UPDATE: Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who himself is a former white supremacist, announces a federal civil rights investigation of the Charlottesville massacre. In the meantime, Richard Spencer announces he will return to finish the work he started in Charlottesville. Not happy with killing only one person, he wants to return and kill some more:
“You think that we’re going to back down to this kind of behavior to you and your little provincial town? No,’’ he said. “We are going to make Charlottesville the center of the universe.”
Ohio white supremacist, James Fields, has been arrested on charges of second degree murder in the car assault. Southern Poverty Law Center reports he is a member of American Vanguard, a neo-Nazi group. Though the group is now denying Fields is associated with them, others counter that he was with the group all day today in Charlottesville. Another source told me Vanguard has provided security for Spencer at some of his talks. If true, this would bring the terror attack even closer to Spencer’s door. Both men deserve a long stint in federal prison. Let’s see if the Trump-Sessions claque can shut down his machinations.
Torch-bearing white nationalists march on University of Virginia campus in #Charlottesvillehttps://t.co/OdgsrWSHlppic.twitter.com/3p6KKQXGqj
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) August 12, 2017
The president of the University of Virginia, Teresa Sullivan and the town’s police chief must resign. Sullivan is actually in her final months as president, but this tragedy should cast a pall on any future employer who might consider hiring her. Last night, alt-right neo-Nazis staged a mini-Nuremberg rally on the school’s campus while the police stood by and did nothing. Only when the pogromists surrounded a small group of counter-protesters and assaulted them, did the police take any action.
It was then they should have taken decisive action and immediately cancelled the alt-right riot planned for the next day (today). As a result of their inaction, one antifa protester is dead, a car driven by a suspected neo-Nazi terrorist plowed into left-wing protesters and scores are wounded. Only after this mayhem did they finally do what they should have 12 hours earlier and invoked a state of emergency and called out the National Guard.
To those demanding photographic evidence of Nazi regalia in #charlottesville, here’s what’s on display before breakfast. Be safe today pic.twitter.com/sbdkgv9eD1
— Andy Campbell (@AndyBCampbell) August 12, 2017
Let’s cut straight to the chase and shed all the bullshit tweets from Donald Trump, Melania and Pence about ridding hate from our hearts and “uniting together as one.” We are not “one.” We are not united. There is hate in the hearts of some. But the hate is in the hearts of neo-Nazis and the leaders they support. Will a loving quotation from Adolf Hitler decorating a gun-toting protester’s t-shirt persuade Trump and the rest of America of what we’re dealing with here? But of course, Donald’s dad got arrested at a 1927 Ku Klux Klan rally, so I wouldn’t expect too much on that account.
Returning to Charlottesville: this is terrorism. The Justice Department must immediately step in and make this a federal terror case. Understandably, many Republicans will object. Sessions will invariably object. This is a perfect opportunity for the somnolent Democratic Party to arise from its slumber and take action (as difficult as that may be for it). Demand a Justice Department terror investigation and prosecution targeting not just the killer and any accomplices, but Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler, the ringleaders of this terror conspiracy.
The statements from police that the driver of the car wasn’t a terrorist, but rather someone petrified by the protesters surrounding his car, that’s ridiculous. It doesn’t even pass the smell test. In fact, it sounds like Charlottesville police are taking sides on this–and the wrong side at that.
Very important for the nation to hear @potus describe events in #Charlottesville for what they are, a terror attack by #whitesupremacists
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) August 12, 2017
Interestingly, a number of GOP senators including almost unbelievably, Marco Rubio have schooled Trump and told him he must do better and call this by its real name, neo-Nazi terror. Trump tweeted a ridiculous message blaming the violence on “all sides,” as if the ACLU was throwing chairs at Richard Spencer today. Let’s also not forget terrorism the President still refuses to acknowledge: a Minnesota mosque was firebombed last week. Despite calls for him to condemn the attack he not only did not, but his in-house neo-Nazi, Sebastian Gorka, suggested that the attack was a false flag operation by the extreme left.
It is not too much to ask to have a President who explicitly condemns nazis.
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) August 12, 2017
It’s nice to have Corey Gardner and Marco Rubio acknowledge that they understand reality well enough to call these thugs by their proper name. But it’s getting to be that time when this is not enough. Republicans will have to totally and fully denounce Trump and everything he stands for–before he skates right up to the edge of nuclear holocaust or something equally catastrophic. Republicans, in your heart of hearts you know that’s where this country (and the world) is headed. How far will you go with him down this path before you’re prepared to abandon him?
