How Not to Stop Police Violence.

Dash camera footage shows violent arrest of Sandra Bland. CREDIT: Associated Press

Dash camera footage shows violent arrest of Sandra Bland. CREDIT: Associated Press.

As the fight to end police violence rages on across the country, a state senator in Texas wants high schoolers to learn how to communicate with law enforcement during traffic stops. But the proposed curriculum assumes that the people targeted during those stops are the problem— not the officers.

Sen. John Whitmire (D-Houston) is currently eyeing legislation that would require schools to teach ninth graders about encounters with police on the road. Noting that there’s a deep-seated mistrust of police, he wants the Texas Board of Education to ensure that young people learn what their rights are early on. But Whitmire, who says his idea was inspired by Sandra Bland’s violent arrest and subsequent death in custody, also wants students to learn how they should behave around officers who pull them over.

“Ms. Bland’s tragedy is a huge motivation for me to hold the officer accountable and also assist the public in some of the better practices when they encounter law enforcement,” he told the Texas Tribune. “[If] Ms. Bland and the officer would have taken a deep breath, I don’t believe she would have been taken to jail, where she ultimately met her fate, unfortunately because she was not treated right when she got to jail.”

She wasn’t treated right? She was murdered, Senator. Dead, never coming back. That’s more than not being “treated right”, we aren’t talking about cops being rude.

As for teenagers in Texas, it’s impossible to know if officers will shoot them during traffic stops — even if they’re obeying orders and expressing their rights in a respectful way. While Whitmire said that officers should also let go of the “‘I caught you’ mentality,” his proposal still puts the responsibility of de-escalation on teenagers, rather than the adults hired to serve and protect them.

Local police officers included in conversations about the proposed legislation agree that the responsibility to reduce tension during a stop shouldn’t fall on officers’ shoulders.

“On the side of the street is not the place to litigate what you believe the officer is doing is wrong or what the officer believes you are doing wrong,” Executive Director Kevin Lawrence of the Texas Municipal Police Association explained to the Tribune. “It needs to be a better understanding by our general citizenry of what law enforcement is expecting of them. They need to understand that when they’re being contacted by a law enforcement officer — we’ll just take a traffic stop as an example — they need to think about that stop from the officer’s point of view, not their own.”

There isn’t enough fuck you, and fuck that in the universe for this continued idiocy. No, cops need to be accountable, and the responsibility for not escalating anything at all should be firmly on the shoulders of every single cop. You want to swagger around, weighed down by weapons, playing lord of the universe, you fucking take responsibility. I can’t even express how much I hate this shit, that it’s on me and every other person out there to prevent our own murder, especially as cops seem to be very keen on murdering people who are not only fully complying and have their hands up, they are now seen as a threat after they have been tased, for fuck’s sake! No, cops, go fuck yourself, you are all wrong, wrong, wrong. You stand up, and take responsibility. You stand up and do the right thing. You stand up for your community, because you are a part of that community. You point the finger at the bigots, the violent morons in uniform standing next to you. You point the finger at all the bullies. You refuse to work with them, you refuse to work at all unless there are goddamn standards put in place. Point the finger at all those upstanding people in blue who go home at night and beat the shit out of their partners and kids, then wander around with weapons the next day. Clean up your own houses, put that focus on policing yourselves. There isn’t a person anywhere who can trust a fucking cop.

While well-intentioned, Whitmire isn’t the first lawmaker to offer advice about how to behave around cops. And not all of that advice has been positive.

Following the shooting death of Jamar Clark in Minnesota, Rep. Tony Cornish (R) wrote an op-ed about how to “reduce the use of force by police.” In it, he wrote, “Don’t be a thug and lead a life of crime so that you come into frequent contact with police,” and “Don’t make furtive movements or keep your hands in your pockets if told to take them out.”

This year alone, police have shot multiple people who had their hands raised.

Full story at Think Progress.

Amnesty International Smacks Kirchmeier.

