WSW (White Supremacist Watch) Thread

[hand2handking]

 

[hand2handking]

‘Time for the Ku Klux Klan to Night Ride Again’: An Alabama Newspaper Editor Wants to Bring Back Lynching

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...s-bring-back-lynching/?utm_term=.22dc47e8311b

Two decades ago, the editor of the tiny Democrat-Reporter newspaper in Linden, Ala., was being talked about as a potential contender for the Pulitzer Prize. A congressional citation read on the floor of the House of Representatives in 1998 lauded “his truly American heroism and dedication to the truth” and called him “one of Alabama’s finest and most ethical journalists.” Glowing profiles in the New York Times,People magazine and the American Journalism Review highlighted his tenacious reporting and down-home Southern charm.
Now, Goodloe Sutton is back in the news again — this time because he recently called for mass lynchings and suggested that the Ku Klux Klan should return to “clean out” Washington, drawing strong rebukes from lawmakers and calls for an FBI investigation from the head of the Alabama NAACP.

“Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again,” began a Feb. 14 editorial in the Democrat-Reporter. It went on to claim that Democrats, along with some Republicans, were planning to raise taxes in Alabama. It concluded, “Seems like the Klan would be welcome to raid the gated communities up there.”

Sutton, who is also the paper’s publisher, could not immediately be reached for comment. He told the Montgomery Advertiser on Monday that he had written the editorial, which ran without a byline, and stood by it.

“If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we’d all been better off,” he told the paper, explaining, “We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them.”

During the same conversation, Sutton argued that the KKK “didn’t kill but a few people” and “wasn’t violent until they needed to be,” the Advertiser reported on Monday. He further suggested the Klan, a white supremacist hate group, was comparable to the NAACP. Sutton also added that people could call him, write him a letter or boycott the paper if they disagreed with his views.

When the Advertiser’s Melissa Brown asked him whether it was appropriate for a newspaper publisher to suggest that Americans should be lynched, Sutton replied, “It’s not calling for the lynchings of Americans. These are socialist-communists we’re talking about. Do you know what socialism and communism is?”

The editorial — which, like the rest of the paper, was not published online — first started getting attention on Monday afternoon when two student-journalists at Auburn University posted photographs on Twitter. On Monday night, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who prosecuted two members of the Klan for their role in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four young girls, called the editorial “disgusting” and demanded Sutton’s immediate resignation. “I have seen what happens when we stand by while people-especially those with influence- publish racist, hateful views,” he wrote.

Echoing the call for Sutton’s resignation was Rep. Terri A. Sewell (D-Ala.), who wrote, “For the millions of people of color who have been terrorized by white supremacy, this kind of ‘editorializing’ about lynching is not a joke — it is a threat."





The criticism was a sharp contrast from 20 years ago, when Sutton was honored on the floor of Congress. “His story is a shining example of the best and the brightest which occurs in America when a single citizen has the bravery to stand alone, in the face of mounting pressure and odds, and stands up for justice and equality,” Rep. Earl F. Hilliard (D-Ala.), the first person of color to represent Alabama in Congress since Reconstruction, said in his May 1998 proclamation.

Back then, Sutton was being celebrated for his dogged investigative journalism in the southwestern Alabama city with less than 3,000 residents, which resulted in the local sheriff being sent to federal prison. He and his wife, Jean, who worked alongside him at the paper, had spent nearly four years publishing stories that showed that Marengo County Sheriff Roger Davis was siphoning off government funds, from cashing reimbursement checks that were meant to go to the sheriff’s office to buying an all-terrain vehicle for his daughter with a check from the department’s bank account.

That reporting led to an undercover investigation that put Davis and two of his seven deputies in jail, but it took a toll on “Miss Jean” and “Ole Goodloe,” as the Suttons were known in their rural community. “The stories triggered a backlash,” AJR reported. “One of the elders at the Presbyterian church Sutton attends told him to lay off the sheriff. Sutton says he began losing about $1,000 a week in advertising. And hate mail poured in.”

Talking to the Associated Press in 1998, Sutton said deputies had threatened to plant drugs in their home, and the couple and their oldest son had repeatedly been pulled over and harassed. Davis “started telling anyone who would listen that my oldest son was involved in drugs, my wife was having affairs and I was drunk all the time,” he said. He was finally vindicated in 1997, when Davis pleaded guilty to charges including extortion and soliciting bribes.



That same year, two of Davis’s deputies, Wilmer “Sonny″ Breckenridge and Robert Pickens, were arrested along with 68 others in a massive drug bust that, at the time, was the largest in southern Alabama history. Breckenridge, AJR noted, had been the officer whose job was to visit schools and caution students about the dangers of using drugs. Both were ultimately convicted on charges that they had been abusing their positions as law enforcement officers by providing protection to drug dealers.

