Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

The Fearful and the Frustrated


Plumbing Trump’s psyche is as productive as asking American Pharoah why he runs. The point is what happens when he does.
Credit Illustration by Christoph Niemann

Donald Trump’s nationalist coalition takes shape—for now.

By Evan Osnos
August 31, 2015 Issue

On July 23rd, Donald Trump’s red-white-and-navy-blue Boeing 757 touched down in Laredo, Texas, where the temperature was climbing to a hundred and four degrees. In 1976, the Times introduced Trump, then a little-known builder, to readers as a “publicity shy” wunderkind who “looks ever so much like Robert Redford,” and quoted an admiring observation from the architect Der Scutt: “That Donald, he could sell sand to the Arabs.” Over the years, Trump honed a performer’s ear for the needs of his audience. He starred in “The Apprentice” for fourteen seasons, cultivating a lordly persona and a squint that combined Clint Eastwood on the high plains and Derek Zoolander on the runway. Once he emerged as the early front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination, this summer, his airport comings and goings posed a delicate staging issue: a rogue wind off the tarmac could render his comb-over fully erect in front of the campaign paparazzi. So, in Laredo, Trump débuted a protective innovation: a baseball hat adorned with a campaign slogan that he recycled from Ronald Reagan’s 1980 run for the White House—“Make America Great Again!” The headwear, which had the rigid façade and the braided rope of a cruise-ship giveaway, added an expeditionary element to the day’s outfit, of blazer, pale slacks, golf shoes—well suited for a mission that he was describing as one of great personal risk. “I may never see you again, but we’re going to do it,” he told Fox News on the eve of the Texas visit.

When Trump announced his candidacy, on June 16th, he vowed to build a two-thousand-mile-long wall to stop Mexico from “sending people that have lots of problems.” He said, “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” Three of the statements had no basis in fact—the crime rate among first-generation immigrants is lower than that for native-born Americans—but Trump takes an expansive view of reality. “I play to people’s fantasies,” he writes in “The Art of the Deal,” his 1987 memoir. “I call it truthful hyperbole. It’s an innocent form of exaggeration—and a very effective form of promotion.”

Trump’s campaign announcement was mocked and condemned—and utterly successful. His favorability among Republicans leaped from sixteen per cent to fifty-seven per cent, a greater spike than that of any other candidate’s début. Immigration became the centerpiece of his campaign. “Donald Trump has changed the entire debate on immigration,” Rush Limbaugh told his listeners last month. As the climax of events in Las Vegas and Phoenix, Trump brought onstage Jamiel Shaw, Sr., whose seventeen-year-old son was killed, in 2008, by a man who was in the country illegally. Trump stood by while Shaw told the crowd how his son was shot.

Before departing for Laredo, Trump said, “I’ve been invited by border patrols, and they want to honor me, actually, thousands and thousands of them, because I’m speaking up.” Though Trump said “border patrols,” the invitation had in fact come from a local branch of the border-patrol union, and the local, after consulting with headquarters, withdrew the invitation a few hours before Trump arrived, on the ground that it would not endorse political candidates. Descending the airplane stairs, Trump looked thrilled to be arriving amid a controversy; he waded into a crowd of reporters and described the change of plans as the handiwork of unspecified enemies. “They invited me, and then, all of a sudden, they were told, silencio! They want silence.” Asked why he felt unsafe in Laredo—which has a lower crime rate than New York City or Washington, D.C.—he invoked another “they”: “Well, they say it’s a great danger, but I have to do it. I love the country. There’s nothing more important than what I’m doing.”

Trump was now going to meet with city officials instead of with the union. He disappeared into one of seven S.U.V.s, escorted by a dozen police vehicles—a larger motorcade than Mitt Romney merited as the Republican nominee. He passed shopping malls, churches, and ranch houses with satellite dishes in the front yard. Some drivers waved; others stared. A car had been positioned along the route with a sign across the windshield: “Mr. Trump, Fuck U.”

He reached the World Trade Bridge, a trucking link to Mexico, where he stepped inside an air-conditioned building for a half-hour briefing. He emerged to talk to reporters, and, after pausing to let the cameras set up, resumed his event. He was asked, “You keep saying that there’s a danger, but crime along the border is down. What danger are you talking about?”

Trump gave a tight, concerned nod. “There’s great danger with the illegals, and we were just discussing that. But we have a tremendous danger along the border, with the illegals coming in.”

“Have you seen any evidence here to confirm your fears about Mexico sending its criminals across the border?”

Another grave nod. “Yes, I have, and I’ve heard it, and I’ve heard it from a lot of different people.”

“What evidence, specifically, have you seen?”

“We’ll be showing you the evidence.”

“When?”

He let that one pass.

“What do you say to the people on the radio this morning who called you a racist?”

“Well, you know, we just landed, and there were a lot of people at the airport, and they were all waving American flags, and they were all in favor of Trump and what I’m doing.” He shrugged—an epic, arms-splayed shrug.

“They were chanting against you.”

“No, they were chanting for me.”

“What would you do with the eleven million undocumented immigrants who are already here?”

“The first thing we have to do is strengthen our borders, and after that we’re going to have plenty of time to talk about that.” He thanked everyone and retreated to the S.U.V.s.



On the way back to the airport, Trump stopped at the Paseo Real Reception Hall, where his supporters had assembled a small rally; guests were vetted at the door to keep out protesters. I sat beside a Latino family and asked the father what had attracted him to the event. He said that a friend involved in the border patrol had called him and asked him “to take up the spaces.” He’d brought five relatives. I asked what he thought of Trump’s politics. He paused and said, “I like his hotels.” Trump told the group, “I don’t think that people understand the danger that you’re under and the talent that you have. But I understand it.” When he opened the floor to questions, José Diaz-Balart, an anchor for Telemundo and MSNBC, said, “Many feel that what you said, when you said that people that cross the border are rapists and murderers—”

Trump cut him off: “No, no, no! We’re talking about illegal immigration, and everybody understands that. And you know what? That’s a typical case of the press with misinterpretation.” His supporters jeered at the reporter, and Trump shouted over the jeers: “Telemundo should be ashamed!”

Diaz-Balart said, “Can I finish?”

“No, no. You’re finished,” Trump said. He did his thank-yous, flashed thumbs-up signs, and headed for his airplane.

*

What accounts for Donald Trump’s political moment? How did a real campaign emerge from a proposition so ludicrous that an episode of “The Simpsons” once used a Trump Presidency as the conceit for a dystopian future? The candidate himself is an unrewarding source of answers. Plumbing Trump’s psyche is as productive as asking American Pharoah, the winner of the Triple Crown, why he runs. The point is what happens when he does.

In New Hampshire, where voters pride themselves on being unimpressed, Fred Rice, a Republican state representative, arrived at a Trump rally in the beach town of Hampton on an August evening, and found people waiting patiently in a two-hour line that stretched a quarter of a mile down the street. “Never seen that at a political event before,” he said. Other Republicans offer “canned bullshit,” Rice went on. “People have got so terribly annoyed and disenchanted and disenfranchised, really, by candidates who get up there, and all their stump speeches promise everything to everyone.” By the night’s end, Rice was sold. “I heard echoes of Ronald Reagan,” he told me, adding, “If I had to vote today, I would vote for Trump.”

To inhabit Trump’s landscape for a while, to chase his jet or stay behind with his fans in a half-dozen states, is to encounter a confederacy of the frustrated—less a constituency than a loose alliance of Americans who say they are betrayed by politicians, victimized by a changing world, and enticed by Trump’s insurgency. Dave Anderson, a New Hampshire Republican who retired from United Parcel Service, told me, “People say, ‘Well, it’d be nice to have another Bush.’ No, it wouldn’t be nice. We had two. They did their duty. That’s fine, but we don’t want this Bush following what his brother did. And he’s not coming across as very strong at all. He’s not saying what Trump is saying. He’s not saying what the issues are.”

Trump’s constant talk of his money, his peering down on the one per cent (not to mention the ninety-nine), has helped him to a surprising degree. “I love the fact that he wouldn’t be owing anybody,” Nancy Merz, a fifty-two-year-old Hampton Republican, told me. She worked at a furniture company, she said. “But the industry went down the tubes.” Her husband, Charlie, used to build household electricity meters at a General Electric plant, until the job moved to Mexico. Now he parks cars at a hospital. Trump, in his speech, promised to stop companies from sending jobs abroad, and the Merzes became Trump Republicans. They are churchgoers, but they don’t expect Trump to become one, and they forgive his unpriestly comments about women. “There are so many other things going on in this country that we’ve got be concerned about,” Nancy said. “I’ve seen a lot of our friends lose their houses.”

Trump’s fans project onto him a vast range of imaginings—about toughness, business acumen, honesty—from a continuum that ranges from economic and libertarian conservatives to the far-right fringe. In partisan terms, his ideas are riven by contradiction—he calls for mass deportations but opposes cuts to Medicare and Social Security; he vows to expand the military but criticizes free trade—and yet that is a reflection of voters’ often incoherent sets of convictions. The biggest surprise in Trump’s following? He “made an incredible surge among the Tea Party supporters,” according to Patrick Murray, who runs polling for Monmouth University. Before Trump announced his candidacy, only twenty per cent of Tea Partiers had a favorable view of him; a month later, that figure had risen to fifty-six per cent. Trump became the top choice among Tea Party voters, supplanting (and opening a large lead over) Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Governor Scott Walker, of Wisconsin, both Tea Party stalwarts. According to a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted last month, the “broad majority” of Trump’s supporters hailed from two groups: voters with no college degree, and voters who say that immigrants weaken America. By mid-August, Trump was even closing in on Hillary Clinton. CNN reported that, when voters were asked to choose between the two, Clinton was leading fifty-one per cent to forty-five.

In Hampton, I dropped by Fast Eddie’s Diner for the breakfast rush. “He has my vote,” Karen Mayer, a sixty-one-year-old human-resources manager, told me. Already? “Already,” she said. Her husband, Bob Hazelton, nodded in agreement. I asked what issue they cared about more than any other. “Illegal immigration, because it’s destroying the country,” Mayer said. I didn’t expect that answer in New Hampshire, I remarked. She replied, “They’re everywhere, and they are sucking our economy dry.” Hazelton nodded again, and said, “And we’re paying for it.”

*

When the Trump storm broke this summer, it touched off smaller tempests that stirred up American politics in ways that were easy to miss from afar. At the time, I happened to be reporting on extremist white-rights groups, and observed at first hand their reactions to his candidacy. Trump was advancing a dire portrait of immigration that partly overlapped with their own. On June 28th, twelve days after Trump’s announcement, the Daily Stormer, America’s most popular neo-Nazi news site, endorsed him for President: “Trump is willing to say what most Americans think: it’s time to deport these people.” The Daily Stormer urged white men to “vote for the first time in our lives for the one man who actually represents our interests.”


“He moved to Berlin to pursue something creative he would be bad at here.”

Ever since the Tea Party’s peak, in 2010, and its fade, citizens on the American far right—Patriot militias, border vigilantes, white supremacists—have searched for a standard-bearer, and now they’d found him. In the past, “white nationalists,” as they call themselves, had described Trump as a “Jew-lover,” but the new tone of his campaign was a revelation. Richard Spencer is a self-described “identitarian” who lives in Whitefish, Montana, and promotes “white racial consciousness.” At thirty-six, Spencer is trim and preppy, with degrees from the University of Virginia and the University of Chicago. He is the president and director of the National Policy Institute, a think tank, co-founded by William Regnery, a member of the conservative publishing family, that is “dedicated to the heritage, identity, and future of European people in the United States and around the world.” The Southern Poverty Law Center calls Spencer “a suit-and-tie version of the white supremacists of old.” Spencer told me that he had expected the Presidential campaign to be an “amusing freak show,” but that Trump was “refreshing.” He went on, “Trump, on a gut level, kind of senses that this is about demographics, ultimately. We’re moving into a new America.” He said, “I don’t think Trump is a white nationalist,” but he did believe that Trump reflected “an unconscious vision that white people have—that their grandchildren might be a hated minority in their own country. I think that scares us. They probably aren’t able to articulate it. I think it’s there. I think that, to a great degree, explains the Trump phenomenon. I think he is the one person who can tap into it.”

Jared Taylor, the editor of American Renaissance, a white-nationalist magazine and Web site based in Oakton, Virginia, told me, in regard to Trump, “I’m sure he would repudiate any association with people like me, but his support comes from people who are more like me than he might like to admit.”

From the beginning of the current race, the conservative establishment has been desperate for Trump to be finished. After he disparaged the war record of Senator John McCain, the New York Post gave him a front-page farewell—“DON VOYAGE”—and a Wall Street Journal editorial declared him a “catastrophe.” But Trump carried on—in part because he had activated segments of the electorate that other candidates could not, or would not. On July 20th, three days before his trip to Texas, Ann Coulter, whose most recent book is “¡Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole,” appeared on Sean Hannity’s show and urged fellow-Republicans to see Trump’s summer as a harbinger. “The new litmus test for real conservatives is immigration,” she said. “They used to say the same thing about the pro-life Republicans and the pro-gun Republicans, and, ‘Oh, they’re fringe and they’re tacky, and we’re so embarrassed to be associated with them.’ Now every one of them comes along and pretends they’d be Reagan.”

