Sally Yates – Uprising!

The first line of battle against the Chumph and Republican reprobates…

Sally Yates calls for uprising of Americans to ‘stand up, speak out’ and relocate ‘core values’

The United States is at another critical moment in history where Americans must decide what kind of country they want to be. That’s what former acting Attorney General Sally Yates wants the country to understand.

In an op-ed for USA Today, the foe of President Donald Trump once tried to warn and help the administration, only to be thrown out of office. Yates thinks this is part of a calling for Americans to decide if they’ll uphold the “country’s core values.”

“Our founding documents set forth the values that make us who we are, or at least who we aspire to be,” Yates wrote. “I say aspire to be because we haven’t always lived up to our founding ideals — even at the time of our founding. When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were being enslaved by their fellow Americans.”

She recalled the Jim Crow South when Americans were forced to decide whether they wanted to be defined by lynchings or a promise of equal justice. While Americans have sometimes fallen short of what it strived for, Yates explained that they still shared a vision of what the country meant and what was expected of leaders.

She listed values that unite the United States and asked Americans to look back at the Preamble to our Constitution to harness the inspiration:

“’We the people of the United States’ (we are a democratic republic, not a dictatorship),” Yates wrote. “‘In order to form a more perfect union’ (we are a work in progress dedicated to a noble pursuit) ‘establish justice’ (we revere justice as the cornerstone of our democracy) ‘insure domestic tranquility’ (we prize unity and peace, not divisiveness and discord), ‘provide for the common defense’ (we should never give any foreign adversary reason to question our solidarity) ‘promote the general welfare’ (we care about one another; compassion and decency matter) ‘and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity’ (we have a responsibility to protect not just our own generation, but future ones as well).”

She explained that the Bill of Rights similarly gets to the point of allowing for individual liberty and other rights that Americans are taking for granted.

“But without vigilance can erode and slip away, such as freedom of speech (our right to protest and be heard); freedom of religion (the essential separation between how one worships and the power of the state); and freedom of the press (a democratic institution essential to informing the public and holding our leaders accountable),” she continued.

The rule of law is generally another essential principle, according to Yates. It implied we are approaching a lawless world in which any possible criminality on the part of the president could be ignored by portion of the citizens.

“The promise that the law applies equally to everyone, that no person is above it, and that all are entitled to its protection,” she wrote. “This concept of equal protection recognizes that our country’s strength comes from honoring, not weaponizing, the diversity that springs from being a nation of Native Americans and immigrants of different races, religions and nationalities.”

Yates noted that one thing that separates the United States from an autocracy is the “strict separation between the Justice Department and the White House on criminal cases and investigations.” It should ensure the public would believe in the legitimacy of the criminal process. Truth is another thing that ensures the U.S. doesn’t stumble drunkenly into an autocracy.

“There is such a thing as objective truth,” she explained. “We can debate policies and issues, and we should. But those debates must be based on common facts rather than raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications.”

She said that failing to tell the truth is important. If Americans can’t trust their public servants and fail to hold them accountable for lies, “we look the other way and normalize an indifference to truth.”

She closed with a powerful call to action:

“We are not living in ordinary times, and it is not enough for us to admire our nation’s core values from afar…So stand up. Speak out.”

 

Submarining the Chumph

Submarining the most hated POS in America, anyway they can. The war inside the Executive Branch cornholing Putin’s Bitch any way they can.

Federal employees have found ingenious ways to thwart Trump’s absurd anti-Obama agenda

Pundits have joked that President Donald Trump has a list of accomplishments from Barack Obama’s administration and is going through them one by one in efforts to destroy them. While the reality is probably less about Obama and more about progressive policies in general, the Trump administration has gone through a list of Obama-era accomplishments and attempted to undermine or end them.

In a Monday report, Bloomberg News revealed government employees are circumventing absurd Trump administration demands by simply renaming things.

The example Bloomberg highlighted is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) opinion that climate change is real, it’s a serious problem and that it is man-made. Trump’s policy, however, vacillates between believing it isn’t real or that it’s a “hoax” perpetuated by the Chinese. Trump’s appointees at the Commerce Department have complained to the staff at NOAA, which it oversees, but they’ve never demanded changes to scientific findings, research or reports.

Some of the estimated two million staffers have managed to “obstruct, slow down or simply ignore” Trump.

