white nationalism. But that’s not quite what took place on Tuesday morning at a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, which gave short shrift to issues like the defunding of programs meant to combat white extremism, and the promotion of hatred on social media, and instead featured Republican witnesses disputing seemingly basic facts about history both recent and distant.
One of those witnesses was Candace Owens, an activist with the conservative organization Turning Point USA. Owens — who was recently criticized for a recording in which she appeared to express admiration for Adolf Hitler — was invited by Republican members of the committee to the hearing, which comes just days after three historically black churches were burned in Louisiana.
Candace Owens of Turning Point USA testifies during a House Judiciary Committee hearing discussing hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism. (Photo: Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
Owens used her opening statement to declare that the Southern Strategy — Richard Nixon’s use of racial fears to win over Southern whites long loyal to Democrats — was a “myth” that “never happened.” That notion is popular among some conservatives, but it is not shared by mainstream historians.
Alexander Nazaryan ✔ @alexnazaryan Here is @realcandaceo explaining why she called the Southern Strategy a “myth.” cc: Nixon historians @rickperlstein @nixonlibrary
2,855 10:56 AM - Apr 9, 2019 1,901 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy Sitting next to Owens was Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, the one other witness invited by Republicans. A close supporter of President Trump, Klein described the murderer of 50 people at a New Zealand mosque as a “a left-wing self-described ‘eco-fascist’ who also published a manifesto praising Communist China as ‘the nation with the closest political and social values to my own.’”
The shooter was, in fact, a white nationalist who has sympathized with Trump’s restrictive views on immigration.
Under prodding from Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, Klein also said media had “completely distorted the truth” of Trump’s infamous comment about there being “very fine people” among the white nationalists who gathered for a rally in Charlottesville, Va., in the summer of 2017. Three people died in the ensuing violence.
Klein said that Trump was, in fact, “disgusted” by white nationalists and white supremacists. Gohmert agreed with that assessment, citing Martin Luther King Jr.
Klein also said that Beto O’Rourke, one of more than a dozen announced Democratic contenders for the 2020 presidential nomination, should be disqualified from seeking the presidency because he called the Israeli prime minister a “racist.”
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:17:38 GMT
But for all of Candace Owens' "token Black" (and I use that term quite deliberately and without any apology, folks) bluster against the notion of white nationalism, she got a strip torn off of her by L.A.-area Congressman Ted Lieu:
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:18:27 GMT
An example of a DEPLORABLE in the administration. Trump's RIGHT HAND TROLL:Stephen Miller stokes Trump's nationalist vision Matt Bai 47 minutes ago
Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Getty Images
Leave it to Donald Trump to make us wistful for Richard Nixon, a president who understood power well enough to abuse it properly.
Nixon didn’t mess around. When he picked up the phone and deliberately started firing Cabinet officials on a Saturday night in 1973, the objective was clear and his resolve unwavering — if you weren’t willing to subvert justice and shut down the investigation that would lead to Nixon’s undoing, then he’d just keep firing away until he found someone who would.
I hate to say it, but compared with that, Trump’s kind of an amateur when it comes to terrorizing the bureaucracy. He’s like a guy who wants to be profane but keeps dropping F-bombs in all the wrong places, making everybody feel kind of awkward.
Instead of firing the special counsel to spare himself investigation like he was always threatening to do, Trump decided his Monday Morning Massacre should involve the secretary of a dysfunctional agency and some sub-Cabinet officials no one outside Washington has ever heard of, apparently because they tried to uphold at least a handful of immigration laws.
Even Democrats couldn’t seem to muster much genuine outrage there.
So now Kirstjen Nielsen, the deposed head of homeland security, gets to start her long-awaited rehabilitation tour, which began with a series of stories about how she resisted the president’s bullying for as long as she could and refused to continue separating children from their parents after it became clear to her that separating children from their parents was wildly unpopular and, also, immoral.
Like her mentor, John Kelly, and like a string of other departed administration officials — Jeff Sessions, Rex Tillerson, James Mattis, Reince Priebus, Gary Cohn — Nielsen will now hold herself out, at least in whispered asides, as a fallen bulwark against presidential craziness who did what had to be done for as long as she could stand it. A Harvard fellowship is probably in the offing.