From the pantheon of great demagogues, Trump has plucked some best practices—William Jennings Bryan’s bombast, Huey Long’s wit, Father Charles Coughlin’s mastery of the airwaves—but historians are at pains to find the perfect analogue, because so much of Trump’s recipe is specific to the present. Celebrities had little place in American politics until the 1920 Presidential election, when Al Jolson and other stars from the fledgling film industry endorsed Warren Harding. Two decades ago, Americans were less focussed on paid-for politicians, so Ross Perot, a self-funded billionaire candidate, did not derive the same benefit as Trump from the perception of independence.

Trump’s signature lines—“The American dream is dead” and “We don’t have victories anymore”—constitute a bitter mantra in tune with a moment when the share of Americans who tell Gallup pollsters that there is “plenty of opportunity” has dropped to an unprecedented fifty-two per cent; when trust in government has reached its lowest level on record, and Americans’ approval of both major parties has sunk, for the first time, below forty per cent. Matthew Heimbach, who is twenty-four, and a prominent white-nationalist activist in Cincinnati, told me that Trump has energized disaffected young men like him. “He is bringing people back out of their slumber,” he said.

Ordinarily, the white-nationalist Web sites mock Republicans as Zionist stooges and corporate puppets who have opened the borders in order to keep wages low. But, on July 9th, VDARE, an opinion site founded to “push back the plans of pro-Amnesty/Immigration Surge politicians, ethnic activists and corrupt Big Business,” hailed Trump as “the first figure with the financial, cultural, and economic resources to openly defy elite consensus. If he can mobilize Republicans behind him and make a credible run for the Presidency, he can create a whole new media environment for patriots to openly speak their mind without fear of losing their jobs.” The piece was headlined “WE ARE ALL DONALD TRUMP NOW.”

*

Trump’s admirers hear in his words multiple appeals. Michael Hill heads the Alabama-based League of the South, a secessionist group that envisions an independent Southern republic with an “Anglo-Celtic” leadership. In 1981, Hill began teaching history at Stillman College, a historically black college in Tuscaloosa. He applied for jobs at other schools, and was turned down, which he attributes to affirmative action. In 1994, he co-founded the League, which put him at odds, he said, with “civil-rights-age, older black faculty and administrators, looking down their nose at this uppity white boy coming out here, talking about the Confederate flag and all that kind of stuff.” In 1999, he left Stillman. He told me, “If academia is not for me, because of who I am—a white Southern male, Christian, straight, whatever—then I’m going to find something that is. I’m going to fight this battle for my people.” Hill was moved by Trump’s frequent references to Kathryn Steinle, a thirty-two-year-old woman who, on July 1st, was walking with her father on a pier in San Francisco when she was fatally wounded in what police described as a random shooting. When police arrested Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a repeat felon who had been deported from the United States five times, Trump adopted the story of “that beautiful woman” as “another example of why we must secure our border immediately.” Hill told me, “That struck such a nerve with people, because a lot of this political stuff is abstract, but, as a father, I’ve got a daughter as well, and I could just see myself holding my daughter, and her looking up at me and saying, ‘Help me, Daddy.’ ” Hill, who condemns immigration and interracial marriage and warns of the influence of “Jewry,” said, “I love to see somebody like Donald Trump come along. Not that I believe anything that he says. But he is stirring up chaos in the G.O.P., and for us that is good.”

I joined Hill at a League of the South meeting one afternoon in July, at its newly built headquarters, on a couple of verdant acres outside Montgomery, Alabama. It was the League’s annual conference, and there were about a hundred men and women; the older men were in courtly suits or jackets, and the younger set favored jeans, with handguns holstered in the waistband. The venders’ tables had books (“The True Selma Story,” “Authentic History of the Ku Klux Klan”), stickers (“The Federal Empire Is Killing the American Dream”), and raffle tickets. The prize: a .45-calibre Sig Sauer pistol.


“Of course it’s not safe. That’s why I’m here.”

After years of decline, the League has recently acquired a number of younger members, including Brad Griffin, a thirty-four-year-old who writes an influential blog under the name Hunter Wallace. Short and genial, he wore Top-Siders, khaki shorts, and a polo shirt. As we talked, Griffin’s eyes wandered to his two-year-old son, who was roaming nearby. Griffin told me that he embraced white nationalism after reading Patrick Buchanan’s “Death of the West,” which argued, in Griffin’s words, that “all of the European peoples were dying out, their birthrates were low, and you had mass immigration and multiculturalism.” Griffin once had high hopes for the Tea Party. “They channelled all that rage into electing an impressive number of Republicans in the South, but then all they did was try to cut rich Republicans’ taxes and make life easier for billionaires!” he said. “It was all hijacked, and a classic example of how these right-wing movements emerge, and they’re misdirected into supporting the status quo.”

Griffin had recently told his readers that his opinion of Donald Trump was “soaring.” He sees Trump’s surge as a “hostile takeover of the Republican Party. He’s blowing up their stage-managed dog-and-pony show.” Griffin is repelled by big-money politics, so I asked why he spoke highly of Trump. “He’s a billionaire, but all of these other little candidates are owned by their own little billionaires.” He mentioned Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers. “So I think Trump is independent.”

The longer I stayed, the more I sensed that my fellow-attendees occupied a parallel universe in which white Americans face imminent demise, the South is preparing to depart the United States, and Donald Trump is going to be President. When Hill took the stage, he told his compatriots that the recent lowering of the Confederate flag was just the beginning. Soon, he warned, adopting the unspecified “they,” they will come for the “monuments, battlefields, parks, cemeteries, street names, even the dead themselves.” The crowd was on its feet, cheering him on. “This, my friends, is cultural genocide,” he said, adding, “Often, as history has shown, cultural genocide is merely a prelude to physical genocide.” I ducked out to catch a flight to Des Moines: Trump was speaking the next day in Iowa.

*

The “Make America Great Again Rally and Family Picnic” in Oskaloosa (population: 11,463) opened at eleven, but by ten there was already a crowd of thirteen hundred people—almost twice the capacity of the auditorium. The buffet was serving free pulled-pork sandwiches, and Trump’s warmup act, Tana Goertz (runner-up, “The Apprentice,” Season 3), told the crowd, “Please go eat! Mr. Trump can’t take all this food home on the plane!”

It must be stated clearly that (to the delight of the far-right extremists I spoke with) a great many Republicans are mortified by Trump—horrified by his campaign of fear, embarrassed that others in the Party are not, and desperate to move on. But Trump’s strategy has its logic. Gary Johnson, who as a Republican served two terms as the governor of New Mexico, before becoming the 2012 Libertarian Party Presidential candidate, told me that anyone who runs for office discovers that some portion of the electorate is available to be enraged and manipulated, if a candidate is willing to do it. “I ran across this constantly,” he said. “This eight per cent out there that bangs their fist on the table and says, ‘The biggest problem we’re facing is immigration!’ And I’m going, ‘No! No! This is not the case!’ ” Johnson cited a poll that at that point put Trump’s support among Republicans at eighteen per cent, and told me, “I don’t think there’s an eighteen-per-cent element of this country that is just outright racist. But there is a segment out there that is, and he has definitely appealed to that.” Most people, in Johnson’s view, are animated by other parts of Trump’s pitch—“that he’s going to get in and make the tough deals, and nobody’s going to screw with him, because he’ll drop bombs.” That coalition—the fearful and the frustrated—is powerful. “That’s how you begin to get to eighteen per cent,” Johnson said.

As people turned up in Oskaloosa, I encountered some of the fearful. A construction worker named Ron James, wearing a T-shirt that said “Every-Juan Illegal Go Home,” told me that the “invasion of illegals” is eroding American culture: “We’re getting flushed down the toilet.” But the vast majority of the room, as best I could tell, was more like Stephanie DeVolder, an elegant fiftysomething, with blond hair and bright-green eyes, who had worked as a sales rep for Dice, a job-search site. She was glad that Trump had “brought up the horrific treatment of the veterans,” and that “he is a foremost believer in the military,” and she admired his work on television. “I bought the videos of ‘The Apprentice,’ and watched the whole thing,” she said. “He is a phenomenal judge of character, and he actually does have a heart. He is absolutely amazing.” His fame had guided her to his political views, and, in time, she had concluded that he was “absolutely right about border security.”

Emerging from the wings, in a navy suit, a white shirt, and a pink tie, Trump paused midway across the stage to spread his arms in a gesture of astonished, grateful embrace. For years, Trump has been compared to P. T. Barnum, but the comparison doesn’t capture his range; on the campaign trail, he is less the carnival barker than the full cast—the lion, the fire-eater, the clown with the seltzer—all trussed into a single-breasted Brioni suit. Music from the “Karate Kid” soundtrack blared—“You’re the best around! Nothing’s gonna ever keep you down!”—and, for a moment, Trump looked genuinely startled by the ardor of the stargazers in the crowd. At the lectern, he said, “It’s a terrific place, Iowa.” Then he monologued for an hour, off the cuff, on Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server (“What she did is very criminal”); Scott Walker (“Finally, I can attack!”); the Veterans Administration (“the most corrupt group of people in all of Washington”).

As always, he created a powerful set piece about Mexican criminals who are allowed to “roam around, shooting people and killing people,” as he put it. He described this as a hidden scourge: “Such a big problem, and nobody wants to talk about it.” He reminded the crowd of his trip to Laredo: “I told the pilots, I said, ‘Fly a little bit away from the border, please. Fly a little bit inland.’ It’s a whole scary thing.” He said that when he returned to New York his wife had greeted him in tears. “You made it safely from the border!” she cried. As always, he spoke of Kathryn Steinle’s murder—“Kate, beautiful Kate”—and of the death of Jamiel Shaw’s son, “shot by an animal, an animal that shouldn’t have been in this country.” He urged Iowans to be afraid, even if they didn’t see the threat. “When you’re afraid to walk into your own country, it’s pretty bad,” he said. “Hard to believe. You don’t have that problem in Iowa, in all fairness. But it’s pretty rough out there.”


“You’ll come here, but you won’t go to Brooklyn?”

*

Over the years, Trump has rejected the suggestion that he is a “belligerent, loudmouthed racist,” as Paul Krugman, the Times columnist, put it recently. “I have a great relationship with the blacks,” Trump said on the radio, in 2011.

Trump has always weaved in and out of racially charged controversies. In 2000, he secretly ran ads opposing a Catskills casino backed by the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, because it would rival his businesses in Atlantic City. Beneath a picture of drug paraphernalia, the ad asked, “Are these the new neighbors we want?” Tribal leaders denounced the message as “racist and inflammatory,” and Trump and his associates were fined by New York State for concealing the true source of the ads. In March, 2011, Trump, who was considering a Presidential run, resurrected the crackpot theory that Barack Obama is not an American citizen, declaring, “I want him to show his birth certificate.” (It had already been publicly available for more than three years.) Trump’s declaration gave the issue new prominence. At the time, Trump’s on-again, off-again political adviser, the former Nixon aide Roger Stone, said that the decision to become a birther was “a brilliant base-building move.”

Trump’s phantasmagorical visions of marauding immigrants are part of a genre in which immigration and race are intermingled. In recent years, hoaxes and theories that were once confined to the margins have been laundered through mainstream media outlets. In 2013, Fox News repeatedly broadcast warnings about the “knockout game,” based on a self-published book by the white nationalist Colin Flaherty, which described black men randomly attacking white pedestrians. In a study published in the journal Race & Class, Mike King, a sociologist at SUNY-Oneonta, searched for a single actual case of the knockout game and found none. The news reports were largely patched together from unrelated viral videos of street violence. Bureau of Justice statistics show, King wrote, a “marked decrease in random assaults, including black assaults on white strangers.”

When Trump started emphasizing the mortal threat posed by undocumented immigration, America’s white nationalists rejoiced. “Why are whites supposed to be happy about being reduced to a minority?” Jared Taylor, of American Renaissance, asked me. “It’s clear why Hispanics celebrate diversity: ‘More of us! More Spanish! More cucaracha!’ ”

Taylor, who calls himself a “racial dissident,” was slim and decorous in gray trousers and a button-down when we met. For years, he and others have sensed an opportunity on the horizon to expand their ranks. When Obama was elected in 2008, Stormfront, the leading white-supremacist Web forum, crashed from heavy traffic. The Klan, weakened by lawsuits and infighting, barely exists anymore, but the Internet draws in young racists like Dylann Roof, who is accused of the June 17th massacre of nine people at a church in Charleston. The attack inspired a broad effort to remove the Confederate flag—from the state capitol and from the shelves of Amazon and of Walmart and a host of other retail stores. Defenders of the flag were galvanized, and they organized more than a hundred rallies around the South, interpreting the moment, months after racial unrest in Ferguson and Baltimore, as a sign of a backlash against political correctness and multiculturalism. Trump’s language landed just as American hate groups were more energized than at any time in years. Griffin, the blogger for the League of the South, told me that the removal of the flag had crystallized “fears that people have about what happens when we become a minority. What happens when we have no control over things? You’re seeing it play out right now.”

