Showing posts with label Southern Poverty Law Center. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Southern Poverty Law Center. Show all posts

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Bigotry, racism and hate in Donald Trump's presidency


Mark Potok, Editor of the Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report, said in the Spring 2017 issue...
"The campaign language of the man who would become president sparks hate violence, bullying, before and after the election."
He was, of course, talking about Donald Trump who had adverse effects on the lowlife of our country even back in 2015. The story goes, two guys left a Red Sox ballgame late one night and ran across a homeless Mexican immigrant sleeping outside a commuter rail station. They proceeded to beat him with a metal pipe, punched him repeatedly, urinated on him and called him a “wetback." Elated with what they had done, Guillermo Rodriguez was left with cracked ribs and broken fingers plus other injuries. Arrested just a short time later,  one of them, 38-year-old Scott Leader said...
“Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported.”
In another incident in Portland, Oregon, a man stabbed three people when two of them attempted to stop a man who was ranting and raving and shouting anti-Muslim insults at two young women. It was n a light-rail train where the attacker stabbed and killed the two men and seriously injured another. There were witnesses and police were able to capture 35-year-old Jeremy Joseph Christian, of north Portland. The Southern Poverty Law Center had Christian in their records that indicated he held racist, white supremacist and extremist beliefs. Trump/Bannon related? Who knows.

It is noteworthy that Donald trump had kicked off his presidential campaign just two months prior to the attack, above, on a homeless Mexican man, with a speech describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug smugglers. In his article Mark Potok takes us from the attack on the Mexican homeless man through Trump's inauguration. One of the first things he did was call for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the country. He attacked a Muslim Gold Star family, insinuating that Khizr Khan, whose son died in Iraq, was a terrorist sympathizer.

Here's more from Potok's SPLC article...
"He had retweeted utterly bogus claims that black people were responsible for 80% of the murders of whites. He had cozied up to some of the country’s hardest line gay-bashers. He had retweeted anti-Semitic memes and called many immigrants “not well.” He had attacked a debate moderator by insinuating that her tough questions were the result of her menstrual cycle. And his earlier boasts about grabbing women by the genitals had been revealed."
Wow! We had just elected a real gent, huh? But there's much more...
"After a Black Lives Matter activist was beaten at a Trump rally in Birmingham, Ala., he told Fox News that “maybe he should have been roughed up. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, he urged supporters to 'knock the crap' out of protesters, adding, 'I promise you, I will pay your legal fees.' When a backer at a Fayetteville, N.C., rally sucker-punched a black protester being led away by police — an act described by the local sheriff as 'a cowardly, unprovoked attack' — Trump told two national news outlets that he was looking into paying the man’s legal fees."
Mark Potok has done a great job of documenting Donald Trump's bigotry, racism and hate ranting. But Donald Trump throughout it all remains oblivious to how terrible what he is doing and saying, and even makes this unbelievable statement following the beating of Guillermo Rodriguez. His reaction was, "While the attack was 'a shame,' Trump’s main conclusion was that 'people who are following me are very passionate.'" It is impossible to figure out what kind of blood runs in the veins of this lunatic or just how his brain synapses operate...or don't.

And finally...
"In the immediate aftermath of the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) noticed a dramatic jump in hate violence and incidents of harassment and intimidation around the country. At the same time, a wave of incidents of bullying and other kinds of harassment washed over the nation’s K-12 schools. The SPLC decided to make an effort to document all of this in real time."
Thanks to the Southern Poverty Law Center for the great material and I suggest you visit their site and make a donation: Southern Poverty Law Center 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

ARIZONA…where the hate groups flock

J.T. Ready and his U.S. Border Guard group are just the latest hate group to pop up in the news in Arizona after he shot and killed his girlfriend, her daughter and her boyfriend and the girlfriend’s granddaughter, only 15 months old.  We still have the neo-Nazi skinheads, the National Socialist Movement led by Harry Hughes, the Ku Klux Klan, the Vinlanders Social Club, another racist skinhead group and Minutemen American Defense.