But by 2015, the Democrat-Reporter, like so many other small papers, was fighting for its life. Sutton had been forced to move out of the building across the street from the county courthouse where he had been based since 1965. “His office now is in a former barbecue restaurant a block away, where pieces of paper are taped to windows carrying the paper’s name,” the Advertiser reported. While the paper had more than 7,000 subscribers in 1998, circulation had fallen to roughly 3,000. Making matters worse, Jean, his managing editor and wife of 39 years, died in 2003 of complications from cancer.

“It was hard for me to go home during that time,” he told the Advertiser. “I was like a zombie for several years after I lost Jean. I didn’t know what to do.” Jean had been the one who first started digging into the rumors of corruption at the sheriff’s office, AJR reported, but since she hated to be in the spotlight, she refused to have her name appear on any of her stories and gave the credit to her editor husband instead.

The AJR profile — which showed Sutton fishing for crawfish and mentioned that Jean liked to bake chocolate chip cookies for the sheriff’s deputies — portrayed the couple as charming, small-town muckrakers. But at some point, the paper turned away from investigative journalism and began publishing more and more racist screeds. Sutton’s “racial references in headlines and stories” had upset many of his readers, the Advertiser acknowledged in 2015, noting that one front-page story about a murder described the perpetrators as “Selma black thugs.”

Asked what the headline might have said if the killers had been white, Sutton didn’t respond but appeared to wink at his interviewer.



When Sutton’s comments on the Klan began getting attention on Monday, longtime readers pointed out that it wasn’t the first time that the paper’s editorial page had endorsed extreme or openly racist views. In May 2015, an editorial stated that the mayor of a city “up north” had “displayed her African heritage by not enforcing civilized law.” Another, published in June of that year, called for drug dealers, kidnappers, rapists, thieves and murderers to be hanged “on the courthouse lawn where the public can watch.”

“Dope heads know how to grow marijuana but not cotton,” one August 2014 editorial read. “They don’t pay sales taxes on what they grow so this doesn’t register with the economists who compile the statistics about jobs and employment. This market is dominated by blacks.” That same month, President Barack Obama was described by the paper as a “Kenyan orphan president” who was elected because Americans thought “it would be cool to have a colored man” in the White House. Later, amid the national controversy over football players kneeling during the national anthem, the Democrat-Reporter declared, “That’s what black folks were taught to do two hundred years ago, kneel before a white man.”

Other editorials have disparaged women with crude comments about their weight: Michelle Obama was labeled “a chubby chick” by the Democrat-Reporter, while Hillary Clinton was a “little fat oinker.” In January 2017, an editorial predicting that Clinton would be sent to prison stated: “Fat women are more stupid than trim women. Hillary wasn’t trim.”

Since the editorials are run without a byline, it’s unclear which, if any, were written by Sutton. Archived editions of the Democrat-Reporter from 2012 to 2017 indicate he was responsible for overseeing editorial content and that the paper’s two or three other staff members were in charge of tasks such as layout and production. A since-deleted post on a journalism forum indicates that as recently as December, Sutton had been trying to sell the paper, which he inherited from his father in the 1980s.

To some local lawmakers, the news that the Democrat-Reporter’s publisher was wishing for the return of the most notorious hate group in American history came as no surprise.

"That kind of ignorance is the reason I don’t even subscribe to the paper,” A.J. McCampbell, a Democratic state representative, told AL.com.

Moreover, the president of the Alabama NAACP, Benard Simelton, toldAL.com that Sutton’s editorial shows he is “out of touch with reality," before adding that his comments warrant an investigation.

“I think it needs to be looked into by the FBI because in my opinion, he’s making threats to legislators and telling them that the Klan essentially needs to take care of the Democrats," Simelton said. “The Democrats as well as the Democrats that are in the Republican Party, too. So, I think that needs to be looked at as a threat and investigated as a threat and possible legal action taken against him.”

As news of his editorial went viral, organizations that once lauded Sutton rebuked him. Officials from the University of Southern Mississippi’s School of Communication announced Tuesday that they had removed Sutton from their hall of fame, in which he was inducted in 2007, after his “call for violence and the return of the Ku Klux Klan” and “recent and continued history of racist remarks.”

The Auburn Plainsman reported Auburn University’s Journalism Advisory Council on Tuesday stripped Sutton of a community journalism award he received in 2009. Anthony Cook, chair of the journalism advisory council, told the Plainsman that many in the community were shocked to see what Sutton had written.

“The initial thought was hopefully this is satire. But looking at the reporting around the editorial, we see that he has not backed down from anything he said in the editorial," Cook said. "In fact, he’s doubled down.”

 

[hand2handking]

White Customer at Mexican Restaurant Swears at Spanish-Speaking Manager
A white woman eating at a Mexican restaurant in West Virginia insulted the manager after she heard him speak Spanish.

Tampico Mexican Restaurant in Parkersburg, West Virginia.Google Maps

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino...yjTRJU18XPCZlOCnnBHi7ZjO1gsoGfutIWRt3LPyy2Zug

A video showing a white woman swearing at the general manager of a Mexican restaurant in West Virginia for speaking Spanish went viral over the weekend.