Over sandwiches in the dining room of Taylor’s brick Colonial, with views of a spacious back yard, a half-hour from downtown Washington, D.C., five of his readers and friends shared their views on race and politics, on the condition that I not use their full names. They were white men, in white-collar jobs, and each had a story of radicalization: Chris, who wore a pink oxford shirt and a tie, and introduced himself as an employee of “Conservativism, Inc.,” the Republican establishment, said that he had graduated from a public high school where there were frequent shootings, but he felt he was supposed to “ignore the fact that we were not safe on a day-to-day basis because of all of these blacks and the other immigrants in our schools.”

Jason, a muscle-bound commercial-real-estate broker in a polo shirt, said, “I’ve had personnel—in strict, frightened confidence—just tell me, ‘Hey, look, we’re just hiring minorities, so don’t appeal, don’t come back.’ ” This sense of “persecution,” as he called it, is widely held. In a study published in 2011, Michael Norton, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Samuel Sommers, a professor of psychology at Tufts, found that more than half of white Americans believe that whites have replaced blacks as “the primary victims of discrimination” today, even though, as Norton and Sommers write, “by nearly any metric—from employment to police treatment, loan rates to education—statistics continue to indicate drastically poorer outcomes for Black than White Americans.”

The men around the table, unlike previous generations of white nationalists, were inspired not by nostalgia for slavery but by their dread of a time when non-Hispanic whites will no longer be the largest demographic group in America. They uniformly predicted a violent future. Erick, who wore a Captain America T-shirt and unwittingly invoked one of Trump’s signature phrases, told me, “The American dream is dead, and the American nightmare is just beginning. I believe it’s that way. I think that whites don’t know the terror that’s upon us.”

All the men wanted to roll back anti-discrimination laws in order to restore restrictive covenants and allow them to carve out all-white enclaves. Henry, a twenty-six-year-old with cropped blond hair, said, “We all see some hope in Donald Trump, because it’s conceivable that he could benefit the country in a way that we feel would be helpful.”

*

In early August, the Republican candidates convened in Cleveland for their first debate. I watched it on television with Matthew Heimbach, the young white nationalist in Cincinnati, and some of his friends. Heimbach, whom anti-racist activists call “the Little Fuhrer,” for his tirades against “rampant multiculturalism,” founded the Traditionalist Youth Network, a far-right group that caters to high-school and college students and pushes for the separation of blacks and whites. Stocky and bearded, Heimbach is ambitious. He graduated, in 2013, from Towson University, in Maryland, where he attracted controversy for forming a “white student union.” He has met with European Fascists, including members of the Golden Dawn, in Greece.


“And because of this one, human indiscretion, the man and wife never trusted each other fully again.”
October 19, 2009

Heimbach rents part of a house on a placid side street and works as a landscaper. He and his wife recently had their first child, a boy named Nicholas. When I asked Heimbach how he got involved with Fascist politics, he laughed. “I was not raised like this,” he said. “I was raised to be a normal small-town Republican.” The son of teachers in Poolesville, Maryland, an hour from Washington, he, like Brad Griffin, credited Buchanan’s book “Death of the West” for seeding his conception of a desolate future. “Even if you play the game, even if you do everything right, then the future, when it comes to your income, when it comes to benefits, when it comes to everything, we are going to be the first generation in American history to be living worse than our parents.” He went on, “My own parents tell me, ‘Well, you should just shut up, you should go get a normal job, and get a two-car garage, and then you’ll be happy.’ ”

On the economics, Heimbach’s narrative is not wrong. During a half-century of change in the American labor market—the rise of technology and trade, the decline of manual labor—nobody has been hit harder than low-skilled, poorly educated men. Between 1979 and 2013, pay for men without a college degree fell by twenty-one per cent in real terms; for women with similar credentials, pay rose by three per cent, thanks partly to job opportunities in health care and education. Like many ultraconservatives, Heimbach had largely given up on the Republican Party. He said, “We need to get the white community to actually start speaking for the white community, instead of letting a bunch of Republicans that hate us anyway, and don’t speak for our values, be the unofficial spokespeople.”

During the debate, Mike Huckabee was asked how he might attract enough support from independents and Democrats to get elected, and Heimbach shouted at the TV, “You don’t need to! All you need to do is get the Republican base to get out and vote.”

On a couch across from the television, Tony Hovater, who used to be a drummer in a band and now works as a welder, said that, from what he has heard from Trump, he suspects that Trump shares his fears about immigration but can’t say so openly. Hovater told me, “I think he’s, like, dog-whistling,” adding, “He’s saying we should probably favor more European immigration, or maybe more of just a meritocracy sort of system, but he’s not coming out and saying it, because people will literally stamp him: ‘Oh, you just hate Mexicans.’ ” Hovater hopes that Trump will find a way to be more forthright: “Why not just say it?”

For his part, Hovater hopes to get into politics. This fall, he’s running for City Council in New Carlisle, Ohio, representing what he and Heimbach have named the Traditional Workers Party. He is taking inspiration from Trump’s populist success. “Just like we’re seeing with Trump, if the people honestly feel like you’re fighting for them, they’ll rally behind you,” he said. He knows that his views are “extreme,” but Trump’s success tells him that people support tone over substance. “People will be, like, ‘Well, I’ll take the fighter, even though I might disagree with him on some things,’ ” he said.

As the debate wound down, Trump, in his final statement, recited his mantra of despair. “Our country is in serious trouble. We don’t win anymore,” he said. “We can’t do anything right.” Matthew Parrott, a Web developer who was sipping coffee from a cup adorned with a swastika, said, “He was sassy without being comical. He struck exactly the tone he needed to give the people supporting him exactly what they want more of.” He went on, “The political system hasn’t been providing an outlet for social-conservative populism. You had this Ron Paul revolution, and all the stuff about cutting taxes, small government, and that’s just not the electrifying issue that they were expecting it to be. Simple folks, they want the border secure. They want what Donald Trump is mirroring at them. I think he’s an intelligent businessman who identified what the people want to hear. He’s made a living finding these sorts of opportunities.”

*

Trump emerged from the debate on a wrathful tear. When Megyn Kelly, the Fox News host, asked him to explain why he called some women “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” Trump replied, “What I say is what I say.” In an interview the next day, he said that Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” In the attendant uproar, Trump played dumb, declaring that only a “deviant” would think he was referring to menstruation, when he was thinking only of her nose.

The Republican commentariat celebrated what finally seemed to be Trump’s immolation. A couple of days after the debate, Stephanie DeVolder, in Iowa, e-mailed me to say that Trump had lost her. “I am not offended by his comments (as much as I am embarrassed for him and his family).” She had soured on his “bullying,” and his “total disregard for manners.”

The polls did not follow suit, though. Trump not only remained the front-runner—ahead of Bush and Cruz and the neurosurgeon Ben Carson, depending on the poll—but broadened his lead. (Two weeks after the debate, DeVolder changed her mind on Trump again. “I forgave him, as his message/platform continues to resonate above all else,” she wrote to me.)

On August 16th, with the media in full summer frenzy, Trump made his first detailed proposal, a six-page immigration plan that outlined an unprecedented crackdown. Presented as the remedy for a victimized nation—“We will not be taken advantage of anymore”—Trump’s plan called for the government to deport large segments of the undocumented population, seize money that these immigrants attempt to send home, and, contravening the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, deny citizenship to their U.S.-born children.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based organization that seeks to reduce immigration (it is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), hailed Trump’s plan as the “American Workers’ Bill of Rights.” Mark Meckler, the co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, described it as a new standard “that all the other candidates will now have to meet,” and Scott Walker immediately echoed Trump’s call for building a wall and ending birthright citizenship. Other Republicans recoiled, convinced that Trump’s nativist turn would taint the Party’s image as ruinously as Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” comments in his race against Barack Obama. At the time, Trump himself disapproved of Romney’s approach, saying, in November, 2012, “He had a crazy policy of ‘self- deportation,’ which was maniacal. It sounded as bad as it was, and he lost all of the Latino vote. He lost the Asian vote. He lost everybody who is inspired to come into this country.” Trump now faced the risk that his new stance could eventually undo him.

On Tuesday of last week, Jorge Ramos, the most influential Latino news anchor, told his audience on the Fusion network, “Right now Donald Trump is, no question, the loudest voice of intolerance, hatred, and division in the United States.”


“We’re not year-round people, weekend people, or summer people. We’re last-ten-days-in-August people.”
September 4, 2000

*

Before dawn on Wednesday, two brothers from South Boston allegedly attacked a homeless Hispanic man, breaking his nose and urinating on his face. The police said that, after the men were arrested, one of them, Scott Leader, justified the assault by saying, “Donald Trump was right—all these illegals need to be deported.” (Both men pleaded not guilty.) When Trump was asked at a press conference about the case, and about threats of other violence, he replied, “I think that would be a shame, but I haven’t heard about that. I will say that people that are following me are very passionate. They love this country, and they want this country to be great again, and they are very passionate, I will say that.” (Two days later, Trump, under fire, tweeted, “Boston incident is terrible. . . . I would never condone violence.”)

When Trump leaped to the head of the Republican field, he delivered the appearance of legitimacy to a moral vision once confined to the fevered fringe, elevating fantasies from the message boards and campgrounds to the center stage of American life. In doing so, he pulled America into a current that is coursing through other Western democracies—Britain, France, Spain, Greece, Scandinavia—where xenophobic, nationalist parties have emerged since the 2008 economic crisis to besiege middle-ground politicians. In country after country, voters beset by inequality and scarcity have reached past the sober promises of the center-left and the center-right to the spectre of a transcendent solution, no matter how cruel. “The more complicated the problem, the simpler the demands become,” Samuel Popkin, a political scientist at the University of California in San Diego, told me. “When people get frustrated and irritated, they want to cut the Gordian knot.”

Trump has succeeded in unleashing an old gene in American politics—the crude tribalism that Richard Hofstadter named “the paranoid style”—and, over the summer, it replicated like a runaway mutation. Whenever Americans have confronted the reshuffling of status and influence—the Great Migration, the end of Jim Crow, the end of a white majority—we succumb to the anti-democratic politics of absolutism, of a “conflict between absolute good and absolute evil,” in which, Hofstadter wrote, “the quality needed is not a willingness to compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Nothing but complete victory will do.” Trump was born to the part. “I’ll do nearly anything within legal bounds to win,” he wrote, in “The Art of the Deal.” “Sometimes, part of making a deal is denigrating your competition.” Trump, who long ago mastered the behavioral nudges that could herd the public into his casinos and onto his golf courses, looked so playful when he gave out Lindsey Graham’s cell-phone number that it was easy to miss just how malicious a gesture it truly was. It expressed the knowledge that, with a single utterance, he could subject an enemy to that most savage weapon of all: us.

Trump’s candidacy has already left a durable mark, expanding the discourse of hate such that, in the midst of his feuds and provocations, we barely even registered that Senator Ted Cruz had called the sitting President “the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism,” or that Senator Marco Rubio had redoubled his opposition to abortion in cases of rape, incest, or a mortal threat to the mother. Trump has bequeathed a concoction of celebrity, wealth, and alienation that is more potent than any we’ve seen before. If, as the Republican establishment hopes, the stargazers eventually defect, Trump will be left with the hardest core—the portion of the electorate that is drifting deeper into unreality, with no reconciliation in sight.

Copyright 2015 Condé Nast

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-fearful-and-the-frustrated


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Nevada Republican lawmaker Michele Fiore says she'll shoot Syrian refugees herself


Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said she doesn’t need a ban on Syrian refugees.
Cathleen Allison/AP

BY Leonard Greene
Updated: Tuesday, December 8, 2015, 1:18 PM

A gun-loving Nevada lawmaker said she doesn’t need a ban on Syrian refugees.

She said she’s ready to take matters into her own hands.

“I am not OK with Syrian refugees,” Republican Assemblywoman Michele Fiore said late last month on her weekly Las Vegas radio show. “I’m not OK with terrorists. I’m OK with putting them down, blacking them out, just put a piece of brass in their ocular cavity and end their miserable life. I’m good with that.”

Fiore’s Rambo rant came days after ISIS gunmen, at least one of whom posed as a Syrian refugee, killed 129 people in Paris on Nov. 13. “I’m about to fly to Paris and shoot ’em in the head myself,” Fiore said.

Fiore made headlines last week with a Christmas card featuring family members holding various firearms [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nevada-pol-arms-family-guns-christmas-portrait-article-1.2456226 ]:

Republican assemblywoman Michele Fiore features a Christmas card picturing her family - all with firearms held or strapped to their bodies.
Michelle Fiore/via Facebook

Related Story

Nevada lawmaker slammed for ‘hot little girls’ comment on concealed weapon permits
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nevada-lawmaker-slammed-hot-girls-comment-article-1.2121390

© Copyright 2015 NYDailyNews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/nev-lawmaker-shoot-syrian-refugees-article-1.2458331 [with embedded video report, and comments]


*


Michele Fiore Will Shoot Syrian Refugees Herself

Published on Dec 8, 2015 by Mike Malloy [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpU4j-LN_aibXA1gONvWzxw / http://www.youtube.com/user/hschulein , http://www.youtube.com/user/hschulein/videos ]

Nevada Assemblywoman Michele Fiore (R) last month dismissed a statement from Nevada Republicans calling for the state to bar refugees from Syria, and said that she is prepared to travel to Paris to shoot Syrian refugees herself.