Via Facebook.

Via Facebook.

Amnesty International has turned their attention to Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, an incompetent bigot who has repeatedly run to media with reports of pipe bombs, guns, knives, and violence in the camps at Standing Rock, and has been proven wrong every time, but he continues to do this. With the last peaceful direct action being met with armored vehicles, cops in armored riot gear and wielding assault rifles at people who were planting corn and willow, he once again shows his plain desire to rain down violence and destruction on peaceful people. He managed to restrain himself to arresting 21 people. I have mentioned our surprise at seeing a monstrous, shiny, new mobile command center hulking behind silos, last week on our way into camp. Kirchmeier has all the shiny, militarized goodies, and it’s apparent that he’s just aching to use them. Not once has he or his force bothered to protect the Standing Rock Protectors, he refused to stop the attack and assault by private goons, but instead chose to run to the media with stories of those poor, beset upon goons and their vicious animals. Indians? Oh, who cares about them?

Kirchmeier has been trying, every day, to amp things up, and it’s getting very worrying now, because all it will take is one moment, one loss of control, one bullet fired. Ndakota doesn’t offer much opportunity for “action”, the kind of action a strutting chicken like Kirchmeier would like to see. I get the feeling he sees this as one chance for some of that glorious cop action, a story to end his days on. This man is dangerous because he is weak, and too in love with those shiny, militarized toys.

Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier
Morton County Sheriff’s Department

28 September 2016

Dear Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier:

Following the protests that took place at a Dakota Access Pipeline construction site on 3 September, we are writing to ask you to investigate the use of force by private contractors, remove blockades and discontinue the use of riot gear by Morton County Sheriff’s deputies when policing protests in order to facilitate the right to peaceful protests in accordance with international law and standards.

[Read more…]

Bigotry and Violence: Hey, It’s for the Laughs!

via WCPO.

via WCPO.

he small town of Aurora, Indiana is in an uproar after a local man entered a float in the annual Farmers Fair Parade depicting Hillary Clinton sitting in an electric chair with rival Donald Trump about to pull the switch.

According the creator of the float, which also featured a grim reaper and an Easter Island moai head in blackface labeled “Obama,” he entered it in an effort to get laughs, reports WCPO.

“It definitely was all for laughter. We’ve always had floats for laughter,” explained 76-year-old Frank Linkmeyer. “There’s never been anything else but that,” while denying there was anything racist about his creation.

Okay, fine, leave the racism out, Mr. Linkmeyer. The violence and misogyny, that’s funny? I’m amazed you made it to 76 years old without learning one damn thing.

According to one woman who was marching in the parade with her daughter’s Girl Scout group, she didn’t find anything about it funny.

“For us to be in 2016 and have our president depicted as an Easter Island statue in blackface, which doesn’t even make any sense, but it’s just racist as can be,” explained Jackie Reynolds. ““But knowing that we are marching alongside displays like this really makes me question whether or not we will be participating next year.”

Said local Penny Britton, who didn’t attend the parade but saw pictures of the float after they were posted to Facebook, it was “disgusting.”

“It instantly turned my stomach,” Britton stated. “One of the pictures shows children seeing the float go by and staring at it.”

In a statement from the Lions Club, which approves the floats, officials kept their distance stating, “the parade is a public venue which does not reflect the views of the Aurora Lions Club. As a member of a worldwide service organization, we are proud and standby our record of service to this community.”

As for float designer Linkmeyer, he said he could have reversed Trump and Clinton, saying, “I could’ve taken and put Donald Trump in that float and had Hillary pull the handle. Nevertheless, I would have never pleased everybody and it was definitely all for laughter.”

Linkmeyer did not explain how that would have meshed with the Trump/Pence or hand-written signs listing so-called Clinton “scandals.”

As for the Obama statue in blackface, “We were getting ready to get in that parade and this thing was sittin’ in front of this gentleman’s building down there and they said, ‘Let’s put that on there,’ and I didn’t give it a thought,” he attempted to explain.

