Tag Archives: white supremacists

local news

Far-right PAC sullies race

As if voters of a North Texas legislative district need an extra push to elect a far-right winger to the state House of Representatives.

But, by gum, that’s what is happening in the House District 2 campaign to find a successor to a right-wing extremist legislator whom the House expelled after he was caught having sex with an underage staffer in Austin.

Former state Rep. Bryan Slaton of Royse City got the boot from the Legislature. Voters in HD 2 are choosing someone to succeed him. Enter onto the stage Defend Texas Liberty, a far-right PAC whose former leader, Nick Fuentes, was seen in the company of a white supremacist.

Defend Texas Liberty is sinking its talons into the race by pumping cash into the campaign of Brent Money. The PAC also reportedly has tossed money at Jill Dutton, Money’s major Republican foe.

The Texas Tribune reports: “Nick Fuentes states openly that he ‘will destroy the GOP,’” Dutton campaign spokesperson Matt Brownfield said in a statement. “In that respect, he shares the same objective as Defend Texas Liberty PAC, who has spent millions of dollars attacking conservative Republicans like Jill Dutton and Greg Abbott. 

You may count me as one American patriot who simply detests these far-right extremists. They ought to take their poison elsewhere and not infect so many of Texas’s already conservative legislative districts. House District 2 voters seemingly would need little to push them to the far-right fringes of political thought.

Defend Texas Liberty gets involved in race to replace Bryan Slaton | The Texas Tribune

Since the focus of Defend Texas Liberty centers on Money and Dutton, perhaps four other hopefuls can sneak their way to the front the pack. The other Republicans in the contest are Heath Hyde, Doug Roszhart and Krista Schild. Democrat, Kirsten Washington, is also running.

Hey, one can hope.

national news

They aren’t ‘patriots’

Long ago, I grew weary of the right-wing fanatics, white supremacists, MAGA adherents and others of their ilk declaring themselves to be “patriots.”

They are nothing of the sort.

A patriot would understand that this nation came into being as a result of those seeking to build a nation on the basis of civil liberties. That the United States would comprise individuals of varied backgrounds, orientations, races, ethnicities and that everyone is entitled the same liberties.

Now, it is understood that the founders’ work needed some improvements along the way. They allowed slavery to stand; they didn’t grant Black Americans the same civil liberties as the rest of the country; women had to wait until the 1920s to get the right to vote.

But the Constitution was amended to fix those — and other — shortcomings.

Here we are, well into the 21st century, and we are being treated daily to news reports of white supremacists proclaiming themselves to be patriots.

They sicken me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

national news, national security

Fight the home-grown terrorists

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Domestic terrorism has entered the current political debate.

It is about damn time!

For the past four years, we have paid too little attention, or exerted too little emotional capital on the scourge of domestic, home-grown, corn-fed terrorists who hide in plain sight in our midst.

They presented themselves in full force on the Sixth of January when they marched to Capitol Hill, smashed their way into the Capitol Building, killed five human beings and threatened to stop the democratic process of certifying the results of a free and fair election.

President Biden has introduced the term “domestic terrorists” to the current lexicon, reviving it in the face of what the entire world witnessed early this past month.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told congressional committee members in 2019 that domestic terrorists posed an exponentially greater threat to Americans’ security that foreign terrorists working for, say, ISIS or al-Qaeda.

Did the Donald Trump administration act on that statement? Did it call out the proverbial cavalry to answer the call to root out the terrorists? No. It didn’t. Instead, we heard the president of the United States say in 2017 that there were good people on “both sides” of a dispute that erupted in Charlottesville, Va., between counter protesters and — get this — the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis and assorted white supremacists.

Yep. Donald Trump sought to elevate the Klansmen and Nazis to the same moral level of those who fought against them.

That cannot continue. Thank goodness we now have a president, Joe Biden, who knows better than to utter such moronic rhetoric out loud. You see, words have consequences and it is time this nation deal forthrightly with the terrorists who live among us.

The leadership required to commence that fight has just taken office in Washington, D.C. I believe the battle must be fought at least as long and hard as we are fighting the overseas enemies … and we mustn’t back away from calling what they are.

Terrorists.

national news

Study shows hate crime spike

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How are we supposed to interpret this study?

Get a load of this: A University of North Texas analysis has disclosed that hate crimes increased 226 percent in those counties where Donald Trump staged political rallies during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Huh? But . . . wait! Don’t the Trump allies say there’s no relationship between the president and the reported resurgence of white supremacist hate groups?

