Racism is alive and well, Thanks Trump and his supporters!

[Athos_131]

AP Stylebook update: It’s OK to call something racist when it’s racist

American journalists look to the Associated Press as the arbiter of language. Most newsrooms don’t have the resources to develop their own style manuals, so the influence of AP’s guidance stretches far beyond its own staff.

Friday’s updated entries on race-related issues are an acknowledgment of the topic’s growing prominence in American journalism. This new guidance offers journalists clarity and precision as they frame the news for their audiences.

Two things jumped out at me: AP finally agrees that “hyphenated Americans” are a relic. And, when an incident is racist, journalists should say so.

It’s seemingly small but significant that AP is eliminating the hyphenated American. The entry for dual heritage says to drop the hyphen in such terms as African American and Asian American. The hyphen dates to the 19th century as a way to distinguish immigrants as “other” and has been a common microaggression for more than a century.

When a subject’s heritage is relevant, it’s important to respect the source’s preference. Someone who is Asian American might be more accurately described as Chinese American. Someone who is black might want to be identified as Haitian Canadian.

Race is central to many recent headlines: Jussie Smollett’s case, immigration, the viral video of a teenager and a Native American elder.

However we are in an era of dog-whistle politics — if you know what to listen for, you get the message. Some newsrooms have soft-pedaled describing actions as racist. Instead, they have hedged with language such as “racially motivated.” Now AP has drawn a bright line in its entry on racism:

The terms racism and racist can be used in broad references or in quotations to describe the hatred of a race, or assertion of the superiority of one race over others.

The entry goes on to say that journalists should start by assessing the facts of the situation and discourages the euphemism “racially charged.”

A key portion of the entry on race-related coverage says:

Identifying people by race and reporting on actions that have to do with race often go beyond simple style questions, challenging journalists to think broadly about racial issues before having to make decisions on specific situations and stories.

AP has long given journalists latitude to use news judgment in determining how pertinent it is to include race in news coverage. But this year’s updates note that race is often “an irrelevant factor” and cautions journalists to be clear about the role of race before they include racial identifiers.

That’s a key component in mindful reporting: As journalists, we determine what is relevant to share with our audience. Everyone has their own innate set of assumptions, and race as a descriptor is one way in which we can add nuance or — perhaps unwittingly — reinforce stereotypes.

The stylebook also has a new entry cautioning against calling someone “a black” or “a white”; this is similar guidance to an entry updated in 2017 advising against referring to someone as “a gay.”

In full disclosure, I was asked to weigh in on AP’s race entries as a representative of the Asian American Journalists Association.

A few resources I recommend for people looking for more in-depth guidance on race issues:

Diversity Style Guide
Conscious Style Guide
Guide to Covering Asian America
National Association of Black Journalists Style Guide
Native American Journalists Association Style Guide
Global Press Style Guide

Journalism relies on the power of language. And the precision of that language is more critical than ever when it comes to how we cover race.

Go ahead.  Call a racist a racist.  The AP approves.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

I still back Robert Frances O'Rourke, because of the ISSUES I care about.  As a Texas citizen, I'm ashamed of the Internment Camps, child kennels, and mass deportations that he is committed to dealing with, ASAP.  Those people need to stop being stored behind chainlink, under bridges, in closed school gyms, and places we don't even know about, because there's not enough press coverage to even find them all.  Much less see what kind of canisters they have hooked up to the showers, and whether they're building crematoria to get rid of the bodies.

That's what I care about, this racist Genocide, and Apartied being committed in this state, by a pampered socially retarded narcissist who thinks the taco salad in the tower with his name on it is the best for Cinco de Mayo.  Release our Political Prisoners, and re-unite our refugees with their children.  Now.  

[Athos_131]

Confronting racism is not about the needs and feelings of white people

I was leaving a corporate office building after a full day of leading workshops on how to talk about race thoughtfully and deliberately. The audience for each session had been similar to the dozens I had faced before. There was an overrepresentation of employees of color, an underrepresentation of white employees. The participants of color tended to make eye contact with me and nod – I even heard a few “Amens” – but were never the first to raise their hands with questions or comments. Meanwhile, there was always a white man eager to share his thoughts on race. In these sessions I typically rely on silent feedback from participants of color to make sure I am on the right track, while trying to moderate the loud centering of whiteness.