Oh and just in case there are any American Jews out there so pro-Israel that they continue to believe that Trump is good for Israel, let me point out that his Nazi acolytes today shouted anti-Semitic slogans like “Jews won’t take our place.” When will you get it through (some of) your thick heads that this guy is as much a disaster for Israel as he is for the rest of the world.
What did happen to freddom of speech?
Does it apply only as long as the left approve of the message?
You guys have a constitution. Please respect it.
@ Yankee: You’re not a “Yankee.” Your handle is fake. You’re Israeli. Or at least your IP is Israeli.
We do have a constitution, which you happen to be ignorant of. The constitution, as interpreted by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, says no one has the freedom to shout Fire in a crowded theater. That’s what Spencer did. He shouted Fire to his followers and they, like Pavlov’s dogs, reacted on cue and rioted & killed. So No, no one in America has the right to speech that incited to kill or maim, which is what Spencer did.
You might actually try to know something about the U.S. constitution before you claim to understand it. Also, you might want to try a constitution of your own sometime in Israel. It would offer you many rights & freedoms you possess now in name only.
It is nice to see Israelis like you defending terror attacks in the guise of supporting free speech. Tells us reams about who you are.
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Power user
Meanwhile, that great defender of the Jewish people – Ben Nitai aka Prime Minister of Greater Israel – is being deafeningly silent on the events at Charlottesville. One would think this great orator for the Jewish people would immediately get on his bully pulpit and roundly denounce the Nazis who murdered innocent people. But alas, it seems good old Ben Nitai has his priorities straight: Why make an enemy of Donald Trump when he so warmly supports us and our settlement enterprise? The Jewish people never had a better friend in the White House!
It is Yankee as Yakov!!!
Shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater has nothing to do with this case. The comparison between the two is nonsense. “fire” is no opinion and the is no reason to scream it if there is no actual fire. Stating one opinion, as heinous as you might consider it, is protected by the second amendment.
Anything else is just a way for the left to silence opinion the aren’t within the consensus. You might be interested in the answer the Google engineer had after he was fired. link to wsj.com
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@ Yankev-Yankee Doodle: Yankev, Yankev, where do I begin. You need to do even a modicum of research on constitutional law to understand that you simply may not use words, actions or deeds which are liable to directly provoke violence (that’s what Holmes called shouting Fire in a crowded theater). If you incite to violence using these sorts of tactics your speech is not protected. When a mass riot leads to an act of terrorism & murder, the rioters have lost their First Amendment rights.
You’ve either made a stupid error or just created a new legal theory that bearing arms is protected speech. But you meant the “First Amendment,” not “Second.”
As for the left “silencing opinion,” hasbar-asses like you have propounded this nutso theory for ages that the Israel left promotes hate, violence and is ant-democratic. It’s like the rapist saying “she asked for it.” You lie and then accuse your enemy of your own bad behavior.
Another watch dog depicted American Vanguard as one focused on white identity, but noted that its members have “increasingly demonstrated a neo-Nazi ideology.”
American Vanguard, founded in 2016 and based in Southern California, urges white men to “take a stand” against “globalist traitors” who are “destroying your race and heritage through open borders, affirmative action, and Marxist ‘political correctness.’”
TheRightStuff, a blog founded in 2012 that created the “parentheses meme” in which Jewish people are targeted for online harassment by trolls who identify them as Jews by putting triple parentheses around their names, hopes to spark “dialogue among a disparate and edgy right-wing.”
[Source: White Nationalists targeting U.S. Colleges | SPL Center |]
The Indoctrinated American Blogger
On “progressive blogs” one can read the new found link between neo-nazi James Alex Fields – Bashar Assad – Hezbollah – Russia as an Alt-right Triad. What a simplistic and false state of international affairs! Apparently Fields had posted a white supremacist poster of Assad Undefeated .
Anti-Assad? You Are Supporting the Murder of Christians | Haaretz – Opinion |
Whoever fights Assad wants to remove Christianity from the Middle East, and the hands of those who support Saudi Arabia or Qatar are covered with the blood of Coptic worshippers | Opinion by Abed L. Azab |
Jews in Israel are supporting the murder of Coptic Christians and Christians in the Middle East in general – and not just the…
Republican Leader in Israel Hails Robert E. Lee as ‘Great Man,’ Blames ‘Leftist Thugs’ for Charlottesville Violence | Haaretz |
Head of Republicans Abroad in Israel Marc Zell says counterprotesters at white supremacist rally represent the ‘ugly face of progressivism’ in the U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s supporters in Israel continue to loyally and strongly support him following Saturday’s neo-Nazi and white supremacist …
Far-right rally organiser chased away after Charlottesville speech | The Guardian |
Jason Kessler, the organiser of Saturday’s far-right rally in Charlottesville, was chased away by protesters in the city on Sunday afternoon after he tried to give a press conference. He tried to hold a joint media appearance with the alt-right leader Richard Spencer in the city centre.
