White Supremacists Celebrate Midterms as a Victory

Despite the fact that Republicans lost control of the House of Representatives in last week's midterm elections, white supremacists are puffing themselves up and claiming that they were the real victors.  Why?  Because what for years had been becoming an largely unspoken plank of the GOP agenda is now overt under Donald Trump: racists and white supremacists are openly welcome in the Republican Party.  (In Virginia, defeated GOP candidate Corey Stewart ran on a openly racist platform).  This reality, combined with the fact that Trump openly displays his racism and the re-election of some of the most racist GOP members of Congress - e.g.. Steve King - has white supremacists cheering.  The big question and fear is whether or not they will put their bigotry into action against non-whites.  A piece in CNN looks at this cancer on America.  Here are article highlights:

White supremacists are saying they were winners in last week's midterm elections.

They were already emboldened by the language used by President Donald Trump and senior members of his administration -- words like "nationalist" and "invasion" that have hateful dual meanings -- according to a review of sites frequented by white supremacists. And they saw Tuesday's results as a victory for white America with what they believe will be progress toward a border wall, an end to DACA, or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, and birthright citizenship.
 Memes and commentary on the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer site bashed nonwhite candidates who did not win, as well as losses by Republicans not seen as Trump loyalists.

"This changed history. It cleared away any of the remaining fog of confusion about what exactly we are dealing with in this country," Daily Stormer founder and publisher Andrew Anglin wrote.
 Anglin was buoyed by the win of Rep. Steve King in Iowa, even after King was pilloried for meeting with a far-right Austrian group linked to Nazis and retweeting an avowed Nazi sympathizer. King, a Republican, says he was unaware of the Nazi links in both those instances, but he has used racially charged and anti-immigrant rhetoric for years.
 King still won with 50.6% of the vote in Iowa's deeply conservative 4th Congressional District. In Illinois, Arthur Jones, a self-declared Holocaust denier and former leader of the American Nazi Party tallied almost 56,000 votes, more than a quarter of the total, standing for the GOP in Illinois' 3rd Congressional District. "Steve King won," Anglin wrote. "If last night was a referendum on Steve King's white nationalism, as the Democrats were trying to frame it, then white nationalism won."

On the campaign trail for Sen. Ted Cruz fighting for re-election in Texas, Trump declared, "I'm a nationalist, OK? I'm a nationalist."   A commenter on the 4chan bulletin board joked Trump was winking at them.

Earlier, another poster declared Trump was venerated by white supremacists: "What Dems, all leftists and pundits do not understand is that TRUMP is patriots' and Western/American Heritage's CHAMPION." To Alcindor, Trump repeated two more times how racist the question was. But he also never flatly denounced white supremacists. They were overjoyed, calling the press conference "glorious," and "beautiful" on 4chan, with one commenter writing: "I am honestly in awe of this man as a leader." "It doesn't take an overt slur for these individuals to basically become emboldened and to recognize and be excited by policies that they see would further their goals," said Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "When they hear [Trump] the President say things like, 'I'm not a racist,' they turn around amongst themselves and say, 'He just has to say that for practical reasons,' 'he just has to say that basically to get himself cover, to do the things that we want him to do,'" Hankes says. What is not clear is if any extremists will follow words with violence, as allegedly happened with Robert Bowers, who has pleaded not guilty to killing 11 people at a synagogue late last month, allegedly because he believed Jews were helping "invaders."

On places like 4chan, false talk of the migrant caravan as "invaders" has taken over on some of the message boards and become a popular meme topic. Analysts say "the browning of America" where whites become a minority is what the white supremacists fear most. There are threads with memes containing photos doctored to look like people breaking down walls at the US border with Mexico. There are jokes about how the traditional rush of Black Friday shoppers is nothing compared to what would happen next. In another thread on 4chan, commentators speculate about how many people would be shot as they come over the border. The thread appeared to reference Trump's comment that US troops on the border could fire on someone in the migrant caravan if the person threw rocks or stones. "All of them," one poster wrote of a possible casualty count. "Not enough," said another.
 The administration's approach to immigration in particular has "electrified" many racists, Hankes said, "to the point where they're begging their followers to go out and find ways to put Republicans in office." "They believe it will be easier for these policies to sail through," he said. "And these are things that they think are essential for creating a white ethno-state." Perhaps this election did energize white nationalists to vote, if they thought they had a champion in government. But there is also the fear -- and the example -- of men taking matters into their own violent hands.
 Bowers, the accused synagogue killer, echoed Trump talking points when he wrote on the free-speech forum Gab that "I have noticed a change in people saying 'illegals' that now say 'invaders'." The post, made six days before the shooting, continued, "I like this."

The time has come for my Republican "friends" to decide whether they are racists or not.  They cannot support a racist party any longer and then pretend that they are not complicit in its ugly agenda.  

Corey Stewart: White Nationalists' Dream Candidate

Charlottesville - August 12, 2017

Virginia's 2018 election for U.S. Senator is going to be a moment of truth, if you will, for a number of Republican "friends."  With the Trump/GOP tax cuts having destroyed any shred of a fig leaf argument that the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility, Trump trashing free trade, and destroying safety regulations, support for the Republican Party is boiling down to one thing: white nationalism.  Now, these "friends" who view themselves as moral, refined and educated will have to decide if they are going to vote for Corey Stewart, an avowed Neo-Confederate loved by white supremacists and the Al-Right. Will they define themselves by politically aligning with these frightening, racist elements?  Will they at last tacitly admit that they are racists by voting for Stewart?   A lengthy piece in the New York Times looks at Stewart and the ugly company he keeps.  My Republican "friends" need to read the article and know that the rest of us will know the truth about them if the back Stewart.  Here are article highlights:

Corey Stewart stands at the end of a long driveway that leads back in time, to his 18th century plantation manor hidden in woods behind a modern housing development. Mr. Stewart, the Republican Senate nominee from Virginia, treats the brick home like a living museum, complete with buttons from Redcoats, a Civil War soldier’s belt buckle and a room dedicated to George and Martha Washington, who were once visitors.
 Mr. Stewart has styled himself as a champion of the Confederacy and its statues, and, as he puts it, “taking back our heritage.”