During her weekly show on Las Vegas radio station KWDN, Fiore discussed why she did not sign onto the statement from Republican members of the state assembly opposing resettling Syrian refugees in Nevada. Fiore recounted a conversation with Nevada GOP political consultant Chuck Muth, who asked her why she didn't sign onto the statement.

"What--are you kidding me? I’m about to fly to Paris and shoot ‘em in the head myself!" Fiore said she told Muth when asked why she didn't join the statement on Syrian refugees.

"I am not OK with Syrian refugees. I’m not OK with terrorists. I’m OK with putting them down, blacking them out, just put a piece of brass in their ocular cavity and end their miserable life. I'm good with that," she continued.

Full story: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/michele-fiore-syrian-refugees-shoot-em

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFNpqCsc0y8 [with comments]


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Befuddled Pat Robertson Declares Islam Is Not A Religion, Again

Um ... still no.

By Hilary Hanson
12/08/2015 01:27 pm ET

Conservative Christian media personality Pat Robertson took the latest wave of Islamophobia [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/islamophobia-mainstream-media-paris-terrorist-attacks_564cb277e4b08c74b7339984 ] to a higher level Tuesday by claiming, as he likes to do, that Islam is not a religion at all.

"Islam is a political system that is intent on world domination," Robertson said on "The 700 Club [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertson-islam-not-religion-military-group-bent-world-domination ]." "It isn't a, quote, religion as such. It is a political system masquerading as a religion."

This information will surely come as a surprise to the more than 1.6 billion Muslims [ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/07/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/ ] in the world, the vast majority of whom have little to no interest in world domination.

"Christianity isn't intent on dominating and killing people -- it just isn't," Robertson continued, who has apparently forgotten the Crusades, the Inquisition and "ethnic cleansing [ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-centralafrica-inquiry-idUSKBN0KH2BM20150108 ]" in the Central African Republic, among other incidents. "It's a peaceful exercise for the soul. It isn't intent on setting up a government with a specific kind of oppressive law called Sharia and territorial ambitions for the entire world."

This is not the first or second time [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/13/pat-robertson-claims-islam-demonic-not-a-religion_n_2680895.html ] Robertson has made his outrageous claim. He has repeatedly dismissed the faith of millions as nothing more than "a religious veneer."

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pat-robertson-islam-not-religion_56671841e4b08e945ff111a9 [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R5X2CUMFoE [as embedded; with comments]


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Of Course Ann Coulter Doesn't Think Trump's Proposed Ban On Muslim Immigration Goes Far Enough

[ http://www.liberalamerica.org/tag/ann-coulter/ ]
But she called it the "best birthday gift" ever.
12/08/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ann-coulter-trump-muslim_5666e789e4b08e945ff0d102 [with comments]


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The Father Of A Muslim War Hero Has This To Say To Donald Trump


(Courtesy of Khizr M. Khan)

Captain Humayun Khan is a decorated war hero who died defending members of his unit in Iraq

By James King on Dec 08, 2015 at 4:24 PM

Humayun S. M. Khan was a University of Virginia graduate with plans to go to law school when he decided to enlist in the U.S. Army. Khan rose to the rank of captain, ultimately leading an infantry company in Iraq, where he was killed when a suicide bomber attacked his unit.

Khan was one of 14 American Muslims who died serving the United States in the ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks. His family came to the United States from the United Arab Emirates, where Khan was born. Shortly after Donald Trump called for a ban on families like Khan’s coming to the U.S., his father talked to Vocativ about the Republican frontrunner’s comments and how he remembers his son.

“Muslims are American, Muslims are citizens, Muslims participat[e] in the well-being of this country as American citizens,” Khan’s father, Khizr Kahn, who moved to the U.S. in the late 1970s after growing up in Pakistan, said Tuesday. “We are proud American citizens. It’s the values [of this country] that brought us here, not our religion. Trump’s position on these issues do not represent those values,” he said.

Captain Khan was killed just north of Baghdad [ http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/hsmkhan.htm ] on June 8, 2004. A car approached the gates of the base he was tasked with protecting. As soldiers under Khan’s command prepared to inspect the vehicle, his father told us, Captain Khan screamed for his men to “hit the dirt” and walked towards it himself and demanded the driver stop. Inside the car were two suicide bombers and a large amount of explosives. As the car reached the gate, the bomb was detonated, killing Khan and wounding 10 U.S. soldiers. His father believes many more men might have died without Khan’s warning. Khan was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart, two of the military’s highest honors.

“We still wonder what made him take those 10 steps [towards the car],” Khan’s father said. “Maybe that’s the point where all the values, all the service to country, all the things he learned in this country kicked in. It was those values that made him take those 10 steps. Those 10 steps told us we did not make [a] mistake in moving to this country. These were the values we wanted to adopt. Not religious values, human values,” he said.

When asked about the recent bloodshed in San Bernardino and other attacks, like the 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, where Nidal Hasan, a veteran, killed 13 people [ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13inquire.html ] in the name of radical Islam, Khan remembers a conversation with his other son. Shaharyar Khan, the brother of the late Humayun, told his father that Muslim communities share in the responsibility for rooting out extremism.

“This is the time for us American Muslims to rat out any traitor who walks amongst us. This is high time for Muslims to stand firm [against terrorists],” the elder Khan recounted. “Among us hides the enemies of the value system of this country. And we need to defend it. And if it means ratting out the traitors who hide behind an American passport, that’s what we need to do.”

As outrage at Trump’s remarks erupts across the political spectrum, Khan says he still believes the Republican candidate’s incendiary rhetoric against Muslims doesn’t represent the values of the United States. “I remember when my family arrived here and the first place we went was the Jefferson Memorial,” he said. “[Jefferson’s ideals] are the values that we have cherished as a family and as Americans.”

Of his son who died, Khan said he believes the “values that he learned throughout his life came together and made him a brave American soldier. This country is not strong because of its economic power, or military power. This country is strong because of its values, and during this political season, we all need to keep that in mind.”

More

The Trolling And Polling Of Donald J. Trump
http://www.vocativ.com/news/258848/the-trolling-and-polling-of-donald-trump/

Trump's Anti-Muslim Comments Inspire Racists Of All Stripes
http://www.vocativ.com/news/260041/donald-trump-inspires-racists/

How America's Most Muslim Town Is Reacting To Donald Trump
http://www.vocativ.com/news/259289/americas-muslim-town-reacts-donald-trump

Syrian Rebels Evacuate Homs After Rare Truce Deal
http://www.vocativ.com/news/259431/syrian-rebels-evacuate-homs-after-rare-truce-deal

Al Qaeda Tries To Make A Point: We're Still Here
http://www.vocativ.com/news/259401/al-qaeda-tries-to-make-a-point-were-still-here

Hey, Trump: Terrorists Might Love Your "Muslim Ban"
Terrorists may attack just to provoke a backlash against their own people.
http://www.vocativ.com/news/259534/trump-anti-muslim-rhetoric/

ISIS Is Losing In Ramadi—And Lying About It
Islamic State militants lost large chunks of a key Iraqi city in an ongoing battle, and the terror group's loyalists are lying about it
http://www.vocativ.com/news/259848/isis-is-losing-in-ramadi-and-lying-about-it/

The Deadliest Mass Shooting Everyone Forgot
13 people[, mostly immigrants taking a class at an immigrant resource center,] were killed in a mass shooting in Binghamton, New York in 2009—and the world seems to have forgotten all about it
http://www.vocativ.com/news/258994/the-deadliest-mass-shooting-everyone-forgot/

Most Americans Don't Have Muslim Friends
Donald Trump wants to ban Muslims from entering from the U.S.
http://www.vocativ.com/news/259532/american-muslims/

© 2015 Vocativ

http://www.vocativ.com/news/259159/the-father-of-a-muslim-war-hero-has-this-to-say-to-donald-trump/ [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vocativ/the-father-of-a-muslim-wa_b_8758646.html (with comments)]


--


Woman attacks praying Muslims in California park



By Samer Hijazi | Tuesday, 12.08.2015, 05:53 PM

Castro Valley, CA – It was supposed to be another normal Sunday at the park for Rasheed Albeshari and his friends, until they were attacked by a local woman because of their Islamic faith.

Albeshari and his pals frequent Lake Chabot often, a quiet regional park in Alameda County.

But around 4 p.m. on Sunday, December 6, they were attacked by a woman who appeared disgruntled after she witnessed Albeshari’s pals praying on the grass.

Albeshari was waiting in the car for his three friends to finish their prayers when he saw the woman, since identified as Denise Slader, confront them. She had been walking on the sidewalk and appeared ruffled that the Muslim men were praying in the park.

“She was saying ‘Allah is Satan and you are all murderers,’”
Albeshari recalled.

Albeshari approached Slader and began taping the confrontation on his cell phone.

“One of my friends was trying to tell her ‘We believe in Jesus. We love Jesus,’” he said.

But those words fueled the woman’s animosity even more. A park ranger disrupted the argument and asked Slader to move away.

Instead, she assaulted Albeshari with an umbrella and threw coffee in his face. He captured the tail end of the incident on video.

Police were called to the scene and a report was filed. According to reports, park police are recommending that Slader be charged with misdemeanor battery. On Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the East Bay Regional Park District told NBC Bay Area that police would be forwarding their investigation to the Alameda County District Attorney's Office.

Albeshari said the District Attorney’s office was looking into a possible hate crime charge.

Following the mass shooting in San Bernardino, CA last week, where a Muslim couple killed 14 people at the County Health Department, Muslims fear they might be discriminated against or targeted because of their faith.

Albeshari had moved from North Carolina to California in 2011. Believing it to be the most progressive state in the country, he said he would’ve never imagined being targeted because of his religion or ethnicity.

"That's one of the main reasons why we love the Bay area,” he said. “It's people from all around the planet. I never thought this would ever happen to me here. It’s a very uncomfortable feeling.”

Albeshari still believes the majority of Americans are more accepting than Slader. He was relieved to see an outpouring of support from Americans when he posted the video [ https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=956276454432598 ] of his encounter on Facebook.

“I see a lot support and I like how people have reacted to it,” Albeshari said. “It made me feel safe. But after this point, you still have to be very careful. What if it was a woman or a kid in my situation, what would’ve happened?”

Copyright © The Arab American News

http://www.arabamericannews.com/news/news/id_11501/Woman-attacks-Muslims-in-California-park-after-seeing-them-praying.html [with comments]


*


State employee investigated after allegedly hitting, throwing coffee on praying Muslim man
December 9, 2015
A California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employee is under investigation after she was filmed ridiculing a Bay Area Muslim man who was praying in a park, and then threw an umbrella and coffee at the man, authorities said.
Denise Slader, a program technician with the department’s Adult Parole Operations, was reportedly filmed interrupting a prayer service about 3 p.m. Sunday at Lake Chabot in Castro Valley, officials said.
[...]
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-cdcr-employee-investigated-muslim-praying-20151209-story.html [with embedded video, and comments]


*


Do Muslims and Christians worship the same god? College suspends professor who said yes.

In this Dec. 13, 2015 photo, Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor of political science at Wheaton College, a private evangelical school in Wheaton, Ill., wears a hijab at a church service in Chicago.
December 16, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/12/16/do-muslims-and-christians-worship-the-same-god-college-suspends-professor-who-said-yes/ [with comments]


*


Professor Suspended For Saying Christians And Muslims Worship The ‘Same God’
Dec 16, 2015
http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/12/16/3732884/wheaton-suspends-professor-same-god/ [no comments yet]


*


Why a Christian college could fire a professor for expressing solidarity with Muslims
December 16, 2015
http://www.vox.com/2015/12/16/10324836/wheaton-college-professor-hijab-islam


*


Wheaton College says view of Islam, not hijab, got Christian teacher suspended
December 16, 2015
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-wheaton-college-professor-larycia-hawkins-20151216-story.html [with comments]


*


Wheaton College must decide hijab-wearing prof’s future — and its own
Dec 16, 2015
http://jonathanmerritt.religionnews.com/2015/12/16/wheaton-college-must-decide-hijab-wearing-profs-future-and-its-own/ [no comments; comments closed]


*


Wheaton College’s disgraceful suspension of professor for controversial comment
Dec 16, 2015
http://tobingrant.religionnews.com/2015/12/16/wheaton-colleges-disgraceful-suspension-of-professor-for-controversial-comment/ [with comments]


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Donald Trump’s ban on Muslims echoes earliest days of Nazi propaganda: expert


By calling for a ban on Muslims, Donald Trump is not far from the first steps the Nazis took against Jews.
Scott Olson/Getty Images


Donald Trump may have something in common with the Nazis.
SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images


When the Nazis took power in 1933, they took steps to separate Jewish Germans from their fellow citizens.
UniversalImagesGroup/Getty Images


[ https://twitter.com/PhillyDailyNews/status/674681164653682688 (with comments), https://twitter.com/anglobibliofile/status/674400967366840323 ]


[ https://twitter.com/NYDailyNews/status/674399797860790272 (with comments)]

BY Max Paul Friedman
SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Wednesday, December 9, 2015, 9:08 AM

There are discomfiting echoes in the increasing tempo of Trump's invective against Muslims, his insults toward Hispanics and a disabled reporter, and his encouragement of his fans to rough up an African-American heckler — not to mention his strained relationship to the truth. He has endorsed the dubious claims of the Center for Security Policy, an outfit that claims the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating America from within. Now he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the country [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-doubles-plan-shut-muslims-article-1.2458468 ]. Before we call him a neo-Nazi, though, let's look at the record.