Didn’t give it any thought. Gee, I think we’ve diagnosed your problem, you vile bigot – you don’t think.

The float was part of the Aurora Farmers Fair Parade Saturday morning in the small Ohio River town 35 miles west of Cincinnati. It’s sponsored by the Aurora Lions Club, according to its website, and touted as Indiana’s oldest street festival. The theme of the parade was “Celebrating the Past, Embracing the Future.”

According to the Rules & Regulation on the website, Fair officials “reserve the right to reject or evict any entry from the parade line-up that they deem unsuitable.”

So, this inhumanity float got by everyone as suitable. For someone who commented (See WCPO) that it was no big deal, there are good and bad people, and as long as you don’t hang out with racists, it’s all good. To that person, I’m just going to point out that you are hanging out with racists. Another person wanted to know where the racism and sexism was in the picture. Some days, I just don’t have much hope.

Via WCPO and Raw Story.

Facebook, Oh Facebook XI.

11

“This poor Gorilla. How is she going to function in the real world, by not having all of her luxurious vacations paid for anymore? She needs to focus on getting a total make-over (especially the hair), instead of planning vacations! She is a disgrace to America!”

Jane Wood Allen, a Chestatee Elementary School teacher in Georgia just couldn’t stop herself from being an obnoxious bigot all over Facebook. It seems that americannews.com (no, I’m not linking), an alt-right sewer, is Ms. Allen’s favourite reading. Apparently, they had a nasty story about the First Lady, and Ms. Allen couldn’t wait to get her 2cents in.

…The post was shared over 2,000 times after Houston Ph.D. student Roni Dean-Burren shared screenshots of Allen’s commentary.

[…]

A spokeswoman for the school district, Jennifer Caracciolo, told Forsyth County News that school officials were made aware of Allen’s posts on Friday, September 30, and were looking into the matter. She said, “Racism and discrimination are not tolerated in Forsyth County Schools.”

The post prompted Internet users calling for her to be fired. A Facebook page called, “Chestatee Elementary School Fire Jane Wood Allen, NOW” was also created and demanded her removal.

I strongly advise not reading the comments on that tweet.

In a statement released on Facebook on Monday afternoon, Forsyth County Schools wrote, “Effective Monday, Oct. 3, Jane Wood Allen has been relieved from duty and is no longer an employee of Forsyth County Schools. Racism and discrimination are not tolerated in our school district. We are committed to ongoing staff training on the acceptance of all individuals. As this is a personnel matter, the district will provide no further comment.”

I have to say, I’m pleased Ms. Allen outed herself as a vile bigot, because no children should be exposed to anyone with such festering poison, and I have no doubt whatsoever that Ms. Allen has not been able to make herself look at and treat children of colour as well as white children. Ms. Allen, you are no loss. It’s a shame you didn’t lose your job ages ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Via Raw Story.

I’m a car salesman.

Credit:PA

Credit:PA

Abusive social media users have established a code to allow them to bypass censorship tools put in place to prevent online abuse.

The code swaps commonly blocked or monitored words with supposedly harmless ones. For example “gay (men)” is replaced with “butterfly” and “liberals” with “car salesman”.

Internet giants such as Google and Twitter have fought hard to create filtering systems that spot and block abusive posts. For example, Google has an artificial intelligence program that can filter out and automatically block abuse and harassment.

In a seemingly direct attempt to fight the companies, the abusive code includes swapping racist and offensive words for “Google”, “Yahoo” and “Skype”.

The code seems to have originated on message board site 4chan, which is often described as the dark side of the internet. On a channel about Google’s Jigsaw program that tackles abuse, someone commented that the system couldn’t block them if they used “a common word in place of something racist, like if they started using ‘google’ instead of ‘n*****’.”

The full list can be seen here.

Via The Telegraph.

Indoctrination! Political Fad!

White Privilege survey (Photo courtesy Jason Schmidt).