Which is, of course, ridiculous. Plenty of good public servants refused to act as enablers for this president, and precious few allowed themselves to be humiliated as props, waiting their turn around the Cabinet table to pay obsequious tribute to the boss on national TV.
You shouldn’t be able to prostrate yourself before an abusive bully and then call yourself a resister when he walks right over you.
What all of this made clear, though, is that while we’ve focused on rental aides like Nielsen, we’ve often overlooked the one adviser whose influence in the administration never wanes and who never seems to disappoint the president.
The loudest and most insidious whisper in the Oval Office has always belonged to Stephen Miller, the smarmy son-in-law Trump probably wishes he had.
It was hard to take Miller too seriously at first, even after he wrote that graceless inaugural address that introduced the world to his trademark oratorical style, which reminds me of nothing so much as “The Sound of Music,” since it combines strong elements of ethnic nationalism with the cheap bromides of a children’s musical.
It was hard to imagine he had much staying power after he argued on national television that the Statue of Liberty didn’t really have anything to do with accepting immigrants, because the poem about “huddled masses” was a sham.
It was hard to think that Trump, of all people, with his constant harping on physical appearances, would continue to take advice from a guy who showed up to a television studio with — how do I put this — spray-on hair. (Judge for yourself.)
But here he is, Miller, all of 33, still putting his distinctive tint on most everything the president touches, like a bacteria.
Sure, as Michelle Cottle wrote in the New York Times Tuesday, it takes an army of willing appeasers — not one guy — to implement any extremist ideology. But under the substantive-sounding guise of domestic policy (the all-powerful John Ehrlichman held that portfolio in the Nixon White House, by the way), the virulently anti-immigrant Miller has scripted the most odious and divisive episodes of Trump’s presidency: the Muslim ban, the family separations, the equivocating reaction to violence in Charlottesville.
It doesn’t matter whom they call the acting secretary of this or the senior adviser for that. Miller is the president’s chief prod and justifier, his minister of ideological cant.
I don’t know Miller personally, but if you’ve spent much time knocking around elite schools and Washington think tanks, you pretty much know what he’s about.
The brainy outcast at a sanctimonious Santa Monica high school, Miller went to the other extreme, embracing a kind of white aggrievement. He’s spent his entire adult life on campuses or working for extremists on Capitol Hill.
The throwback America he champions exists only in theory, without any of the complications one gets from actually living in it.
So what makes Miller the indispensable aide? Why does Trump eventually despair of every mercenary adviser but one?
In part, it’s probably because Miller, having spent so much of his young life battling academics and legislative staffs, is a better bureaucratic infighter than the rest of them (and far more adept at that game than his mentor, Steve Bannon, ever cared to be). He knows how to manage up, as they say.
Maybe it’s because Miller speaks to the part of the president that’s most deeply ingrained, the outer-borough kid who always felt mocked and rejected by Manhattan’s liberal elite.
But I’m guessing it’s mostly because Miller is the one guy who supplies Trump’s presidency with any sense of history, however twisted his reading of it may be.
Presidencies feed off a higher purpose. Bill Clinton saw himself as the boomer president sent to retool the industrial economy; George W. Bush was handed what he called a global war on terror; Barack Obama promised a new age of bipartisan reform, then walked into a historic financial crisis.
Here, as in so many other ways, Trump is sui generis. His campaign started as a marketing stunt, its meaningless message embroidered on cheap hats, its chief issue — the wall — a talking point. His appeal was emotional and nostalgic and meandering, based mainly on his own celebrity.
Only Miller, at least since Bannon departed, has consistently proffered a grander notion of what Trump’s presidency might actually be made to mean — the retrenchment of white culture into nativism and national identity, in line with similar reactionary movements sweeping through Europe.
It is the administration’s only recurrent theme, resentful and mean, and whenever it recedes for more than a few weeks, the presidency seems to drift toward a vacuous nowhere. It is the one pseudo-intellectual framework that gives Trump a firm sense of what he’s actually supposed to be doing here.
And so Miller remains and grows in power, filling a vacuum, as clever opportunists always do. In this presidency, the heart of the darkness is notably pale.