When the Nazis took power in 1933, they did not immediately begin a Holocaust in the form of the mass murder of Jews and others they deemed inferior. Instead, they undertook a series of measures designed to separate Jewish Germans from their fellow citizens.

The half-million Jews living in Germany, after all, were as integrated into German society as Muslims are in America today. Many had shed their religious practices, doffed their caps or shaved their beards, and assimilated into mainstream culture. Others practiced their faith in private, or in synagogues that sometimes imitated Protestant churches. Some were successful in business or the professions. Patriotic German Jews like Otto Frank, Anne's father, served their country in the trenches of World War I — just as some American Muslims have risked and lost their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq while wearing their country's uniform.

Before carrying out a genocide, the Nazis had to exclude Jewish Germans from their own country's public life. They did this in steps. First came legislation excluding Jews from government jobs. Quotas reduced the number of Jews admitted to schools and universities, and placed restrictions on Jewish doctors and lawyers. Then came the Nuremberg Laws in 1935, excluding Jews from holding German citizenship and prohibiting mixed marriages. Jews lost the right to vote or hold public office.

Jewish businesses were "Aryanized," forcibly transferred to non-Jews. Following the state-sponsored pogrom of Kristallnacht in November 1938, with the vandalizing of synagogues and Jewish shops, Jews were barred from public areas, and their identity documents were stamped with the letter "J."

Trump has not proposed any of these restrictions, although he did seem to support registration and a database for all Muslims or all refugees. However, by saying on Monday that all Muslims overseas, even U.S. citizens who are abroad for business or pleasure, will be refused re-entry to the United States, he would effectively deny them their citizenship rights. Like Jews in Germany, they would be rendered stateless.

Trump's spokeswoman and campaign manager confirmed after his speech that the ban on Muslims would apply to U.S. citizens as well. How does Trump expect U.S. customs officials to determine which returning U.S. citizens are Muslims? By asking them. (This would violate U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services policy.) The campaign has now backpedaled on U.S. citizen exclusion.

Trump has defended his plan by pointing out that Franklin Roosevelt ordered special measures be taken against Germans, Italians, and Japanese during World War II.

Surely he is aware that those measures included incarceration of U.S. citizens in isolated camps without due process — a practice later deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and so wrong-headed that its victims received compensation and an apology from the U.S. government during the Reagan administration.

The Nazis sent Jews, Communists, and others to far more brutal camps during the 1930s. These were not yet death camps but prisons where people could be sent without trial. Mass murder and gas chambers would come once the war began.

But before any of this could take place, the Nazis had to come to power through elections by spreading fear, and promote anti-Semitism through incitement to make non-Jewish Germans turn on their Jewish neighbors. They did it in part through Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels' principle of the "big lie." Told often enough, it will be believed. Trump's repeated claims about New Jersey Muslims [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-sticks-story-n-muslims-cheering-sept-11-article-1.2449684 ] celebrating the 9/11 attacks and his desire to ban a billion people from entering the United States notwithstanding, he is nowhere near the Nazis' plans for a Final Solution. But he is not far from the first steps they took.

Max Paul Friedman, Professor of History at American University, is author of Nazis and Good Neighbors [ http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-american-history/nazis-and-good-neighbors-united-states-campaign-against-germans-latin-america-world-war-ii , http://www.amazon.com/Nazis-Good-Neighbors-Campaign-against/dp/0521675359 ] (Cambridge University Press).

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© Copyright 2015 NYDailyNews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/guest-column-trump-ban-muslims-wrong-article-1.2459376 [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Trump's Muslim Comments Draw Rebuke From Netanyahu

by Carrie Dann
Dec 9 2015, 2:37 pm ET

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is rejecting Donald Trump's remarks about banning Muslims from entering the United States, saying that Israel "respects all religions and strictly guarantees the rights of all its citizens."

"Prime Minister Netanyahu rejects Donald Trump's recent remarks about Muslims," Netanyahu's office said in a statement Wednesday afternoon. "The State of Israel respects all religions and strictly guarantees the rights of all its citizens. At the same time, Israel is fighting against militant Islam that targets Muslims, Christians and Jews alike and threatens the entire world."

The statement added that Netanyahu's planned meeting with Trump was arranged before the Muslim comments and is reflective only of the prime minister's pledge to meet with any White House candidate regardless of party. Trump is reportedly set to meet with Netanyahu in Israel on December 28.

"As for the meeting with Mr. Trump that was set some two weeks ago, the Prime Minister decided earlier this year on a uniform policy to agree to meet with all presidential candidates from either party who visit Israel and ask for a meeting," the statement read. "This policy does not represent an endorsement of any candidate or his or her views. Rather, it is an expression of the importance that Prime Minister Netanyahu attributes to the strong alliance between Israel and the United States."

On Monday, Trump called for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." That statement brought broad rebukes from party officials on both sides of the aisle, although his supporters have mostly cheered the move.

©2015 NBCNews.com

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trumps-muslim-comments-draw-rebuke-netanyahu-n477141


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Trump 'postpones' Israel trip after Netanyahu criticism

Donald Trump said Thursday that he is postponing his trip to Israel

It had been scheduled for December 28, an Israeli official had said

By Tom LoBianco
Updated 10:39 AM ET, Thu December 10, 2015

Washington (CNN)—Donald Trump said Thursday that he is postponing his trip to Israel, just a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned his proposal to ban U.S. travel for all Muslims.

"I have decided to postpone my trip to Israel and to schedule my meeting with @Netanyahu at a later date after I become President of the U.S.," Trump tweeted.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
I have decided to postpone my trip to Israel and to schedule my meeting with @Netanyahu at a later date after I become President of the U.S.
6:12 AM - 10 Dec 2015
[ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/674924540347195392 (with comments)]

Trump had planned to meet with Netanyahu December 28 in Israel, according to an Israeli government official [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-israel-trip/ ] , but shortly after the meeting was reported, Netanyahu's office condemned Trump's comments about Muslims.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu rejects Donald Trump's recent remarks about Muslims," according to a statement issued by the prime minister's office

[ https://twitter.com/ofirgendelman/status/674654778778087424 ].

"The State of Israel respects all religions and strictly guarantees the rights of all its citizens. At the same time, Israel is fighting against militant Islam that targets Muslims, Christians and Jews alike and threatens the entire world," the statement said.

Netanyahu came under fire from dozens of members of the Israeli parliament for planning to host the controversial GOP presidential front-runner. They called on the Prime Minister to cancel his meeting with the billionaire businessman.

Trump explained later Thursday morning that he did not want to place Netanyahu "under pressure."

"He said we have a meeting and he looks forward to the meeting and all of that. But I didn't want to put him under pressure," Trump said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "I also did it because I'm in the midst of a very powerful campaign that's going very well, and it was not that easy to do. I would say lots of different reasons, I could have done it, it was semi-scheduled."

Trump refused to confirm the meeting when asked about it [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-don-lemon-cnn-interview/index.html ] by CNN's Don Lemon Wednesday.

"I'm just going to Israel some time before the end of the year, I'm going to Israel, but I'm not saying who I'm meeting with," Trump said.

© 2015 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/10/politics/donald-trump-postpones-israel-trip/index.html [with embedded video report]


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Trump's Israel mess: The Muslim-bashing Donald was apparently too toxic for Netanyahu


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu banned Trump from visiting Israel after the latter proposed to ban Muslims from entering or re-entering the United States.
POOL/REUTERS


Happy now?
Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Editorial
Updated: Friday, December 11, 2015, 9:09 AM

A depressing landmark in U.S. electoral history: A Republican Party presidential front-runner is a political persona non grata in one of America’s staunchest and most crucial allies.

Clearly under pressure from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump cancelled a highly promoted trip to Israel [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/donald-trump-postpones-trip-israel-visit-netanyahu-article-1.2461089 ] — because his mere presence with the prime minister or at holy sites could have caused domestic and international conflagrations.

Americans should shudder, because Trump’s disinvitation dramatizes how Trump is shredding the nation’s most important international ties, perhaps irreparably, with worse to come if Donald Trump ever occupies the Oval Office.

Presidential aspirants, Republicans especially, are fond of pledging there will be “no daylight” between their administrations and the Jewish State.

Yet Trump’s call for temporarily barring Muslims from entering the U.S. just unleashed a glaring sun’s worth of distance.

Having essentially cast all the world’s billion-plus Muslims as suspected ISIS radicals, Trump forced Netanyahu — who leads a country that is one-fifth Muslim — into rebuking an American presidential candidate by proclaiming that “The state of Israel respects all religions and adheres to the rights of all citizens.”

On his planned trip, Trump was to meet with the prime minister [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-meet-netanyahu-israel-visit-dec-28-article-1.2459813 ] — an appearance that would no doubt have been a major domestic liability for Netanyahu. You can be sure Netanyahu and his people made that clear.

Trump had also planned to swagger onto the Temple Mount, a site holy to both Jews and Palestinians that has been the flashpoint for random Palestinian murders of Israelis.

Netanyahu has gone to great lengths to assure those who worship at the al-Aqsa Mosque in the complex that Israel has no interest in restricting Muslim access. He has gone so far as to ban his own ministers and Knesset members from visiting in an attempt to reduce tensions.

Trump was set to visit the site — and say and do who knows what in service of his homegrown ambitions. That was clearly not a provocation Netanyahu or Israel could afford.

With trademark bravado, Trump insists he cancelled the trip on his own volition and promises to visit after he is elected.

As a candidate, Trump has ready become toxic in Mexico, Great Britain, France, Germany and across the Muslim world. Imagine, if you dare, how much worse things would get should he become President.

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/donald-trump-35-support-nationally-poll-article-1.2461214

© Copyright 2015 NYDailyNews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/editorial-trump-israel-disaster-article-1.2461327 [with comments]


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Donald Trump Is An A**hole, Philly Mayor Says


SAUL LOEB via Getty Images

He's not wrong.

By Sebastian Murdock
12/09/2015 11:50 am ET | Updated [late] 12/09/2015

The mayor of Philadelphia didn't mince words when asked about Donald Trump's recent remarks on Muslims.

"He's an asshole," mayor Michael Nutter said at a press conference Tuesday in front of more than 30 faith leaders [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/8/michael-nutter-philadelphia-mayor-calls-donald-tru/ ], including imams and priests.

Nutter was referring to comments made by Trump on Monday, when the Republican presidential candidate suggested prohibiting all Muslims from entering the U.S. Democrats [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/keith-ellison-donald-trump-muslims_56674f93e4b080eddf55fccb ] and Republicans [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/paul-ryan-donald-trump-muslim-ban_5666f362e4b072e9d1c7815d ] alike condemned Trump's remarks, along with the White House [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-house-donald-trump-disqualified_566720a3e4b08e945ff123cc ].

"How can I take seriously any foreign policy idea from someone like him?" Nutter asked. "It's impossible. He has no idea what he's talking about."

Trump tweeted his response to the mayor's comments.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
.@Mayor_Nutter of Philadelphia, who is doing a terrible job, should be ashamed for using such a disgusting word in referring to me.Low life!
10:01 AM - 9 Dec 2015
[ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/674619869967593472 (with comments)]

A day before the press conference, a severed pig's head [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/severed-pig-head-mosque-philadelphia_56669895e4b08e945ff0c59b ] was found outside a Philadelphia mosque. In North America, there have been at least 52 [as I make this post, 73] Islamophobic incidents [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/all-the-islamophobic-acts-in-us-canada-since-paris_564cee09e4b031745cef9dda ] since November's Paris terror attacks [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/photos-paris-after-terror-attacks_564741d3e4b06037734933d2 ].

Nutter compared Trump to Hitler in his remarks.

"This is the same tactic and strategy [as Hitler]," he said. "Find an enemy, convince people they're the enemy, blame every problem on them and then try to get rid of them. Donald Trump is literally trying to radicalize [ http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Donald-Trump-Philadelphia-Mayor-Michael-Nutter-Muslims-360956281.html ] our fellow Americans against our American Muslim and international Muslim brothers and sisters."

"There's no way I'm going to sit in a room with that idiot," he added.

After calling Trump an asshole, Nutter said that he was sorry for cursing.

"I apologize reverends [and] people in the religious community," Nutter said.

No apology needed, mayor.

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-is-an-ahole-philly-mayor-says_5668498ee4b009377b231fff [with embedded video, and comments]


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Donald Trump Gets Hitler Treatment In Atlanta Street Art

A cartoon-like image of the real estate mogul shows him sporting an Adolf Hitler mustache and a bow tie made out of a U.S. $100 bill.
[ http://www.ajc.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/swastika-with-trumps-likeness-painted-along-atlant/npfts/ (with embedded video report)]
Police quickly removed the images and are investigating who posted them.
12/10/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-hitler-street-art_566998f7e4b0f290e522254f [with embedded video report, and comments]


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The President Commemorates the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment

Published on Dec 9, 2015 by The White House [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYxRlFDqcWM4y7FfpiAN3KQ / http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse , http://www.youtube.com/user/whitehouse/videos ]

President Obama delivers remarks at the U.S. Capitol to commemorate the abolition of slavery in 1865. December 9, 2015.

