CONSERVATIVE WALL STREET JOURNAL ON ARPAIO PARDON

The Wall Street Journal is one of the most trusted newspapers in America.  Surveys show that (along with the Economist magazine) it is a publication highly regarded by both liberals and conservtives.  It is basically a conservative, big business, Republican newspaper that supports conservative economics, free markets,   free trade, etc.  They tend to be less conservative with regard to America's culture wars. However, they call out both the left and right.  They called out Obama and are calling out Trump. They make a real effort to discuss both sides.  I subscribe to it to helped get a balanced view.  Especially, if you are a conservative, I strongly suggest you subscribe.  Get out of the echo chamber and consult a rational, open minded conservative news source. If  you are trying to be open-minded and see a balanced picture, no matter what your leanings, I suggest you subscribe.  WSJ editorial below

 “Candidate Donald Trump promised to abide by the rule of law that took a beating under the Obama Administration, and that theme may have helped him win the election. President Trump’s pardon late Friday of deposed Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio undermines that promise and further politicizes the law.

The 85-year-old Mr. Arpaio became a hero of many conservatives with his brazen style and tactics targeting illegal immigrants. His aggressive enforcement drew a lawsuit and court injunction, culminating in a contempt conviction last month. While Mr. Trump praised Mr. Arpaio’s long career of public service, that hardly justifies the sheriff’s defiance of the law he swore to uphold.

In 2008 the American Civil Liberties Union sued the sheriff’s office for racially profiling Latinos during traffic and saturation patrols. After several years of litigation, federal Judge Murray Snow ordered the sheriff’s office to stop detaining individuals who had not committed a state crime merely based on the suspicion that they are in the country illegally.

Two years later the judge found officers had violated his preliminary injunction and ordered anti-bias training, a court-appointed monitor and patrol cameras, among other remedies. In 2016 Mr. Arpaio was held in civil contempt for flouting the judge’s orders. He was also reprimanded for withholding video evidence.

Then last August Judge Snow referred Mr. Arpaio to the Justice Department for criminal contempt proceedings. In his defense, Mr. Arpaio argued that the court orders were unclear to him or officers. Because his violations were supposedly unintentional, he said criminal charges were unwarranted.

It’s true there was some confusion as to what officers were allowed to do under state and federal law. A 2010 state law required officers to check the immigration status of individuals during a “lawful stop, detention or arrest” when there’s probable cause they’re in the country illegally. Federal judge Susan Bolton blocked the state law in 2010, but the Supreme Court in 2012 upheld a central provision obligating officers to check individuals’ immigration status.

In any case, the legal uncertainty doesn’t gainsay Judge Snow’s charge that Mr. Arpaio lied to him and judicially appointed monitors. Hence the criminal contempt citation, which Judge Snow said was needed “to vindicate the Court’s authority by punishing the intentional disregard for that authority.” Criminal contempt is the only way to hold government officials personally responsible for violating court orders.

Mr. Arpaio may be right that the Obama Justice Department relished his prosecution, and some evidence presented at the trial was irrelevant to the case. But Judge Bolton considered the merits and, based on the evidence, determined that Mr. Arpaio had demonstrated a “flagrant disregard” for the law.

Mr. Trump’s power to pardon is undeniable, but pardoning Mr. Arpaio sends a message that law enforcers can ignore court orders and get away with it. All you need is a political ally in the White House or Governor’s mansion. Down that road lies anarchy. Attorney General Jeff Sessions understands this, which is why he reportedly urged the President to let the judicial process play out. Mr. Trump short-circuited the courts by pardoning Mr. Arpaio before he was sentenced or granted an appeal.

Some of our friends on the right say Mr. Trump’s liberal critics had no problem dismissing Congress’s contempt citations against former Attorney General Eric Holder and IRS official Lois Lerner as political. The left also supported the commutation of Bradley Manning, who leaked military intelligence.

All true and deplorable, but since when does liberal hypocrisy justify conservative disdain for the law? [Rather than address the issues of  our CURRENT President, Trump defenders try to turn the conversation to Obama or Hillary.  Start being logical and open minded] Mr. Trump should be setting a better standard than imitating Barack Obama, but polarized politics is leading America to a bad place where policy agreement or political support makes right. You pardon your lawbreakers and we’ll pardon ours.

Mr. Trump may hope the pardon will energize supporters, but it is also dividing the GOP. Even before the contempt citation, Sheriff Arpaio’s aggressive tactics were becoming unpopular, and in November he was defeated by 13 points. Mr. Trump’s disdain for federal judges also isn’t making friends in the federal judiciary that will have to rule on his decisions in the coming years. The Arpaio pardon is a depressing sign of our hyper-politicized times.