This has made him a popular figure with white nationalists, much to the horror of many Virginia Republicans. While Mr. Stewart has disavowed some on the extreme right, interviews with dozens of his friends, colleagues, supporters and fellow Republicans yielded a portrait of a political opportunist eager to engage the coarsest racial fringes of his party to advance his Trumpian appeal.

Some white nationalists volunteer for Mr. Stewart’s campaign, and several of his aides and advisers have used racist or anti-Muslim language, or maintained links to outspoken racists like Jason Kessler, the organizer of last year’s violent rally in Charlottesville, Va. Mr. Stewart has not distanced himself from those aides.
 [A] profound political dilemma of the Trump era is whether to support the growing number of candidates like Mr. Stewart who make racially divisive remarks — particularly about immigrants — and back causes that are championed by white nationalists. President Trump’s own language and policies have energized Mr. Stewart and other far-right candidates, and Mr. Trump has high approval ratings from Republicans, but it is not clear how many rank-and-file voters will embrace like-minded politicians like Mr. Stewart.
 Sitting in the living room of the historic brick home he bought in 2012, Mr. Stewart praised President Trump’s statement that there were “very fine people on both sides” at the Unite the Right white nationalist protests in Charlottesville last August. . . . He does not accept that slavery was at the heart of the Civil War. . . . He contended that the term “white supremacist” was a concoction of the left.

In an extraordinary sign of discomfort with Mr. Stewart, some Republicans have been eager behind the scenes to provide opposition research aimed at discrediting him, with disaffected party members circulating racially inflammatory tweets and Facebook postings authored by one of Mr. Stewart’s advisers.

Shaun Kenney, former state party executive director, lamented that “the alt-right has taken over the Virginia Republican Party.” After Mr. Stewart secured the nomination in June, John C. Whitbeck, Jr., the party chairman who once accused Mr. Stewart of “racist” language, resigned.

But many Republican leaders haven’t publicly disavowed Mr. Stewart, mindful that Mr. Trump is supporting him, and that [Trump] the president has strong influence with the party base . . .

Virginia has not elected a Republican statewide since 2009 and voted for Hillary Clinton over Mr. Trump in 2016. With its strong economy and elite public university system, Virginia has become a symbol of Southern moderation and tolerance, but the far right sees an ally in Mr. Stewart who will push back against the leftward drift and demographic changes underway in the state.
 He also refashioned himself as a booster of the Confederacy, especially in his unsuccessful 2017 race for governor. He has appeared at the Old South Ball, an antebellum-dress event in Danville, and likened his own political crusade to that of Confederate rebels.  “You’ve got this guy who is a transplant coming into Virginia trying to out-Southern folks who’ve been here for 400 years,” said Brian Schoeneman, a Fairfax Republican and former legislative candidate.

Over the years, Mr. Stewart became increasingly outspoken. He dismissed one Republican rival as a “cuckservative” and assailed David Hogg, the teen gun control activist, as “that punk” who has “been brainwashed.” He became an ardent defender of Alabama’s Roy Moore amid allegations of sexual misconduct with underage girls. “I think they all disappeared since, didn’t they?” he said of Mr. Moore’s accusers. (They have not.)

At a board meeting this summer, one that Mr. Stewart did not attend, several speakers blamed him after Klan fliers landed on local lawns.  “This isn’t a coincidence that this happened in my neighborhood,” said Maggie Hansford, a local teacher who has decided to run for a board seat. “Our chairman can’t stop talking about the Confederate flag.”

A “Corey Stewart for Senate” sign flanks the gravel driveway leading to George and Donna Randall’s southern Virginia home.  An avowed secessionist, Mr. Randall is eager to explain himself, welcoming a visitor onto his porch.

“I’m a secessionist because the federal government is anti-Christian and we’re different culturally,” explained Mr. Randall, a retired heavy equipment operator whose forebears include Confederate veterans. “The government never surrendered, only the Army. We’re still under Reconstruction.”

George Randall and his wife Donna have helped organize “meet and greets” for Mr. Stewart. The 60-year-old brothers have been seen frequently with him and are known to provide volunteer security for Mr. Stewart at public events, a task they both confirmed, though Mr. Stewart denied it, saying “that was one of those crazy rumors.”

Both brothers took part in the Unite the Right rally and also belong to the League of the South, a Southern nationalist organization that honors John Wilkes Booth “for his service to the South” and seeks to secure ”a future for white children.”

Mr. Stewart’s associations with Mr. Kessler, the Charlottesville rally organizer, and Mr. Kessler’s ties to a Stewart aide, Brian Landrum, have raised the most serious questions.