“Everything coming out of NOAA does not reflect this administration,” retired lawyer David Schnare said. He worked for a think tank that is skeptical about climate change. “It reflects the last one.”

The same is happening at the Securities and Exchange Commission, where a report was released contradicting Trump’s position about banking regulations. Embassy staff at the State Department are maintaining programs that boost economies in developing nations, which is in opposition to Trump’s “America First” philosophy. Instead of it being about the economy of a third-world nation, they changed the label so that it’s about creating markets for U.S. exports.

Secretary of Energy Rick Perry commissioned a report on the dangers of putting energy onto the power grid from wind and solar energy. The published report proved the exact opposite. Pentagon staffers have outright refused to implement Trump’s policy of barring transgender soldiers from serving in the military. In November, they paid for one such gender-reassignment surgery for a soldier.

The General Services Administration (GSA) has a fleet of over 1,000 electric cars thanks to a 2011 program aimed at building “a 21st century clean energy economy.” That’s in conflict with the Trump administrations’ position on climate change as well. So, the GSA labeled it as a job creator.

“GSA recognizes that emerging technologies play a significant role in our mission to save taxpayer dollars, create jobs and stimulate economic growth in the United States; which is one reason we provide the federal fleet with vehicles that offer the latest and most efficient transportation technologies available, including electric vehicle (EV) technology,” the agency celebrating “National Drive Electric Week.”

The largest barrier to the White House being able to enforce their agenda from top to bottom is Trump’s inability to hire or appoint the necessary staffers and leaders. “Less than two-thirds as many appointments have been submitted and won Senate confirmation,” Bloomberg reported, comparing it to where the Obama administration was at the same time.

Even with appointments, however, there are millions of government employees who maintain their job regardless of who is in office.

“It’s an enormous challenge for a new president and administration to exert influence over the bureaucracy,” Vanderbilt political science professor David Lewis explained. “They know a lot more than the political appointees who come into the agencies. That gives them an advantage.”

While Trump will likely blame “the deep state” or partisan hacks in departments, the bureaucrats are far from it.

“The bureaucracy is generally resistant, no matter what the hell you’re trying to do,” said former Clinton and Obama transition head Leon Panetta. When a president begins as Trump did, admitting he plans to disrupt things, getting staff to implement such policies “is gonna take a hell of a lot longer.”

In the NOAA case, Trump appointees attacked the report “unacceptable” and “inflammatory.” The report was then leaked to the press, which makes it more difficult for staff to make any changes without the public noticing.

 

Impeach the Chumph!

If you can spare a few seconds, please sign the Change.Org -“impeach the Chump” petition. They ask for a donation of $3, but you can refuse and distribute the petition to friends and family.

The target is to reach 2 million signatures. I think we can do a little better than that.

Go here to Sign the Petition.

 

 

 

Professional Sports Teams Dump the Chumph Hotels and Resorts

In the event I have never enunciated this clearly –

No Charity which holds events at a Chumph fleabag Hotel ror Resort will ever receive a dime from me in contribution, or any in kind support or positive reference.

No corporation which sponsors events at Chumph Resorts or Hotels will ever see me as a customer.

No Sports or Entertainment corporation which either uses, advertises, or sponsors any event at a Chumph Resort or Hotel will ever receive any of my business.

I think folks are getting the message out there from a lot of folks who feel the same way.

Pro sports teams were once reliable patrons of Trump’s hotels. Not anymore.

Until recently, the Trump SoHo hotel served as a kind of luxe clubhouse for NBA teams visiting New York.

At least 12 teams — more than a third of the league — had stayed there since it opened in 2010. The players loved it so much they became walking ads for the Trump brand: Superstar Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder praised the hotel in the press. Toronto Raptors all-star Kyle Lowry gave interviews on the lobby’s couch. Then-Thunder forward Steve Novak tweetedabout the $20 room-service lattes.

Now, it’s not the same.

All but one of the 12 teams said they have stopped patronizing the Trump SoHo since Donald Trump launched his presidential bid in 2015, according to team officials. Among the latest to depart were the Raptors, Phoenix Suns, Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings and Washington Wizards, who all dropped Trump SoHo this summer and made different arrangements for the upcoming season.

Another NBA team quit staying at Trump’s hotel in downtown Chicago. And at least three National Hockey League teams and one Major League Baseball club have stopped frequenting Trump hotels in the same time, according to interviews with team officials.