*

Remarks by the President at Commemoration of the 150th Anniversary of the 13th Amendment

U.S. Capitol
Washington, D.C.
December 09, 2015

12:02 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.” That’s what President Lincoln once wrote. “Honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”

Mr. Speaker, leaders and members of both parties, distinguished guests: We gather here to commemorate a century and a half of freedom -- not simply for former slaves, but for all of us.

Today, the issue of chattel slavery seems so simple, so obvious -- it is wrong in every sense. Stealing men, women, and children from their homelands. Tearing husband from wife, parent from child; stripped and sold to the highest bidder; shackled in chains and bloodied with the whip. It’s antithetical not only to our conception of human rights and dignity, but to our conception of ourselves -- a people founded on the premise that all are created equal.

And, to many at the time, that judgment was clear as well. Preachers, black and white, railed against this moral outrage from the pulpit. Former slaves rattled the conscience of Americans in books, in pamphlets, and speeches. Men and women organized anti-slavery conventions and fundraising drives. Farmers and shopkeepers opened their barns, their homes, their cellars as waystations on an Underground Railroad, where African Americans often risked their own freedom to ensure the freedom of others. And enslaved Americans, with no rights of their own, they ran north and kept the flame of freedom burning, passing it from one generation to the next, with their faith, and their dignity, and their song.

The reformers’ passion only drove the protectors of the status quo to dig in harder. And for decades, America wrestled with the issue of slavery in a way that we have with no other, before or since. It shaped our politics, and it nearly tore us asunder. Tensions ran so high, so personal, that at one point, a lawmaker was beaten unconscious on the Senate floor. Eventually, war broke out –- brother against brother, North against South.

At its heart, the question of slavery was never simply about civil rights. It was about the meaning of America, the kind of country we wanted to be –- whether this nation might fulfill the call of its birth: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” that among those are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

President Lincoln understood that if we were ever to fully realize that founding promise, it meant not just signing an Emancipation Proclamation, not just winning a war. It meant making the most powerful collective statement we can in our democracy: etching our values into our Constitution. He called it “a King’s cure for all the evils.”

A hundred and fifty years proved the cure to be necessary but not sufficient. Progress proved halting, too often deferred. Newly freed slaves may have been liberated by the letter of the law, but their daily lives told another tale. They couldn’t vote. They couldn’t fill most occupations. They couldn’t protect themselves or their families from indignity or from violence. And so abolitionists and freedmen and women and radical Republicans kept cajoling and kept rabble-rousing, and within a few years of the war’s end at Appomattox, we passed two more amendments guaranteeing voting rights, birthright citizenship, equal protection under the law.

And still, it wasn’t enough. For another century, we saw segregation and Jim Crow make a mockery of these amendments. And we saw justice turn a blind eye to mobs with nooses slung over trees. We saw bullets and bombs terrorize generations.

And yet, through all this, the call to freedom survived. “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” And eventually, a new generation rose up to march and organize, and to stand up and to sit in with the moral force of nonviolence and the sweet sound of those same freedom songs that slaves had sung so long ago -– crying out not for special treatment, but for equal rights. Calling out for basic justice promised to them almost a century before.

Like their abolitionist predecessors, they were plain, humble, ordinary people, armed with little but faith: Faith in the Almighty. Faith in each other. And faith in America. Hope in the face so often of all evidence to the contrary, that something better lay around the bend.

Because of them -- maids and porters and students and farmers and priests and housewives -- because of them, a Civil Rights law was passed, and the Voting Rights law was signed. And doors of opportunity swung open, not just for the black porter, but also for the white chambermaid, and the immigrant dishwasher, so that their daughters and their sons might finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes. Freedom for you and for me. Freedom for all of us.

And that’s what we celebrate today. The long arc of progress. Progress that is never assured, never guaranteed, but always possible, always there to be earned -– no matter how stuck we might seem sometimes. No matter how divided or despairing we may appear. No matter what ugliness may bubble up. Progress, so long as we’re willing to push for it; so long as we’re willing to reach for each other.

We would do a disservice to those warriors of justice -- Tubman, and Douglass, and Lincoln, and King -- were we to deny that the scars of our nation’s original sin are still with us today. (Applause.) We condemn ourselves to shackles once more if we fail to answer those who wonder if they’re truly equals in their communities, or in their justice systems, or in a job interview. We betray the efforts of the past if we fail to push back against bigotry in all its forms. (Applause.)

But we betray our most noble past as well if we were to deny the possibility of movement, the possibility of progress; if we were to let cynicism consume us and fear overwhelm us. If we lost hope. For however slow, however incomplete, however harshly, loudly, rudely challenged at each point along our journey, in America, we can create the change that we seek. (Applause.) All it requires is that our generation be willing to do what those who came before us have done: To rise above the cynicism and rise above the fear, to hold fast to our values, to see ourselves in each other, to cherish dignity and opportunity not just for our own children but for somebody else’s child. (Applause.) To remember that our freedom is bound up with the freedom of others -– regardless of what they look like or where they come from or what their last name is or what faith they practice. (Applause.) To be honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. To nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth. That is our choice. Today, we affirm hope.

Thank you. God bless you. May God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END
12:16 P.M. EST

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/09/remarks-president-commemoration-150th-anniversary-13th-amendment

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEzOaWI5NDk [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/12/09/president-commemorates-150th-anniversary-13th-amendment


*


Ala. lawmakers respond to USDOT driver license office discrimination investigation


Sample driver license.
Source: ALEA

By Mia Watkins
Posted: Dec 09, 2015 7:28 AM CST
Updated: Dec 09, 2015 3:44 PM CST

BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC) -
The U.S. Department of Transportation will investigate driver license office closings across Alabama for possible racial discrimination.

The department announced the investigation Tuesday, saying that it will look into whether or not the closures violate Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, according to a news release.

“Today, the U.S. Department of Transportation is making it clear that Title VI is not optional and that we will work to make sure all of its components are enforced,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “Driver License Offices offer essential services to the American people, including providing thousands in Alabama with a method of identification. It is critical that these services be free of discrimination, and serve the people of the state fairly and equally.”

Title VI prohibits discrimination based on nationality, race and color in programs getting federal assistance.

The state as well as the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency receive “substantial Federal assistance from the Department, and, therefore, are subject to Title VI’s nondiscrimination prohibition,” the USDOT said.

Both entities authorized the closure of 31 driver license offices [ http://www.wbrc.com/story/30153221/31-satellite-driver-license-offices-to-close-in-alabama ] on Sept. 30.

Gov. Bentley cited a business decision as the reason for the closings.

The offices represent less than five percent of driver license business throughout the state, according to ALEA.

Bentley has since announced a plan to reopen some of the offices [ http://www.wbrc.com/story/30415005/closed-driver-license-locations-set-to-reopen-this-month-starting-tuesday ] on limited days, following backlash from Rep. Terri Sewell [ http://www.wbrc.com/story/30287813/al-rep-terri-sewell-continues-fight-against-dmv-closures ], Hillary Clinton, Rev. Jesse Jackson [ http://www.wbrc.com/story/30211459/rev-jesse-jackson-calls-for-investigation-into-alabama-dmv-closings ] and others.

"So I believe this narrative reinforces old stereotypes about Alabama and really harkens us back to our old Jim Crow past," Sewell said in a statement.

Initial information received by USDOT suggests the closings may discriminate against African-Americans who live in the areas affected by the closings, the department said.

“Our concern rests in the possibility that the State’s closure of driver license offices disproportionately constrains the ability of some residents to secure driving privileges, register personal and commercial vehicles, and obtain proper identification –a critical requirement for access to essential activities such as opening a bank account and voting,” said Stephanie Jones, Acting Director of the Department of Civil Rights.

Bentley released a statement Wednesday morning saying:

“In an ongoing attempt to politicize a resolved issue, the United States Department of Justice informed my office Tuesday of an impending investigation by the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) that is in its early stages and no findings have been made. Due to legislative budget cuts, in September 2015, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA) reallocated driver license examination personnel back to the district drivers license offices on a full time basis. Prior to this budget decision, these examiners, who are state employees, were traveling to each county level probate office or courthouse once or twice a week to provide the service of examination. I made the decision in October 2015 to ensure that an examiner report to each county level office at least once a month to continue providing this service."

“Despite what the Obama Administration claims, there were no driver license offices closed in Alabama. Despite facts to the contrary, opportunistic politicians such as Hillary Clinton have politicized an Alabama budgeting issue to serve their own agenda, going so far as to travel to our state for the sole purpose of political pandering. This USDOT investigation is nothing more than a weak attempt to embarrass the people of Alabama and exploit our state in the name of a political agenda. I am confident that the USDOT investigation will find no basis for the claims of discrimination. It is time for the Obama Administration and aspiring national politicians to listen to facts, stop wasting taxpayers’ dollars and put the political agendas away.”

Rep. Terri Sewell released this statement on the matter:

“I welcome the U.S. Department of Transportation’s decision to investigate the impact of Alabama lawmakers’ decision to reduce services at 34 DMV offices – a decision that has a discriminatory effect on 8 out of the 10 counties in Alabama with the highest percentage of Black registered voters. Alabama cannot balance the budget on the backs of those who can least afford it, nor infringe upon the civil rights of minorities by limiting access to the most popular form of identification used to vote.
"Reducing services at these DMV offices further compounds the discriminatory impact of Alabama’s pernicious photo ID law that excludes more than 250,000 Alabamians from the democratic process. The negative impact of the State of Alabama’s ill-conceived decision to eliminate and reduce DMV services proves that federal oversight is still necessary.

"Unfortunately, Alabama has not yet fully learned the lessons of its painful past. It is still unlawful for state actions to result in a discriminatory effect on African Americans, irrespective of the intentions of such actions. When Alabama requires a photo ID to vote and then reduces access to the most popular form of identification because of budgetary reasons, that state decision is suspect, especially if the savings to the state are less than $100,000. This narrative reinforces old stereotypes about Alabama and harkens us back to our Jim Crow past when federal intervention was required to enforce constitutionally protected rights. It saddens me that this is still a reality in my home state today but I am glad the Obama Administration recognizes the need to investigate the discriminatory impact of state action such as the DMV closures. I fully expect Alabama officials to comply with this investigation.”

The department said it will consider all relevant information during the investigation.

Copyright 2015 WBRC

http://www.wtvm.com/story/30703640/ala-lawmakers-respond-to-usdot-driver-license-office-discrimination-investigation [with comment]


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The Citadel Suspends 8 Cadets Over White-Hooded Photos

Citadel Minority-Alumni
Why would anyone think that this is ok? Will the administration at The Citadel let this go? This picture is a disgrace and a slap in the face. Who are the cadets in this picture and who is their cadet leadership? We're watching to see how this all plays out...
December 10 at 8:52am
[ https://www.facebook.com/citadel.blackalumni/photos/a.1652526991662076.1073741831.1581526828762093/1662994293948679/ (with comments), via http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/citadel-stunned-after-photos-cadets-looking-kkk-emerge-n477856 (with comments)]
December 10, 2015
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/12/10/459255377/the-citadel-suspends-8-cadets-over-white-hooded-photos [with comments]


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Justice Scalia on African American student admissions to UT Austin and "lesser schools". (C-SPAN)

Published on Dec 11, 2015 by C-SPAN [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb--64Gl51jIEVE-GLDAVTg / http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPAN , http://www.youtube.com/user/CSPAN/videos ]

Justice Scalia on African American student admissions to The University of Texas at Austin and "lesser schools" in the Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin Oral Argument.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia Is Wrong About Affirmative Action
Graduation rates for students of color rise when they attend more selective schools.
December 11, 2015
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/economic-empowerment/supreme-court-justice-scalia-is-wrong-about-affirmative-action

Supreme Court to Revisit Affirmative Action Ruling - What You Need to Know
The U.S. Supreme Court will again hear a challenge to affirmative action, and this time the justices could rule against
October 29, 2015
http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/workforce/supreme-court-revisit-affirmative-action-ruling-what-you-need-know

Donald Trump Reveals His Favorite Supreme Court Justice [Clarence Thomas]
But not before calling Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts "disgraceful."
12/12/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-supreme-court_566c7597e4b0fccee16ed3bd [with comments]

Marco Rubio Suggests His Supreme Court Would Roll Back Marriage Equality
"I will appoint Supreme Court justices that will interpret the Constitution as originally constructed."
12/13/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marco-rubio-meet-the-press-marriage_566d9098e4b0fccee16ee695 [with embedded video, and comments]

Church Probes Priest Accused Of Embezzling $1 Million For Gay Sex Exploits
Bronx Rev. Peter Miqueli resigned shortly after he was accused of spending the money on drugs and S&M relations with a male escort.
12/13/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/church-probes-priest-in-gay-sex-exploits_5669d38de4b0f290e52272fe [with comments]

The drug-smuggling case that brought anguish to Marco Rubio’s family
December 12, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-drug-smuggling-ring-that-brought-anguish-tomarco-rubios-family/2015/12/12/473f3a2c-9db6-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html [with embedded video report, and comments]

Here's Why This University Can Now Legally Ban Gays, Pregnant Women
Officials at Carson-Newman University said that these are simply their "religious principles."
12/11/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carson-newman-university-gay_566af8e6e4b0f290e522e405 [with embedded video report, and comments]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8z8SKMo2e4 [with comments]


*


Go To College Music Video (with FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA!)