White Privilege survey (Photo courtesy Jason Schmidt).

ALOHA, Ore. — 

Some parents in Aloha are concerned about a “white privilege” survey their children received as homework.

Jason Schmidt’s son, a senior at Aloha High School, was given the survey as homework. Schmidt said he’s not too happy about the form.

“I think he should be learning actual education and not be a part of some social experiment or some teacher’s political agenda,” Schmidt said.

Confronting implicit bias, the effects of stereotypical tropes, and learning how to be aware and think critically are actual education, Mr. Schmidt, a very good education. Your child’s teachers are providing a profound and valuable experience, one which will foster openness, acceptance, mindfulness, and empathy. And yet, you complain. I’d say your child’s school got to him just in time.

But Schmidt sees it differently.

“With the amount of money we pay for schools, they should be educating not indoctrinating our students about the latest political fad or political agenda a teacher wants to get across,” Schmidt said.

:snortchoke: Schools are not swimming in money, sir, and teachers are most seriously underpaid. The school in question is one of high diversity:

The school, located in the suburb of Beaverton, is ethnically diverse, according to statistics published byU.S. News& World Report. The student body comprises 34 percent Hispanic students, and 45 percent white students. Native Americans, blacks, and Asians and Pacific Islanders also attend the school, where approximately half of the students are listed as “economically disadvantaged.”

So it’s significant, teaching about privilege, and how that privilege affects all facets of life for people. As for “latest political fad”, FFS, Mr. Schmidt. I think you need to take your child’s class, you’re in need of an education. This country is founded on colonial racism, the whole infrastructure of this country is racist. The very least white people could do is confront their own privilege.

According to the Beaverton School District, this class deals with a number of topics affecting our country today including race, sexuality and religion. The hope is to get students talking civilly with one another about challenging topics.

All the cheers for the school, and the teachers, you’re doing a great job! As for Mr. Schmidt, I won’t place money on his getting a clue or three, but there’s hope for his child.

Via KATU.

Facebook, Oh Facebook X.

Dan Johnson (WDRB).

Dan Johnson (WDRB).

The claims of “I’m not a racist, I’m not!” are emanating from yet another white politician, who seems to think that monkey jokes about the President and the First Lady are just knee smackin’ hilarious. These are being defended as “scrutiny”. There’s a near fatal eyeroll. I think this asspimple should be scrutinized right out of office and into obscurity.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A candidate for Kentucky’s state House is making no apologies for shocking images found on his Facebook page.

Dan Johnson is a Republican challenging an incumbent Democrat in the 49th district, which includes much of Bullitt County.

He is also bishop of the Heart of Fire Church in southeast Louisville.

“I love America. I love people. I believe red, yellow, black and white, all are precious in God’s sight. I’m not a racist,” Johnson told WDRB News.

His church sign reads, “Jesus and this church are not politically correct.”

As WDRB found, neither is Johnson’s Facebook page.

“Well, I’d like to know first off, what images that are being considered offensive,” Johnson said.

WDRB’s Lawrence Smith showed him printouts of images he’s either posted or shared, such as a photo of a chimpanzee, labeled as a baby picture of President Barack Obama.

Another image had ape-like features photo-shopped onto pictures of the Obama family.

“It wasn’t meant to be racist. I can tell you that. My history’s good there. I can see how people would be offended in that. I wasn’t trying to offend anybody, but, I think Facebook’s entertaining,” Johnson said.

When pressed, Johnson would not acknowledge that the images crossed the line. He calls it satire.

“I looked this up. There has been no president that hasn’t had that scrutiny. Not one. I think it would be racist not to do the same for President Obama as we’ve done for every other president.”

Johnson’s Facebook page also contains numerous images of the confederate flag.

“That flag was for state rights. The reason it is under attack now is we’re being attacked as state rights and constitutionalists. We are being attacked,” Johnson said.

There are also a number of anti-Islam posts, such as one calling for states to ban Islam.