_ www.yahoo.com/news/stephen-miller-stokes-trumps-nationalist-vision-090017015.html____
Read more from Yahoo News:
Preet Bharara considered taping Trump because ‘the man lies’ Candidates edge toward discussing slavery reparations As immigration sweeps spread fear, activists and sheriffs unite to protect neighbors John Hickenlooper wants to be the last Democrat standing. Cybersecurity experts urge skepticism over claims Saudis hacked Bezos’s phone PHOTOS: Dogs catching treats
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:19:31 GMT
This darling of the Deplorables had some bad habits. Like his fans all over Deplorableland he bites the hands that feed him. He is the ultimate government hater wannabe anarchist. No ideas on how to improve anything. Just blame things on everyone else, tear things down and watch everyone feed on each other. Remember that Assange has no lofty or noble aspirations. His wish is for the collapse of the American government and our position as a global superpower. Why do you think he supported Trump? Whistleblowing is a good thing but the fact that he had information on both Clinton and Trump but only chose to release the stuff on Hillary is NOT being an honest broker. It's the same exact scenario that FBI director James Comey did. He announces Hillary is under investigation but withheld that Trump was also under investigation. Combine that with the Russian trolling and the GOP dirty election tricks then Trump was a shoe in.World Assange's Ecuador Embassy life: 'discourteous and aggressive' behavior and bad hygiene reports ABC News GUY DAVIES,ABC News 10 hours ago
Assange's Ecuador Embassy life: 'discourteous and aggressive' behavior and bad hygiene reports originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
After seven years within the confines of the Ecuador Embassy in London, the infamous WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, 47, was dragged away by police officers looking haggard, tired and clearly aged since he sought asylum there in 2012 on Thursday.
When Assange was interviewed via Skype by the Daily Telegraph newspaper a year into his confinement, the Australian man painted a fairly rosy picture of life inside the embassy.
Although his room was small -- an office converted into a bedroom -- Assange said staff members were "like family" despite the "difficult" situation. He had access to the internet, a treadmill and a small kitchen. He was also granted Ecuadorian citizenship.
(MORE: Feds unseal charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange hours after arrest in London)
"We have lunch together, celebrate people's birthdays and other details I don't want to go into because of the security situation," he told the newspaper. Assange even claimed to have visits from celebrity supporters such as Maggie Gyllenhaal, John Cusack and Yoko Ono, despite it being "difficult to wake up … and see the same walls" every day.
PHOTO: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks to the media from the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017. (AFP/Getty Images, FILE)
But something soured. When the president of Ecuador announced Thursday he was withdrawing Assange's asylum status and stripping him of Ecuadorian citizenship, he said in a statement it was not just for "repeated violations to international conventions," but, crucially, for violations of "daily-life protocols."
President Lenin Moreno described Assange's behavior as "discourteous and aggressive" while inside the embassy. Moreno also claimed, contrary to the terms of his confinement, Assange was still playing an active role in WikiLeaks.
"The patience of Ecuador has reached its limit on the behavior of Mr. Assange," Moreno said. "He installed electronic and distortion equipment not allowed… He has confronted and mistreated guards."
(MORE: Chelsea Manning taken into custody for refusing to testify before secret grand jury)
On Thursday, Ecuador's interior minister said at a press conference in Quito Assange had apparently smeared feces on the walls and engaged in other behavior she described as below common decency.
He reportedly took over the women's bathroom, per the International Business Times, which quoted sources last January saying Assange had poor hygiene. "It seems he doesn't wash properly," one source told the publication.
PHOTO:A general view of the Ecuadorian Embassy following the arrest of Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, April 11, 2019, in London. (Jack Taylor/Getty Images) A friend and former colleague was quoted saying that "unless the people around him force him into the shower, he might not change his clothes for days."
And another friend said, "Julian ate everything with his hands and he always wiped his fingers on his pants. I have never seen pants as greasy as his in my whole life."
(MORE: Roger Stone sought contact with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange, email suggests)
It's not exactly a new, poison pen description of Assange. In 2011, the former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller, wrote about the paper's first collaboration with Assange and WikiLeaks, including his first meeting with the whistleblower.
"He was alert but disheveled, like a bag lady walking in off the street, wearing a dingy, light-colored sport coat and cargo pants, dirty white shirt, beat-up sneakers and filthy white socks that collapsed around his ankles," Keller wrote. "He smelled as if he hadn't bathed in days."