Appeared in the August 28, 2017, print edition. “

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-arpaio-pardon-1503873081

 

FUTURE of the SOUTH, LOST CAUSE DELUSIONS, STATUTES, ETC?

Believers in the Lost Cause delusion (that slavery played very little part, if at all, in secession and Civil War), are, fortunately, becoming a dying breed.  Those who are left sometimesvmake up for lost numbers by joining with the neo-Nazis and demonstrations against taking down Confederate statutes.  Millenials are the least intolerant generation yet.  “Yankees” are moving in the South by the millions and have been for years.  Fewer southerners go to public schools where white supremacists dominate the curriculum.  Some southerners actually read real history books by Eric Foner and W.C. Davis.  They realize Caleb Foote is a story-teller, not a historian.  His use of footnotes masks little if any qualifications to write accurate history. Hopefully this delusional world view of the lost cause on the way out. Get rid of the statutes now.  They are coming down eventually anyway.

Here’s one man’s view, By Tony Horwitz  [from the WSJ, a Conservative Republican, pro-business journal  I hope there’s no one out there who is thinking ‘he can’t be a Southerner because he’s a Jew. There were a lot of Jews lynched in the South.

http://jewishcurrents.org/august-15-jews-and-lynchings/

“Walt reconnected last week by email, addressing me as “Jewboy” and praising the Nazi creed. He had seen an article I’d written on the violent far-right protest in Charlottesville and chided me: “Uppercase letters for ‘White Nationalists,’ if you please.”

I’d last heard from Walt in 1995, when I met him at a Confederate battle-flag rally while researching a book on Civil War memory in the South. He invited me to his home and talked at length about his views on nonwhite “mud people” and their supposed Jewish puppet masters.

This time, he would only converse electronically, replying to most of my queries with links to neo-Nazi websites that he said spoke for him. “The person you met all those years ago does not exist,” he wrote. “Gone with the wind, if you are into Confederate metaphors.”

[Don’t kid yourself, there are still people who talk t Jews like this. I guess Walt has left the True Cause, neo-Confederate and preservationist movements and joined the neo-Nazis]

Hearing from Walt again stirred me to track down others I’d met in my Southern travels, to get their perspectives on the changes in Civil War remembrance over the past two decades. They didn’t agree on much, but there was one consensus: that celebration of the Confederacy has steadily ebbed—and that the recent bloodshed in Charlottesville will accelerate this retreat among all but die-hards and extremists. [Some of these, like Walt have moved on to the alright and Nazis .  . . .

 “Most millennials have zero investment in the Confederacy and its symbols,” says John Coski, who often speaks to students as the historian at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond. For them, “The flag and statues are expendable, or they’re wrong and need to be challenged.”

With this shift, and a sharp rise in immigrants to the South, Mr. Coski says there’s no longer a “critical mass” of white Southerners raised to honor and defend symbols of the Confederacy, and “reasonable people in that camp don’t want to be associated with the unsavory types waving rebel flags in Charlottesville.”

Robert Lee Hodge feels this personally, as a namesake of the Confederate general whose Charlottesville statue became a flashpoint. When I met Mr. Hodge in the 1990s, he was part of a re-enactment unit so “hard-core” that members crash-dieted to better resemble the gaunt rebels in sepia photographs. He still does re-enactments and belongs to a Tennessee camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Hearing from Walt again stirred me to track down others I’d met in my Southern travels, to get their perspectives on the changes in Civil War remembrance over the past two decades. They didn’t agree on much, but there was one consensus: that celebration of the Confederacy has steadily ebbed—and that the recent bloodshed in Charlottesville will accelerate this retreat among all but die-hards and extremists.

“Most millennials have zero investment in the Confederacy and its symbols,” says John Coski, who often speaks to students as the historian at the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond. For them, “The flag and statues are expendable, or they’re wrong and need to be challenged.”

With this shift, and a sharp rise in immigrants to the South, Mr. Coski says there’s no longer a “critical mass” of white Southerners raised to honor and defend symbols of the Confederacy, and “reasonable people in that camp don’t want to be associated with the unsavory types waving rebel flags in Charlottesville.”

 “

But by around 2000, she now says, demand for Scarlett had faded: The “Southern belle thing” became “politically incorrect.” She retired from the role. Looking back, she thinks that she was “blind to a lot of racism and hate.”

But by around 2000, she now says, demand for Scarlett had faded: The “Southern belle thing” became “politically incorrect.” She retired from the role. Looking back, she thinks that she was “blind to a lot of racism and hate.”