Before Trump turned professional athletes into his political targets in recent weeks — jousting on Twitter with the Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry and blasting football players for kneeling during the national anthem — he had been privately losing their teams’ business. The trend has sapped his hotels of revenue and big-league buzz, a survey of teams by The Washington Post found.

In all, The Post found that 17 teams from across the four major sports had stayed at Trump properties in recent years. Now, at least 16 are no longer customers.

“The president has seemingly made a point of dividing us as best he can,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr told The Post in an interview this week, explaining the shift. His team quit using Trump SoHo in 2016. “He continually offends people, and so people don’t want to stay at his hotel. It’s pretty simple.”

The Post reached out to all 123 teams in the four major U.S. sports leagues to find out how many men’s teams are still Trump customers. A total of 105 responded. Not a single team confirmed its players stay at Trump properties.

Some of the teams that have left Trump hotels cited reasons outside politics. One, for instance, said it was difficult to get team buses in and out of Lower Manhattan.

The loss of pro sports clients at Trump’s hotels is part of a larger trend at his businesses, which appear to be pulled in opposite directions by his polarizing presidency…

 

 

Rep Al Green Says It In Congress – Impeach!

You got 40 some black folks in the House, and two in the Senate…

Don’t you think it is time to bring this shit down?

You do this right, there ain’t no 485th attempt to kill Obamacare…

There ain’t no “Tax Giveaway to the rich”.

The Chumphshit doesn’t get to appoint any more racist judges.

Not a damn  thing moves.

Time to go there.

 

Rep. John Lewis on Trump Racism

Lewis lays it out as clear as a bell here.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe marching  in the streets and singing “We Shall Overcome” is going to do much this time around. We need to find much more direct ways to resist. Whether economic, or breaking the established systems through non-cooperation there needs to be a hard stop. I am certainly not advocating bomb throwing (yet) – but if Counselor Mueller fails to take this Piece of Shit out, or Congress politically refuses to react to the evidence…

Then it may well come to that.

 

 

Comey Unloads Both Barrels on the Chumph

Former FBI DIrector James Comey’s testimony yesterday was the Chumph’s “Watergate Moment”.

Not only calling the Chumph out as a bald faced liar – but the exposure of the fact that the Chumph intended to operate the Presidency along the lines more suitable to a Mafia Don, than the leader of the free world. Something recognized by Comey in his very first meeting with the Chumph.

Missed by a lot of people were topics Comey avoided or couldn’t speak of.

Meaning “Obstruction of Justice” is just one of the crimes Putin’s Bitch is being investigated for. The Chumph’s many lies have made sure of that.

‘A devastating day’: Conservative writer says Comey testimony is beginning of the end for Trump

Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin said Thursday that former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee was a “devastating” blow to President Donald Trump and could spell the beginning of the end of his administration.

Rubin — who appeared on “Hardball” alongside GOP strategist John Brabender — said, “It’s obvious he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” with regard to Trump’s decision to hire his personal “fixer” attorney Marc Kasowitz to represent him during this investigation, which Rubin called a great way to not “look innocent.”

“Actually I thought it was a devastating day for the president,” Rubin said. “What [Comey] painted was not any one incident but a portrait of the way this guy operates, which no one on the Republican side is going to defend.”

She continued, “Now the question is just whether this was highly inappropriate, whether this was impeachable or whether this is grounds for a criminal prosecution.”

By comparison to Comey, she said, Tump “comes across like a sleazy guy trying to lean on Jimmy Stewart — the director of the FBI.”

Jake Clapper, former CIA head – had this to say…

The CHumph is a liar –

 

Putin’s Bitch Orders Government Not to Respond to Democrat Requests

Well, I hope this dispels any illusions the weak kneed Democrats may have had about Putin’s Bitch operating a legal government.

Maybe it is time to start breaking things…Like ceasing all operations of the House and Senate until an Impeachment can be done.

Trump White House orders federal agencies to blow off requests for info from all Democrats

Democrats keep sending letters to government agencies requesting information — but the Trump White House is instructing those agencies to completely ignore them.

Politico reports that the Trump administration has ordered agencies to stop responding to oversight requests from Democrats, as administration officials “fear the information could be weaponized against President Donald Trump.”

One White House official told Politico that such restrictions were entirely justified because Republicans now control all three branches of government and thus don’t have to pay any attention to the minority party’s requests for information.