While the international pressure to arrest Assange must have been enormous, Assange's behavior apparently didn't win over many friends within the embassy. Now, he is no longer their concern. Assange remains in police custody and will next appear in a U.S. court via video-link May 2.
www.yahoo.com/gma/assanges-ecuador-embassy-life-discourteous-aggressive-behavior-bad-174000477--abc-news-topstories.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:20:15 GMT
And because of his only releasing the damaging e-mails from Hillary and the DNC, and not from Trump and the RNC, I don't think Assange should be held up as a "hero" under any circumstances now. Nor do I think he should be held up as either a journalist or a whistleblower.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:21:00 GMT
Another Trump Supporter Was Arrested for Allegedly Making Death Threats Against DemocratsEsquire Gabrielle Bruney,Esquire 16 hours ago
Photo credit: Mark Wilson - Getty Images
From Esquire
Just weeks after a New York man was arrested for allegedly making death threats against Representative Ilhan Omar, another Trump supporter was arrested for leveling threats at prominent Democrats in voicemails rife with racist, homophobic, and misogynistic slurs. Federal prosecutors say that Florida’s John Kless left threatening phone messages for the offices of 2020 presidential candidates Representative Eric Swalwell and Senator Cory Booker, as well as Representative Rashida Tlaib. In all of the messages, Kless reportedly made Islamophobic references or threats to Representative Ilhan Omar.
Omar and Tlaib became the first Muslim women to serve in Congress upon their election last year. In his message to Tlaib, Klass allegedly referred to Omar as the Congresswoman’s “Taliban friend” and said that he’d like to “throw her right off the Empire State Building.”
"You won't fucking tell Americans what to say and you definitely don't tell our president, Donald Trump, what to say,” Kless allegedly said, seemingly referring to the criticism Trump has faced for amplifying Islamophobic attacks against Omar.
Photo credit: Drew Angerer - Getty Images
Last week, Trump posted a video to Twitter that included footage from a speech Omar gave to the Council on American-Islamic relations alongside video of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In her speech, Omar had referred to the Twin Towers attacks by saying that CAIR "recognized that some people did something and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties.” Conservatives accused Omar of minimizing the attacks with her use of the phrase “some people did something.” In the wake of Trump's tweet juxtaposing Omar’s remarks with footage of the attacks, the president was criticized for amplifying Islamophobia and furthering a political environment dangerous to Omar and all American Muslims.
Prosecutors say that aside from threatening Tlaib and Omar, Kless also left a message for Booker in which he called the Senator the n-word, and threatened that “government officials will be in the graves where [they] fucking belong.” He allegedly attacked Rep. Swalwell on the basis of his presidential campaign's anti-gun platform. “The day you come after our guns, motherfucker,” Kless said according to the federal complaint, “is the day you’ll be dead.” Kless was also investigated in February for allegedly making harassing calls to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Kless’s arrest marks the second time this month that a Trump supporter has been charged for threatening Congressional Democrats. Patrick Carlineo of New York was charged on April 5th with threatening to “put a bullet in [Omar’s] fucking skull.” The next day, Trump mocked Omar in a speech to the Republican Jewish coalition.
Carlineo’s threat and Trump’s attacks on Omar raised concerns for the Congresswoman’s safety. "Following the President’s tweet, I spoke with the Sergeant-at-Arms to ensure that Capitol Police are conducting a security assessment to safeguard Congresswoman Omar, her family and her staff," said Speaker Pelosi in a statement last week. "The President’s words weigh a ton, and his hateful and inflammatory rhetoric creates real danger.
www.yahoo.com/entertainment/another-trump-supporter-arrested-allegedly-160500902.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:21:50 GMT
Deplorable Trump lawyer rationalizes treason.Rudy Giuliani: Nothing wrong with taking info from Russians
CNN Published on Apr 21, 2019 President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani talks to CNN's Jake Tapper about the findings of the redacted Mueller report. #CNN #News Trump lawyer Giuliani says 'there's nothing wrong with taking information from Russians' Kadia Tubman 5 hours ago www.yahoo.com/news/trump-lawyer-giuliani-says-theres-nothing-wrong-with-taking-information-from-russians-160341148.html
MEET THE PRESS -- Pictured: (l-r) Rudy Giuliani, Lawyer for President Donald Trump, appears on 'Meet the Press' in Washington, D.C., Sunday, April 21, 2019. (Photo by: William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images) President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani appears on "Meet the Press" in Washington, D.C., on Sunday. (Photo: William B. Plowman/NBC/NBC NewsWire via Getty Images) Defending President Trump’s campaign for its willingness to accept help from Russia in the 2016 presidential election, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani said there was “nothing wrong” with a campaign taking information from foreign sources.