As soon as Kessler emerged in the forecourt of Charlottesville’s city hall, a crowd of more than 300 who had gathered along with the waiting media began yelling “murderer”, “terrorist” and “nazi”.
As he approached the cluster of media microphones, the crowd chanted “shame!” in unison. At the microphones, Kessler became increasingly animated, but was completely inaudible.
After a few minutes, the crowd rushed the improvised podium. Kessler fled and made his escape with the protection of waiting state police in riot gear.
…
Joe Montoya, a local resident who had been vociferous in the crowd, said he was glad that the town had prevented Kessler from speaking. “This is what our town is like,” he said. “Charlottesville is a diverse place. We come together at times like this. Love wins.”
@Richard
“Demand a Justice Department terror investigation and prosecution targeting not just the killer and any accomplices, but Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler, the ringleaders of this terror conspiracy.”
Can you please explain how the events at Charlottesville satisfy the elements of Criminal Conspiracy, much less ‘terror conspiracy’?
You may want to begin here. Or not.
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41223.pdf
@ Anya: My job isn’t to do legal research for you. I’m sure you have plenty of legal assistance yourself to do that. Further, I don’t know what communications happened leading up to this terror attack. I don’t know who Spencer & Kessler communicated with, what they said & to whom. But from the outside one can tell there was a tremendous amount of preparation & planning that went into this event. That would include the widely armed group that came hunting for bear on Saturday.
No doubt (at least if they’re doing their job) the FBI should have reams of data on all these questions. Did Kessler or Spencer communicate with Fields? Or did individuals acting on their behalf communicate with him? Why did Fields decide to do this? Who did he consult with before he did? Where did his ideas come from? Did he prepare for this in any way?
THis is a potentially rich field for legal & intelligence research. I would hope that Jefferson Beauregard Sessions & his FBI are working diligently on this right now. One would hope…
Here is Jason Kessler being assaulted on the steps of Charlottesville City Hall.
If an odious character can’t lawfully assemble and speak his mind in front of City Hall, than something is wrong, and needs to be fixed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsfB8YKm5VI
@ Anya: Odious? I think Kessler is beyond odious. If I organize an event and incite attendees to murder someone at the event I organized I’ve gone far beyond odious. I’ve become a conspirator to commit murder. So why would an accused accessory to murder have the right to lie about what happened and why it happened? And why should the good residents of the town where this happened have to have their town subjected to such degrading sophistry? SO is there “something wrong?” You bet. But it’s not Charlottesville that needs fixing. It’s the Nazi terrorists roaming free among us that need fixing. Just as Israel needs to fix the Jewish settler terrorists & their accessories roaming free in Israel, even in the halls of the Knesset and its various government ministries.
But I note your support for Jason Kessler along with your hasbara on Israel’s behalf. Not so strange bedfellows I guess…
I hate Kessler, and all he represents.
I love the United States, and the Constitution that protects all it’s people.
You don’t know the meaning of the word, Equality.
That is hilarious coming from you. You are beyond shame, taking the word equality in your supremacist mouth.
@Anya: Then you’re schizophrenic because you just attacked Charlottesville residents for not letting Richard Spencer speak, implicitly placing value on his speech. Nor do you understand that there are limits on free speech even under our constitution. If you murder someone or encourage those who do, you’ve restricted your own free speech rights.
If there’s one guy I’d like to physically harm, it’s Richard Spencer. He got punched in the face during a street interview. I hope the next time around he gets it with a tire iron.
@ Danny: I don’t see how that helps things much. But admittedly a government implicated in Spencer’s ideological hatefest can’t be expected to prosecute him or protect us from his kind. So vigilantism does become more likely.
This isn’t vigilantism, it’s a lynch mob!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef-AUulrXrg
They lynched a statue. Wow. You get all excited over this when I have never heard you utter any protests about little girls with scissors being murdered by your heavily armed vigilante countrymen. Go joint the neo-Nazi’s in Charlottesville. It is clear where your sympathies lie.
“Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too”
Yossi Levi, this statue was of a confederate soldier, who fought to keep black people enslaved. Such statues were put up years after the civil war, during the Jim Crow era, more than sixty years later, as a sign to black people that they were and would always remain second class people. It would be comparable to statues of Wehrmacht soldiers being erected now, in squares in Germany and other European countries as a sign to Jews that they should not to get too uppity. If you wanted to come across as an intellectual with your quote you failed: Educate yourself, will you? This has nothing to do with banning or burning intellectual property.