“You have Republicans leading the House, the Senate and the White House,” the official explained. “I don’t think you’d have the Democrats responding to every minority member request if they were in the same position.”

Politico notes that while the Obama administration regularly drew complaints from Republicans for being slow to respond to their oversight requests, the Obama White House never issued a sweeping order sent out to multiple agencies telling them not to cooperate.

“I do not remember… a blanket request from the Obama administration not to respond to Republicans,” a former GOP staffer told the publication.

 

Republican Congressmen “Running and Hiding, Shucking and Jiving!”

Long term loudmouth Republican Congressman Darrel Issa had to run to the roof of his office in his district to escape protesters…

Endangered GOP lawmaker Darrell Issa hides out on roof while avoiding angry constituents

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) was spotted on the roof of his district office building on Tuesday looking out at a crowd of angry constituents that he had avoided on his way into the building.

A photo of Issa on the roof was posted by Mike Levin, a California Democrat who is running to unseat the nine-term congressman in 2018. In the photo, Issa appears to be holding a phone and filming all the hundreds of protesters who lined up across the street from the building.

“Yes, this is really Darrell Issa on the roof of his district office building,” Levin wrote. “Too afraid to come speak with assembled constituents below.”

Speaker Paul Ryan found out how pissed even the younguns are…

 

WTF Did You Expect? FCC Under Cyber Attack

More resistance to the Chumph screwing America!

A Typical DDOS Attack involves using surrogates to flood the website of a victim. It is the simplest cyber attack to implement.

FCC Says Its Website’s Under Cyberattack

The Federal Communications Commission said Monday that its website was bombarded with denial-of-service attacks after criticism of the regulator’s plans to reverse net-neutrality rules. The attacks came a day after comedian John Oliver urged viewers of his HBO show to submit electronic comments opposing the regulator’s plans, setting up a website for the sole purpose of filing such comments. Shortly after that appeal, the FCC said in a statement that it “was subject to multiple distributed denial-of-service attacks.” “These were deliberate attempts by external actors to bombard the FCC’s comment system with a high amount of traffic to our commercial cloud host,” the FCC said, adding that the attacks “made it difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the FCC.” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said last month he would seek public comment on his plan to undo net-neutrality rules, a move that would leave internet service providers mostly free from FCC regulations. Under the current policy, introduced by the Obama administration, internet service providers are regulated by the FCC to prevent them from giving preferential treatment to certain websites for profit. Pai has described that policy as a “serious mistake” and said it is stifling the industry. Critics of Pai’s plan warn that it would allow internet service providers like Comcast and AT&T to put profits before consumers.

 

Angela Rye Cuts Loose on Omarosa

The video sound is bad, but you may be able to turn the sound up enough to hear it – There is a better version on Twitter @AngelaRye.com

Angela Rye slams Omarosa to her face in scalding takedown of ‘president’s apprentice’

Angela Rye brought down the house with her fiery denunciation of Omarosa Manigault and her boss, President Donald Trump.

The CNN political commentator and former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus spoke after the White House advisor Thursday at the National Action Network convention, reported Politico.

Manigault touted her advocacy work with the Trump administration on behalf of historically black colleges and universities, and the audience groaned when she vowed to fight on their behalf from the White House.

But Rye drew a rousing response when she scolded the Trump adviser and former “Apprentice” contestant.

“I’m going to bring the fire right now,” Rye said. “Moments ago, we were joined by your president’s apprentice. The truth is, when you tell somebody you’re going to fight for them, I’m going to tell you how not to fight for them.”

“You don’t fight for them by putting forth a tax reform plan that cuts corporate tax rates but ignores the poor,” she continued. “You don’t fight for them by cutting taxes for the rich, and ensuring that burden is going to be on the backs of the poor and ordinary black and brown people.”

The audience roared as Rye slammed the president and Manigault — including the racist “birther” conspiracy theory that brought Trump into national politics.

“How you don’t fight for [your community] is by trivializing our first black president, Barack Obama, by questioning his citizenship, by questioning his validity,” Rye said. “How you don’t fight for us is by pissing on me and telling me it’s rain.”

“Resist, y’all,” Rye said, as she walked away from the microphone.

 

Even Republicans Are Tired of North Carolina Legislature Fascism

There come a time in everyone’s life when you see something, and recognize “This ain’t right”…

And respond to it.

It may be something as small as standing up for someone, or some idea being unfairly treated.