“English is our first language, so you need to speak English,” the woman, identified in the video as Jill, screamed at Sergio Budar, the manager. “Get the f--- out of my country.”

One of two videos capturing the incident shows how customers at Tampico Mexican Restaurant in Parkersburg, West Virginia, were astonished at the woman’s remarks.

“It makes me feel angry, sad. It's unbelievable that we're still seeing this kind of behavior to this day,” Budar, who's originally from Mexico, told NBC News. “I’ve been living here for almost two decades, and counting. I got my U.S. citizenship while here, but that doesn’t mean that people can’t speak other languages that are not English.”






As Jill continues to scream at Budar, saying that she has “no problem with the way he looks,” the man dining with her tries to stop her from shouting.

At the same time, one of the chefs that works at the restaurant intervened in the situation.

“If you’re going to be racist you’re going to leave," said the chef.

To which Jill replied, “I’m not racist.”

"No, that’s racist. This man takes care of me," said the chef, referring to Budar. "And you’re gonna get outta here if you’re gonna talk to him like that."

Similar incidents have gone viral in recent years.

Just last year, a white lawyer threatened to call immigration authorities on some restaurant workers in New York City for speaking Spanish. At a store in Colorado, a young woman defended two Spanish-speaking friends who were being harassed by an older woman. In Montana, a border patrol agent detained two womenwho were chatting in Spanish while buying groceries.

According to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University in San Bernardino, America’s largest cities saw a 176 percent spike in anti-Latino hate crimes the first two weeks after the 2016 election.

In 2017, reports of anti–Hispanic/Latino crimes rose by more than 24 percent, according to FBI numbers.

 

[hand2handking]

 

[hand2handking]

‘I Am Dreaming of a Way to Kill Almost Every Last Person on Earth’: A Self-Proclaimed White Nationalist Planned a Mass Terrorist Attack, the Government Says

https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...51b7ff322e9_story.html?utm_term=.1f377814419f

A U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant and self-identified white nationalist was arrested after federal investigators uncovered a cache of weapons and ammunition in his Maryland home that authorities say he stockpiled to launch a widespread domestic terrorist attack targeting politicians and journalists.

Christopher Paul Hasson called for “focused violence” to “establish a white homeland” and said, “I am dreaming of a way to kill almost every last person on the earth,” in one of his letters that contemplated launching a biological plague, according to court records filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland. Though court documents do not detail a specific planned date for an attack, the government said he had been amassing supplies and weapons since at least 2017, developed a spreadsheet of targets that included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and searched the Internet using phrases such as “best place in dc to see congress people” and “are supreme court justices protected.”

“The defendant intends to murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country,” the government said in court documents filed this week, arguing that Hasson should stay in jail awaiting trial.

Hasson, 49, of Silver Spring, is expected to appear before a judge for a detention hearing in federal court in Greenbelt at 1 p.m. Thursday.

Hasson was arrested on charges of possessing illegal weapons and drugs on Friday, but the government said those charges are the “proverbial tip of the iceberg.” Officials with the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland outlined Hasson’s alleged plans to spark chaos and destruction in court documents, describing a man obsessed with neo-fascist and neo-Nazi views.

“Please send me your violence that I may unleash it onto their heads,” Hasson wrote in a letter that prosecutors said was found in his email drafts. “Guide my hate to make a lasting impression on this world.”

When it comes to domestic terrorism, it's hard to ignore white nationalists

Here's why you can't ignore violent right-wing extremists when it comes to domestic terrorist attacks. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)

A magistrate judge ordered the federal public defender’s office to represent Hasson; that office declined to comment Wednesday.

Hasson has been working at the U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in Washington since 2016, according to court documents filed by prosecutors. He also served in the U.S. Marine Corps between 1988 to 1993 and in the Army National Guard for about two years in the mid-1990s, the filings state.

Agents with the FBI field office in Baltimore and the Coast Guard Investigative Service arrested Hasson on Friday, FBI Baltimore spokesman Dave Fitz confirmed.

A Coast Guard spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Scott McBride, said Wednesday that Hasson no longer works at Coast Guard headquarters.

“An active duty Coast Guard member stationed at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington, D.C., was arrested last week on illegal weapons and drug charges as a result of an ongoing investigation led by Coast Guard Investigation Services, in cooperation with the FBI and the Dept. of Justice,” McBride said in a written statement. McBride declined to comment further, citing the open investigation.

The manifesto outlined how Breivik planned and prepared his attacks with the aim of providing a road map for others planning similar terrorist operations, the U.S. court filings say.

Breivik took steroids and narcotics, believing it would heighten his abilities to carry out attacks. When law enforcement raided Hasson’s apartment, they said they found a locked container loaded with more than 30 vials of what appeared to be human growth hormone. He has also ordered more than 4,200 pills of the narcotic Tramadol since 2016, along with synthetic urine to allegedly bypass possible random drug screenings at work, they said.