In the hallway an Asian American woman locked eyes with me and mouthed: “Thank you.” A black man squeezed my shoulder and muttered: “Girl, if you only knew.” A black woman stopped me, looked around cautiously to make sure no one was within earshot, and then said: “You spoke the truth. I wish I could have shared my story so you’d know how true. But this was not the place.”

This was not the place. Despite the care I take in these sessions to center people of color, to keep them safe, this still was not the place. Once again, what might have been a discussion about the real, quantifiable harm being done to people of color had been subsumed by a discussion about the feelings of white people, the expectations of white people, the needs of white people.

As I stood there, gazing off into the memory of hundreds of stifled conversations about race, I was brought to attention by a white woman. She was not nervously looking around to see who might be listening. She didn’t ask if I had time to talk, though I was standing at the door.

“Your session was really nice,” she started. “You said a lot of good things that will be useful to a lot of people.”

She paused briefly: “But the thing is, nothing you talked about today is going to help me make more black friends.”

I was reminded of one of the very first panels on race I had participated in. A black man in Seattle had been pepper-sprayed by a security guard for doing nothing more than walking through a shopping center. It had been caught on camera. A group of black writers and activists, myself included, were onstage in front of a majority-white Seattle audience, talking about the incident. Fellow panelist Charles Mudede, a brilliant writer, film-maker and economic theorist, addressed the economic mechanisms at work: this security guard had been told that his job was to protect his employers’ ability to make a profit. He had been told that his job was to keep customers who had money to spend happy and safe. And every day he was fed cultural messages about who had money and who didn’t. Who was violent and who wasn’t. Charles argued that the security guard had been doing his job. In a white supremacist capitalist system, this is what doing your job looked like.

Well, at least he was trying to argue that point. Because halfway through, a white woman stood up and interrupted him.

“Look, I’m sure you know a lot about all this stuff,” she said, hands on hips. “But I didn’t come here for an economics lesson. I came here because I feel bad about what happened to this man and I want to know what to do.”

That room, apparently, wasn’t the place either. According to this woman, this talk was not, or should not have been, about the feelings of the man who was pepper-sprayed, or those of the broader black community, which had just been delivered even more evidence of how unsafe we are in our own city. She felt bad and wanted to stop feeling bad. And she expected us to provide that to her.

At a university last month, where I was discussing the whitewashing of publishing and the need for more unfiltered narratives by people of color, a white man insisted that there was no way we were going to be understood by white people if we couldn’t make ourselves more accessible. When I asked him if all of the elements of white culture that people of color have to familiarize themselves with just to get through the day are ever modified to suit us, he shrugged and looked down at his notebook. At a workshop I led last week a white woman wondered if perhaps people of color in America are too sensitive about race. How was she going to be able to learn if we were always getting so upset at her questions?

I’ve experienced similar interruptions and dismissals more times than I can count. Even when my name is on the poster, none of these places seem like the right places in which to talk about what I and so many people of color need to talk about. So often the white attendees have decided for themselves what will be discussed, what they will hear, what they will learn. And it is their space. All spaces are.

One day, in frustration, I posted this social media status:

“If your anti-racism work prioritizes the ‘growth’ and ‘enlightenment’ of white America over the safety, dignity and humanity of people of color – it’s not anti-racism work. It’s white supremacy.”

One of the very first responses I received from a white commenter was: “OK, but isn’t it better than nothing?”

Is it? Is a little erasure better than a lot of erasure? Is a little white supremacy leaked into our anti-racism work better than no anti-racism work at all? Every time I stand in front of an audience to address racial oppression in America, I know that I am facing a lot of white people who are in the room to feel less bad about racial discrimination and violence in the news, to score points, to let everyone know that they are not like the others, to make black friends. I know that I am speaking to a lot of white people who are certain they are not the problem because they are there.

Just once I want to speak to a room of white people who know they are there because they are the problem. Who know they are there to begin the work of seeing where they have been complicit and harmful so that they can start doing better. Because white supremacy is their construct, a construct they have benefited from, and deconstructing white supremacy is their duty.