Sometimes its a big thing, putting your person in physical or legal danger.

The difference between American Patriots and the white-wing scum who have taken over the Republican Party is simply this…

Patriots believe in putting the values andd laws of our country over their Party.

Republican North Carolina judge resigns — and slams the GOP on the way out

In a dramatic response to a power-grab by Republicans in the North Carolina legislature, a Republican judge resigned today to circumvent efforts to strip power from the Democratic governor.

The Charlotte Observer reports that following today’s surprise resignation by Republican Judge J. Douglas McCullough, Democrat John Arrowood was sworn in. Judge McCullough worked as a staffer for Senator Harrison Schmitt (R-NM) before being appointed by President Ronald Reagan as United States Attorney in the eastern district of North Carolina.

Since Democrat Roy Cooper was elected Governor of North Carolina last fall, the Republican Legislature has gone to great lengths to strip his office of power. Yet with a three-sentence resignation letter this morning, Judge McCullough has proven that not all Republicans are willing to go along with shenanigans by legislative Republicans.

North Carolina has a mandatory retirement age for judges. To prevent the Democratic Party governor from appointing replacements for Court of Appeals judges nearing forced retirement, the Republican Legislature passed a bill to shrink the size of the court from 15 to 12 judges — thereby denying the Democrat of three scheduled appointments.

The legislation was vetoed on Friday, but a successful veto override was expected later tonight.

However, before the legislature could vote to override Governor Cooper’s veto of House Bill 239, Judge McCullough resigned 36 days prior to his forced retirement. This allowed the appointment of Judge Arrowood at 9:45 a.m. this morning.

“I did not want my legacy to be the elimination of a seat and the impairment of a court that I have served on,” Judge McCullough explained.

Newly sworn-in Judge John Arrowood is the first openly gay member of the North Carolina Court of Appeals.

 

What the Stylish Are Wearing – ITMFA

Yeah… Get Yours – Here.

Oh…the ITMFA stands for Impeach the Motherf***er Already!

 

Dan Savage Raises $100K With ‘Impeach The Mother F*cker Already’ Swag

And he isn’t planning to stop there.

Dan Savage is using his disdain for President Donald Trump for great causes.

The LGBTQ rights activist and author announced April 18 that he’d raised $100,000 for three organizations that are in direct opposition to Trump policies through the sale of ITMFA, or “Impeach The Mother F*cker Already,” merchandise.

Savage, 52, made the announcement on the weekly Seattle newspaper, The Stranger, and on his personal Instagram.

Accoding to Savage’s Instagram site –

dansavageI’m mailing out checks today—and not just to the IRS.

This morning I had the distinct pleasure of mailing off checks to Planned Parenthood ($33,333.34), the ACLU ($33,333.33) and the International Refugee Assistance Project ($33,333.33)—money we raised selling ITMFA (“Impeach The Mother Fucker Already”) buttons, t-shirts, hats, stickers, coffee cups, and lapel pins at http://www.ITMFA.org and http://www.impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com. And I got to mail those checks out because nearly 10,000 Savage Love readers and Savage Lovecast listeners have ordered #ITMFA gear over the last eight weeks!

The best part of wearing ITMFA buttons or t-shirts or hats or lapel pins or all of the above? Or the second best part, I should say, after helping to raise money for three critically important and hugely effective organizations fighting Donald Trump? The interactions you have with friends, co-workers, neighbors, at anti-Trump marches, on the bus, etc. Because when people are going to ask you what ITMFA stands for and YOU GET TO TELL THEM it stands for ‘Impeach The Mother Fucker Already!” (If there are kids around you can go with “Malicious Fascist” or “Malodorous Fart” or “Malignant Fraud.”) We sell the buttons in ten packs (ten for $10) so you can share buttons with people who absolutely have to have one after they find out what it means!

 

 

Growing Anti-Racist Movement Confronts White Right at Their Level…By Breaking Heads

“White supremacists are like rabid dogs…Just like rabid dogs, putting them down is always the most humane approach.” -Unidentified HARM Member

 

The white-right are a band of Chumph supporters with tactics descended from the KKK, whose tactics include beatings, bombings, murder, and attacking minorities whenever they get a 5 or 10 to one advantage.

During the Civil Rights era, they could commit their crimes safe under the umbrella of local Police, and all-white juries made up of people who shared their beliefs.

They are hoping, the Chumph will bring back their heydays of being unaccountable for their nefarious and often violent actions.