“I was loved and accepted because I was perceived to be ‘one of them,’ ” she says, offering a nostalgic portrayal of the gauzy romance of belles, cavaliers and benign masters. A descendant of Confederates, she opposes displays of the rebel flag as “hateful” but thinks that the statues of Lee and others should remain, as reminders of the danger of their beliefs.

With this shift, and a sharp rise in immigrants to the South, Mr. Coski says there’s no longer a “critical mass” of white Southerners raised to honor and defend symbols of the Confederacy, and “reasonable people in that camp don’t want to be associated with the unsavory types waving rebel flags in Charlottesville.”

 met Melly Meadows McCutcheon when she was a young Vivian Leigh look-alike near Atlanta, with a thriving career portraying Scarlett O’Hara at civic and corporate events. She appeared at promotions for the city and state, the 1996 Summer Olympics and even companies in Japan.

But by around 2000, she now says, demand for Scarlett had faded: The “Southern belle thing” became “politically incorrect.” She retired from the role. Looking back, she thinks that she was “blind to a lot of racism and hate.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-charlottesville-new-shades-of-gray-in-a-changing-south-1503688365

 

BOTH FAR-RIGHT AND FAR-LEFT HAVE RIGHTS.

First Amendment rights and rights to be free of unlawful violence belong to all-- far-left, far-right, even neo-Nazis.  Bans on hate speech, no matter who is the speaker and 'victim', are anti-thetical to freedom of speech.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-first-amendment-is-for-neo-nazis-too-1503695890

TRUMP PARDONS ARPAIO, SENDS BAD MESSAGE TO LAW ENFORCEMENTY

John McCain
(@SenJohnMcCain)

.@POTUS's pardon of Joe Arpaio, who illegally profiled Latinos, undermines his claim for the respect of rule of law www.mccain.senate.gov/p…

18 hours ago · Twitter

Adam Schiff
(@RepAdamSchiff)

Arpaio action was appalling & political. It also sends message to witnesses in Russia investigation to keep quiet, stay loyal & get pardon.

26 mins ago · Twitter

 

In his unswerving dedication to win support from the altright and alienate true Republilcan conservatives, Trump pardoned controversial, former Sheriff Joe Arpaio who had be sentenced to prison for contempt of court for refusing to follow a federal court order the stop unconstitutional practices in his agency.

 

Arpaio has a long history of losing lawsuits accusing him of violating constitutional rights of suspects, detainees, prisoners, etc.  Yet he kept getting reelected. Sad commentary on the electorate.  It sends the wrong message to law enforcement in the U.S. Just another example by Trump. (see post below).  Just keep violating peoples constitutional rights, if you get convicted of something, I'll pardon you. 

 

 

COPS BLEW IT IN CHARLOTTE

An anti-statue removal protestor fired a shot into the ground not too far from cops.  Cops never moved.  There was no stand-down order.  Lots of opportunities to make valid arrests passed up.  [This apparently was the only shot fired in the Charlotte riot.  The shooter may have thought,  rightly or wrongly, that he was legally authorized to do so in self-defense, we will probably never know.  He, or the person who may have attacked him should have been arrested .However, even though there was violence by all sides there, Anti-removal protestors fired the only known shot and committed the only murder, which was clearly not self-defense  This is not moral  or blame equivalence as far as crime goes

However, Richard B. Spencer the young leader of the alt-right said ''The City of Charlotte could have prevented the death if they had done their job, and that is to police the streets" 
[He may be right,  but I hope is isn't trying to deflect from the responsibility of the neo-Nazi who murdered an unarmed, peaceful, female protestors]


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/us/charlottesville-protest-police.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/us/charlottesville-protest-police.html



Some law enforcement heads need to roll in the agencies involved in the poorly planned and executed public safety plan.

LEFTISTS, ANTIFA, ETC. NEED TO COOL IT ON RHETORIC AND VIOLENCE

No, don’t punch more Nazis

 

A Netroots Nation attendee wears a custom shirt. (Kevin D. Liles/For The Washington Post)

By Danielle Allen By Danielle Allen

Opinions

August 24 at 12:28 PM

“Punch More Nazis.” So reads a T-shirt made and proudly worn, as reported in The Post, by an attendee of the recent Netroots Nation conference at which Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) presented her political vision. To some, this seems like a necessary response to the violence emerging from growing white-supremacy movements. It’s the wrong answer. We need to restore a comprehensively shared commitment to nonviolence and clearly repudiate political violence of any kind.
The death of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, tear gas in the streets of Phoenix, armed individuals now a routine presence at political rallies. Do we need any more signs that our country needs de-escalation? Surely not.
Clear-eyed, honest political leaders on the left, whether Democrats, progressives or left-leaning independents, must confront not only the growth of anarchist and anti-fascist groups but also what seems to be a creeping acceptance, within the broad, diverse world of their political allies, of a commitment to low-grade violence as a political tool."