Shawna Forde, founder of MAD and two of her henchmen were convicted of first-degree murder in 2009 for the deaths of two, one a 9-year-old girl.  Dennis Mahon, a White supremacist from Illinois, even came all the way to Arizona in 2004 to send a mail bomb to Don Logan who was black and working for the city of Scottsdale.  Jeffrey Harbin from the Nat’l Socialist Movement in Apache Junction was convicted of making explosive devices in 2011.

A USA Today article chronicles how easy it is for the hate groups to get started and flourish in the great state of Arizona.  Bill Straus, Arizona regional dir. of the Anti-Defamation League said, "Immigration is pretty much unarguably the No. 1 recruiting element in the White supremacist world."  Having lived in the state for over 20 years, I can vouch for the fact that there is little temperance here for minorities, particularly undocumented immigrants.


Hate in the South

Arizona’s anti-immigration law, SB-1070, sponsored by former state senator Russell Pearce, a known racist, and signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer, also known for being one of the worst governors ever to lead a state, was the impetus for these hate groups to raise their ugly heads and send Arizona into a tailspin that has made it the laughing stock of the country.  Not to be outdone, the boneheaded state legislature passed its share of stupid laws in its support.

Brian Levin, dir. of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Calif. State U.-San Bernardino, claims that he knows of neo-Nazis who “…want to make pilgrimages to Arizona.”  Levin continues, "They believe that there are a lot of people in the state who are sympathetic to them."

The above is a fact that should be troubling to Gov. Brewer and the legislature but both are clueless in the matter.  The key factor here is that Arizona would have to tighten its gun laws—the loosest in the nation—to do anything about the extremism, and the state’s gun bubbas would never allow that.  They, along with the Tea Party, have Arizona so tightly controlled at the moment that it has become near impossible to even raise progressive ideas.  But it is happening.

FAIR and hate groups video:

USA Today says that Ready’s death, “…has pulled back the curtain on the shadowy world of extremism in Arizona that seems to teeter on the edge of violence.”  So add to the cross-country ridicule of Arizona the fact that it is now the leader in “Hate-States.”  Pathetic!  Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center says there were a total of 17 hate groups in Arizona as of 2011.  And it can all be traced back to the proliferation of guns to create this hate and violence.

James Turgal, special agent in charge of the FBI's Phoenix division believes that domestic terrorism is “very active” in Arizona, giving credit to the Nat’l Socialist Movement, neo-Nazis and something he called the “anti-government sovereign citizen” movement.  And Mark Potok of the SPLC was quoted as saying, "There are a lot of really thuggish individuals associated with the nativist movement in Arizona."  That’s a term no state should want associated with its citizenry. 

If the dethroned Russell Pearce gets his way, he will be back in Arizona’s senate by the end of the November elections; he is running for a seat in another state district from where he was booted recently.  In all likelihood the lame-brained legislature would probably elect him president again, and the great state of Arizona would return to business as usual.

UNLESS…progressives continue to do their thing and start a conservative cleansing that will rid us of these un-patriots.

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

J. T. Ready had support of top Arizona politician

J.T. Ready with assault rifle
It is reasonably agreed at this point that well-known Arizona racist and neo-Nazi J.T. Ready killed four people including a 15-month-old toddler in Gilbert, Arizona on May 2, and then took his own life.  He was outfitted with body armor, which in itself raises questions since he shouldn’t have expected much opposition from his gun attack from family members, certainly not the child.  In my post yesterday I described the specifics of the massacre, including Ready’s NRA membership.

J.T. Ready was an avowed white supremacist who had been followed by the Anti-Defamation League, according to its director of investigative research, Marc Pitcavage.  Ready is described on their website as an “anti-immigrant extremist dating back to 2004.  His biography even stated that he believed in “lawful deadly force” to protect the Mexican border, as well as restoring America to a “White, European homeland.” 

Ready’s national attention may very well have contributed to the force behind a recent study by Pew Research that confirmed that only 29 percent of Hispanics think it is more important to protect gun control, compared with 57 percent of whites.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights organization in Alabama that keeps track of hate and extremist groups, documents Ready’s background on its website.  He actually started his political career in the 2000s at Mesa, AZ Community College.  It says that he received a bad-conduct discharge from the Marines having been court-martialed twice, once for larceny and going AWOL, once for conspiracy and assault.  There was also a criminal conviction is 1992.