Hmm. Well, I don’t know about that.

The study was done by Ayal Feinberg, a political science doctoral student at UNT, along with Regina Branton and Valerie Martinez-Ebers, two UNT political science professors.

They contend that the study reveals that the spike occurred in the months immediately after Trump held those rallies while he was campaigning for president of the United States.

According to The Hill newspaper: “They said their research sought to explain how some of Trump’s rhetoric ‘may encourage hate crimes.'”

How do you dismiss the findings, that such hate crimes spiked 226 percent in those counties were Trump fired ’em up with his red-hot rhetoric?

It’s difficult to separate the findings from the president’s speech.

The Hill’s story explains how the researchers collected their data. Read it here.

I have resisted suggesting that Trump’s rhetoric was directly responsible for horrific acts, such as — for example — the Christchurch, New Zealand, massacre of 50 people at two mosques the other day. The white supremacist/moron arrested, though, reportedly had been inspired by something Trump had said.

And, yes, the president did equate neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists with counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 by referring to “very fine people on both sides” participating in that deadly riot.

This is the individual who serves as president of the Land of Opportunity.

Oh . . . my.

International news

Why not call white supremacists ‘terrorists,’ Mr. President?

Hey, Mr. President . . . didn’t you lambaste your predecessor in the White House for declining to use the term “Islamic terrorist” while talking about the nation’s war against international terrorism?

You made a decent point back then, Mr. President. I actually backed you on that one.

Why, though, are you so reluctant to (a) recognize that white supremacist acts of terrorism are on the rise and (b) call it what it is, an act of terrorism?

You offered that tepid, timid and frankly cowardly response the other day to the reporter’s question about the slaughter in New Zealand and whether it represents an increase in white nationalism/supremacy around the world.

Mr. President, acts such as what was perpetrated at those two mosques in Christchurch weren’t simply a result of a “small group” of people with “serious problems.” They seem to symbolize a much broader epidemic that is spreading around the world.

Haven’t you read the papers, Mr. President? These incidents are increasing in Europe, in Australia, oh, and in the United States!

Yet you maintain your virtual silence on this crisis, Mr. President.

You wouldn’t tolerate Barack Obama’s reluctance to use the term “Islamic terrorist” in referencing the fight against the monsters who seek to do us harm. Why should we tolerate your own refusal to refer to white nationalists and white supremacists as terrorists when they seek to do the very same thing?

Count me as an American who wants to call you out for your reluctance to “tell it like it is.” These a**holes are committing acts of terror and you need to call them what they are: terrorists.

International news

That’s why they’re called ‘terrorists’

To be terrorized means that acts of blind hatred can strike anyone, anywhere and in any context.

Such horror has erupted again in what I consider to be a most terribly ironic location.

Gunmen believed to be white supremacists opened fire in two mosques, killing 49 Muslims, in — get ready for it! — Christchurch, New Zealand.

Forty-nine people are dead. Why? Because the people who killed them hate immigrants. They despise non-Christians. They took their vengeance out on people in their houses of worship. Three suspects — two men and a woman — are in custody.

What in the world does one make of this latest spasm of utterly senseless violence? I am shaking my head in mourning and grief this morning as I seek to make sense of something that makes no sense at all.

Expressions of sorrow are pouring into the country from around the world. Donald Trump extended his sympathy and support for New Zealand as it seeks answers to what its leaders call the worst such event in the nation’s history.

The president spoke for his country. Indeed, it is impossible to grasp fully the mayhem that has exploded in a country long believed to among the most peaceful places on Earth.

Terrorists and the acts they commit against unsuspecting victims are, by definition, cowards of the first order.

The world’s heart is broken today.

national news

‘Very nice’, Mr. President? Umm, no!

“I think my language is very nice.” 

So said the president of the United States today when a reporter asked him if his fiery anti-media, anti-Democrat rhetoric might have fueled the alleged planned attack by a self-described white supremacist.

Actually, his language isn’t “very nice.” Not at all. He calls the media the “enemy of the people.” Donald Trump’s rhetoric has prompted outward cheers from Klansmen, neo-Nazis and others on the far right who believe the 2016 election produced a president to their liking.

One of them allegedly was the U.S. Coast Guard officer who was arrested on charged that he was planning an act of domestic terrorism against members of the media and Democratic politicians.