From one of Trump's fake news/enemies of the people source.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-dont-punch-more-nazis/2017/08/24/e1364e96-8445-11e7-902a-2a9f2d808496_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-d%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.c4a7ad4d3f5a

A REAL CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN UNLOADS ON TRUMP

“Washington (CNN)Sen. Jeff Flake has a political target on his back.

The Arizona Republican has been critical of President Donald Trump while promoting his recent book, and Trump is returning the favor. On Thursday, he tweeted Flake was "WEAK on border, crime and a non-factor in the Senate. He's toxic!" [Typical Trump immature, issue avoiding criticism of critics]

Trump also praised Flake's primary contender, Kelli Ward, an Arizona doctor, and will actually travel to Arizona next week to hold a campaign-style rally thereWashington.  [Conservative Republican] Sen. Jeff Flake has a political target on his back.

The Arizona Republican has been critical of President Donald Trump while promoting his recent book, and Trump is returning the favor. On Thursday, he tweeted Flake was "WEAK on border, crime and a non-factor in the Senate. He's toxic!" [Typical, immature, issue-avoiding response by Trump.

Trump also praised Flake's primary contender, Kelli Ward, an Arizona doctor, and will actually travel to Arizona next week to hold a campaign-style rally there, an incredibly aggressive move for a President against a member of his own party.  [A Republican Pres. Campaigning against an incumbent Republican Senator.  Unheard of modern Republican politics.  Symptoms of Trumps immature vindictiveness and the disarry in the Republican Party.  It looks like Trump only wants his kind of Republicans—the phony, toady type.  This will not set will with others in the ‘clubby’ Senate.   More trouble for Trump’s already flailing legislative agenda.

Flake's book, "Conscience of a Conservative: A Rejection of Destructive Politics and a Return to Principle," borrows its title from another book by a Republican senator from Arizona -- perhaps one of the most famous books in modern conservatism -- Barry Goldwater's "The Conscience of a Conservative," published in 1960

[In his book, Flake, who did not endorse Trump]

“unloads on Trump, chapter after chapter. Conservatism has been "compromised by a decidedly unconservative stew of celebrity and authoritarianism," he writes, and he traces the likely birth of "alternative facts" to the "birther" movement, which Trump for years championed. Of the 2016 campaign he writes, "Never has a party so quickly or easily abandoned its core principles as my party did."

 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/politics/goldwater-flakes-consciences-of-a-conservative/

 

 

TRUMPS MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMMATIC?: CRUZ CALLED HIM A 'PATHOLOGICAL LIAR'

“How unstable and divorced from reality is President Trump? We’ve reached the point where the nation has the right and the need to know.

We’re not accustomed to asking such questions about our presidents. We don’t know how to even begin inquiring into a president’s mental health, so we rationalize aberrant behavior as being part of some subtle strategy. We say that Trump is cleverly playing to his base, or employing the “madman theory” of foreign relations, or simply being unpredictable to gain an advantage by keeping everyone off balance.

But if Trump were really playing three-dimensional chess, presumably he’d be getting things done. His approval ratings would be rising rather than falling. Allies in Congress would be expressing admiration rather than increasing dismay. . .

 

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) hit a nerve Thursday when he said that Trump “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence” needed in a president. That indictment was significant because Corker, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, is a respected Capitol Hill veteran who chooses his words carefully — and who thus far has been willing to give Trump a chance. Corker said he feared that “our nation is going to go through great peril” and called for “radical change” at the White House. . .

Anyone can have a bad day. But according to many published reports, Trump often erupts into rage — especially when he sees something he doesn’t like on the cable news shows he is said to watch compulsively.

In his Twitter postings, he increasingly lashes out in ways that are counterproductive. I can see some method behind his incessant ranting about “fake news,” which may actually help him with his political base. But why attack Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) whose help the president needs if he is to get legislation passed or nominees approved? Why campaign against Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has been a frequent critic but ended up supporting Trump on health care? Is Trump unable to imagine how other GOP senators — whose votes he needs if he is to get anything done — are going to react?

I have spoken with people who have known Trump for decades and who say he has changed. He exhibits less self-awareness, these longtime acquaintances say, and less capacity for sustained focus. Indeed, it is instructive to compare television interviews of Trump recorded years ago with those conducted now. To this layman’s eyes and ears, there seems to have been deterioration.