“My thing for Islam, if you want to be in America, be an American. The thing about all religions in America, they don’t oppose America or want to destroy America, or some way or another get us to take on another law, like Sharia law. I hate that,” he said.

Johnson says if the Facebook images cost him votes in November, so be it. He is not apologetic.

“I want to be myself. I would rather be myself than be elected as state representative of the 49th.

Let’s examine this remarkable case of non-racism:

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Looks like the poisonous output of a repellent bigot to me.

Via WDRB.

Arizona Cops: No Native Voices Allowed.

Protectors of the sacred Moadag Do’ag Mountain - Photo Amanda Blackhorse.

Protectors of the sacred Moadag Do’ag Mountain – Photo Amanda Blackhorse.

I find myself constantly running headfirst into the conclusion that most white people have zero understanding of the concept of respect, unless they mean what they feel is owed to themselves. This has become a serious problem at the camp, but I’m not quite up to going in to that one yet, I’m still trying to tamp my anger down. Heading up the worst of the worst when it comes to arrogant white people who think they owe no one or no thing any respect, it’s our favourite: cops. The Tonoho O’odham, Ahwatukee, and Gila River communities have been fighting to protect Moadag Do’ag (South Mountain) in Phoenix, Arizona. This is an age old story. Indians fight to protect what is important to them, government rolls over them, most people are ignorant of the ongoing fights of indigenous people everywhere, and don’t much care, white people either sneer or try to take over and play saviour, and cops act well outside their authority in putting Indigenous people down. Once again, young people are active in trying to preserve their culture, and to protect their lands, and the lesson they learned? No native voices, please.

Calling for the end to the pre-construction of a six-lane highway that will parallel and cut through the southwestern part of a sacred mountain, the Ahwatukee and the Gila River Indian community hopes to deliver a message to the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) that the fight to protect Moadag Do’ag (South Mountain) in Phoenix, Arizona is far from over.

However, before they could share their views with the agencies involved, local authorities told community members — which included the Protecting Arizona Resources and Children organization, approximately 20 O’odham runners from the Gila River Indian Community and others — that their sacred prayer items would not be allowed into the ADOT community meeting.

Prior to the meeting, the community, which is also concerned that the highway is set to parallel the community of Ahwatukee and the Gila River Indian Community reservation boundaries, hosted a 10-mile prayer run from an encampment at the sacred mountain Moadag Thadiwa to Desert Vista High School in Ahwatukee, Arizona.

The public meeting, sponsored by ADOT and Connect 202, was a preliminary design meeting to gather feedback and the opinions of community members.

The peaceful group arrived for the meeting Tuesday evening, but were denied entrance to the facility by police. At first, the police stated the prayer staff carried by the O’odham runners was not allowed in the meeting because it could be considered a weapon. But when members of the group volunteered to leave their staff and prayer sticks outside, the police allegedly changed their rules.

Another runner who was holding a single eagle feather was then told the group was not allowed to attend the public meeting because Desert Vista High School doesn’t allow religious items onto their campus.

The group attempted to explain the items were for prayer but the police officers did not allow passage.

One member of the group went into the ADOT planning meeting without a prayer staff and announced the purpose of the prayer run and the need to protect Moadag. The police immediately escorted the speaker and others out of the building.

Outside, a runner sang the traditional O’odham song of Moadag and then it rained. The police then announced the group had to leave school property.

Amanda Blackhorse at ICTMN has the full story.

To read more about the fight to save Moadag and the current encampment at Moadag visit their Facebook page.

BE WHITE.

Alt right fliers were found littered around the University of Michigan campus. The university responded swiftly and well, and the fliers have been removed, but this is yet another sign of the supremacist cancer eating away at all decency here in uStates. Deplorable is too light weight of a description. The outright lies, old and new, are disgusting, repellent, and appalling. People who believe such shit or are willing to believe such shit are barren, empty beings, devoid of any good human characteristic.