Trump's Lies About Arpaio Being "Convicted for Doing His Job"

Any sentient, non-racist person should know by now that, if Der Trumpenführer's lips are moving, it's a near guarantee that he is lying.  His remarks about convicted former sheriff Joe Arpaio when he spoke to a rally of his racist, white trash supporters, however, brought the lies to levels shocking even for the narcissistic, pathologically lying Trump.  Trump's claim that Arpaio had been convicted for "doing his job" was not only untrue, but also white washed a track record of abuse and of Arpaio's failing to do his job.  By pardoning Arpaio, Trump clearly confirmed that he himself is a white supremacist who is perfectly fine with the mistreatment of minorities - something that even extends to members of the LGBT community.   Stories in The Atlantic and the Seattle Times look at Arpaio's record of abuse and malfeasance in office - things that Trump has now lauded.  First, these highlights from The Atlantic:

The pardon that Donald Trump granted Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, sends this message to American law enforcement: if you violate the civil rights of Latinos while enforcing immigration law, the president of the United States approves—and even if you’re one of the vanishingly few sheriffs or police chiefs that the Department of Justice charges with a crime, he’ll intervene to spare you.

The pardon is thus a slap in the face to Latinos, and ought to be an affront to all fair-minded Americans who value the Constitution, the rule of law, and the legitimacy of the system.

 In America as a whole, Sheriff Arpaio is a figure in the culture wars best known for putting prison inmates in pink underwear and insisting Obama was a secret foreigner. In Arizona, where voters only recently turned him out of office after tiring of his actions, his record is better known. I summarized its low points in 2012:

• "Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Phoenix-based department repeatedly arrested Latinos illegally, abused them in the county jails and failed to investigate hundreds of sexual assaults, the Justice Department charged after a three-year civil rights investigation," the Los Angeles Times reported. The investigation found "432 cases of sexual assault and child molestation, often involving Latinos, that were not properly investigated over a three-year period." Additionally, "one Latino was intentionally hit by a patrol car and dragged, with instructions for other deputies to 'leave him there ... A Latino motorist was incarcerated for 13 days for not using his turn signal. Emails written by deputies caricatured Mexicans as being from 'Mexifornia,' and deputies derided Latino inmates as 'wetbacks,' 'Mexican bitches,' 'stupid Mexicans' and other epithets."(The Los Angeles Times)

• "Maricopa County Sheriff's officials misspent $99.5 million in restricted jail funds over the last eight years ... discrepancies existed for years between sheriff's employees' actual duties and the duties reported in county payroll records." (The Arizona Republic)

• "A federal judge has sided with inmates' claims that conditions in Maricopa County jails continue to violate their constitutional rights." (The Arizona Republic)

• "The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crime cases, including dozens in El Mirage, over a two-year period because of poor oversight and former Chief Deputy David Hendershott's desire to protect a key investigator from bad publicity, according to documents pertaining to a recent internal investigation released by the Sheriff's Office." (The Arizona Republic)

• "A federal investigation found that deputies had used stun guns on prisoners already strapped into a 'restraint chair.' The family of one man who died after being forced into the restraint chair was awarded more than six million dollars as the result of a suit... The family of another man killed in the restraint chair got $8.25 million in a pre-trial settlement. (This deal was reached after the discovery of a surveillance video that showed fourteen guards beating, shocking, and suffocating the prisoner, and after the sheriff's office was accused of discarding evidence, including the crushed larynx of the deceased.) To date, lawsuits brought against Arpaio's office have cost Maricopa County taxpayers forty-three million dollars, according to some estimates. But the Sheriff has never acknowledged any wrongdoing in his jails, never apologized to victims or their families. In fact, many of the officers involved have been promoted." (The New Yorker)

• "The Phoenix New Times ran an investigation of Arpaio's real-estate dealings that included Arpaio's home address, which he argued was possibly a violation of state law. When the paper revealed that it had received an impossibly broad subpoena, demanding, among other things, the Internet records of all visitors to its Web site in the previous two and a half years, sheriff's deputies staged late-night raids on the homes of Michael Lacey and James Larkin, executives of Village Voice Media, which owns the New Times. The deputies arrested both men for, they said, violating grand-jury secrecy. The county attorney declined to prosecute, and it turned out that the subpoenas were issued unlawfully." (The New Yorker)

• On numerous occasions Arpaio put political opponents in his cross-hairs, eventually prompting an FBI investigation that began in the last days of the Bush Administration.

That was a highly abridged account of Sheriff Arpaio’s misdeeds. But it gives a sense of the man that Trump pardoned––a man every bit as cruel, immoral, and flagrant in his disregard for the rule of law and basic standards of propriety as Trump himself.

The Seattle Times piece looks further at the costs incurred by Maricopa County as a result of Arpaio's civil rights and physical abuses: 

 Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made a name for himself on the national political stage with his crackdowns on illegal immigration and tough jail policies.

But his efforts have also have cost Maricopa County tens of millions of dollars in court cases. Several people who were the target of Arpaio’s investigations have sued the county and walked away with large checks.

On Monday, records released by county officials show a four-year political feud with county officials in which Arpaio was a central player has cost taxpayers $38 million.The following is look at some of Arpaio’s legal costs over his 21-year tenure as sheriff. 

OFFICIAL CHARGED — $3.5 MILLIONMaricopa County taxpayers paid former Supervisor Don Stapley $3.5 million to settle his abuse-of-power lawsuit against Arpaio. Stapley’s lawsuit arose out of two failed criminal cases brought against him by the sheriff and an Arpaio ally who was then the county’s top prosecutor. Both criminal cases collapsed in court, without either case ever going to trial. Stapley contended that he had been wrongfully targeted, while Arpaio and his ally maintained they were trying to root out corruption in county government.