I am not professionally qualified to assess the president’s mental health; psychiatrists and psychologists who have the proper credentials and experience to do so are silenced by ethical rules. The stakes are so high,  . . “

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/its-time-to-talk-about-trumps-mental-health/2017/08/21/40d86eac-86ac-11e7-961d-2f373b3977ee_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.960b69aa1351&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

 
During the campaign Ted Cruz called Trump a pathological liar.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/election-us-2016-36198532/ted-cruz-donald-trump-is-a-pathological-liar

“How unstable and divorced from reality is President Trump? We’ve reached the point where the nation has the right and the need to know.

We’re not accustomed to asking such questions about our presidents. We don’t know how to even begin inquiring into a president’s mental health, so we rationalize aberrant behavior as being part of some subtle strategy. We say that Trump is cleverly playing to his base, or employing the “madman theory” of foreign relations, or simply being unpredictable to gain an advantage by keeping everyone off balance.

But if Trump were really playing three-dimensional chess, presumably he’d be getting things done. His approval ratings would be rising rather than falling. Allies in Congress would be expressing admiration rather than increasing dismay. . .

 

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) hit a nerve Thursday when he said that Trump “has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence” needed in a president. That indictment was significant because Corker, who chairs the Foreign Relations Committee, is a respected Capitol Hill veteran who chooses his words carefully — and who thus far has been willing to give Trump a chance. Corker said he feared that “our nation is going to go through great peril” and called for “radical change” at the White House. . .

Anyone can have a bad day. But according to many published reports, Trump often erupts into rage — especially when he sees something he doesn’t like on the cable news shows he is said to watch compulsively.

In his Twitter postings, he increasingly lashes out in ways that are counterproductive. I can see some method behind his incessant ranting about “fake news,” which may actually help him with his political base. But why attack Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) whose help the president needs if he is to get legislation passed or nominees approved? Why campaign against Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who has been a frequent critic but ended up supporting Trump on health care? Is Trump unable to imagine how other GOP senators — whose votes he needs if he is to get anything done — are going to react?

I have spoken with people who have known Trump for decades and who say he has changed. He exhibits less self-awareness, these longtime acquaintances say, and less capacity for sustained focus. Indeed, it is instructive to compare television interviews of Trump recorded years ago with those conducted now. To this layman’s eyes and ears, there seems to have been deterioration.

I am not professionally qualified to assess the president’s mental health; psychiatrists and psychologists who have the proper credentials and experience to do so are silenced by ethical rules. The stakes are so high,  . . “

 

Check out any relaible factcheck website.  He’s a chronic offender.  Factcheck.doc awarded him the ‘King of Whoppers’ award 2 years in a row.  He beat out Hillary twice.

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/12/the-whoppers-of-2016

 

Would it be fair and accurate to call  him a 'pathological liar'--not in the psychiatric context but in a behavioral context?

A number of people do. Just google 'Trump a pathological liar'.
 

 

GOOD NEWS FOR A CHANGE--BANNON FIRED

Steve Bannon fired by Trump! Has Trump finally gotten the message that he is losing mainstream Republicans (with big $)? Does this mean a move toward sanity at the White House?  Or, will Trump blow it with his tweets.

Altright and Breitbart unhappy. Unfortunately, it may be too late stop the momentum he gave them earlier. At least there's one thing that might spark optimism about America's future.,

In the end, the departure of Bannon will not change Trump's basically ego-centric, white nationalisst approach to the presidency. He may tone down the rhetoric, but the  danger to American democracy and a  free society will always be there.  He will exploit white nationalist anger at taking down Confederate statues, and try to turn it to his advantage.  This is, not however, to the advantage of the nation and our constitutional system.

DEM WANTS TRUMP ASSASSINATED, MORE DANGEROUS FANNING OF THE FLAMES/ MORAL EQUIVALENCY?

“A Missouri lawmaker is under mounting pressure to resign after she said on social media she hopes President Trump is assassinated, following his response to violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

Democratic state Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal went on her personal Facebook page Thursday morning to vent two days after the president blamed “both sides” for the brutality.

“I put up a statement saying, ‘I really hate Trump. He’s causing trauma and nightmares.’ That was my original post,” she told the Kansas City Star. The Facebook post received many responses, Chappelle-Nadal said, and to one she replied, “I hope Trump is assassinated!”