Trump didn’t take responsibility for how his rhetoric might have stoked this individual’s reported hatred for those who have been critical of the president.

Whether it contributed to whatever has been alleged against this latest white supremacist remains to be seen. I’ll stand by my own assertion, though, that his language has been far from “very nice.”

national news

Rep. King has some serious issues to ponder

I cannot pretend to know what ticks inside the (so-called) heart of a rural Iowa congressman known for his big mouth far more than for any legislative accomplishments.

All any of us can do is to weigh the man’s words and wonder: Does he really believe this stuff? If he does, then the nation’s legislative body has a monster in its midst.

Republican Rep. Steve King told The New York Times that he doesn’t know how the terms “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” have been cast as “offensive” language. I already have addressed that issue in this blog, noting that those terms are associated with hate groups that have exacted violence for far too long against non-white, non-Christian American citizens.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2019/01/why-is-white-nationalist-a-negative-term/

Now we have the House of Representatives and whether it must take action against one of its 435 members. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the body will “consider” some form of punishment against King.

GOP members fire back at King

What troubles me about this individual is his history of what borders on hate speech. He was among the cabal of cretins in public life who continually questioned the birth credentials of the 44th president of the United States, who happens to be African-American; he has spoken of migrants “with calves the size of cantaloupes” smuggling drugs across the southern border from Latin America; his record of public commentary is full of similarly offensive remarks that barely hide his seeming contempt for racial and ethnic minorities.

Yet he remains in office, taking an active role in enacting legislation that affects all Americans. Sure, he gets sent back to Congress every two years, meaning that he has the endorsement of his constituents back home. That is their call to make.

Once he’s in office, though, his conduct becomes everyone’s business. Yours and mine.

Thus, it’s fair for me to say I do not want this man occupying one of those legislative offices responsible for the enactment of laws that govern all 330 million Americans.

Steve King is a disgrace to the U.S. Congress and given the reputation the legislative body has these days among Americans, that’s really saying something.

national news

Jewish leaders make remarkable demand of POTUS

It appears that any presidential outreach to the stricken Jewish community in Pittsburgh, Pa., is going to carry some provisions that I hope the president will honor.

Jewish leaders have told Donald Trump that he isn’t welcome in their city until he renounces white supremacists specifically and categorically. The demand came in the form of a letter written by members of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.

Members have demanded also that the president stop targeting minorities, such as those who are fleeing repression in Central America and have formed the so-called “caravan” en route north.

According to The Hill: “The Torah teaches that every human being is made … in the image of God. This means all of us,” the leaders wrote. “In our neighbors, Americans, and people worldwide who have reached out to give our community strength, there we find the image of God.”

Pittsburgh is mourning the deaths of 11 congregants of Tree of Life synagogue. A man known for his anti-Semitic views is under arrest for the slaughter of worshipers on Saturday, the Jewish Shabbat, or sabbath.

Donald Trump should go to the city. He should extend his hand. He should lend his full support. He already has condemned the massacre as an “assault on humanity.”

The Jewish leaders want more. They are demanding the president say something vastly different from what he declared in 2017 after the Charlottesville, Va., riot that left a young woman dead. He tossed blame at “both sides,” the Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists, along with those who protested against them. He then declared there were “very fine people … on both sides.”

He needs to retract that hideous attempt at moral equivalence.

That’s what the Pittsburgh Jewish leaders are demanding.

Are you listening, Mr. President?

national news

White supremacists get outshouted in D.C.

If you can’t stand what someone has to say, well, then just outshout ’em.

How’s that for a remedy? It showed itself this weekend in Washington, D.C., where white supremacists and other goons wanted to commemorate the Charlottesville, Va., riot a year ago that resulted in the death of a counter protester.

Given that the president of the United States would offer only sterile, tepid remarks condemning “all types of racism,” those opposed to the haters decided to show up in massive numbers. They outshouted the haters.

Hey, I believe in the First Amendment guarantee of free speech and expression. It was on full display as the counter protesters were heard over the white supremacists.

It reminds me of an event I witnessed in 2006 in Amarillo. The Ku Klux Klan wanted to launch a protest. Just as the KKK was getting ready to speak its peace, some counter protesters marched onto the City Hall parking lot banging cymbals, blowing on horns, shouting at the top of their lungs.

Leading the “charge” was the late Stanley Marsh 3, Amarillo’s most notable “eccentric.”

Ah, yes, the First Amendment. Ain’t it just grand?