Published on Dec 10, 2015 by CollegeHumor [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPDXXXJj9nax0fr0Wfc048g / http://www.youtube.com/user/collegehumor , http://www.youtube.com/user/collegehumor/videos ]

College is awesome. If you don’t believe us just ask the First Lady of the United States and SNL’s Jay Pharoah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1yAOK0nSb0 [comments disabled]


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Sarah Palin Goes All In On Trump's 'Muslim Ban'
Sarah Palin
December 9 at 12:21pm
Hey, Media, Try Again To Take Down Trump (and Cruz for Understanding the Trump Context)
Herd mentality running rampant with hypocritical and/or naive pundits trying to crush Donald Trump because he's committed to clobbering the bad guys, and putting the good guys first. Trump's temporary ban proposal is in the context of doing all we can to force the Feds to acknowledge their lack of strategy to deal with terrorism.
I said it back in 2009 and got beat up by the Left but understood by the commonsense Right, and I'll say it again: if it saves innocent lives, "profile away!" ( http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/palin-on-muslim-profiling-i-m-all-for-it ) When information shows someone comes to America after being in a radical Islamic stronghold, and embraces the Death Cult's ideology that mandates butchering the innocent - then we are right in calling for shucking the political correctness that is fundamentally transforming America, and finally putting the security of innocent Americans FIRST. Slow this down via Fed intervention (it's the Federal Government's first and foremost job - national security!) until and unless we have a plan in place to sufficiently vet, AND to utterly and completely destroy the terrorists. (Note to President: start with letting our United States Military, the greatest and most ethical military power on earth, do its job.)
The Feds are talking the talk, saying the same thing I said in '09 with their "If you see something, say something!" profiling directive. The Feds have always banned whomever they choose from entering the U.S., they have the ability, we've given them the right, and they have a track record proving it. Trump's idea isn't new. (President Carter banned Iranians, rounded up Iranian students, "profiled" and targeted a populace based on religious ideology in 1979-1980, and was PRAISED by the Left.)
"Because the feds have said repeatedly that they don't profile. But you certainly can. And hey, that gives them cover: We were just checking out a report of suspicious activity, Mohammad." ( http://www.laweekly.com/news/janet-napolitano-urges-you-to-become-a-terrorism-snitch-at-staples-center-profile-away-2384843 )
They have no plan to reform our flawed immigration vetting process. They cannot even utter the term Islamic Fundamentalism. They will not declare war on ISIS. While the media twists and turns words, conservatives who propose action to combat the real threat facing America are demonized while the namby-pamby milquetoast politicians get a pass to go along their unaccountable merry way.
A broken system allowed terrorists to come to our home and slaughter Americans. A bold, non-politician candidate calls for a pause in this flawed bureaucratic program so it can be fixed, to make sure it doesn't happen again. That's commonsense, which is why the media and spineless pundits attack it.
A private university President in Virginia encourages students to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms to defend themselves and their fellow man against terrorists. That's commonsense, which is why his courageous, wise advice is now attacked.
Come together, America, to focus on proactive solutions to protect our children from terrorism, after 7 years of neglect.
Ignore the White House as it spews talking point rhetoric accusing Trump (thus suggesting all who question their wrongheadedness) of being "unamerican." Yet it is their leader declaring his need to "fundamentally transform America" because he so wrongly sees our exceptional nation's foundation as fatally flawed. Now THAT is unamerican.
- Sarah Palin

[ https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin/posts/10153802376643588:0 ]
"If it saves innocent lives... I say, profile away!"
12/10/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sarah-palin-donald-trump-muslim-ban_566998a9e4b009377b23f784 [with comments]


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Russell Simmons To Trump: 'Stop The Bullsh*t'
Simmons implores his old friend to "stop fueling fires of hate."
12/09/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russell-simmons-to-trump-stop-the-bullsht_56686edae4b009377b2350d8 [with comments]


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Exclusive: US Neo-Nazi Leader Says Donald Trump ‘the Real Deal’


In 1985, William Daniel Johnson proposed amending the U.S. Constitution to strip anyone of their citizenship who was not “a non-Hispanic white of the European race.”
YouTube

By Charles Davis / teleSUR
9 December 2015 - 02:45 PM

Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman and reality TV star who has called Mexicans rapists and proposed barring Muslims from entering the United States, is currently leading every national poll for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination—and he has done more in a matter of months to advance and mainstream the ideas of neo-Nazis than self-proclaimed neo-Nazis have been able to accomplish in years.

“Donald Trump is the real deal,” said William Daniel Johnson, chairman of the openly white supremacist American Freedom Party. “This is a unique phenomenon in modern politics,” he told teleSUR. “It is a throwback to a previous era.”

For years, people like Johnson, an attorney curiously based in the cultural melting pot of Los Angeles, have been trying to do what Trump is doing today: Introduce extreme right-wing racism into the political mainstream, devoid of the traditional baggage of Nazi imagery and the Ku Klux Klan. On its website, the American Freedom Party appeals to the libertarian right, denouncing torture, “secret wars of aggression abroad” and “the abandonment of due process and habeas corpus” at home.

The party’s true reason for existence is obscured, but not all that hard to find. “The American Freedom Party is a party that represents the interests and issues of European-Americans,” it states at the bottom of its list of grievances. Its mission: “Defending our borders, preserving our language and promoting our culture” —white, European culture.

Donald Trump does not identify as a “white nationalist,” a softer, gentler term for the racial separatism and white supremacy of neo-Nazis, but according to Johnson what “he espouses is the closest thing to (white) nationalism that we have seen since the Jingoistic era of Theodore Roosevelt,” the former U.S. president who spoke of non-European life as “absolutely incompatible with the existence of civilization.”

“Virtually all pro-white nationalists are at least somewhat supportive of Donald Trump and most are even enthusiastic,” according to Johnson, who said he and his fellow fascists have set up a Trump Super PAC and are running radio ads in support of his candidacy. He doesn’t see the Republican frontrunner as competition, but rather as complementing what he is trying to do—he claims, in fact, that his own party “has seen a tremendous uptick in support because of Donald Trump.” For that reason,“Now is the time to help him … energize the masses,” he said. “It takes someone with the intestinal fortitude of a Donald Trump to lead the way.”

Trump is, of course, appealing to more than just avowed white nationalists.

“He is not governed by handlers,” said Johnson. “People like this approach and people trust him,” he said. “He does need to prep for speeches or concern himself with fallouts from gaffs. He is like Ron Paul in this respect, but where Ron Paul came across as a grumpy, eccentric grandpa, Donald Trump comes across as a wealthy, self-assured uncle.” Indeed, while Johnson’s father was a racist too, he “loved Mohammed Ali for the very same brashness that typifies Donald Trump.”

Ali aside, Trump is also more brazen than either Ron Paul—who Johnson met in 2010 when the former Republican congressman attended a campaign fundraiser at his house—or even Johnson himself, the chairman of an avowedly racist party.

In 2012, the American Freedom Party’s chairman ran for Congress in the state of Michigan, soft-selling his racism, albeit in the clunky manner befitting someone as viciously stupid as an American Nazi. “The Republican Party does not matter,” said a robocall for Johnson’s campaign that was left on voter’s answering machines. “The Democratic Party does not matter. But race matters. So does our environment.”

Johnson received 3,251 votes, or just under 1 percent, finishing behind all but a few write-in candidates.

Unlike Johnson, who comes across more like an accountant than a Fuhrer, Trump is a natural, confident and charismatic demagogue, one who similarly rails against the elites of both parties but doesn’t even try to polish his racism.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said in the speech announcing his candidacy back in June 2015. “They’re not sending you,” he told his overwhelmingly white audience. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”

Immigrants, from Mexico and elsewhere, commit fewer crimes than those born in the United States, but as Johnson pointed out, Trump’s appeal is his “attitude,” which spares him from the need to be concerned with such things as facts. His appeal is to the gut of an angry white man and his political rise pronounces the death of “America’s effeminate era,” said Johnson.

A few days after he bashed Mexicans, Trump was polling nationally at just over 10 percent. By the time he got around to calling for a ban on Muslim immigration until “the dangerous threat it poses” is fully understood, he was polling at around 30 percent, with twice the support of his next closest rival for the Republican nomination.

Whether he ultimately wins or not, said Johnson, “Look for white nationalism to gain widespread acceptance and even a degree of admiration in the coming decade.”

Related

Trump Like ‘Lynch Mob’ Leader, Says Muslim Group
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Trump-Like-Lynch-Mob-Leader-Says-Muslim-Group-20151207-0032.html

A Refugee's Story: From War in Syria to Poverty in the US
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/A-Refugees-Story-From-War-in-Syria-to-Poverty-in-the-US-20151104-0036.html

Copyright 2015 La nueva Televisión del Sur C.A. (TVSUR)

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/analysis/Exclusive-US-Neo-Nazi-Leader-Says-Donald-Trump-the-Real-Deal-20151209-0019.html [with comments]


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What Donald Trump and ISIS Have in Common


Donald Trump at the Sunshine Summit conference on Nov. 13, 2015 in Orlando, Fl.
Joe Raedle—Getty Images


My manager Deborah Morales and I with Trump several years ago, before he forgot there are Muslim athletes.
Provided by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The 2016 candidate has more in common with the terrorist group than he does with America

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
@kaj33
Dec. 9, 2015

The terrorist campaign against American ideals is winning. Fear is rampant. Gun sales are soaring. Hate crimes are increasing [ http://www.npr.org/2015/12/07/458811232/deepening-anti-islamic-mood-in-texas-rivals-post-sept-11-climate ]. Bearded hipsters are being mistaken for Muslims [ http://nypost.com/2015/10/12/bearded-hipsters-mistaken-for-isis-terrorists-in-sweden/ ]. And 83 percent of voters believe a large-scale terrorist attack [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/americans-more-fearful-of-a-major-terror-attack-in-the-us-poll-finds/2015/11/20/ec6310ca-8f9a-11e5-ae1f-af46b7df8483_story.html ] is likely here in the near future. Some Americans are now so afraid that they are willing to trade in the sacred beliefs that define America for some vague promises of security from the very people who are spreading the terror. “Go ahead and burn the Constitution — just don’t hurt me at the mall.” That’s how effective this terrorism is.

I’m not talking about ISIS. I’m talking about Donald Trump.

This is not hyperbole. Not a metaphor. Webster defines terrorism [ http://beta.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terrorism ] as “the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal; the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.”

If violence can be an abstraction — and it can; that’s what a threat is — the Trump campaign meets this definition. Thus, Trump is ISIS’s greatest triumph: the perfect Manchurian Candidate who, instead of offering specific and realistic policies, preys on the fears of the public, doing ISIS’s job for them. Even fellow Republican Jeb Bush acknowledged Trump’s goal is “to manipulate people’s angst and fears [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/how-far-will-trump-go/419340/ ].”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, however, defines terrorism [ http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/terrorism/pages/welcome.aspx ] as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” Now, we don’t require by law that our candidates tell the truth. They can retweet (as Trump did [ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/23/donald-trump/trump-tweet-blacks-white-homicide-victims/ ]) racist “statistics” from a white supremacist fictional organization that claimed 81% of murdered whites are victims of blacks, when the truth is 84% of whites are murdered by whites. They can claim (as Trump did [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/22/donald-trumps-outrageous-claim-that-thousands-of-new-jersey-muslims-celebrated-the-911-attacks/ ]) to have seen on TV thousands of Muslims in New Jersey cheering on 9/11, even though there is no evidence of this. They can say (as Trump did [ http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news-campaigns-presidential-campaigns/260420-trump-refugees-pouring-into-us ]) Syrian refugees are “pouring” into the country when only 2,000 have come (out of 4.3 million U.N.-registered refugees). Then, when caught lying (as Trump has been over and over), they can do what every belligerent child does: deny, deny, deny.

While Trump is not slaughtering innocent people, he is exploiting such acts of violence to create terror here to coerce support. As I have written before, his acts could be interpreted as hate crimes [ http://time.com/4052923/kareem-abdul-jabbar-hate-crimes/ ]. He sounds the shrill alarm of impending doomsday even though since 9/11, about 30 Americans a year have been killed in terrorist attacks worldwide — as The Atlantic pointed out [ http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/06/americans-are-as-likely-to-be-killed-by-their-own-furniture-as-by-terrorism/258156/ ], “roughly the same number as are crushed to death each year by collapsing furniture.” Trump’s irresponsible, inflammatory rhetoric and deliberate propagation of misinformation have created a frightened and hostile atmosphere that could embolden people to violence. He’s the swaggering guy in old Westerns buying drinks for everyone in the saloon while whipping them up for a lynching.