Chappelle-Nadal later explained that she didn't actually wish harm to come to Trump but wrote it out of frustration.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/18/i-hope-trump-is-assassinated-a-missouri-lawmakers-facebook-comment-leads-to-calls-for-her-resignation/?utm_term=.b8f6bd7b9879

 

Trump isn’t the only politician fanning the flames.  Politically-motivated violence has no place in a democracy where politically motivated speech receives great protection.  I believe we are headed into a dark period of increasing political violence.  It is wrong no matter which side is advocating the violence.  It is wrong no matter which side is committing the violence.  Some on both sides of the political spectrum are wrong  on both counts and are threatening peaceful political discourse. 

The primary difference is that neo-nazism and white supremacy are philosophies built on political and ideological violence.  Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers opposed violence.  Trump is wrong when he says both sides are equally responsible.  Both side need to quit.  However, Only one side relies on a philosophy built on violence.  At the base of their philosophies, only one side is more culpable.

 

 

ATTEMPT TO INTIMIDATE SYNAGOGUE/ FUSION OF STATUE-PROTECTORS AND NEO-NAZIS

The neo-Nazis mentioned below were part of a larger demonstration of alt-right groups that were protesting removal of a statue of Gen Robt. E. Lee.  Is there now a fusion of all these groups?   I am NOT  saying every statue-protestor is part of this, but there probably are some.  Are some closet-Nazis starting to come out of the closet?

Charlottesville’s Jewish community was forced to hire security after local police denied worshipers of synagogue protection from neo-Nazis during the violent weekend that claimed the life of a woman. [The main point of the protest was against removal of a statue of Robt. E. Lee]

Alan Zimmerman, president of Congregation Beth Israel, [in Charlottesville] described the fear he had when he saw three men armed with RIFLES outside the synagogue, he wrote in a blog post published Monday.

There were also “parades of Nazis” outside pointing at the temple and chanting “Seig Heil” while white supremacists carried “flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols,” Zimmerman wrote.  [There was also prominent display of the Nazi phrase 'blood and soil"]

When morning services ended, Zimmerman advised worshipers to exit through the back door for safety.

“This is 2017 in the United States of America,” he continued.

He wrote that he learned that “Nazi websites” were calling for the burning of the synagogue — but nothing ever happened.

He also recalled when an elderly woman, whom he said was Catholic, approached him in front of the synagogue and asked: “Why do they hate you?”

“I had no answer to the question we’ve been asking ourselves for thousands of years,” Zimmerman wrote. . .

In recent months, the Jewish community has experienced bomb threats at Jewish centers in several states.  . .

Also, tombstones have been vandalized in Jewish cemeteries, and it’s unclear if any arrests have been made in those cases

The Anti-Defamation League says that anti-Semitic incidents have spiked 86% in the first quarter of 2017 with a total of 541 cases, compared to 291 cases recorded during the same time last year."

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/synagogue-hired-security-cops-refused-protection-nazis-article-1.3417487

 

FREE SPEECH THREATENED BY BOTH LEFT AND RIGHT

I’ve been going after the political right because the now dominate the White House and Congress. They’ve long dominated Texas politics.  Time to look at a problem emanating from the left.  There’s lots of violence by left-wingers at demonstrators. They are referrerd to as anit-fa and anarcho-punk.  However, it is a lame response and to the murder of a unarmed white female anti-racist by a neo-Nazi to raise the issue of violence by both sides.  Violence, murder, lynching, etc. have a long history in Nazism and white supremacy.  From pictures and videos it appears to me that the right-wingers are much more likely to show up at demonstrators with firearms, and masks.  Be that as it may, murder and violence are wrong no matter who does it.

Free speech is constantly under attack from both the left and right in this country. America’s largest universities are dominated by left-wing politically correct leaders and students.  See FIRE for a more complete picture of the attacks on free speech in higher education.https://www.thefire.org/

Liberal academics turn out papers on ‘microagression’ and how harmful it is to minorities.  A recent paper said that being subject to hate speech creates physical harm to the body of the victim. Looks like they are setting up a challenge to existing First Amendment protection for hate.  They’d love to take away your Second Amendment rights too.  Shame on these left-wing authoritarian hypocrites.  

Here’s a great piece from the libertarian website reason.com.

"No Free Speech for Fascists!" It's a motto you see on pre-printed signs at protests, including at yesterday's rallies in reaction to the violence and death in Charlottesville, Virginia, this weekend. Paired with a flood of invective against the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for the group's support of Unite the Right's right to stage a rally at the city's statue of Robert E. Lee in the first place, they make for a troubling trend. . .

But if fascists are to lose their free speech rights, someone must take them. And if you believe, as many of the counter-protesters do, that the white nationalists and their brethren were emboldened by the presence of a man in the White House who sees them as part of his coalition, then why on God's good green earth would you want to turn around and hand that very man the right to censor anyone whom he labels fascists? Because I can tell you right now, the list of folks that Trump and the restive-but-still-Republican Congress would like to silence sure won't look like the list those sign-wavers have in mind.