Breivik encouraged identifying targets and traitors. In recent weeks, according to the court filings, Hasson developed a spreadsheet of targets that included top Democratic congressional leaders and media personalities. The list includes “JOEY,” what prosecutors say is a reference to former congressman Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.), now of MSNBC; “cortez,” an alleged reference to freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York); and “Sen blumen jew,” presumably about Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

Authorities seized 15 firearms, including several long guns and rifles, and more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition from his cramped basement apartment after executing a search warrant this month. Over the past two years, he had made nearly two dozen purchases of firearms or related equipment and made thousands of visits to websites selling weapons or tactical gear.

The filing was first reported Wednesday afternoon by the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.

Authorities said Hasson harbored extremist views for years.

“The defendant is a domestic terrorist,” the government said in court filings, “bent, on committing acts dangerous to human life that are intended to affect governmental conduct.”

In an email he drafted in June 2017, he contemplated biological attacks and targeting food supplies, according to the court filings. He considered the merits of a “bombing/sniper campaign.” And included a “Things to do” list that included purchasing land “out west or possibly NC mtns” for family and researching tactics used during the civil war in Ukraine.

“During unrest target both sides to increase tension,” Hasson wrote in the email, according to the court filings. “In other words provoke gov/police to over react which should help to escalate violence. BLM protests or other left crap would be ideal to incite to violence.”

In another letter drafted months later to an American neo-Nazi leader, cited in the court filing, Hasson called for a “white homeland.” He sent the letter to himself nearly two months after the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, where torch carrying white-supremacists clashed with anti-racist protesters.

“I never saw a reason for mass protest or wearing uniforms marching around provoking people with swastikas etc.,” Hasson said in the letter, according to court filings. “I was and am a man of action you cannot change minds protesting like that. However you can make change with a little focused violence.”

Hasson’s commitment to destruction appeared heightened in recent weeks, according to prosecutors. He created a list of “traitors” and targets on Jan. 19 in an Excel spreadsheet on his work computer, they said, which was created two days after he conducted several Internet inquiries:

8:54 a.m.: “what if trump illegally impeached”

8:57 a.m.: “best place in dc to see congress people”

8:58 a.m.: “where in dc to congress live”

10:39 a.m.: “civil war if trump impeached”

11:26 a.m.: “social democrats usa”

The arrest marks the second time that the service has responded to an incident involving alleged white supremacy in recent months. In September, the Coast Guard reprimanded a service member who flashed what some people identified as a white supremacy sign in the background of a televised interview with another officer during the response to Hurricane Florence.

“We are aware of the offensive video on twitter — the Coast Guard has identified the member and removed him from the response,” the service said at the time in a tweet. “His actions do not reflect those of the United States Coast Guard.”

That individual was not identified.

 

[hand2handking]

Sonya Curry: Former Hornets Owner George Shinn Cautioned Players Against Interracial Marriage



https://nba.nbcsports.com/2019/02/1...utioned-players-against-interracial-marriage/

All-Star Weekend in Charlotte was a wonderful celebration of North Carolina’s enthusiasm for basketball.

At center stage: The Curry family.

Dell Curry played for the Hornets. While in Charlotte, he and his wife Sonya Curry raised future NBA players in Stephen Curry and Seth Curry. Those four featured prominently throughout the weekend. Stephen played in the All-Star game. He and Seth competed in the 3-point contest. Dell headlined a shooting competition for charity. Sonya even made a halfcourt shot.

But not all their memories in Charlotte were happy.

When Dell Curry was drafted by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1988 NBA expansion draft, the Currys experienced more racism. The Hornets were owned at that time by George Shinn. Sonya Curry, who is a fair-skinned African-American woman, recalls Shinn erroneously thinking she was a white woman and not liking the fact that one of his black players was married to her.

“The owner called in another player, a white guy player who dated black women, and said, ‘We drafted you. We know who you like to date. But we just want to tell you to really be careful about letting people see because Dell Curry is married to a white woman and we don’t know how people are going to take them either,’ ” Sonya Curry said. “The player was like, ‘You are not going to believe what they just said.’ I was like, ‘What?’ Just the assumption of what I look like and all that.”

Shinn was loathed by Hornets fans even before he moved the franchise to New Orleans. This provides just another reason to dislike him.

Even if Shinn were merely cautioning his players that other people might object to interracial marriage/dating – the most charitable reading of this – it’s still awful. Put the burden of change on the people perpetuating racist standards, not the victims of that racism.

 

[hand2handking]

Prejudice or Principled Conservatism? Racial Resentment and White Opinion Toward Paying College Athletes

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1065912916685186

Abstract

Despite its widespread use in studies of race and ethnic politics, there exists a long-standing debate about whether racial resentment primarily measures antiblack prejudice or ideological conservatism. In this paper, we attempt to resolve this debate by examining racial resentment’s role in shaping white opinion on a “racialized” policy issue that involves no federal action and no government redistribution of resources: “pay for play” in college athletics.