“Any candidate in the whole world, in America, would take information,” Giuliani told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” on Sunday. “There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians. It depends on where it came from.
“You’re assuming that the giving of information is a campaign contribution,” added Giuliani. “People get information from this person, that person.”
But when asked if he would’ve accepted information against a rival candidate, Giuliani, a former mayor of New York and Republican presidential candidate, said, “I probably wouldn’t. I wasn’t asked. I would have advised, just out of excess of caution, don’t do it.”
“You’re saying there was nothing wrong with doing that?” asked Tapper.
“There’s no crime,” said Giuliani. “We’re going to get into morality? That isn’t what prosecutors look at — morality. This didn’t become an international scandal because of immorality. It became an international scandal because the president was accused of violating the law, falsely.”
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Giuliani was asked the same question.
“So, it is now OK for political campaigns to work with materials stolen by foreign adversaries?” asked host Chuck Todd.
This time Giuliani had a slightly different answer: “It depends on the stolen material.”
Giuliani said it was common practice for political candidates to conduct opposition research on their opponents. He claimed Sen. Mitt Romney tried to “dig up dirt on people” when he ran for president in 2012 and called the Utah Republican a hypocrite for his criticism of Trump.
“Stop the bull,” Giuliani said on CNN. “Stop this pious act that you weren’t trying to dig up dirt on people, putting dirt out on people.”
After special counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report was released Thursday, Romney in a statement Friday said that after reading the 448-page document, he was “appalled that, among other things, fellow citizens working in a campaign for president welcomed help from Russia — including information that had been illegally obtained.”
The redacted report included 10 episodes that were examined as possible interference in Mueller’s investigation by Trump and his associates. Mueller made no recommendation about prosecution, although he specified that he could not clear the president of attempting to improperly influence the probe.
In one of the most striking sections of the report, Mueller wrote: “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”
The report credits Trump’s first White House counsel, Don McGahn, with stymieing the president’s attempts to fire Mueller, to the point of threatening to resign.
“Don McGahn saved him,” Todd said. “Why is the president angry?”
“Don McGahn didn’t save him,” Giuliani shot back. “… He had a perfect right to fire Mueller.”
At another point Giuliani compared the hacked emails stolen by Russian agents from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign officials to the Pentagon Papers, the internal Defense Department report on the Vietnam War that was leaked by Daniel Ellsberg to the New York Times in 1971.
“[The] Pentagon Papers were stolen. They were stolen from the Department of Defense. My God, that’s horrible,” Giuliani said.
“This is a foreign adversary, though,” Todd pointed out.
Giuliani responded: “What’s the difference between a spy and a foreign adversary?”
“One [Ellsberg] works for the United States of America and one doesn’t,” Todd noted.
Another guest on the CNN show, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who is running for the Democratic nomination for president, reacted to Giuliani’s defense of Trump, calling it “just ridiculous.”
He went on: “I think that shows how toxic the politics are today, this win-at-all-costs attitude that the president has and his administration has. That’s disgusting, to think that any major official, let alone someone so closely tied to the Trump administration, would think that that’s a good idea.”
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:22:45 GMT
FBI Received Reports Militia Leader Talked Of Assassin Training Targeting Obama, SorosHuffPost Mary Papenfuss,HuffPost 10 hours ago
Hopkins appearedMonday in federal court in Las Cruces, New Mexico
FBI agents received reports in 2017 that the leader of a right-wing militia that has been detaining immigrants in New Mexico had said then that his group was “training” to kill former President Barack Obama, former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and billionaire George Soros, according to an FBI affidavit.
The affidavit was part of the criminal complaint against Larry Mitchell Hopkins, who was arrested Saturday on a federal complaint charging him with being a felon in possession of firearms and ammunition. Hopkins appeared Monday in federal court in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Hopkins, 69, is the “commander” of the United Constitutional Patriots, whose armed members are seen in the group’s videos posted recently on social media that show them rounding up and holding immigrants in New Mexico until border agents arrive.