Several racially charged fliers were found in buildings in the heart of the University of Michigan’s campus in Ann Arbor on Monday, causing outrage among students after images were shared on social media.

One reads, “Euro-Americans! STOP

— Apologizing

— Living in fear

— Denying your heritage

. . . BE WHITE.”

“Denying your heritage.” Right. I find this as profoundly stupid as people who insist on referring to all Indigenous cultures and traditions as “Native American”. There’s no such thing, any more than there is something known as “White heritage”. That sort of lumping is moronic and meaningless. If you’re a white person, and you want to embrace your particular cultural heritage, customs, traditions, and language, I’m all for it! I don’t know anyone who is against that, or why they would be. When you want to lump all white Americans into one bucket, that’s where it all goes wrong. And colonial whiteness is not a thing to be celebrated, and colonial whiteness wasn’t just the genocidal madness against Indigenous people and the enslavement of Black people – it was a wealth of bigotry, hatred and mistreatment of many other white cultures, such as Irish people, and Jewish people. The list goes on. There’s nothing prideful in that.

Another lengthy flier advised white women not to date black men, with lines such as, “Your kids probably wouldn’t be smart.”

Michigan was one of many campuses to start the school year with images and messages that offended many, at a time when racial tensions are high across the country with protests over race and police violence. At the University of North Dakota, four women apparently posted a photo of themselves in blackface with the caption, “Black Lives Matter.” At Eastern Michigan University last week, a professor found the wall of a building on campus spray-painted with “KKK” and a racial slur. And a racial slur and image at Kansas State University earlier this month went viral.

sub-buzz-10069-1475003737-9

“White people exist. White people have the right to exist. White people have the right to exist as white people,” the flier added.

Has anyone been going around advocating that white people don’t have the right to exist? Has anyone been demanding that white people cease existing as white people? This isn’t just disgusting, it’s remarkably stupid, too. Quite honestly, the very last thing white people need is an exhortation to ‘be white’. Talk about being the worst person you can be.

Full story at The Washington Post, but whatever you do, seriously, don’t look at, read, or even allow the comments to load. BuzzFeed has more visuals.

Facebook, Oh Facebook IX.

Charles Wasko (Classmates.com)

Charles Wasko (Classmates.com)

Yet another bigoted, white politician just couldn’t manage to keep all that nasty poison off their facebook. This time, bigotry presents one Charles Wasko, the mayor of West York, Pennsylvania, who likes making monkey jokes about the President and First Lady, and thinks it’s very funny to make jokes about lynching the President. Golly, I find myself with no desire to laugh at all.

Several West York borough council members have called on Mayor Charles Wasko to step down in light of racist posts he has made on Facebook.

Wasko, who was elected mayor in 2013, has posted several pictures on Facebook this year that council members took issue with: Two compared President Barack Obama and his family to monkeys, and one suggested Obama should be hanged with a noose. Another post featured a fictional black person saying that socialism is “when the white folks work every day so we can get all our governmental entitlement stuff for free.”

The four council members reachable by phone on Wednesday — two Democrats and two Republicans —  out of the seven members of the council, said they want Wasko out as mayor.

Wasko didn’t respond to multiple messages seeking comment on Wednesday.

Council president Shawn Mauck said this was the first he’d heard about issues regarding the mayor’s posts. He was shocked when he pulled up the mayor’s publicly visible profile and read them.

cw

One of Wasko’s posts from June features a picture of a wheelbarrow full of apes with the words “Aww … moving day at the Whitehouse has finally arrived” and “Kenya or bust.” Another, from February, is a photo of a monkey gritting its teeth, to which Wasko added the comment, “Most think it is Obama’s picture……sorry its Moochelles baby photo,” presumably referring to Michelle Obama.

 

636106840816336674-wasko3

Mauck and councilman Brian Wilson  raised a particular issue: the fact that Wasko has some oversight of the day-to-day operations of the West York Borough Police Department.