POLICE DOG’S DEATH — $775,000The county agreed to pay $775,000 to settle a lawsuit that alleged Arpaio violated Chandler police Sgt. Tom Lovejoy’s rights by arresting him on an animal-abuse charge after the officer’s police dog died from excessive heat in August 2007 after being left in a hot police vehicle for 12 hours. Lovejoy was acquitted of the misdemeanor charge and accused Arpaio of trumping up the criminal case so the sheriff could exploit the publicity. The sheriff argued the arrest was constitutional because investigators had probable cause to arrest Lovejoy.

RACIAL PROFILING — $21 MILLIONArpaio’s office estimates that it will cost taxpayers more than $21 million over the next 18 months to pay for changes required by a judge who found the agency had systematically racially profiled Latinos in patrols. The compliance costs including hiring a court-appointed official to monitor the agency’s operations, installing video cameras in hundreds of the agency’s patrol vehicles and carrying out additional training to ensure officers aren’t making unconstitutional arrests. Arpaio has said he doesn’t regret getting involved in immigration enforcement and is appealing the judge’s racial-profiling ruling. He has asked the federal government to pick up the compliance tab.

JAIL DEATH — $3.2 MILLIONThe county paid $3.2 million to settle a lawsuit by a diabetic woman’s family members who alleged she was denied medical treatment while incarcerated in one Arpaio’s jails. Deborah Ann Braillard was brought to the jail in January 2005 and died more than two weeks later at a hospital. The lawsuit alleged that detention officers and health workers within the jail system knew of her condition but did nothing to treat her. Braillard received no insulin or a diabetic diet after she was brought in the jail system and was found face-down her cell after her daughter called the jail. She died 18 days after she was taken to hospital, the lawsuit said. Lawyers for the county said Braillard failed to advise the jail of her condition and denied that she complained about her condition.

RESTRAINT CHAIR DEATH — $8.25 MILLIONThe county and its excess insurance carrier shared the costs of an $8.25 million settlement in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed the family of a man who died in 1996 during a struggle with detention officers who forced him into a restraint chair and pushed his head into his chest. A medical examiner ruled that Scott Norberg died accidentally by “positional asphyxia.” The lawsuit alleged that Arpaio’s officers suffocated Norberg and the medical examiner’s office covered up evidence of a beating. Federal investigators dropped their investigation of Norberg’s death, saying the evidence is consistent with the opinion of medical examiner. Arpaio said he was confident his officers didn’t do anything wrong and that he believes the Justice Department’s decision exonerated his officers.

One reporter I heard on satellite radio said that Arpaio had costs the county in over $100 million in judgments.  And that doesn't include misuse of nearly $100 million in funds.

Trump's pardon of Arpaio speaks volumes about Trump, none of it good.

A White Nationalist Anti-Semite Will Be Trump's Senior Counselor

While Donald Trump temporarily played nice with the LGBT community during a 60 Minutes interview by saying that he is "fine" with marriage equality because "it was already settled," he said nothing about his promise to sign a "First Amendment Defense Act" already pending in Congress that would exempt Christofascists from obeying non-discrimination laws if motivated by their religious beliefs.  He also admonished protesters in various cities to "stop it" but said nothing to condemn the threats and intimidating acts being done by his supporters against minority groups and Clinton supporters. (I blocked four nasty comments to posts on this blog from a aggressive Trumpkin.)   And for further proof that we are headed down an ugly road, today it was confirmed that Trump has name alt-right provocateur Steve Bannon as his senior White House counselor.  For those not aware of it, Bannon supports an alt-right, white nationalist agenda and is an anti-Semite based on various published reports.  Media Matters looks at the development.  Here are highlights:

President-elect Donald Trump’s first White House hire tells you everything you need to know about his commitment to his campaign’s bigoted message. Stephen Bannon, an anti-Semite who ran the white nationalist “alt-right” website Breitbart News before taking a leave of absence to become the Trump campaign CEO, will be Trump’s chief strategist and senior counselor.

On November 13, Trump released a statement announcing Bannon’s hiring. The same statement noted that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus would become Trump’s chief of staff. While White House chief of staff is typically the most senior position in the White House, the press release named Bannon first and described the two as “equal partners” in the Trump administration.

Bannon has been a key figure in leveraging this bigotry to aid Trump’s rise to power. Bannon bragged during the Republican Convention to nominate Trump that Breitbart News had become home to the “alt-right” -- which is just a racist code word for white nationalists. Under Bannon’s leadership, Breitbart News has featured racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and anti-LGBT rhetoric. The site recently made a “noticeable shift toward embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas. Anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant ideas -- all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right’” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Before he died, Andrew Breitbart himself reportedly called Bannon “the Leni Riefenstahl of the tea party movement.”

Bannon’s Breitbart News especially has come under fire for its rampant anti-Semitism. . . . As CNN’s Jake Tapper noted on Twitter after today’s announcement, Bannon’s ex-wife swore in court that “he said he doesn’t like Jews” and didn’t want his children to go to school with Jews. Indeed, Esquire politics contributor Charles Pierce even compared Bannon with David Duke.

As note before, it may not be easy for them, but many of those who voted for Trump need to take a good look at what they have helped set in motion. Like it or not, they own what is happening because of their vote. They cannot duck responsibility.  They are just as responsible as Trump because them put him in the position to mainstream hate and extremism. 