They have also been secure that under MLK’s non-violence based philosophy – no one seriously confronted them with much more than words.

That’s changed.

 

Striking Back, the Anti Racist Movement and the Tinley Park Five

At lunchtime on May 19, 2012, 18 masked men and women shouldered through the front door of the Ashford House restaurant in Tinley Park, Illinois, a working-class suburb of Chicago. Some diners mistook the mob for armed robbers. Others thought they might be playing a practical joke. But Steven Speers, a stalactite-bearded 33-year-old who had just sat down for appetizers at a white nationalist meet and greet, had a hunch who they were. The gang filing in with baseball bats, police batons, hammers, and nunchucks were members of Anti-Racist Action (ARA) and the Hoosier Anti-Racist Movement (HARM), two groups dedicated to violently confronting white supremacists.

“Hey, bitches!” one of the anti-racists shouted before charging Speers’ table. “ARA is going to fuck this place up!”

Speers stood up and warned his seven companions to prepare to fight. His girlfriend, Beckie Williams, who had organized the lunchtime gathering on the white supremacist website Stormfront, grabbed a butter knife. Francis Gilroy, a homeless man who had driven up from Florida to find “work for whites,” as an online ad for the meeting promised, tried to pull the attackers off his companions. Williams was clubbed on the arm. Speers was hit on the head so hard he vomited.

An 80-year-old woman celebrating her granddaughter’s high school graduation at a nearby table was also pushed to the floor. A retired cop who believed he was witnessing a terrorist attack used a chair to knock out one of the masked intruders. That’s when they ran off, dragging their dazed companion.

In less than two minutes, the anti-racists had unleashed a flurry of destruction. A mosaic of smashed glass covered the floor. Blood polka-dotted the ceiling. Three people required medical care.

Jason Sutherlin

One group of attackers raced away in a cherry red Dodge Neon. Jason Sutherlin, a 33-year-old with the words “TIME BOMB” tattooed across his knuckles, rode shotgun. His half-brother Dylan drove, and his half-brother Cody, along with their cousin John Tucker, squeezed into the backseat with 22-year-old Alex Stuck, who’d been decked in the restaurant. They sped toward Interstate 80, which would take them home to central Indiana.

An off-duty police sergeant who’d heard a radio call about the attack spotted the Neon and turned on her siren. When she looked inside the parked car, amid the sweaty men she saw a baton, a baseball cap that said “Anti-Racist,” and a black and red scarf spelling out “HARM.” The men were arrested and charged with felony mob action and aggravated battery, which together carried up to seven years behind bars. (Speers and Gilroy were also arrested—Speers for a charge of possessing child pornography.)

Sutherlin and his four compatriots would soon come to be known as the Tinley Park Five. Though they had launched the Hoosier Anti-Racist Movement just six months earlier, the attack would make them the public faces of a small yet militant movement that had been waging war on right-wing extremists for decades. HARM was part of Anti-Racist Action, a national group that had spent more than 20 years trying to expose and combat radical right-wing activity with tactics that ranged from counseling kids in neo-Nazi gangs to harassment and physical violence. Most of their actions received little attention, though they occasionally made headlines, like after the 2002 Battle of York, where ARA members attacked a white supremacist march in a Pennsylvania town, or the time in 2009 when pepper-spray-wielding ARA members broke up a New York City speech by the British Holocaust denier David Irving. But mostly, this war was invisible beyond the predominantly white working-class youths caught up in it.

White Nationalist and kiddie porn pedophile

As the election of Donald Trump has ushered white supremacists and their ideas from the fringes to the mainstream, their most militant foes have also come out of the shadows. On Inauguration Day, Richard Spencer, the white nationalist who coined the term “alt-right,” was punched in the face on a Washington, DC, street corner. The blow was caught on video, spawning countless remixes and a debate over the ethics and efficacy of “Nazi punching.” That same night, a Trump supporter shot and wounded an anti-fascist, or “antifa,” who was protesting a speech by Breitbart provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of Washington in Seattle. Less than two weeks later, “black bloc” protesters in Berkeley, California, helped force the cancellation of another Yiannopoulos speech, setting fires, smashing windows, and punching a Milo fan. Nationwide, new militant groups like Redneck Revoltare recruiting the next generation of activists who believe that white liberals are not up to the challenge of beating back right-wing extremists. The story of HARM’s rise and fall is a prequel to this moment, and a revealing tale about an underground war that’s been simmering for years and may now be poised to explode.