Using cross-sectional and experimental data from the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study and Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, we find evidence not only that racial resentment items tap racial predispositions but also that whites rely on these predispositions when forming and expressing their views on paying college athletes. More specifically, we demonstrate that racially resentful whites who were subtly primed to think about African Americans are more likely to express opposition to paying college athletes when compared with similarly resentful whites who were primed to think about whites.

Because free-market conservatism, resistance to changes in the status quo, opposition to expanding federal power, and reluctance to endorse government redistributive policies cannot possibly explain these results, we conclude that racial resentment is a valid measure of antiblack prejudice.

 

[hand2handking]

'Positive Behavior' Coach at a Wisconsin Middle School is Placed on Leave After Accusations He Pushed an 11-Year-Old Black Student, Punched Her and Ripped Out Three of Her Braids

Robert Owens-Mueller, an assistant principal and positive behavior support coach with the Madison Metropolitan School District was put on leave for the alleged assault on a student

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ld-black-student-punching-ripping-braids.html

An educator in Madison, Wisconsin, has been put on leave after a student claimed he shoved and punched her and pulled out three braids of hair from her head.

Robert Mueller-Owens, 52, an administrator and positive behavioral support coach with at White Horse Middle School in the Madison Metropolitan School District, allegedly attacked the student on February 13,WISC news reports.

'Just the whole experience is just traumatic and devastating and just confusing,' Mikiea Price, the student's mother said on Wednesday. 'I'm just disgusted at this whole incident.'

Price said her daughter called her last week claiming she had been jumped by her teacher, and when she arrived at the school, her daughter was holding three braids allegedly ripped from her hair, had a cracked, bleeding lip and was crying.

Mueller-Owens, as the dean of students, apparently had been called in to deal with Price's daughter and another student who had sprayed too much perfume or body spray and refused to leave the classroom.

While surveillance footage from outside the room has not been released to the public, Price and her Pastor Marcus Allen, relayed what they saw.

'A big tall man and an 11-year-old girl being pushed from one classroom to the other side of the hallway and then falling on top of her,' Allen said of the video. 'It's a very disturbing sight to see.'

The video does not show what happened before the hallway, but Price told WISC news that her daughter said Mueller-Owens asked her step out of the room and she initially refused. He then told the rest of the class leave.

Price's daughter alleges she then decided she would leave, and that the administrator shoved her with both hands as she made her way out. She then claims she said, 'don't put your hands on me,' and that's when he pushed her again and began to punch her, Price's mother told Madison365.

'As a District we take any situation of this nature very seriously,' Rachel Strauch-Nelson said in a statement for the Madison Metropolitan School District.

'All of our students need to be safe and supported in school, and we have a thorough investigation process and protocol that we follow. While we cannot talk about the details of a specific student or personnel situation, it is our responsibility to consider all of the facts of the situation and determine the right next steps.'

In the meantime, Mueller-Owens remains on leave until the conclusion of the investigation with any next steps to be determined by the findings.

'It's still being investigated and we are trying to sort out what happened,' spokesman Joel DeSpain for the Madison Police Department said. 'We know there is a parent involved who is making a lot of claims as to what transpired, and we of course are checking out those claims and any other facts that we can glean so we can come to a conclusion.'

Robert Mueller-Owens, whose background is in positive behavioral support, attended a conference on reforming school discipline at President Obama's White House in 2015. He has spoken in the past of the need for cultural literacy in order to rethink school discipline.

The irony was not lost on Mikiea Price, whose black daughter was involved in the incident with Mueller-Owens who is white.

'If he has all that training, why would you approach that and why, when a kid told you don't touch me, why did you come and meet them with more force?' she said.

Mueller-Owens is one several employees of the school district who have been investigated for racial incidents since last fall, according to Madison.com. Teachers, substitutes and a bus driver have had to leave positions after allegations of racial slurs and abuse.

Mueller-Owens has worked for the Madison Metropolitan School District for more than four-and-a-half years according to his Linkedin profile

 

[Deleted member 42060]

Believes in God and used the n word.
Fake Christian.

 

[sugafree]

 

[hand2handking]

Trump Touts 4th of July Event, Says It Will be 'One of the Biggest Gatherings in the History of Washington, D.C.'

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/24/politics/trump-july-4th-celebration/index.html

(CNN) - President Donald Trump confirmed that a massive 4th of July gathering he suggested earlier this month will happen, saying that it will be "one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, D.C."

A major 4th of July parade already takes place in the nation's capital each year. The parade, called America's National Independence Day Parade, goes through the heart of downtown Washington and consists "of invited bands, fife and drum corps, floats, military and specialty units, giant balloons, equestrian, drill teams, VIP's, national dignitaries and celebrity participants," according to the parade's website. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.



In a statement to CNN, LaToya Foster, a spokesperson for Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, noted that various celebratory events happen around the city on July 4.