“With those types of thoughts in your mind, how can you oversee the police department?” said Wilson, who also called on the mayor to resign. “We can’t have anybody being racist or bigoted … especially an elected official.”

Matthew Millsaps, the acting chief of the department, said Wasko does, by law, have some role in the department’s operations, though Wasko’s interactions with Millsaps have been limited, the chief said. The council appointed Millsaps acting chief after Justin Seibel, who had been chief, was suspended earlier this month.

“I’ve viewed these images and am disturbed,” Millsaps said in a statement he read over the phone Wednesday night.

He said two of the borough’s eight officers are minorities — a Hispanic man and a black woman — so the percentage of people of color in the department is about the same as for the borough as a whole.

“This in no way reflects the ideology or beliefs of this department,” he said,

“Of particular concern are any images with undertones of violence — lynching or that are threatening in nature,” he said.

When asked if the picture of Eastwood and the noose was one such image, he said: “I could understand how it could be taken that way.”

How it could be taken that way? FFS, in what other way could it possibly be taken? West York, you have a serious problem.

[…]

Wasko also has made headlines for physical confrontations with council members.

Former council member Tim Berkheimer said that in November 2013, Wasko grabbed his arm and tried to choke him. Wasko claimed the two men came together when they tried to walk up the stairs to the borough building at the same time, but said he indeed pushed the former councilman.

More recently, this past April, Seibel, the now-suspended West York Police chief, had to physically separate Wasko from Nick Laughman, who then was vice president of the council.

Gosh, what a charming guy.

Full story at York Dispatch.

Every alt-right Nazi I know…

Brian Culpepper and Mike Schoeler - Channel 4 screencap

Brian Culpepper and Mike Schoeler – Channel 4 screencap

Trump’s surprise rise to become the GOP presidential nominee, built largely on a willingness to openly criticize minority groups and tap into long-simmering racial divisions, has reenergized white supremacist groups and drawn them into mainstream American politics like nothing seen in decades.

White nationalist leaders who once shunned presidential races have endorsed Trump, marking the first time some have openly supported a candidate from one of the two main parties.

Members are showing up at his rallies, knocking on doors to get out the vote and organizing debate-watching parties.

White supremacists are active on social media and their websites report a sharp rise in traffic and visitors, particularly when posting stories and chat forums about the New York businessman.

Stormfront, already one of the oldest and largest white nationalist websites, reported a 600% increase in readership since President Obama’s election, and now has more than one in five threads devoted to Trump. It reportedly had to upgrade its servers recently due to the increased traffic.

“Before Trump, our identity ideas, national ideas, they had no place to go,” said Richard Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist think tank based in Arlington, Va.

Not since Southern segregationist George Wallace’s failed presidential bids in 1968 and 1972 have white nationalists been so motivated to participate in a presidential election.

Andrew Anglin, editor of the Daily Stormer website and an emerging leader of a new generation of millennial extremists, said he had “zero interest” in the 2012 general election and viewed presidential politics as “pointless.” That is, until he heard Trump.

“Trump had me at ‘build a wall,’” Anglin said. “Virtually every alt-right Nazi I know is volunteering for the Trump campaign.”

One California white nationalist leader dug into his own pockets to give $12,000 to launch a pro-Trump super PAC that made robocalls in seven primary states — with more promised before the Nov. 8 election.

“The idea that [Trump] is taking a wrecking ball to ‘political correctness’ excites them,” said Peter Montgomery, who has tracked far right groups as a senior fellow at People for the American Way, the Norman Lear-founded advocacy group. “They’ve been marginalized in our discourse, but he’s really made space for them…. He has energized these folks politically in a way that’s going to have damaging long-term consequences.”

The LA Times has a good look at this ongoing problem.

Alfred Olango: Tasered and Shot to Death.