The people wielding "No Free Speech for Fascists" placards might as well be holding up signs saying "No Free Speech for Muslims." And in fact, many on the right have been making just that argument against the ACLU for years now, arguing that exceptions to our free speech principles should be made to curtail extreme speech by Muslim religious figures or activists in the name of security, or even (in the stupidest variant of the idea) that the ACLU is part of a radical Islamic conspiracy. But if the justification for restrictions on the speech of one man is violence committed by another, there can be no end to list of people who may be silenced in the name of order.

I have my beefs with ACLU too. I wish they'd see the importance of defending free speech even in situations where money is changing hands—to my way of thinking, the group has lately been on the wrong side of a few debates over freedom of conscience and association in the commercial realm. But the ACLU's work on speech in the public sphere is unbeatable. They did the right thing to let Unite the Right gather in Charlottesville. Sticking up for free speech for fascists doesn't mean you love fascists, it means you love free speech.”

http://reason.com/blog/2017/08/14/no-free-speech-for-fascists-is-a-bad-dan

 

 

TRUMP OPPOSES REMOVING STATUES, FANS THE FLAMES

Trump calls efforts to remove statues of Civil War generals ‘foolish’

In three tweets, the president said the history and culture of the country was being "ripped apart" and said efforts to remove statues of Confederate generals Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee could escalate to taking down monuments to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

 

It's becoming  clearer every day which side of the racist v. anti-racist fight Trump is really on.  A woman was murdered. Trump fans the flames, encourages more aggressive action by the white supremacists.  The President should either keep his mouth shut or make some positive calls for peaceful resolutions.  That's what Presidents are supposed to do.  But then, we've never had a president quite like 'the Donald.'

BIG BUSINESS DESERTING TRUMP/REP. PARTY IN DISARRAY

"Trump's Other Big Business Council Disbands Amid Uproar Over Charlottesville

President Donald Trump’s economic advisory council of 16 big-name executives, formally called the Strategic and Policy Forum, reportedly disbanded on Wednesday in the biggest blowback against his response to the deadly attack by an accused white supremacist in Charlottesville, Virginia.   Meanwhile, seven executives have resigned this week from another presidential advisory group, the American Manufacturing Council."  [Trump sent out insulting messages to those who resigned, rather than thanking them for their service] Source:  Huffington Post   Big Business, of course, has long been the main source of big $ for the Republican party.  Trump has alienated many Republican Senators over a number of issues (e.g. repeal and replace)  It appears that Trump seems to think that evangelicals, KKK, Neo-Nazis and the altright are enough base for him.  The Republican party is in serious disarray and it appears to be getting worse.  Any Republican out there want to challenge Trump for the Republican nomination on  2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/democrats-look-unified-republicans-in-disarray-in-wake-of-primary/2017/06/14/9fcbf3da-50b9-11e7-be25-3a519335381c_story.html?utm_term=.214a799e9367

FBI AGENT RATINGS OF COMEY--CONTRA TRUMPS PRETEXT FOR FIRING COMEY

One of the reasons Trump gave for firing FBI Directors James Comey was that he was doing a bad job at the FBI and personnel were unhappy.  This was a false pretext.  The real reason was the Comey refused to pledge loyalty and lay off investigation into the Michael Flynn scandal. 

"FBI agents gave former Director James Comey consistently high marks in an internal survey, according to records released Wednesday, counter to President Donald Trump’s claims that he fired Comey because agents no longer had confidence in him.
The FBI released the results of its so-called “climate survey” from 2013–17 in response to a public records request filed by the New York Times.
According to Comey’s 2017 survey results, employees gave him a 4.47 rating when asked if they had “trust and confidence” in Comey as a leader, and gave him a 4.48 rating when asked if they would choose to work for him again. The FBI noted in its records release that “scores between 3.81 and 5 indicates success in those areas.” . .
Comey’s scores fluctuated slightly over his three-year tenure as FBI director and were at their lowest in the 2017 survey, but never dropped below the bureau’s defined range of “success.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/fbi-agents-gave-comey-high-marks-in-internal-survey

CHAROLOTTESVILLE VICTIM & MURDER ARRESTEE, NEO-NAZI CONNECTIONS

I.  “CHARLOTTESVILLE — Police on Sunday identified the woman killed Saturday when a vehicle plowed into a group of counterprotesters here as 32-year-old  [white para-legal] Heather D. Heyer.