Myself and many of the attendees of color often leave these talks feeling tired and disheartened, but I still show up and speak. I show up in the hopes that maybe, possibly, this talk will be the one that finally breaks through, or will bring me a step closer to the one that will. I show up and speak for people of color who can’t speak freely, so that they might feel seen and heard. I speak because there are people of color in the room who need to hear that they shouldn’t have to carry the burden of racial oppression, while those who benefit from that same oppression expect anti-racism efforts to meet their needs first. After my most recent talk, a black woman slipped me a note in which she had written that she would never be able to speak openly about the ways that racism was impacting her life, not without risking reprisals from white peers. “I will heal at home in silence,” she concluded.

Is it better than nothing? Or is the fact that in 2019 I still have to ask myself that question every day most harmful of all?

#Resist

[_priapism]

Fox News Apologizes For ‘Three Mexican Countries’ Graphic



Because if they speak “Mexican” they must be “Mexican countries” right?  RIGHT???

#ignorant #racist #fucks

[psiberzerker]

Fox News Apologizes...

Wow, between that^ and Alex Jones pleading Insanity for what he said about Sandy Hook, and the mass shootings being a Hoax, the conservative biased media are really starting to lose some of the credibility they never should have had in the first place!

[Katiebee]

Fox News Apologizes For ‘Three Mexican Countries’ Graphic



Because if they speak “Mexican” they must be “Mexican countries” right?  RIGHT???

#ignorant #racist #fucks

Ignorant is correct. A demonstration of why Fox is a poor news channel.

[Athos_131]

Who Should Be Embarrassed?

“FBI & DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our Nation!” With that tweet, Donald Trump took the absurdity of America’s obsession with a trivial crime and entertainment story and heightened it.

But it was just the kind of story that he and conservatives love, one that mixes race, criminality and culture. They need desperately to find emblems of minority pathology to justify their calloused, draconian approach to minority issues.

The Hate Crime Hoaxer, the Mexican Rapist, the America-Hating Muslim, the AIDS-Infected Haitian: each of these ideas has a particular serviceability. In their minds, I believe these archetypes work to invalidate criticism and to inoculate them from accountability.

For the record, if Smollett did what he is accused of having done, it was not only wrong, but also stupid.

But I also believe that the case is little more than tabloid fodder that the media, spurred by wails from conservatives and always so desperately insecure about being accused of liberal bias, has pumped up and stretched out. Everyone is trying to make this case bigger than it is and to mean more than it does.

At its core, it’s just a story about an alleged lie told by a cable television actor. It is a story about an alleged hate crime that didn’t happen, but that was staged by Smollett. The police diverted quite a few resources to investigate his claim, then came to the conclusion that the event was a hoax. Finally, the case was dropped before a trial and the records were sealed.

It is interesting Hollywood drama, but meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Smollett was charged with making false reports — lying. If the police are correct, there was no assault or death. There was no property damage. There was no theft.

The major damage was the damage Smollett did to his own career and reputation.

Diverting resources that could be used to investigate actual assaults and murders is a big deal, but if the police and prosecutors believed he did this, then they should have financial restitution as part of a plea deal.

It is an ugly truth that money and power make a mockery of our justice system. Some people sit in jails for weeks, months or even years waiting for a trial because they can’t afford bail. Others pay up and go home immediately. Some people must use overworked public defenders. Others can afford high-powered legal teams. Some people are not shown preferential treatment. Others are.

Often, the people most injured by the negative impacts of this corrupt system are the poor, black and brown.

But in this case, Smollett, a black man, was the one with the wealth and the power. Prosecutors cut him a break that I don’t think they would have cut for the poor and the powerless.

None of this is of any real consequence beyond the local authorities and Smollett himself. And yet, more than two whole months after the precipitating event, people are still trying to make Smollett the embodiment of race problems in America. The dimwits at “Fox & Friends”went so far as to say the case, if it had been true, had the potential to ignite “race riots in major cities across this country.”

Ridiculous.

Others bemoaned the horrible impact the case would have on other hate crime victims being believed.