"Like you, we are still assessing what will be different this year but we know these celebrations only truly salute America when they are inclusive, diverse and welcome all," Foster said in the statement.

Earlier this month, the President floated the idea of the parade during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, but there was no mention of one on Sunday.

"We're thinking about doing, on the 4th of July or thereabouts, a parade, a 'Salute to America' parade. I guess it'd be really more of a gathering than a parade. Perhaps at the Lincoln Memorial. We're looking at sites. But we're thinking about doing something that would, perhaps, become a tradition," he said.

In the meeting, the President said acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt would take charge of the event. A spokesman for the department told CNN that the proposed event "is a great idea" and that they are "working diligently to present the best options to the White House."

At the time of the announcement, a White House official said in a statement that "President Trump loves America and wants to help all Americans celebrate our nation's independence on July 4."

 

[...So]

.

 

[hand2handking]

 

[heavyhitta10]

Not one bit surprised. Nothing but white rich privileged ***** at that school with a couple of black students.

 

[sugafree]

 

[hand2handking]

 

[hand2handking]

Pa. Judge Sentenced To 28 Years In Massive Juvenile Justice Bribery Scandal

Mark Ciavarella leaves the federal courthouse in Scranton, Pa., in February.
David Kidwell/AP

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...bribery-scandal?sc=tw&cc=share?sc=tw&cc=share

A Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison in connection to a bribery scandal that roiled the state's juvenile justice system. Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was convicted of taking $1 million in bribes from developers of juvenile detention centers. The judge then presided over cases that would send juveniles to those same centers. The case came to be known as "kids-for-cash."

The AP adds:

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed about 4,000 convictions issued by Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, saying he violated the constitutional rights of the juveniles, including the right to legal counsel and the right to intelligently enter a plea.

Ciavarella, 61, was tried and convicted of racketeering charges earlier this year. His attorneys had asked for a "reasonable" sentence in court papers, saying, in effect, that he's already been punished enough.

"The media attention to this matter has exceeded coverage given to many and almost all capital murders, and despite protestation, he will forever be unjustly branded as the 'Kids for Cash' judge," their sentencing memo said.

The Times Leader, of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., reports that the court house in Scranton was overflowing this morning. More than a dozen people who said they had been affected by the judge's decision stood outside, awaiting the sentencing.

Jeff Pollins was in that crowd. His stepson was convicted by Ciavarella.

"These kids are still affected by it. It's like post traumatic stress disorder," Pollins told the Times Leader. "Our life is ruined. It's never going to be the same... I'd like to see that happen to him," he said.

 

[hand2handking]

 

[blastercombo]

Believes in God and used the n word.
Fake Christian.

Ironically that sounds exactly christian

 

[hand2handking]

GOP Mayor Resigns After Racist Texts And Email Leaks Revealed By Girlfriend



https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/gop-mayor-resigns-racist-texts-email-leaks-revealed-mistress

A Republican mayor in Maine resigned on Friday after a woman he was having an affair with released a racist text message he sent her, according to several local media reports.

Shane Bouchard, the mayor of Lewiston, Maine, referred to elderly black people as “antique farm equipment,” according to the local Sun Journal citing messages that his girlfriend Heather Berube Everly made public. Bouchard resigned Friday morning and told a local CBS affiliate that he made mistakes and was not a “perfect person.”

“In this political climate where the media does not discriminate between facts and rumors, it is hard to be a public figure. I am not a perfect person. I have made many mistakes in my past. I have also, in the past been the victim of some very damaging rumors,” he told the local WGME.

The resignation comes just after the same woman, Berube Everly, testified at the Lewiston City Council meeting this week that she provided the mayor with internal emails from his opponent’s campaign, where she was working at the time. Those emails were later published on a website called the Maine Examiner, which was later revealed to be run by an operative for the Maine Republican Party.

After Berube Everly’s testimony, Bouchard admitted to WGME that he received the leaked emails from Democratic opponent Ben Chin’s campaign, but denied that he gave them to the Maine Republican Party. Local police are reportedly investigating the leaked emails.

The internal emails show Chin referred to some voters as “a$$holes” and was opposed to a merger between two towns because it could lead to spending cuts.

Lewiston Mayor’s Texts Reveal Racist Comment Before Election

https://www.sunjournal.com/2019/03/07/lewiston-mayors-texts-reveal-racist-comment-before-election/

Editor’s note: This story contains a racist joke. The Sun Journal is including it in its entirety to provide readers with clarity.

LEWISTON — Two months before his opponent’s campaign was upended over emails referencing encounters with racists in the city, Shane Bouchard texted the woman who was funneling Bouchard those internal emails and told her a racist joke.



City Council members, Shane Bouchard, Kristen Cloutier and Michael Lachance listen to James Howaniac, former mayor of Lewiston and current chairman of the Coalition to Oppose Lewiston-Auburn Consolidation, during a public meeting in 2017. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

“All my jokes are quite racist lol,” he said before adding, “What do you call 2 old black people sitting on your front lawn.”