The FBI began investigating Hopkins after receiving reports in 2017 of “alleged militia extremist activity” in northwestern New Mexico, according to the affidavit by FBI special agent David Gabriel.
According to the affidavit, “Hopkins allegedly made the statement that the United Constitutional Patriots were training to assassinate George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama because of these individuals’ support of Antifa,” a shortened name for left-wing anti-fascist activists. Soros is a philanthropist and Democratic donor who is a frequent target of criticism by President Donald Trump and his supporters.
“Information also was conveyed that the group had its ‘base’ at Hopkins’s residence, was supported by approximately 20 members, and was armed with AK-47 rifles and other firearms,” Gabriel stated.
Hopkins’ lawyer, Kelly O’Connell, told The New York Times that the reports of assassination plans were “not true.”
The affidavit stated that agents found 10 weapons in Hopkins’ Los Flores, New Mexico, home during a search in November 2017 — including handguns and a 12-gauge shotgun — which he claimed belonged to his common-law wife. It wasn’t clear why Hopkins’ arrest occurred more than a year later.
Federal authorities refused to explain why Hopkins is just now being charged.
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New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas called Hopkins a dangerous felon who should not have weapons around children and families” following his arrest Saturday. Balderas said the “rule of law should be in the hands of trained law enforcement officials, not armed vigilantes.”
Hopkins was previously convicted of felony firearm possession and felony impersonating of a peace officer.
He was arrested just days after the UCP posted a video showing members, some of them armed, apparently holding hundreds of immigrants, including children. After receiving an alarming letter about the group’s actions from the American Civil Liberties Union, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham demanded the militia stand down, calling members’ actions “completely unacceptable.”
UCP spokesman Jim Benvie told The New York Times last week that the militia’s actions are legal and compared them to a “verbal citizen’s arrest.” He also said in a video posted to Facebook that border patrol agents are “happy” for the militia’s help.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that CBP “does not endorse private groups or organizations taking enforcement matters into their own hands.” It added that interference by civilians “could have public safety and legal consequences for all parties involved.”
Hopkins also goes by the name of the late singer Johnny Horton Jr. “Johnny” often runs the militia’s radio program. In a segment last month, he appealed for more “boots on the ground” to “capture” immigrants. He pleaded for donations for the group. “We’re down to nothing,” he said.
PayPal and GoFundMe have both blocked fundraising efforts by the group.
Hopkins’ next court appearance is scheduled for April 29 in Albuquerque.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
www.yahoo.com/huffpost/larry-mitchell-hopkins-united-constitutional-patriots-assassin-threat-005348723.html
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:24:05 GMT
White Nationalists Storm Washington Bookstore Reading: ‘This Land Is Our Land’HuffPost Carla Herreria,HuffPost Sat, Apr 27 8:06 PM MST www.yahoo.com/huffpost/white-nationalists-protest-washington-bookstore-030638024.html
A small group of white nationalists stormed a bookstore in Washington, D.C., to protest an event for a book on racial politics and how it’s impacting lower- and middle-class white Americans.
The group stormed the Politics and Prose bookstore on Saturday afternoon, interrupting a scheduled talk by Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University who released his book “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland” this spring.
Videos filmed by those in attendance showed the group standing in a line before the audience chanting, “This land is our land.” At least one man was yelling white nationalist propaganda into a megaphone while people in the bookstore booed him.
The man identified the group as “identitarians,” a far-right white nationalist group which is linked to Identity Evropa, which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as an extremist group.
Catherine Wigginton, who tweeted a video of the brief chaos, said she was “impressed” with how Metzl handled the interruption.
“Does anyone want to process that before I get back to what I was saying,” she tweeted, recalling his reaction after the white nationalists left.
Metzl, who is also the director for Vanderbilt’s Center for Medicine, Health and Society, was speaking at the bookstore for an Independent Bookstore Day event.
The bookstore protest happened on the same day a 19-year-old white supremacist opened fire on a synagogue in Poway, California, before a Passover celebration, killing one woman and injuring three others, including one young girl.
Before the attack, the shooter posted an eight-page manifesto online boasting about his “European ancestry” and expressing his hatred of Jewish people.
The bookstore protest ended without injury or damage, The Washington Post reported.
Metzl told NBC Washington that before the protest broke out he was speaking to a man who had helped Metzl’s father and grandfather flee Nazi Austria.