As a theory, that certainly sounds plausible, but where are the data to support such a claim? Smollett didn’t invent incredulity about vulnerable people and crime, so neither is he likely to significantly alter it.

I believe a bigger problem than people not being believed is that they are believed, but no one cares what happened to them.

Even the media is far more interested in the hoax angle to this story than they ever were about the alleged hate crime.

As Phillip Bump wrote in The Washington Post in February, the debunking of Smollett’s claim had gotten far more coverage than the initial claim.

Folks, what you are seeing is a media being bullied into bending over backward to placate the people who endlessly accuse them of bias. I believe you are also seeing an expression of subconscious race bias in the media itself that truly registers sensation at the thought of this black man’s deception.

Smollett’s greatest offense in this regard was not lying, if indeed he did, but lying about white people who support a racist in the White House.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump’s new Puerto Rico hate-tweets rest on a very ugly premise

President Trump wants Midwestern farmers to believe that Puerto Rico, with the complicity of Democrats, is trying to take their disaster relief money from them — and that the island is undeserving of any further financial help.

As usual, these arguments are based on lies. But as Trump’s lies go, these are particularly instructive — and ugly.

Yet these new lies also raise a question: Why does Trump assume that Midwestern farmers will believe them?

A battle has erupted in the Senate over disaster relief, one that, if Trump has his way, will pit more recent disaster victims (Midwestern farmers dealing with flooding and Southerners dealing with tornado damage) against those on Puerto Rico who are still suffering under the aftereffects of the 2017 Hurricane Maria.

On Monday night, the Senate failed to pass a massive $13.45 billion emergency aid bill for victims of all these national disasters, amid an impasse over money for Puerto Rico. Democrats say the $600 million for food stamps for Puerto Rico in the bill is far short of what is needed, and support a bill the House passed a few months ago that contains hundreds of millions of dollars more for the island.

Trump opposes any of that additional funding. In an unusually disgusting and hateful series of tweets, he claimed that Puerto Rico has already gotten $91 billion in aid, which he said has been “wasted” by “grossly incompetent” leaders there.

Crucially, Trump also argued that Puerto Rico politicians “only take from USA” and that Democrats now “want to give them more, taking dollars away from our Farmers.”

Trump’s claim that Puerto Rico has already gotten $91 billion in aid is a lie. As Glenn Kessler demonstrates, less than $20 billion has actually been laid out or identified, and Trump’s figure is based on an internal government estimate of what might be spent under current statutes over 20 years, an estimate that is itself very fuzzy and subject to change.

The claim that Democrats want to take money from Midwestern disaster relief and give it to Puerto Rico is also a lie.

As Erica Werner and Jeff Stein explain, what actually happened is that House Democrats passed a relief bill with money for Puerto Rico and other more recent disasters months ago — well before the Midwestern flooding occurred. So Senate Democrats on Monday tried to add an amendment to that bill that would make billions in disaster money accessible to the Midwest and Southeast. Thus, the Democratic approach was to fund Midwestern, Southern and Puerto Rican aid. But Republicans opposed that amendment.

At the same time, Democrats opposed the Republican version of the disaster relief bill. This one funded Midwestern disaster relief, but by their lights insufficiently funded Puerto Rico.

The idea here is that this is supposed to create a serious political predicament for Democrats. As the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls are campaigning in Iowa, this story goes, they just voted against a bill that funds help to the beleaguered Midwest.

Multiple Republicans have made versions of this argument. And Trump did, too, bashing Democrats for killing “great relief to Farmers.”

The core dispute

But the core dispute is not over whether Midwestern disaster relief should be funded, or by how much. It’s over whether more money should be added to help Puerto Rico. And even if more were added for Puerto Rico, as Democrats want, it would not come out of funding for Midwestern relief.

And so, the underlying premise of the Republican attack is that it should be a political liability for Democrats if they want to fully fund disaster relief for everybody.

In the real world, of course, if the true nature of this dispute were understood, it probably wouldn’t be a political problem for Democrats. That’s why they are embracing their demand for funding relief for all who are afflicted. As Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer put it, “we help our fellow Americans when there’s a disaster, wherever the disaster strikes. We do not abandon them. Period.”