“Antique farm equipment,” he answered.

“Yikes,” she wrote back.

The exchange came exactly two months before the Maine Examiner publicized internal campaign emails from Bouchard’s opponent, Ben Chin, including one in which Chin said that he’d encountered “a bunch of racists” while campaigning. The comments were considered divisive and insulting by some. Bouchard went on to win the race, in part because those emails were made public.

On Thursday, as that text exchange and others were made public, Bouchard apologized. He said he was not racist and the comment was not a reflection on the way he feels about black people in general or Lewiston’s black residents in particular.

“I say stupid things and stupid jokes occasionally,” he said.

Heather Everly Berube made public that text exchange and more than 150 others late Wednesday night, hours after she sat down for a wide-ranging interview with the Sun Journal to talk about her relationship with Bouchard and her part in a covert effort to boost Bouchard’s chances of becoming mayor by sending him Chin’s internal emails.

Many of the texts are conversational, focused on when and where to meet up, talk of family and local politics. In one, Bouchard tells Berube, who also goes by her married name Everly, that she is on his short list of possible appointees to fill a vacant School Committee seat.

“You may be #1, but I still have to win and weigh my options,” he said, before musing that Mark Cayer would do a good job in the seat.

“I don’t need to be gifted. Whoever gets it should be best for the position,” she responded

“Exactly. Hence why I won’t promise it to anyone,” Bouchard said, then added, “You will always know where you stand with me.”

Bouchard ultimately nominated Mark Cayer, who is now the Lewiston School Committee chairman.

Other texts are more suggestive. In one, Bouchard talks about what it would take to make his night better.

“Do you know a set of 20 year old blonde twins?” he asked.

In another exchange captured mid-conversation, Bouchard said, “Could be better too. Still holding out for twins,” then added, “Or an overweight brunette. Lol.”

After Berube offered a laughing emoji, Bouchard wrote, “I’m so sexist. Lol.”

In other texts, he talks about the Maine Examiner stories that published his Democratic rival’s internal emails and ultimately upended Chin’s campaign a week before the December 2017 runoff election. Berube, who had volunteered for the Chin campaign, sent internal campaign emails to Bouchard.

In February 2018, as the Maine Ethics Commission was considering looking into the Maine Examiner, Berube texted Bouchard that she was “Ignoring it for now.”

“I have no interest in connecting you to the examiner,” she wrote.

“Ignore is good,” Bouchard responded. “But just so you can sleep well, the fact that you sent them to me and the fact that they ended up in the hands of the examiner (who I was unaware of who owned it until a week ago) does not break any laws anywhere. It really does not mean squat.”

“The whole thing and the fact that they are still harping on it still is actually laughable,” Bouchard said. He added, “I got Chin a tie on election night. I should have sent him a participation trophy.”

Both Bouchard and Jason Savage, the owner and operator of the Maine Examiner, have denied that Savage got the internal emails from Bouchard.

But two of the most potentially inflammatory texts deal with race. One was the racist joke. In the other, Bouchard talks about his schedule, including a gathering of his fellow Republicans.

“Then my clan meeting,” he wrote. “I mean andro GOP meeting.”

“That’s not funny,” Berube replied.


Heather Everly Berube has made public over 150 texts between her and Shane Bouchard, including this one in which he appears to compare his fellow Republicans to the Klu Klux Klan.

Berube linked to screen shots of the texts on Facebook and shared them with the Sun Journal late Wednesday night.

On Thursday, Bouchard said of his racist text that “you can tell from the context of it that it was, you know, a joke. And in poor taste, of course.”

“If you looked at the message, she was pushing me to just tell her any kind of joke and, I don’t know, I just, it came out,” he said. “It is tasteless and it is in no way a reflection of how I feel.”

As mayor, Bouchard oversees an increasingly diverse city. To residents, many of whom are first- or second-generation African immigrants, he said, “I think my actions towards minorities in this community are going to speak a lot louder than an off-color joke to a friend. My actions are very pro immigrant, you’ll find. My board and committee appointments. My outreach. I don’t think you’ll find anything racist about me, period, in general.”

Of the GOP “clan” comment, which appeared to refer to the Ku Klux Klan, Bouchard said, “I seem to remember this as stemming from our joking about how people view (Republicans) in the media at the time. It was meant in a ridiculous eye-roll kind of way.”

This is not the first time in recent history that a Lewiston mayor has had to explain comments touching on race.

In October 2002, Mayor Larry Raymond released a three-page open letter to the Somali community asking immigrants to spread the word among family and friends to stop moving to Lewiston in such large numbers. More than 1,000 African immigrants had moved to the largely white city in the previous 18 months. Many people considered Raymond’s request to be motivated by race. Ten years later, two groups called for Mayor Bob Macdonald to resign after he told a BBC documentary: “You (immigrants) come here, you come and you accept our culture and you leave your culture at the door.”