Violence deplored, but violence hoped for via a tire iron. Freedom of Speech, but not for those we disagree with. Our Freedom of Speech is sacred, theirs is “Hate Speech”. Our violence is Righteous, theirs is Heinous. For We are the Chosen.
@ DeWayne: You’re comparing an act of outright murder with punching someone in the face after they incited such murder?? Buddy, you’ve got your moral priorities and judgement askew.
The Charlottesville residents & antifa activists were not armed. The Nazi terror thugs were armed. They murdered someone & maimed 20 others. TERRORISM…not a punch in the face.
The fact one person committed murder doesn’t justify violence by other.
Just deal with the fact there is quite a lot of violence done by the left as well.
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@ Yankev Doodle:
Tell that to the mother and father of Heather Heyer who lost their daughter to a thug you defend.
The violence of the left was nowhere near as lethal as that of the Nazis. The antifa activists were not armed. The Nazis were. And not just a few but scores, if not hundreds of them were armed.
I don’t defend any thugs and I don’t care if he gets to the chair.
You on the other hand defend the leftist/anarchist thugs who attacked a person who just tried to speak up.
@ Yankev Doodle: After Nazis killed one of their own neighbors yes, I forgive other local residents for being so angry at the inciter of this terrorist act that they ran him out of town. I forgive them. You on the other hand, refuse to acknowledge his role as accessory to murder. You’re almost as bad as he is.
BTW, since when do you feel sympathy for Nazis? Did Hitler’s stormtroopers & SS deserve free speech too?
After???
Justice is so flexible when it comes to causes you support.
I call it hypocrisy!!
You are right: How ridiculous to connect the Nazi flag with hate speech. The Nazi ideology and practice wete one big love fest as Anne Frank and many others can testify.
@Richard
I’ve done no such thing.
Kessler had a right to make a speech, and the good people of Charlottesville had every right to shout Kessler down.
The people did not have the right to commit assault and battery on Kessler, which is criminal.
I perfectly understand the limits of free speech, but no one could hear what Kessler had said at City Hall, so there’s no telling if he committed any crime that morning.
Here is a VICE reporter embedded with the Nazi leaders at Charlottesville.
At what point in this video do these Nazis criminally incite to violence?
https://news.vice.com/story/vice-news-tonight-full-episode-charlottesville-race-and-terror
All these right-wing Israeli Jews coming out of the woodwork to support freedom of speech of neo-Nazis: Very touching. Except that you never hear them when Israel criminalises commemorating the Nakba, or promoting non-violent strategies like boycott of settlement products.
What would happen to Palestinians in Israel, if they started shouting: “Jews will not replace us” at demonstrations? And what would we hear from you on such an occasion, dear Anya? Well?
Elisabeth.
I believe you are ignorant of the actual meaning of the ‘Nakba Law”, which doesn’t criminalize anything.
https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/496
Really.
@Anya is steeped in the ways of hasbara. The Nakba law strictly speaking does not “criminalize” speech. But in the looser definition of “criminalize” it does indeed do so. You may be heavily fined for breaking this law. Presumably if you are poor & can’t pay the fine further legal action could be taken.
To make a distinction between going to prison for speaking of Nakba & “merely” paying a significant fine for doing so is a ridiculous one to make. But typical of the hasbara mentality.
Nice to see Hasbara Central has taught Anya to quote PaIestinian NGOs to make her point. I think Anya is of slightly higher “quality” than the average hasbaranik dispatched here.
‘She’ is just trying to deflect. Of course this is curbing the freedom of speech of non-violent groups, but what really baffles me is the fervor with which ‘Anya’ and Yankev take the side of these Nazi’s. I do see that there a lots of similarities between these violent thugs and similar groups who hunt and beat up Palestinian youth in Israel for instance. (Like those Lehava inspired types who want to protect their ‘ownership’ of Jewish women.) But to see such instinctive agreement with groups who fly the swastika for Godssake, is still shocking, and almost unbelievable for people who we might presume are Jews. (But then, they probably agree that Kushner should have never gotten together with a non-Jewish woman like Ivanka, as one of the thugs in the video states.)
For the last time, the Nakba Law ONLY stops the government from funding Nakba events. To wit; when university students are prevented from using government funds for Nakba commemoration, they go off campus and pay for their own space and security. No one gets fined, so no one is imprisoned.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/israel-nakba-palestine-150514080431980.html
Elisabeth. I don’t want you putting your words in my mouth. Please stop. Just leave me alone. Stop means ‘no’.