It should be noted that Puerto Rico is still in desperate straits. Recently New York Times reporters visited more than 150 homes in Puerto Rico and came away with numerous wrenching stories.

This is why Trump needs to flagrantly distort the underlying dispute, by claiming both that Puerto Rico is undeserving of the aid money that Democrats want to give it, and that in so doing, Democrats would take money from Midwesterners, both of which are based on lies.

The underlying premise of this story is that the voters Trump plainly hopes to arouse with it will be inclined to believe those lies.

The things Trump will do to please his base

We already know that much of what Trump does is geared, to an extraordinary degree, toward his base. Trump embraced a lawsuit that would unleash enormous damage throughout the health-care system in part because it would please his base. Trump pardoned abusive racist Joe Arpaio after growing convinced that it was “a way of pleasing his political base.” Trump reportedly claimed of his horrific family separations that “my people love it.” Trump revived his attacks on football players protesting racism while believing it “revs up his political base.”

We don’t know for sure if Trump believes his latest attacks on Puerto Rico will please his base. But, given that he’s telling rural voters in a region he needs in 2020 that Puerto Rican disaster sufferers do not deserve any more help and that such help would take from them, it seems like a reasonable assumption.

It is unlikely that large numbers of those voters will believe this story. But what does the fact that Trump is telling it say about his view of those voters, and of what they want to hear?

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump keeps talking about Puerto Rico like it isn’t the U.S. It doesn’t seem like a mistake.

It’s tempting to view President Trump’s many grievance-filled tweets as angry, indiscriminate lashing out at political opponents. It’s unhinged! It’s unpresidential! They’re “rage tweets!” Etc.

Often, though, if you look closely, you’ll see some design. Behind the invective and often-incorrect claims will be a controversial suggestion with built-in plausible deniability. He will be saying something without actually saying it. He’ll send the desired message to his supporters — a dog whistle — but when the media asks him and his aides, they’ll say he wasn’t really saying that. In the process, he’ll foment culture war and controversy.

Such appears to be the case with his tweets about Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning, along with an aide’s explanation of them.

In two Trump tweets about Puerto Rico and a cable news appearance from a top White House spokesman later that morning, both Trump and the spokesman talked about Puerto Rico as if it weren’t part of the United States. And they did so in a way that couldn’t help but make you think this might be deliberate.

In his tweets, Trump said the hurricane-ravaged island’s politicians “only take from USA” and said Puerto Rico will “continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments.”

Of course, as Philip Bump notes, Puerto Rico is indeed part of the United States. Like any state, it both contributes to and accepts help from the federal government. That may be in a way that people like Trump view as unbalanced, but it’s difficult to picture Trump talking about a state as “only tak[ing] from the USA.”

Puerto Rico also employs farmers, who are “our farmers,” but they don’t seem to factor in to Trump’s concept of “our Farmers.” Trump’s claim that Puerto Rico is taking resources from “our … States” is also a curious formulation.

The combination of those three things at the very least seems to betray Trump’s attitude that Puerto Rico is a lesser part of the United States.

Later, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley appeared on MSNBC. In an interview with Hallie Jackson, Gidley twice referred to Puerto Rico as a “country,” which it is not. It’s important to note that this came after he correctly labeled it a “territory” twice. Gidley was also asked about the “country” comments at the end of the interview, at which point he apologized and said it was a mistake. He said it was a “slip of the tongue.”

Jackson, to her credit, pressed the point. She had just grilled Gidley on Trump’s apparent otherizing of Puerto Rico, after all, and this seemed a conspicuous mix-up from someone who had been dispatched to talk about that. Gidley again assured her that it wasn’t intentional.

“No, that was — a slip of the tongue is not on purpose, Hallie,” Gidley said. “That would, by definition, be a slip of the tongue.”