Macdonald told WGME after the documentary comments came to light, “If you believe in (Somali culture) so much, why aren’t you over there fighting for it? If you believe in it so much, why aren’t you over there shedding your blood to get it? Why are you over here shirking your duties?”

On Thursday, Bouchard said he wasn’t sure he saw any irony in joking about slavery and comparing the local GOP to the KKK around the same time his opponent was getting lambasted, in part, for commenting on his experience with racists

“A couple of racist-ish, not racist comments but just distasteful jokes, more than anything are just, again, stupid messaging between friends,” he said of his texts. “You never know how that’s going to get spun on you.”

As the texts made their way through social media Thursday, city leaders began dealing with allegationsBerube made against Bouchard during an open City Council meeting Tuesday night, including allegations of illegal activity.


Heather Everly Berube

Lewiston police said Berube met with investigators Thursday. The department is conducting a joint investigation with the Maine Attorney General’s Office of Berube’s allegations.

In a statement released Thursday afternoon, the department emphasized that it “had no knowledge of these allegations prior to her disclosure to the City Council.” The department said it would not be able to provide any additional details because of the ongoing investigation.

City Council President Kristen Cloutier released a statement saying the council takes Berube’s allegations seriously and “is committed to examining them closely.”

“As we look at these issues, we will review the city’s ethics policy and will proceed in a way that is in line with the conventions that govern our great city,” she said.

City Administrator Ed Barrett said it was unclear whether the city’s ethics policy, as written, applies to elected officials as well as employees. Even if it does, and even if Bouchard were found to have run afoul of it in some way, Barrett said there is no provision in the city charter to recall a mayor.

“So we don’t have that as an option,” he said.

The charter does allow the City Council to undertake an investigation, if it votes to do so.

“It is a fairly convoluted and likely expensive process, but it is there and is something that the council could take a look at,” he said. “My impression at this point is that it may be premature to kick anything off there until we get a little bit better information on all of these allegations and at least some preliminary notion of what we’re finding out.”

He said the council could name an independent third party to conduct such an investigation to avoid a conflict of interest.

If there were a council-ordered investigation and wrongdoing was found, there are few actions the council could take, Barrett said. The mayor’s removal is not one.

“Certainly the council could pass some kind of a motion of disapproval or censure or something like that,” he said.

 

[Top Boy]

On Thursday, as that text exchange and others were made public, Bouchard apologized. He said he was not racist and the comment was not a reflection on the way he feels about black people in general or Lewiston’s black residents in particular.

“I say stupid things and stupid jokes occasionally,” he said.

Said every white person caught assed out

 

[sugafree]

Well damn that karma a ***** aint it??
Yuuuckk

 

[hand2handking]

Black South African Presenter Beaten By White Assailants After They Called Him ‘Monkey’


Samora Mangesi, SABC presenter physically assaulted by a group of white people.

https://face2faceafrica.com/article...white-assailants-after-they-called-him-monkey

A Black South African television and radio presenter was physically assaulted by a group of white people who called him “monkey” after stopping to help them after their car had overturned.

Samora Mangesi tweeted on Wednesday about the alleged assault which happened last Friday in Johannesburg and explained how he and his two female friends were called “monkeys” and he was beaten unconscious after they asked why they were being insulted.



“On Friday night I was the victim of a racially motivated attack. After stopping to check on a group of young white people whose car had overturned, they called my friends & I Monkeys. When we engaged them on why we were being called such, they beat me up until I was unconscious,” the SABC presenter said in a series of tweets that showed his bruised and swollen face while at the hospital.

“I had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Even whilst I was being put in the ambulance, one of these guys tried to run my friend over with his bakkie and the paramedics had to intervene.

“I sustained injuries on my face, cuts inside my mouth and bruising along the left side of my body from when they kicked me on the ground after one of them had hit me on the back of the head. According to EMS I was out for about 5 min and only regained consciousness in the ambi [sic],” he tweeted.

He said it took him a couple of days to report the incident to the police as it is not the first time it has happened to a black man around the area.

“I am okay now. Most of the swelling has gone down and seemingly apart from a scar on my chin, a cut on the inside of my cheeck [sic], swelling on my lips and a graze on my left temple, I’m alright,” he added.



His attack has sparked a conversation on racial violence in South Africa where the shadows of apartheid still lingers on.

Last week, there was jubilation after a court on Wednesday sentenced two white farm workers to 18 and 23 years in prison for pushing a teenage boy out of a moving van after accusing him of stealing sunflowers.

The two were found to have killed Matlhomola Mosweu on April 20, 2017, after claiming they caught him taking a plant from their employer’s farm in Coligny, a remote northwestern farming community.

Earlier this year, school authorities at Laerskool Schweizer-Reneke in South Africa faced severe backlash after a photo circulated of black students seated separately from their white classmates in a group picture that was taken by their teacher on their first day of school.

The picture went viral on social media and solicited a lot of condemnation from people accusing the school authorities of racism.

 

[hand2handking]

 

[...So]

.