@ Anya: You don’t get to tell another commenter when to speak or not speak. If you speak she may as well.
Your understanding of the Nakba law is wrong. Any organization receiving any government funding will have it revoked if they violate the law. And the law isn’t even in effect yet but organizations are already implementing it themselves for fear that they’ll have their funding cancelled. Cultural events have been cancelled.
Nor is there any reason students attending a university should have to pay to host a university event as if it was a private event. A university in a free society has a right to speech that is controversial & to fund that speech if it comes from members of the campus community. If it does not then Israel is no democracy.
Why is there no parallel law forbidding government funded organizations from denying the existence of Palestine; or promoting events that incite hatred against Palestinians or Muslims? When was the last time the government cut off funding for hate-fomenting yeshivot? Or fired their rabbis denying them their state subsidy? Never, that’s when. Making the Nakba law a heaping pile of hypocritical horse manure.
The Nakba Law may well be hypocritical manure, but it doesn’t criminalize any person or institution, which is what Elisabeth had said.
If someone wants to use a looser definition of the word ‘criminalize’, than they should use italics, or otherwise run the risk of printing truth distorting ‘fake news’.
Elisabeth said that I “..take the side of these Nazis”, which is a bald faced lie.
Richard. You know that remark it’s a bald faced lie, yet you allow it.
Shame!
*ring*
@ Anya: But you have taken the side of the Nazis in defending their right to speak after Heather Heyer was killed. You do realize that when you attack antifa in this context you are, in effect, rationalizing or defending the Nazis?
Everyone else understands how we meant the word “criminalize.” We’re not going to establish special standards just for you, I’m afraid.
Barbar, the ‘shame! *ring* stuff confirms it is you again. Why do you so often insist on playing the role of a woman? Going as far as using language that suggests you are being sexually assaulted (“leave me alone, stop means no”). Why am I not allowed to point out the fact that you do not give a peep when Israel curbs freedom of speech, but are full of passion concerning the freedom of speech of these neo-Nazis?
@ Elisabeth: How interesting! You picked up on the “Shame *ring*” “tell.” I went back and did a search & found about 8 different identities used that phrase in exactly that format (Shame *ring*). Unfortunately, no Babar, though he/she may’ve used a similar formulation, but not exactly the same. Here are the culprits who used it:
Trapper John
Abby
Bernie X
Hopper
Mitchell Blood
So now, let’s add Anya to the list. So many handles, so little time. Anya, I warn you: using more than one handle is a SEVERE comment rule violation. I have this rule for precisely this reason–to stop fraud and fraudsters. Unless you have a very good explanation for this I will likely ban you. I also find it suspicious that the name ‘Anya Neese,’ which you’ve assumed, is the name of a fairly well-known drag queen.
Richard, it is hard to jeep them apart as they are all pretty uneducated. And having been labelled a shiksa and an anti-Semite by them, and knowing that these guys promptly reappear under a different name as soon as you ban them, please excuse me for adopting a tone with them that I would not use to normal, respectable people. It seems to be about two or three guys, and they are responsible for the bulk of the nonsense here. I guess this is good news, as I would otherwise have to question the intellect and morality of the general Israeli commenter here.
Without us, people time and again get kicked out, this blog would have only the far left groupies of RS.
I had probably 30 nicks by now. Richard’s unfair treatment of different commentators is a mirror of what the left is doing with everyone who dare speak out their mind
@Yankev Doodle: If you’ve employed 30 handles here I guess you’ll have to make it 31. You are now banned. And since you are all using proxy servers to comment I may if it’s technically possible ban all comments from proxy servers. And because you’re an idiot who wants to spoil things for everyone, I may install a plugin to completely ban anyone using a proxy server from accessing the entire site. But I guess that makes you happy since it will restrict some who need to conceal their visits here for legit reasons.
I hope we can stay one step ahead of assholes like you. We’ll do our best…
Yankee, you like a blog without moderation? Be a tough guy then, and try your luck at Mondoweiss: One peep from you, and you will be howled down by 90 posts, calling you a Zio-bot or whatever. That would never be allowed here. You are resurrecting yourself here, as a kind of reborn Christian, again and again, because you cannot keep some simple rules of decency on your own side, and you WHINE?!! You whimp.
Thus your interpretation of freedom of speech and not fascist shouts inciting hatred?
“Jews will not replace us”
“Blood and soil!”
“Whose streets? Our streets!”
Bamberg Conference of 1926: Hitler rallied his supporters around ‘Blut und Boden’ while Otto Strasser left to form his own party based outside of Germany. Gregor Strasser was murdered on the Night of the Long Knives.