That skepticism is not misplaced. Whatever you think of the reasons for Trump’s attitude toward Puerto Rico, there’s no question he’s trying to diminish it. The question is whether he’s doing that because that’s what he believes and he’s truly upset about its use of federal funds, or whether he sees some kind of political advantage in it (or both!). Even just the day before, he oddly referred to it as a “place” — in quotation marks — in a tweet. That’s four references in less than 24 hours that suggested Puerto Rico was less-than. At some point, we can’t dismiss all of these things as coincidences.

And a spokesman going on cable news and calling Puerto Rico a “country” would only seem to fan the flames of the fire Trump has lit on this issue.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

White House spokesman twice calls Puerto Rico ‘that country’ in TV interview

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley twice referred to Puerto Rico as “that country” during a television appearance Tuesday in which he defended a series of tweets by President Trump lashing out at leaders of the U.S. territory.

In two bursts of tweets — one late Monday night and another Tuesday morning — Trump complained about the amount of federal relief money going to the island and called its politicians “incompetent or corrupt.”

He also claimed that Puerto Rico “got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane,” a figure that actually reflects a high-end, long-term estimate for recovery costs. Only a fraction of that has so far been budgeted, and even less has been spent.

As he pressed to defend Trump’s contentions, Gidley sought to make the case that the leaders of the territory, whose residents are U.S. citizens, have mishandled the aid they’ve received thus far.

“With all they’ve done in that country, they’ve had a systematic mismanagement of the goods and services we’ve sent to them,” Gidley said. “You’ve seen food just rotting in the ports. Their governor has done a horrible job. He’s trying to make political hay in a political year, and he’s trying to find someone to take the blame off of his for not having a grid and not having a good system in that country at all.”

Gidley later attributed his misstatements to “a slip of the tongue.”

During the interview, Gidley was also asked about a tweet in which Trump said Puerto Rico’s leaders “only take from the USA.”

Asked to clarify how Trump views the status of Puerto Ricans, Gidley said Trump is supportive of its people, noting that he traveled there after Hurricane Maria hit in September 2017.

“He gave them a lot of money,” Gidley said. “They have mismanaged and misused that money. It hurts their people. That’s what he’s upset about.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

It's a feature, not a bug.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

White power symbol found at Highlander Center fire used by Christchurch shooter

NEW MARKET, Tenn. — A racist symbol found spray-painted near a building destroyed by fire at the Highlander Education and Research Center has been displayed by notorious white supremacists here and abroad, including the man who livestreamed his massacre of worshippers at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

A fire of undetermined origin destroyed the main office Friday of the Highlander Center, an internationally known social justice organization that hosted prominent leaders, including the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s.

The building, about 25 miles northeast of Knoxville in New Market, housed archives documenting the Highlander Center's history. It's unclear what documents were destroyed; the Wisconsin Historical Society preserves the center's documents and said the majority of the center's archives are safe.

In a news release Tuesday, the Highlander Center announced that a "symbol connected to the white power movement" was found spray-painted in the parking lot by the main office. Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Coffey confirmed the symbol was found Friday and described it as "the hashtag symbol."

A photograph taken Tuesday by knoxnews.com shows the symbol, painted in black, not far from the rubble of the burned building. It consists of three vertical lines intersecting three horizontal lines, and looks like a hashtag with an extra line in each direction.

The symbol was used by the Iron Guard, also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael, a far-right, anti-Semitic movement active in Romania in the 1930s, said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow with the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. He specializes in right-wing extremism and maintains the organization's Hate Symbols Database.

"Right-wing extremists in Europe and some in the United States have occasionally used that symbol, including in Tennessee," Pitcavage said. "The symbol was also one of the symbols that the Christchurch shooter painted on one of his firearms."

Coffey, the sheriff, said Tuesday his office is seeking assistance from another law enforcement agency to verify the context of the symbol found at the scene of the fire. He would not say which agency is assisting those efforts, and he could not be reached for comment Wednesday morning.

Before the center issued its news release, authorities had not mentioned the graffiti publicly, nor had they said whether they considered the fire to be suspicious. The sheriff's office is investigating with assistance from the state Fire Marshal's Office.

Members of the Traditionalist Worker Party also have used the Iron Guard symbol, Pitcavage said. The neo-Nazi outfit was active in Knoxville in late 2017 and early 2018 before the group reportedly collapsed when a bizarre love triangle saw its leader, Matthew Heimbach, arrested on battery charges in Kentucky.