Pope Francis to Meet with Racist Homophobe

It seems that every time I begin to hope that perhaps Pope Francis is more than just a slick PR artist and that he truly seeks to move the Roman Catholic Church out of the 13th century, he does something that suggests that in the last analysis he's no better than the Nazi Pope who formerly headed up the Inquisition.  How else to explain Francis' plan to meet with raging homophobes and white supremacists who masquerade as "family values" advocates.  A prime example: Tony Perkins of Family Research Council who has documented dealings with the KKK and has spoken a number of times to white supremacist hate groups.  As they saying my mother used to tell us, you are known by the company you keep and it doesn't get much fouler than Perkins. John Becker at The Bilerico Project looks at Francis' plan to meet with some very nasty people.  Here are highlights:

Last week we told you about an upcoming meeting at the Vatican where Pope Francis will sit down with prominent non-Catholic religious leaders to discuss marriage and family.

The purpose of the event, which will take place next week, is to show strong support for marriage discrimination; it's titled "An International Interreligious Colloquium on The Complementarity of Man and Woman." Among the leaders scheduled to attend are high-profile homophobes like Rick Warren and the Southern Baptist Convention's Russell Moore.

Today, another name was added to the list: hate group leader Tony Perkins, one of the most outspoken opponents of LGBT human rights in the United States. Right Wing Watch reports:

Although he is not listed as a speaker, another prominent American opponent of LGBT equality will also be attending the conference. Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in an interview on Newsmax TV today that he plans to attend the conference in Rome and expects the Catholic Church to "make a very clear statement that pertains to marriage and what the Church views marriage to be" to provide "clarity" to the confusion coming out of the recent synod.

Perkins compares gay legal advocates to terrorists; lies that pedophilia is a "homosexual problem;" consistently misgenders trans people; endorses the dangerous "pray away the gay" myth; and calls gay people "intolerant," "hateful," "vile," "spiteful," and "pawns of the enemy [Satan]."

Repugnant, right? This is a bigoted, hateful man who is willing to say almost anything in his unholy crusade to beat back civil and human rights for LGBT people. And yet, Pope Francis -- The Advocate's 2013 "Person of the Year" -- is rolling out the red carpet for Perkins at the Vatican next week.

As the old saying goes, "A man is known by the company he keeps." The fact that Pope Francis is willing to keep company with the likes of Tony Perkins speaks volumes.

Local Hospital Visitors Find White Supremacist Literature on Cars

Compared to Southwest Virginia the Hampton Roads area of Virginia is downright liberal.  That said, there are nonetheless many far right crazies and outright racists to be found in the area.  If you doubt me, check out the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups and see how many are based in Hampton Roads.  That said, these folks usually maintain a fairly low profile in the larger public.  However, yesterday visitors to the Norfolk General and Children's Hospital of the Kings Daughters parking garage facility - which is about 6 blocks from my office - found white supremacist literature (see the image above) on their cars.  It goes without saying that these folks don't like gays either.  It's a frightening reminder of how far we still need to go in Virginia.  WVEC-TV 13 has details:

People visiting Eastern Virginia Medical Campus Sunday night returned to their cars to find what appeared to be recruitment literature for a white supremacist group.

"This is bull crap," said one person who was at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters to see her nephew. She asked not to be identified after finding the paper in a plastic baggie on her windshield.

The papers were left in cars in the parking garage located at the corner of West Olney Road and Children's Lane.

13News Now contacted spokeswomen for Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters and Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. They made security aware of the situation so that the literature could be removed.

No doubt those distributing this trash see themselves as "godly Christians" as well.   I doubt they vote Democrat.  Meanwhile, this kind of bullshit does nothing to help attract progressive new businesses to the region.

Jeff Frederick Proves The Virginia GOP's Ongoing Racism

Despite the blather by some in the Republican Party that the GOP wants to attract non-whites and minorities, the truth is that the GOP, especially in Virginia, remains a white man's club - women are allowed too so long as they "know their place" and are subservient to men, especially in gynecological matters  - and those few blacks that are used for photo ops are the equivalent of the obsequious house servants of the antebellum South.  Lest we forget this reality, former Republican Party of Virginia chairman, Jeff Frederick, sought to remind us with a bust of spittle flecked batshitery in response to an innocuous tweet by the RNC aimed at blacks.  Blue Virginia looks at the brouhaha.  Here are highlights: 

[Jeff] Frederick [former Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia] is baaack, this time livid that the Republican National Committee (RNC) had the audacity to wish people "Happy Kwanzaa." Admittedly, I find it surprising the RNC would do that, since they're usually all about "War on Christmas" faux outrage, including their principled stance of NOT recognizing others who celebrate non-Christmas holidays this time of year. So it's hilarious to see former RPV chair (and former RNC member) Jeff Frederick going off on the RNC for celebrating a "made up holiday" (after first mocking the RNC, then being accused of racism by a Democrat, who Frederick claims is being a "tool of the hysterical left" - lol). Of course, the fact is that ALL holidays are "made up" by humans, pretty much by definition (e.g., we're humans, we're the ones who come up with culture, religion, custom, whatever). 

As for Kwanzaa, it was created in 1966 "as the first specifically African-American holiday, with the name deriving "from the Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning 'first fruits of the harvest.'" What on earth is wrong with that is beyond me, but apparently it set off the former chair of the Virginia Republican Party. From the responses on Twitter, it looks like it set off a bunch of other right-wingnuts as well (e.g., one wrote, "@GOP Kwanza. R U kidding? It was started by a communist convicted felon who beat and tortured women.")

Blue Virginia gets it right: ALL holidays - including Christmas and Easter - are made up by humans.  Moreover, the principal Christian holidays are remade versions of older pagan festivals and holidays that were hijacked by the Roman Catholic Church centuries ago.  Nonetheless, in today's white supremacist leaning Virginia GOP, only white Christian originated holidays count.