“Not five minutes before, I had acknowledged him and said this is how great America can be when it is bold and generous,” Metzl recalled to NBC.
He told the Post that the incident was “very symbolic for me.”
“In case anybody’s wondering what’s happening right now, they’re illustrating my point,” he said.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:25:18 GMT
Suspect in deadly San Diego synagogue shooting linked to mosque arson fire: Source ABC News BILL HUTCHINSON and MATT GUTMAN ABC NewsApril 28, 2019 www.yahoo.com/gma/suspect-deadly-san-diego-synagogue-shooting-linked-mosque-172300205--abc-news-topstories.html
Earnest "is our guy," the law enforcement source said of the arson at the mosque.
In the mosque fire, Earnest, of San Diego, allegedly left behind a note referencing the March 15 attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. A 28-year-old Australian man, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, described by authorities as a white supremacist, allegedly killed 50 Muslim worshipers and broadcast part of the massacre on Facebook Live.
In the Chabad of Poway synagogue attack, Earnest allegedly wore a helmet camera and was attempting to live stream the shooting, but his video equipment apparently failed to function, the source told ABC News.
Prior to Saturday's shooting, Earnest allegedly posted a 4,000-word letter on the dark web, professing to be a white supremacist and expressing hate for Jewish and Muslim people.
Earnest was allegedly inspired by the mass shootings in Christchurch and at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, where on Oct. 27 suspect Robert Bowers, who had written anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages on a website popular with white supremacists, allegedly killed 11 people and wounded seven others.
The attack in Poway occurred exactly six months after the Tree of Life massacre.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:26:31 GMT
Trump defends response to Charlottesville violence, says he put it 'perfectly' with 'both sides' remarkDavid Jackson, USA TODAY Published 11:22 a.m. ET April 26, 2019 | Updated 1:51 p.m. ET April 26, 2019
ux.newsleader.com/story/news/politics/2019/04/26/trump-says-both-sides-charlottesville-remark-said-perfectly/3586024002/
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump defended his widely criticized comments that there were fine people on "both sides" of the violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, saying the utterance was put "perfectly."
"If you look at what I said, you will see that that question was answered perfectly," he told reporters outside the White House on Friday. "I was talking about people who went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general.”
The violence in Charlottesville erupted after counter-protesters clashed with white nationalists and others who were part of the Unite the Right rally. Those groups were protesting Charlottesville's decision to remove a statue of the Confederate general Robert E. Lee. The violence left one woman dead.
Trump's "both sides" comment prompted bipartisan outrage with many people viewing the wording as equating the actions of the white nationalists to those of the counter-protesters.
“It was not only morally ambiguous, it was equivocating,” then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, said at a CNN Town Hall, adding that Trump's comments were "wrong."
Biden:Former VP uses Charlottesville as motivation for 2020 run: 'We are in the battle for the soul of this nation'
White supremacy: White supremacist terror is rising, and Trump's policies kneecap our ability to fight back
"People there were protesting the taking down of the monument to Robert E. Lee. Everybody knows that," Trump told reporters.
The Charlottesville violence played a central role in new Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's campaign announcement video on Thursday. In the message, Biden attacked the president's reaction.
"Trump stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were ‘some very fine people on both sides.’ Very fine people on both sides?"
With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime."
Biden called Charlottesville "a defining moment for this nation in the last few years."
“We can't forget what happened in Charlottesville," he said. "Even more important, we have to remember who we are. This is America."
Asked if he still believed there were very fine people on both sides, Trump defended the demonstrators aggrieved at the removal of the Lee statue, and went on to praise the legacy of the Confederate general.
"Whether you like it or not, he was one of the great generals," he said.
Analysts said organizers called the march to support white supremacy, not to protest statute removal.
Trump "continues to use the bully pulpit of the presidency to provide cover for racist violence," said Nicole Hemmer, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
More:Who is running for president in 2020? An interactive guide
Like what you're reading?: Download the USA TODAY app for more
Tim Miller, an anti-Trump Republican, said the president is trying to re-write the history on the Charlottesville event.
"The organizers spent the evening before the rally chanting 'Jews will not replace us' to clear up that this was a white supremacist gathering in case anyone was confused," Miller said. "Trump is using weasel words to defend these white supremacist marchers because he thinks they are his base supporters."