Heimbach grew popular in far-right circles after he helped lead the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The demonstration turned deadly when avowed neo-Nazi James Alex Fields rammed his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.

Days later, when Heimbach spoke to reporters outside a court appearance for Fields, he wore a shirt bearing the Iron Guard symbol and a picture of the Romanian movement's fascist founder, Corneliu Codreanu.

While it was active in Knoxville, the Traditionalist Worker Party posted fliers that were removed from a university building, brought 20 people to protest a Women's March that drew a crowd of 14,000, and repeatedly painted swastikas and other imagery on the Rock, a massive boulder that serves as an ever-changing message board on UT's campus.

In January 2018, the Iron Guard symbol appeared on the Rock, spray-painted in black along with the letters "TWP," the words, "My borders my choice," and various other white supremacist symbols.

The following month, Heimbach held a gathering on UT's campus after the university said his group misrepresented itself to reserve a space. The talk drew 45 attendees, 250 protesters, 200 law enforcement officers — and condemnation from then-Chancellor Beverly Davenport, who noted, "I have repeatedly said they weren't invited."

Although the Traditionalist Worker Party reportedly disbanded after Heimbach's arrest in March 2018, some of its members continued to show up at events in Knoxville, including at a rally over the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. Meanwhile, Heimbach signed on to be the "director of community outreach" for another neo-Nazi group, based in Detroit, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Swastikas have appeared on the Rock as recently as November.

During the livestream of last month's terror attack that killed 50 people at two mosques in New Zealand, the shooter could be seen using weapons with various names and symbols scrawled on them. One gun had the hashtag-looking Iron Guard symbol prominently displayed. He also posted photos of the guns to Twitter before his account was taken down; one image showed the symbol on the side of a firearm.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Can we just stop pretending that this isn't exactly what it looks like?  Psychotic behavior, this is the kind of thing we expect to see in a serial killer's, political assassin's, or erotomantic stalker's basement.

This is our police, teaching each other what a Target looks like.  That it's easier to shoot black people than white people.

[psiberzerker]

Homstead prison expanding from 2,300 to house 3,200 minors.

For the crime of applying for Legal Immigration.

That's just 1 facility.

[Athos_131]

Trump says Rep. Omar ‘doesn’t like Israel,’ one day after arrest in threat case

LAS VEGAS — President Trump on Saturday criticized Rep. Ilhan Omar, one day after a New York man was arrested and charged with threatening to kill the Minnesota Democrat.

In remarks to a conservative Jewish group, Trump thanked several Republican lawmakers for their support before mocking Omar, an outspoken critic of U.S. policy toward Israel who has also made comments that some say invoke anti-Semitic stereotypes.

“Special thanks to Representative Omar of Minnesota,” Trump told members of the Republican Jewish Coalition in a ballroom of the Venetian Resort. “Oh, I forgot. She doesn’t like Israel. I forgot. I’m so sorry.”

Patrick W. Carlineo Jr., the man charged with threatening Omar, allegedly called the lawmaker a “terrorist” and vowed to put a “bullet in her [expletive] skull” in a phone call with a member of her Washington staff, according to a statement Friday by the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of New York.

A spokesman for Omar did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks.

Trump’s reference to Omar came during a wide-ranging speech in which he declared that the U.S.-Israel bond “has never been stronger” and argued that Democrats “aren’t fighting for Israel in Congress.”

“Republicans believe that we must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism. We do. All of us,” Trump said. The president had previously sparked widespread condemnation after declaring that there were “some very fine people on both sides” of the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, at which neo-Nazis had shouted, “Jews will not replace us.”

Much of Trump’s speech Saturday was standard campaign-rally fare, with the president mocking asylum seekers, threatening to close the U.S. border with Mexico, attacking the Green New Deal plan to combat climate change and boasting about his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Several of the Trump administration’s actions toward Israel have been praised by that country’s leaders, including the moving of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and a recent decision to recognize Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights. That disputed region was seized from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war, and most of the international community considers the annexation an illegal occupation.