Republican Immigration Nightmare Could Recur

I have never understood the fear of those who are different that seems to permeate the GOP base.  Indeed, as a child and teenager, I longed to travel to different lands and experience different cultures.  And I have never had a problem seeing the common humanity of others even though they may speak a different language, have a different skin color or not share my exact religious beliefs.  Perhaps it is because my mother who spoke Spanish before English and lived well over the the first decade of her life overseas.  Whatever the factors in my personal openness to others, I find some irony in the fact that the GOP has pandered to the racists and white supremacists in the party base and now this short term strategy may yet bite the GOP in the ass and send it into eventual political oblivion.  A piece in BuzzFeed looks at the GOP predicament.  Here are excerpts:

For the Republicans in Washington who hoped a new bipartisan push for immigration reform would give their party a fresh start, a new face, and a second chance with Latino voters, 2013 is instead reviving some of their worst memories.

The legislation currently winding through the Senate with the help of party superstar Sen. Marco Rubio is still very much in play, and could well become the first law in a generation to address the country's immigration morass. But as conservative criticism of the reform effort grows louder, many Republican operatives, donors, and consultants are bracing for an outcome that would be even worse, politically, than the demise of the bill: a fierce, national, right-wing backlash that drowns out the GOP's friendlier voices, dominates Telemundo and Univision, and dashes any hopes the party had of making inroads to the Hispanic electorate by 2016.

"We are really balanced here on a little precipice, and if this, pardon the pun, goes south, we could be in very serious trouble," said Republican media strategist Paul Wilson, citing the increasingly intense attacks on the immigration bill coming from the right. "If [the legislation] stalls or is killed off by conservatives, we could take the Hispanic community and turn them into the African-American community, where we get 4% on a good day... We could be a lost party for generations."

Establishment Republicans don't have to reach too far back in recent history to find precedent for this political nightmare scenario: It would look a lot like the last time Congress pursued comprehensive immigration legislation.

In 2007, the conservative war on immigration reform  .  .  .  . "Tancredo was out there screaming every day, and if you were watching Univision, it would say the Republicans appear to be killing the bill," he said. "That remains the danger this time."  Meanwhile, in city council meetings, town halls, and border towns across the country, the grassroots fight over immigration was reaching a fever pitch.

A group of self-appointed border guardians who called themselves the Minutemen had evolved from a strange object of curiosity in the mainstream media to a symbol of the right's perceived anti-immigrant fervor. B-roll of shotgun-wielding militia men camped out in the southern desert was played on a constant loop on Spanish-language networks.

The conservative backlash provoked a new militancy among immigrants as well: Advocates for the undocumented began holding massive counterprotests in Los Angeles, Dallas, and other cities with large Latino populations.

But the conservative campaign to kill the immigration bill in Washington ultimately succeeded — at a high electoral cost. Whereas exit polls in 2004 showed Bush receiving upwards of 40% of the Latino vote, that figure plummeted to about 31% for John McCain in 2008, and 27% for Mitt Romney last year.

"Go to sites like RedState or Breitbart and search headlines about immigration and Rubio, and then look at the comments. Some of them are really, really nasty," said one prominent Republican strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity. "That's the thing that I worry about a little bit. That kind of tells me that the harsh xenophobic thing from 2007 could be coming back."

The strategist added that a large-scale conservative campaign against immigration reform would be particularly disastrous if the bill actually passes, creating millions of new Latino voters over the next decade who would be tasked with choosing between the party whose president signed the reform measure and the party whose members fought to keep them out.

And there are signs that the immigration hard-liners are waking up.   Rubio has been fending off increasingly sharp attacks by the conservative media, and many Republicans in Congress are becoming more vocal in their skepticism of the bill.

"We've held our powder dry and have decided to come forward now because ... we are concerned about having this wash over us and not having the opportunity to have constitutional conservatives in this country and in this congress have their voice heard," Rep. Steve King told reporters earlier this month. "We don't have a moral obligation to legalize people who are here illegally."

Democrats don't need to work to destroy the GOP.  The GOP base is busy doing that even as I type this post.  Getting in bed with horrible, nasty people ultimately has its downside - as the GOP establishment may well be about to learn again.

MSNBC Continues to Give Hate Group Leader a Platform

Few things drive me more crazy that the lazy main stream media and its continued use of hate group leaders for interviews as if they were legitimate spokesman who had either relevant credentials or lead legitimate organizations. If that's the standard for an interview invitation, why not invite the Imperial Wizard of the KKK? Especially, if the invitee is Tony Perkins who certainly has his white supremacist ties. Once again MSNBC proved that it has no journalistic standards by having Perkins appear on its Friday morning show where Perkins laughably claimed social conservatives weren't judgmental (not once was Perkins challenged). By that standard, I guess whites who lynched blacks in the old South weren't anti-black. Think Progress looks at the ongoing bullshit being given a platform by vile hate merchants like Perkins. Here are some highlights:

The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins appeared on MSNBC this morning to discuss last night’s GOP presidential debate and the recent revelations that Newt Gingrich allegedly asked his second wife for an open marriage.

The conservative leader — who regularly condemns gay people, “churns out brochures that compare same-sex marriages to those bonds which might exist between a man and a horse,” likens gays to terrorists, calls LGBT rights a battle of “good versus evil,” and claims gay teens kill themselves because they know that they’re “abnormal” — expressed concern about Gingrich’s personal past, but also raised questions about the wisdom of asking about his marriage during the debate. Ultimately, he suggested that Evangelical Christians are “not judgmental” and understanding, and could embrace a candidate who has sinned:

PERKINS: More than anybody, Evangelicals understand the story of Redemption, that people make mistakes and there can be a turning point. The tension becomes — have we reached that turning point on these issues and were they mistakes, were they character flaws that remain….People don’t want to be seen as that judgmental, because they’re not judgmental, but at the same time, they’re having some serious questions about the character of the candidate.