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:27:13 GMT
Restaurant slammed for displaying controversial bumper sticker: 'Come for the burgers, stay for the blatant racism!'Yahoo Lifestyle Kerry Justich,Yahoo Lifestyle 11 hours ago www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/restaurant-slammed-controversial-bumper-sticker-212634478.html
A fast food restaurant in Illinois faces controversy over a bumper sticker. (Photo: Facebook)
A burger joint in Illinois is receiving a lot of attention after one customer called the restaurant out for displaying a controversial bumper sticker, which some are calling offensive.
Sam Schnelle, a customer at Gross’ Burgers in Danville, Ill., took to Facebook on Friday to share a photo of the sticker in question, which read: “If you can’t read this, thank a Marine.” The message pointed to Arabic writing and displayed the acronym for the United States Marine Corp. But Schnelle called it “absolutely disgusting,” while others say that it is a sign of “racism.”
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“Come for the burgers, stay for the blatant racism!” one person commented on the post. Another wrote, “If you can read it, thank yourself for being a multicultural human and not a xenophobic garbage human.”
One regular even credited the sticker’s message as the reason that their family would no longer be going to Gross’ Burgers.
“Please consider that our community is not just for those who are native-born English speakers,” the customer wrote. “Let's move forward and make Danville welcoming and inclusive for everyone who wants to build it up and make it great.”
When Schnelle asked the restaurant’s owner, Brad Gross, to take the sticker down, he allegedly refused.
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A number of people have supported Gross and have argued that the bumper sticker is “not racism.” Some even suggest that the message has been misunderstood.
“It's not about speaking another language. Be fluent in as many [ways] as you want. That's great. But the sign is about being under a Muslim law or Sharia law & government that would make us write Arabic and abide by their laws,” one person wrote. “We need to thank our military we are not forced to be under that type of law.”
Another person echoed the sentiment and said, “Learn the history of the restaurant, Marine owned and operated. Get over it.”
Schnelle tells Yahoo Lifestyle that it wasn’t her first time at the restaurant, but it was the first time that she noticed the sticker. Gross told Illinois station WCIA that the sticker has been on display for 10 years.
“That bumper sticker has been in my restaurant for more than a decade and a Marine that served in Iraq brought it in and asked me to put it up,” Gross explained. “I said, ‘Yea, sure, go put it up,’ and it’s been there for all these years.”
Yahoo Lifestyle wasn’t able to get in touch with Gross for additional comment. But, by the looks of the business’s Facebook page, it seems that the owner is still getting plenty of support. According to one supporter, Gross even sold out of burgers on Sunday as a result of free publicity.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 4, 2020 8:28:07 GMT
They are being banned for their BEHAVIOR AND THEIR HATEFUL INTOLERANCE FOR NON CONSERVATIVES. The fact that that is normal everyday conservative behavior is not anyone's problem but their own. I wonder why conservatives can't get it through their heads what they think, say and do is deplorable? FOX itself ought to be banned.Trump slams censorship on social media, gives shoutout to James Woods: We're monitoring closely!(Photo by Pete Marovich/Getty Images) Posted May 04 2019 08:56AM PDT www.foxla.com/news/trump-slams-censorship-on-social-media-gives-shoutout-to-james-woods-we-re-monitoring-closely- Updated May 04 2019 08:58AM PDT
FOX NEWS - President Trump took to Twitter on Friday evening and slammed social media censorship in reaction to Facebook's recent crackdown of conspiracy theorists, a prominent anti-Semite, and other far-right figures, saying that he's "monitoring and watching closely."
On Thursday, Facebook permanently banned Nation of Islam founder Louis Farrakhan, InfoWars host Alex Jones, and rightwing provocateurs Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer, while Paul Joseph Watson. InfoWars' page was also taken down.
“We’ve always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology. The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today,” Facebook said in a statement to Fox News.
Trump weighed in on the issue, promoting US citizens' right to "freedom of speech."
The president went on give shoutouts to Trump supporters and Fox Nation hosts Diamond & Silk, who had previously accused Facebook of suppressing their page, Paul Joseph Watson, as well as conservative actor James Woods, who was recently suspended on Twitter over a tweet that violated the platform's terms.
"It’s getting worse and worse for Conservatives on social media!" Trump exclaimed.
President Trump recently met with Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey in the White House, where they discussed censorship of conservatives on social media.
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