Agnes Hasam, a family friend of the Alfred Olango, speaks to protesters gathered at the El Cajon Police Department headquarters to protest fatal shooting of an unarmed black man Tuesday by officers in El Cajon, California, U.S. September 28, 2016. REUTERS/Earnie Grafton

Agnes Hasam, a family friend of the Alfred Olango, speaks to protesters gathered at the El Cajon Police Department headquarters to protest fatal shooting of an unarmed black man Tuesday by officers in El Cajon, California, U.S. September 28, 2016. REUTERS/Earnie Grafton

In the latest shooting, two officers responded to calls about an African-American man in his 30s walking in traffic and “not acting like himself,” according to police in El Cajon, a city of about 100,000 residents some 15 miles (24 km) northeast of San Diego.

Police did not immediately identify the victim, but local activists and friends named him as Ugandan-born Alfred Olango. They said he was mentally ill and that he may have been suffering a seizure in the moments before his death.

[…]

El Cajon officers found Olango behind a restaurant at about 2 p.m. PDT (2100 GMT) on Tuesday and ordered him to remove his hand from his pocket. After he refused, one officer drew a firearm and the other readied a Taser device, police said.

Olango paced back and forth as the officers tried to talk to him with their weapons pointed at him, police said.

Police said Olango then pulled an object from his front pants pocket, placed both hands together and extended them toward an officer in “what appeared to be a shooting stance.”

The officers simultaneously shot and used the Taser on the man, who died after being taken to the hospital, police said.

No weapon was found at the scene, El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis told reporters. He did not say what the man was pointing.

“Now is a time for calm,” Davis said. “I implore the community to be patient with us, work with us, look at the facts at hand before making any judgment.”

Actually, I think it’s time for cops to explain why they think tasering and gunning someone down at the same time is now the thing to do. Cops everywhere, gunning people down, bearing more similarity to the bad old days of mob rule than any type of “law and order”. FFS, this has to stop, and no more moronic excuses of “I was scared”. Tasers incapacitate people, there’s no need to follow them up with any bullet, let alone a round of fatal ones. Out of control Keystone Cops, yeah, you’re doing a great fucking job out there.

Via Raw Story, here and here.

Investors Call on McCrory to Repeal.

matt-patsky

Sixty investors representing $2.1 trillion in managed assets have called on North Carolina to repeal HB2, the controversial law limiting protections for LGBT people.

Earlier this month it was estimated that HB2 has so far cost North Carolina in the region of $395 million from sporting organizations, the entertainment industry and business interests. In March, more than 80 CEOs and businesses – including Apple’s Tim Cook and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg – signed a letter urging Governor Pat McCrory to overturn HB2.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday alongside some of the investors who have signed the statement calling for repeal, Matt Patsky, chief executive officer of Trillium Asset Management, said North Carolina “appears to be headed for what I would call a state-government-inflicted recession.” According to Associated Press, Trillium – one of the organizers of the statement along with environmental research group Croatan Institute and the New York City comptroller, Scott Stringer – has more than $2 billion in assets under management. Stringer was unable to attend the press conference because of a New York ban on travel to North Carolina.

In a separate statement, Stringer said:

“As long-term investors, we can’t sit idly by as HB2 undermines fundamental human rights at our expense. For the last 25 years, New York City’s pension funds have pushed more than 100 companies to enact non-discrimination policies that protect LGBTQ individuals and ensure they attract, retain, and promote the best and the brightest. These policies are essential if we want companies – and our economy – to succeed, and we can’t let a hate-filled law get in the way.”

Bonny Moellenbrock, executive director of North Carolina-based Investors Circle, added:

“This fallout is real. It has had a devastating impact on our reputation and that has a direct impact on entrepreneurs’ ability to grow their business here.”

McCrory replied in a statement:

“This latest attack on North Carolina values is being coordinated by the same people who manage the New York City pension fund that is on the verge of an ‘operational failure,’ according to a recent report. For New York hedge fund billionaires to lecture North Carolina about how to conduct its affairs is the height of hypocrisy.”

Pat McCrory, the Asshole Bigot’s Asshole Bigot.

Via Towleroad.