The seed for HARM was planted in People’s Park, a tangle of trees and footpaths in downtown Bloomington, Indiana, where in 1968 an African American graduate student named Clarence Turner opened a small store called the Black Market. In a state with a long history of white supremacism (in 1925, nearly one-third of all adult white males there belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, and the governor was a sympathizer), the shop celebrated African and African American culture by selling dashikis and Malcolm X speeches. A few months after it opened, two Klan members firebombed it on Christmas. “This will not be an open season on niggers,” Turner shouted during a rally in front of the ashen skeleton of his shop.

By the 1990s, People’s Park had become a hangout spot for punks, ravers, hippies, petty drug dealers, and college kids looking to score. It was there around 1996 that Jason Sutherlin met Telly, another teen from a nearby town. Telly introduced Sutherlin to Nomad, a hulking, half-Puerto Rican tattoo artist. (These names are aliases that they asked me to use to avoid being targeted by white supremacists; the investigation into the Tinley Park assaults is ongoing.) Long before they would become leaders of the local anti-racist movement, the three teens “chased the same cute punk girls,” Sutherlin recalls. “At first, they were my competition, but then we became pals.”

The trio shared a love of hip-hop and punk and a hatred for bullies. It was at house parties and concerts that they got their first introduction to Indiana’s numerous white supremacist gangs—specifically, the Hammerskins and the Vinlanders Social Club. Sutherlin recalls attending a show where a Hammerskin stabbed a Latino kid. At another show, concertgoers tried to kick out a group of neo-Nazis, one of whom fired a gun into the air. (More recently, three Vinlanders nearly beat a homeless black man to death in Indianapolis in 2007.) Sutherlin was shocked by the neo-Nazis’ boldness, but he was just as impressed by how the older punks stood up to them. “That culture of not taking any shit seeped into my consciousness.”...Read the Rest Here…

 

Muslim Woman Faces Down England Trumpazoids

The “English Defense League” is the UK’s version of the US’s Trump neo-Nazis.

They decided to throw a big bash, and demonstrate on the streets of Birmingham, doing the usual terrorizing of little old Muslim ladies by screaming invective and racial slurs…

And along came this woman…

Whoops!

This Muslim Woman Faces Down Islamophobes in Iconic Image of Defiance

An image of a woman staring down a hate group has become a social media phenomenon. It’s reassuring proof of Britain’s defiance of racists and xenophobes.

Maybe she should have handed the guy a Pepsi.

A Muslim woman who was pictured this weekend calmly facing down an anti-Muslim demonstrator with an expression of amused contempt has become a social media phenomenon.

The woman was confronting a protestor from the so-called English Defense League, on the streets of Birmingham, England’s second largest city. The EDL is a far right group which describes itself on its website as “a street movement from the English working class” which is “the forefront of the counter-jihad”, refers to Islam as a “barbaric evil cult,” and frequently organizes demonstrations to protest immigration and multiculturalism.

Tweeting the photograph, Birmingham Member of Parliament Jess Phillips wrote: “Who looks like they have power here, the real Brummy on the left or the EDL who migrated for the day to our city and failed to assimilate?” Her tweet had been reposted 10,000 times by Monday morning.

The woman pictured has been identified as Saffiyah Khan, a Birmingham resident. She told the BBC that when the picture was taken, she had stepped forward to defend a woman wearing a hijab who had been surrounded by a group of men.

She said she had initially been happy “to stay out of the way”, but “stepped forward” when another woman shouted “Islamophobe” at members of the EDL who had gathered in Centenary Square.

“A group of 25 quite big-looking EDL lads surrounded her,” she said.

“I stepped forward and identified myself as someone who supported her and contradicted them.”

Khan, who was born in the U.K. and is half-Pakistani, half-Bosnian, said she “wasn’t intimidated in the slightest”.

She added: “He put his finger in my face. It was very aggressive. A police officer was there and the man took his finger out of my face. I wouldn’t have responded violently.”

“I don’t like seeing people getting ganged up on in my town,” Khan said.

The EDL demonstration attracted around 100 people, and was condemned by political leaders of Birmingham city council. The city has a 22% Muslim population in comparison to a national average in the U.K. of around 4%.

Birmingham central mosque hit back at the protest in truly British style by organizing a tea party.