Does anyone have a vomit bag handy? Shame on MSNBC for providing a platform for a man who is best defined by his hatred of others - and not just hatred of gays.

MSNBC Suspends Pat Buchanan

For years failed GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has been marching down a road of increasing extremism and open bigotry. Last October, Buchanan released a new book,"Suicide of a Superpower", in which his batshitery and bigotry simply went over the top. Among the chapters were: "The End of White America" and "The Death of Christian America." The chapter titles somewhat speak for themselves and are reflective of Buchanan's antipathy towards blacks, Muslims, gays - the list goes on and on. The unbridled bigotry in the book - which some called out right racist - apparently was too much for MSNBC where Buchanan and Buchanan has been suspended "indefinitely." CBC News looks at the situation. Here are highlights:

MSNBC's top executive said Saturday that he hasn't decided whether conservative commentator and author Pat Buchanan will be allowed back on the network.

Buchanan, a former GOP presidential candidate and a paid MSNBC contributor, hasn't been on the network since the publication of his book "Suicide of a Superpower" last October. The book has chapters titled "The End of White America" and "The Death of Christian America" and its author argues that the United States is in the "Indian summer of our civilization."

"When Pat was on his book tour, because of the content of the book, I didn't think it should be part of the national dialogue much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC," said MSNBC President Phil Griffin. The minority advocacy group Color of Change has circulated a petition urging MSNBC to fire Buchanan.

Griffin would not discuss the length of Buchanan's contract with MSNBC or whether it would be renewed.

Unfortunately, Buchanan's views seem to be more and more mainstream within the GOP base filled as it is with Christianists, Tea Party loons, and white supremacists.

Judicial "Activism" Has Always Led the Way on Social Justice

The pathological liars and shrill bigots of the Christian Right and the white supremacist far right fringe routinely rant about "judicial activism" and "despotic unelected judges" subverting "the will of the people." These elements want a tyranny by a simple majority with the rights of minorities, gay or straight, subject to the whims of the bigoted majority. Historically, each big advancement in civil rights has been via judicial action followed by a slow acceptance of the judicial legal precedent by the larger population. When slavery was ended, when interracial marriage bans were struck down, and when the Jim Crow laws were rendered invalid, the majority at the time OPPOSED the courses charted by the courts. In short, "majority rule" is an invitation to bigotry and the Christianists who so vehemently oppose marriage equality need to be called out and depicted as the modern day version of segregationists and racists. True, they will shriek and whine about the comparison, but if the shoe fits, it needs to be laced around their necks. Obsidian Wings has a column that looks at this historic reality. Here are some highlights:

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To step back, I think the judicial debates about gay marriage have a lot of parallels with the debates over race and the Warren Court. I’m summarizing (briefly) a ton of literature, so bear with me. But the upshot is that, at some point, neutral abstract principles can lose sight of reality.

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The legal debate about race goes something like this: In the 1950s and 60s, federal courts became much more aggressive in striking down racial discrimination. Brown v. Board is the most famous example of this development. The problem, though, is that it was very difficult to justify Brown (and some of its progeny) under existing precedent and methodologies. Critics argued (correctly, I think) that the courts often valued real-world consequences over “neutral principles.”

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But more generally, the Warren Court defenders saw all too clearly the realities of violent state-sanctioned discrimination. And they chose not to validate it – that is, they chose not to facilitate this regime by blessing it with constitutional approval. Neutral theories or no – people were getting lynched; people couldn’t vote. In short, they chose not to be on the wrong side of history.

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And for all the critiques of the Warren Court, it’s important to see the world as they saw it – through the lens of Jim Crow and George Wallace. The tragic reality of American racial discrimination overwhelmed the abstract logic of the Process camp. Once again, if your theories justify poll taxes, disenfranchisement, and anti-miscegenation laws, then maybe you need new theories.

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The bottom line, then, is that the Warren Court’s race decisions were admittedly a departure from traditional precedent and methodology. But the injustice of American racial discrimination demanded a more aggressive response. The courts acted – and scholars later supplied these principles (things like anti-subordination, which called for scrutiny of laws discriminating against racial minorities).

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And that brings us to gay marriage. The fundamental issue is whether discrimination against gay couples is so fundamentally unjust – so self-evidently repugnant to basic human dignity – that it justifies a more aggressive judicial response. In other words, is today’s discrimination in the same category as the racial discrimination that led to Brown and its progeny? That's the million dollar question. And I say yes.

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That’s the reason I’m now comfortable with using courts. I’m not going to be on the wrong side of history on this. I don’t have so much faith in my own theoretical principles that I trust them more than my overwhelming sense of the justice of the decision. Indeed, with each passing year, the denial of this most basic of human dignities seems more inexcusable.

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The predecessors to the opponents of gay marriage equality were on the wrong side of history when it came to slavery, interracial marriage and the Jim Crow laws. They were wrong then and they are wrong now - which makes it all the more outrageous that black pastors have been co opted to oppose gay rights along side the descendants of the very folk who sought to keep blacks in slavery and later as second class citizens. One truly needs to know history to avoid being cynically used to oppress others.