Trump’s decision has particularly resonated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has sought to ally himself with the president ahead of his bid for reelection on Tuesday.

“Over the years, Israel has been blessed to have many friends who sat in the Oval Office,” Netanyahu told Trump during a visit to the White House last month. “But Israel has never had a better friend than you. You show this time and again.”

On Saturday, Trump received a standing ovation when he spoke about the embassy move. “Unlike other presidents, I keep my promises,” he said.

He made note of his relationship with Netanyahu and made a reference to the Israeli prime minister’s reelection battle, asking the crowd, “How is the race going, by the way? . . . I think it’s gonna be close.”

He touted his decision to withdraw the United States from the “disastrous” Iran nuclear deal, telling the crowd, “They wanted to kill Israel. They wanted to destroy Israel.”

And he hailed the work of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, peace envoy Jason D. Greenblatt and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. “I would like to see peace in the Middle East,” Trump said. “If those three can’t do it, you’ll never have it done.”

Two protesters were escorted from the venue after briefly interrupting Trump as he began his remarks, chanting, “Jews are here to say, ‘Occupation is a plague.’ ”

But overall, Trump received an enthusiastic reception from the crowd.

Las Vegas casino magnate and major Republican donor Sheldon Adelson, who is on the RJC’s board of directors, was seated in the front row for Trump’s speech. A handful of attendees were holding signs reading, “We Are Jews For Trump” and “Thank You President Trump.” Others were wearing red yarmulkes with “TRUMP” in white lettering.

The audience also gave a standing ovation to Timothy Matson, a police officer who rushed to the scene of last year’s shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and suffered gunshot wounds while saving lives. Trump had invited Matson to attend his State of the Union address in February.

Trump has seized on recent infighting in the Democratic Party over comments from Omar that were widely perceived as using anti-Semitic tropes and called on the freshman lawmaker to resign over those remarks. Late last month, Trump claimed that Democrats are an “anti-Israel” and “anti-Jewish” party, even though Jews have historically voted more Democratic than Republican.

While Trump has condemned Omar for evoking stereotypes about Jews and money, Trump himself had expressed similar sentiments to the RJC in 2015, when he was running for the GOP presidential nomination.

“You’re not going to support me because I don’t want your money,” Trump said then. “But that’s okay. You want to control your own politician.”

Trump on Saturday was speaking to an audience comprising primarily American Jews. But at one point, he told the crowd that he “stood with your prime minister at the White House.” At another point, Trump warned that Democrats’ “radical agenda” in Congress “very well could leave Israel out there all by yourselves.”

#Resist

[joan1984]

Does Rep. Omar "like" Israel?

Does she say that publicly, has she ever? She need not "like" anyone or anything, and if one accuses President Trump of telling a untruth, in regard to whether Rep. Omar, or any other politician 'likes' Israel, please give some statement she has made to show Trump's comment is not valid.

Thank you.

[Katiebee]

It is his opinion. His opinion is not to be trusted.

In his opinion the noise of windmills causes cancer. Thusly, if he spouts off, it may be safely taken as a fact that he knows nothing. Either he is ignorant or a liar.

Which would you prefer Joan? Pick one.

[psiberzerker]

Does Rep. Omar "like" Israel?

Does she say that publicly, has she ever? She need not "like" anyone or anything, and if one accuses President Trump of telling a untruth, in regard to whether Rep. Omar, or any other politician 'likes' Israel, please give some statement she has made to show Trump's comment is not valid.

Thank you.

This is not logic.  She doesn't have to like Israel, or dislike it.  Donald Trump has no business telling anyone what someone he doesn't give a cintillashit about "Likes."  

He hates her. 

Women, even Somali-American women can speak for ourselves.  We don't need a Man to tell everyone else what we like.

[joan1984]

  President Trump has said Windmills kill birds. True, of course. Have not heard him speak about causes of cancer at all.

#Desist

[psiberzerker]

Have not heard him speak about causes of cancer at all.

#Persist

So, do you not listen to him directly, or just forget the things he says that are blatantly insane?

Here it for yourself.

What I love about this clip is everyone's laughing, like it's a comedy sketch, but he's completely serious.