The hacker group LulzSec posted secret FBI documents online with suspicions neo-Nazi groups were planting “fairly complex” explosives along smuggling routes, according to the Christian Science Monitor.  J.T. Ready was once quoted as saying, “I firmly believe in having a minefield across the border.”  He was also known for wanting to militarize the border and had patrolled there repeatedly with his own militia group, U.S. Border Guard.

But the following must be one of Ready’s most bizarre statements: “Arizona Statues allow the fielding of most weapons short of nuclear weapons and certain chemical weapons.  Therefore we are already in contact with brokers concerning a .50 cal semi-automatic rifle and a MBT– Main Battle Tank.”


Russell Pearce paling with J.T. Ready

Some friends said the man was “cruel and controlling” and one of his victims, his girlfriend Lisa Lynn Mederos, may not have known of his troubled past with women.  In 2009, a Scottsdale woman filed an order of protection against him; in 2003 a woman in Ready's apartment complex accused him of stalking, spying, frequently calling and trying to kiss her.  Some family members hated him and Ready called the toddler, Lilly, he killed “50 % ugly” because she was half-Latino.
    

J.T. Ready was sponsored as an elder in the Mormon Church by former Arizona state Senator Russell Pearce, who was dumped from his job recently by voters, but not until he had authored the state’s anti-immigration bill, SB-1070.  And when it comes to the relationship between Russell Pearce and Ready I must defer to Phoenix New Times writer Stephen Lemons, who publishes the blog, the Feathered Bastard, and his dogged coverage of the two.

In a May 2 article, Lemons said, “Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Ready was his relationship with ex-Senator Pearce, who helped him join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and groomed him, according to Ready, for a possible run for the legislature.”  Their affiliation later soured when Pearce distanced himself from Ready and actually renounced him in 2008.

Best Buds J.T. Ready with Russell Pearce
In Lemons article on May 3, he accuses Russell Pearce of lying “again,” with documentation that is a must read.  The two were so close, he said, that Pearce ordained Ready as an elder in the Mormon Church’s Melchizedek priesthood for adult men in the church.  But Pearce continues to deny the closeness of their relationship. 

Krysten Sinema, former Arizona state senator, sponsored a 2007 event in the legislature on extremism in the immigration movement.

Lemons asked Sinema if it was possible that Pearce could not be aware of that seminar.  She answered, "I find that very hard to believe,” she told me in 2008. "The entire Legislature was invited to the event. The whole thing was videotaped, and you can watch it on our archive. And I reported it on the floor [of the state House]."  Pearce has been charged regularly by Democrats, the media, even fellow Republicans of misstating facts to make his points.

Video of Russell Pearce endorsing J.T. Ready

There’s more.  The Arizona regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, Bill Straus, says that he informed Pearce of Ready’s extremist activities as far back as 2006.  Once again, Pearce blatantly disputes the fact that the two had close ties.  He even told Lemons in 2007 at a roast of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that he really didn’t think J.T. was a “Bad guy.”  When lemons questioned their on-going friendship, Pearce replied he didn’t hang out with Ready.

The “Bird” as the author refers to himself, quickly reminded the ex-senator that he observed him working side-by-side, arm-in-arm at a rally and had the photos to prove it.  Pearce replied, “I don’t push people away.”  This was in December of 2007 after being warned by Straus, also following Ready’s public outing as a white supremacist.  I urge you to read Stephen Lemons full account of the issue of Pearce’s lies in the above May 3 link.

So it is clear that defrocked Senator Russell Pearce was buddies with J.T. Ready until the extremist no longer served his needs, at which time he dumped him and tried to cover up the past with lies that have been confirmed as just that over and over.  It is ludicrous that Russell Pearce still has the unquestioned support of many of his fellow Republicans and has the arrogance to run for the Arizona Senate in the same general area that has already thrown him out of office.

Only in Arizona.

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