Report Cites Regent University as Possible Terrorist Recruiting Center

The Virginian Pilot is reporting that a Virginia State Police report compiled in association with Homeland Security cites Hampton Roads as a potential breeding grounds for terrorism. The report, which was never intended to be released to the public, cites, among other organizations, Regent University as a possible terrorist recruiting center. The report also cites the potential growing problem of white supremacist organizations. Here's a report quote on these organizations which are increasingly aligned with the GOP and Christian Right:

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White nationalist groups are recruiting individuals who may be more apt than their predecessors to commit acts of violence, including military veterans skilled in weapons and tactics. FBI investigations suggest the white nationalist extremist movement is attracting recruits who view illegal immigration and multiculturalism as attacks against the white race. As many white nationalists view themselves as patriots defending their own view of the U.S., this form of extremism tends to have more members with military experience.

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While Regent University has some normal students who attend the university because it allows part time students more readily than the full blown public universities in Virginia, it has more than its share of Kool-Aid drinking "true believers" who candidly I find a bit scary. Here are some highlights from the Pilot story"

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In addition, it mentions Regent University, an evangelical Christian school in Virginia Beach, and a Chesapeake-based anti-abortion group. The report acknowledges that none of the Virginia groups it singles out has engaged in any violent activity and says there is no intelligence indicating that terrorists are planning attacks in the state. Nevertheless, it adds: "In order to detect and deter terrorist attacks, it is essential that information regarding suspected terrorists and suspicious activity in Virginia be closely monitored and reported in a timely manner."

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The 2009 threat assessment is a product of the Virginia Fusion Center, a multi-agency intelligence clearinghouse that opened in the basement of State Police headquarters in Chesterfield County in 2005. Funded in part with grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the center shares information with a variety of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, private industry and the military. The Virginia center has operated largely under the public radar. Its records are exempt from the state Freedom of Information Act, and disseminating information received from the center is a misdemeanor.

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"We appreciate the Virginia Fusion Center's diligence in identifying potential threats," said Carlos Campo, vice president of academic affairs at Regent. "However, we believe that specifically naming Christian universities and associating them with radical extremists is overreaching." . . . . A Department of Homeland Security report issued earlier this month on right-wing extremism drew widespread outrage in conservative circles, including a blast from Robertson on his daily TV show "The 700 Club."

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Among the potential terrorist threats identified in the Virginia report were: . . . Two anti-abortion groups, including the Chesapeake-based Army of God and Life.

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It will be interesting to see what letters to the editor, if any, are submitted by the local wingnut faction.

Bad Economy May Fuel Hate Groups

As if the nation doesn't have enough problems currently, now some experts are predicting that the increasingly bad economy may foster the rise of hate groups which will be out to scapegoat others as the cause of their members' problems. For some time now, a close following of many of the self-styled "pro-family" groups and white supremacists has revealed a subtle sometimes coded message from such "family values" organizations that non-whites, non-Christians, gays, and other "not real Americans" are undermining U.S. society. While ostensibly not white supremacist organizations or movements, the underlying message disseminated by the "family values" crowd is not really so different than that of the Klu Klux Klan. All the while, of course, these organizations pat themselves on the back as the true protectors of Christian and American values. It is a troubling phenomenon and may be one of the reasons for the seeming increase in violent attacks on LGBT citizens. The Washington Post has a story that looks at the possibility that the current economic crisis will help further fuel white supremacist movements and similar such groups. Here are some story highlights:

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For 20 years, Bart McIntyre has tracked white supremacist movements, even spending two years undercover in Alabama to penetrate a violent young band of criminals who called themselves the Confederate Hammerskins. . . . . Now, as McIntyre prepares to retire from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, he and other analysts are warning that the threat from hate groups and splinter organizations connected to the Klan should not be underestimated, especially at a time of economic unrest.

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"In society, you have a very small number of people who are going to push the envelope and take it to the next step," said McIntyre, the resident ATF agent in charge in Roanoke. . . . . The number of U.S. hate groups has increased by 48 percent, to 888, since 2000, according to experts at the Southern Poverty Law Center, an independent organization that monitors racist movements.

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In addition to the economic downturn, he [Mark Potok, chief of the law center's Intelligence Project] cited rising immigration, demographic changes that predict whites will not be a majority within a few decades, and what some might see as "the final insult -- a black man in the White House."

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"These three things -- the Internet, immigration and the economic crisis -- that is the molten mixture for these guys," said Cavanaugh, who leads the ATF's Nashville office. "That is the furnace of hate. As we speak, this is happening."

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In recent years, the racist hate movement has veered away from large-scale, Klan-type gatherings as many of its most prominent leaders died, went to prison or buckled under personal and financial troubles, according to scholar Brian Levin. Instead, followers come together online at Web sites such as Stormfront.org, which attracts an estimated 150,000 registered users who view instruction manuals, learn movement history and exchange stories.

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One of the ATF's biggest recoveries came in 2007, when agents arrested seven members of a group calling itself the Alabama Free Militia. A government informant met a militia member at a flea market, infiltrated the group and eventually reported that he saw grenades in a member's home. The group allegedly stockpiled weapons while planning to attack a group of Latino residents near Birmingham. Ultimately, authorities seized 130 grenades, a grenade launcher, a machine gun and 2,500 rounds of ammunition. The trailer home of one suspect was booby-trapped with tripwires and hand grenades, according to law enforcement agents.

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The trick for investigators, the ATF's Cavanaugh said, is separating hateful words from impending violence. "They all hate, they all go to rallies, but for the most part, most of them will not go out and plant a bomb or shoot," he said. "Maybe four or five out of 100 will go out and do that. The hard part for us is to sort out the free speech and find the person who's really going to make a bomb or shoot someone."