Authorities said 19 other pedestrians suffered injuries ranging from serious to minor.

Heyer was among those gathered in Charlottesville to oppose the neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists making a show of force in Charlottesville.”

She may go down in history as the first fatality victim of the AltRight movement in America.  A female exercising her First Amendment rights. R.I.P. Heather.  My sincere condolences to her friends and family.

Ironically, the is just the type of person the race-obsessed alt-right needs to be a baby factory to help whites keep their majority status in the U.S.

II. MAN ARRESTED IN CHARLOTTESVILLE KILLING WAS INVOVLED IN ALT-RIGHT GROUP DEMONSTARTION JUST HOURS BEFORE VICTIM KILLED

 

James Fields Jr., the maniac driver who police say steered his beloved Dodge Challenger into a crowd of peaceful protesters in Charlottesville, Va., had been brandishing a shield emblazoned with a white supremacist emblem just hours before the deadly rampage Saturday.

The Daily News photographed Fields on the front lines of a volatile rally about 10:30 a.m. — flanked by other white men in polo shirts and tan slacks clutching the racially charged black-and-white insignia of the Vanguard America hate group.

James Alex Fields Jr. (c.) brandished a shield from the Vanguard America group before the Charlottesville attack.

(Go Nakamura/New York Daily News)

The Anti-Defamation League depicted Vanguard American as one focused on white identity, but noted that its members have “increasingly demonstrated a neo-Nazi ideology.”

III.  Here’s Vanguard America’s Website.

https://bloodandsoil.org/

Notice they use the Nazi slogan ‘blood and soil.”  Notice also that the racist protestors use a common Nazi fixture—carrying blazing torches.

“Blood and Soil (German: Blut und Boden) refers to a racist ideology that focuses on ethnicity based on two factors, descent blood (of a folk) and territory. It celebrates the relationship of a people to the land they occupy and cultivate, and it places a high value on the virtues of rural living.” . .

Nazi ideology[edit]

Richard Walther Darré addressing a meeting of the farming community in Goslar on 13 December 1937 standing in front of a Reichsadler and Swastika crossed with a sword and wheat sheaf labelled Blood and Soil (from the German Federal Archive)

The doctrine not only called for a "back to the land" approach and re-adoption of rural values; it held that German land was bound, perhaps mystically, to German blood.^[8] Peasants were the Nazi cultural heroes, who held charge of German racial stock and German history—as when a memorial of a medieval peasant uprising was the occasion for a speech by Darré praising them as force and purifier of German history.^[9] This would also lead them to understand the natural order better, and, in the end, only the man who worked the land really possessed it.^[10] Urban culture was decried as a weakness, "asphalt culture", that only the Führer's will could eliminate — sometimes, as a code for Jewish influence.^[11]

It contributed to the Nazi ideal of a woman: a sturdy peasant, who worked the land and bore strong children, contributing to praise for athletic women tanned by outdoor work.^[12] That country women gave birth to more children than city ones, also was a factor in the support.^[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_and_Soil

 

Anti-racism protestor deliberately killed at Charlottesville riot.

There was lots of violence to go around at the Charlottesville riot .    However, there’s big difference between demonstrators battling it out with non-deadly weapons and murder or manslaughter committed by a speeding car.  The greatest moral blame must lie with some in the pro-statue, pro-white supremacy camp.

The alt-right and its allies held a rally to protest removal of a statute of Robert E. Lee.  However, the most violent act was committed by a person who deliberately drove his car at high speed into a group of counter-protestors--peaceful demonstrators protesting the white supremacists. He crashed into other cars and then fled, speeding off in reverse in the damaged car.   It’s not hard to figure out who he supported.  Watch the videos.

“A car plowed into a crowd of people peacefully protesting a white nationalist rally Saturday in a Virginia college town, killing one person, hurting at least two dozen more and ratcheting up tension in an increasingly violent confrontation.   arrived to protest the racism.

Matt Korbon, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, said several hundred counter-protesters were marching when "suddenly there was just this tire screeching sound." A silver Dodge Challenger smashed into another car, then backed up, barreling through "a sea of people."The impact hurled people into the air. Those left standing scattered, screaming and running for safety in different directions.

The driver was later arrested, authorities said.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/

 

VA Gov. Terry McAuliffe said that he had a message for “all the white supremacists and the Nazis who came into Charlottesville today: Go home. You are not wanted in this great commonwealth”

It’s not hard to figure out who the VA. Governor, who declared a state of emergency blames.  Too bad Trump can't bring himself to a similar conclusion.  He continues to support the racist alt-right, by failing to speak out.