About 30,000 foreign fighters [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/27/world/middleeast/thousands-enter-syria-to-join-isis-despite-global-efforts.html ] have gone into Syria to join ISIS, thousands of them from Europe and at least 250 from the United States. What most of us in these bountiful countries can’t understand is how our young, raised with such opportunity, choose to abandon our values to embrace a culture of pitiless violence. Before going, many of these recruits spend much of their time on social media being brainwashed by propaganda videos. One 23-year-old woman, a devout Christian and Sunday school teacher, was recruited via Skype. The recruiter spent hours with the lonely woman teaching her the rituals of Islam. Maybe that’s because, according to some psychologists, the brain’s default setting is simply to believe [ https://blog.bufferapp.com/10-surprising-facts-about-how-our-brain-works ] because it takes extra work to analyze information.

The same process works for Trump’s supporters. They are impervious to facts or truth because their (understandable) frustration and anger at partisan greed and incompetence have fatigued them out of critical thinking. Like deranged newscaster Howard Beale in Network, they are mad as hell and they aren’t going to take it anymore. To express their outrage, they have rallied around a so-called “outsider” with no political experience, no detailed policies, and whacky ideas that subvert the very Constitution that he would be required to swear to uphold. Electing him would be like asking the clown at a child’s birthday party to start juggling chainsaws.

But understanding and even having sympathy for his followers’ feelings of political impotence doesn’t excuse their dangerous behavior. There is never an excuse for people blindly following a leader who consistently lies to them, who exaggerates threats and who proposes remedies that are unconstitutional. It’s shameful enough that Trump’s solutions run contrary to American values, but it’s more shameful that his followers refuse to acknowledge it. Such brainwashed behavior is demeaning to them and harmful to the country. Perhaps that’s why Trump enjoys the endorsement of several white supremacist groups [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-neo-nazi-support_56660b92e4b079b2818fcd36 ], one of which proclaimed on their website: “Heil Donald Trump—The Ultimate Savior” and called for him to “Make America White Again!” Don’t worry — he’s trying his hardest.

Trump’s latest enemy du jour are Muslims. He’s the schoolyard bully rallying classmates to make fun of the skinny kid with glasses. When President Obama said that “Muslim-Americans are our friends and our neighbors; our co-workers, our sports heroes,” Trump quickly tweeted: “What sport is he talking about, and who? [ https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/673741357190615040 ]” The press immediately provided him with a list, as well as photos of Trump with prominent Muslim-American sports figures, including Shaquille O’Neal, Mike Tyson, Muhammad Ali and, yes, me. What makes his statement even more insidious is the suggestion that, even if there were no Muslim sports heroes, Muslims would somehow be lesser people, less worthy. This cruel and dim-witted thinking is not the stuff presidents are made of.

Trump’s claims that he might support registering Muslims as well as call for a ban of Muslims from entering the United States — even U.S. citizens abroad — have elevated him to the level of a James Bond super-villain. And like those villains, he is doomed to failure. Even former Vice-President Dick Cheney condemned Trump [ http://time.com/4139998/dick-cheney-trump-muslims/ ]: his proposals go “against everything we stand for and believe.”

There’s absolutely no evidence that his unconstitutional ideas would help in any way—quite the opposite. Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson criticized [ http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/12/08/dhs-sec-jeh-johnson-trump-muslim-ban-illegal-unconstitutional-un-american/ ] Trump’s proposal as “irresponsible, probably illegal, unconstitutional and contrary to international law, un-American, and will actually hurt our efforts at homeland security.”

One of my favorite poems is “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats, in which he describes, in a chillingly obtuse and mystical way, a second coming — not of Christ, but of something much darker and sinister:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

When I read the description of the beast, it’s “gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,” I can’t help but think of Trump and his cynical strategy of using misinformation, half-truths and deception in order to gain access to a position that should only be held by those who would be repulsed by that strategy.

Indeed, what rough beast slouches toward Washington to be born?

TIME columnist Abdul-Jabbar is a six-time NBA champion and league Most Valuable Player. He is also a celebrated author, filmmaker and education ambassador whose life and career are the subject of Minority of One, a new documentary on HBO Sports.

© 2015 Time Inc.

http://time.com/4143003/kareem-abdul-jabbar-donald-trump-isis/ [with embedded video, and comments]


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Muhammad Ali Denounces Donald Trump's Plan To Shut Out Muslims

[ https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/674726577050030080 (with comments)]
His response came two days after Trump questioned whether Muslim sports heroes exist.
12/09/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muhammad-ali-donald-trump_5668bbcfe4b009377b23c600 [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Donald Trumps Claims 'Many Muslim Friends' Agree With Him

"They say, 'Donald, you brought something up to the fore that is so brilliant and so fantastic.'"

By Ed Mazza
12/09/2015 11:49 pm ET

Donald Trump said his widely criticized [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-hampshire-south-carolina-donald-trump_56662b61e4b072e9d1c75e7a ] plan to block Muslims from entering the United States [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-muslim-immigration-us_5665f75de4b072e9d1c7252b ] has support even from his Muslim friends.

"I'm doing good for the Muslims [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/politics/donald-trump-don-lemon-cnn-interview/index.html ]," Trump told CNN's Don Lemon on Wednesday night.

The GOP presidential frontrunner's strategy to halt all Muslim immigration has been blasted around the world -- and has even come under fire from party elders such as former Vice President Dick Cheney [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dick-cheney-donald-trump-muslims_5666345ae4b079b2818fe17c ].

However, Trump claimed to have support even from Muslims.

"Many Muslim friends of mine are in agreement with me. They say, 'Donald, you brought something up to the fore that is so brilliant and so fantastic,'" he said.

Trump bragged that "one of the most important people in the Middle East" told him he was doing a "great service."

He did not name that person.

Trump also insisted he was not a racist nor a bigot [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRDmWPAtHiA ], and said it didn't bother him if others described him that way.

"If that were true it would bother me tremendously," he said. "But it's so false, and honestly I don't hear it often."

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-muslim-friends_5668eb43e4b0f290e522021c [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2bB2ZEJU50 [as embedded; with comments]


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Donald Trump Interview CNN with Don Lemon. 09 December 2015

Published on Dec 9, 2015 by Almutaz Bur [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahVS0gOAlKw / http://www.youtube.com/user/mutazbur , http://www.youtube.com/user/mutazbur/videos ]

Donald Trump oh-so-graciously admitted tonight that he could probably see making “certain exceptions” to his proposal to completely ban all foreign Muslims from entering the United States.

Trump again defended his proposed ban to Don Lemon with the same “political correctness is bad and I am the best” schtick, but Lemon asked him about the “parameters” of his ban.

He asked, “What about foreign leaders who are from Muslim countries?”

Trump responded, “You don’t have a lot of foreign leaders that want to bring up the subject, and that’s why I’m getting so much credit, because I’m willing to bring up a subject that nobody else wants to bring up.”

He went on a tangent about self-funding his campaign (which first off, isn’t entirely true, and secondly, has absolutely nothing to do with what they were talking about), and Lemon brought him back to the issue at hand, bringing up Muslim diplomats and others coming into the United States.

And that’s when Trump said, “Certainly exceptions can be made. I mean, I’m not gonna say you can’t come into the country.”

Lemon brought up international athletes and such. Trump again said, “Certainly there will be exceptions made.”

No word yet on whether has a list of Muslims he deems acceptable to bring into the United States during this crisis period.

Donald Trump Finally Attacks Ted Cruz, Referencing His Cuban Heritage
"I do like Ted Cruz, but not a lot of evangelicals come out of Cuba."
12/12/2015
[...]
Several attendees at Trump's town hall event said in interviews before he spoke that they were torn between supporting Trump and Cruz, underscoring the risks each man faces going after the other too strongly.
Indeed, Trump was relatively reserved in his criticism, repeatedly telling the crowd he liked Cruz.
Asked at one point whether he would consider selecting Cruz as his running mate or nominating him to the Supreme Court, Trump was receptive.
"I would say that we would certainly have things in mind for Ted," he said.
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-ted-cruz_566bd6f9e4b0fccee16ec0c4 [with embedded video reports, and comments]

Cruz pledges relentless bombing to destroy ISIL

'We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out!'
12/05/15
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/cruz-isil-bombing-216454 [with comments]

Ted ‘Carpet-Bomb’ Cruz
Editorial
DEC. 11, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/opinion/ted-carpet-bomb-cruz.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahVS0gOAlKw [no comments yet; the included descriptive text taken from "Trump Graciously Admits to Don Lemon ‘Certain Exceptions’ Can Be Made to Muslim Entry Ban", http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-graciously-admits-to-don-lemon-certain-exceptions-can-be-made-to-muslim-entry-ban/ (with embedded video, and comments)] [also at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EonMD5FCvDI (with comments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJCvIbdurc4 (no comments yet), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz25sz361yM (no comments yet), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmOLb9Erh_M (with comment), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6N8l2y1vC4 (with comment), and, audio-only/fixed-image, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s2aZjEL4gY (with comments), and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4DbAv-TWe8 (no comments yet)]


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Shooting suspect: 'I am guilty' 'warrior for the babies'

The Rachel Maddow Show
12/9/15

Rachel Maddow reports that during his first in-person appearance in El Paso County District Court, Robert Dear, charged in the deadly shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood, declared his guilt and described himself as "a warrior for the babies." Duration: 3:50

Suspect in Colorado Planned Parenthood Rampage Declares ‘I’m Guilty’ in Court
DEC. 9, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/us/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting.html [with embedded video]

Planned Parenthood Shooting Suspect Says He's A 'Warrior For The Babies' In Courtroom Outburst
"I'm guilty, there will be no trial," Robert Dear yelled during a hearing.
12/09/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robert-dear-planned-parenthood-shooting_56689c3ce4b0f290e521d58e [with embedded video, and comments]

The Terrorism Double Standard
12/09/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/qasim-rashid/the-terrorism-double-stan_b_8723512.html [with comments]

Dear Media: Stop Using the Term 'Radicalized' Unless You Apply It to White Christian Extremists, Too

12/10/2015 Updated: 12/11/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelangelo-signorile/dear-media-stop-using-the-term-radicalized-unless-you-apply-it-to-white-christian-extremists-too_b_8771512.html [with comments]

©2015 NBCNews.com

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/shooting-suspect--i-am-a-warrior-for-the-babies-585016387527 [no comments yet] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-december-9-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iEo_aH6PPE (with comments)]


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Judge Denies Texas Request To Block Entry Of Nine Syrian Refugees


[ http://www.lonestarproject.net/abbott-cover-uncovered ]

This is the second attempt by Texas to seek immediate court help to halt the refugees.

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garza
12/09/2015 08:35 pm ET

AUSTIN, Texas, Dec 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. federal court judge dismissed a request by Texas shortly after it was filed on Wednesday seeking a restraining order to block the imminent entry into the state of nine Syrian refugees, saying the evidence presented was "largely speculative hearsay."

This is the second attempt by Texas to seek immediate court help to halt the refugees, with Texas saying the U.S. government had not met its legal obligation to consult with local officials about the resettlement.

The Texas action came after U.S. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump touched off a global firestorm by saying that Muslims should be denied entry into the United States.

"The (Texas) Commission has failed to show by competent evidence that any terrorists actually have infiltrated the refugee program, much less that these particular refugees are terrorists intent on causing harm," U.S District Judge David Godbey said in his decision.

The results of this case could determine whether the governors of more than 30 states will be able to go through with plans to bar the local resettlement of Syrian refugees.

A previous attempt for a temporary restraining order was dropped last week by Texas. The move came hours after the U.S. Justice Department filed a brief at the U.S. District Court in Dallas saying the federal government and not the states sets U.S. policy on immigration.

Texas said in that case the government had provided the information it requested on the group, which was two families of six each who arrived in Dallas and Houston on Monday.

After the November 13 attacks in Paris for which the group Islamic State claimed responsibility, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, was one of the first governors to seek to block on security grounds the resettlement of Syrians in their states.

"It is essential that a judge consider halting the Syrian refugee process, at least on a temporary basis, to ensure refugees coming to the United States will be vetted in a way that does not compromise the safety of Americans and Texans," Abbott said in a statement.

A family of eight Syrian refugees, including six children ages 6 to 15, is due to arrive in Houston on Thursday, along with a 26-year-old Syrian woman whose mother resides in the area, the Justice Department said last Friday in a court filing.

The Justice Department said in that filing the Refugee Act of 1980 requires the government to consult on a regular basis with states about the sponsorship process and distribution among states.

"It does not create any obligation to provide advance consultation regarding individual resettlement decisions," it said in the filing.

A federal judge is expected to hear a request from Texas in the next few weeks seeking an injunction to halt the resettlements.

A Texas House committee will hear testimony on Dec. 15 on Abbott's plans to halt Syrian refugee resettlement in the state.

Since fiscal 2011, 243 Syrian refugees have resettled in Texas, the U.S. filing said, making it one of the main U.S. relocation sites since the Syrian civil war erupted about four and a half years ago.

(Editing by Sandra Maler, Toni Reinhold)

© 2015 Thomson Reuters

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-syrian-refugees-block_5668d4a2e4b009377b23ce75 [with comments]


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Protesters disturb Mass at Catholic churches in Las Vegas

By: Jacqui Heinrich, Gina Lazara
Posted: 12:32 AM, Dec 10, 2015
Updated: 2:37 PM, Dec 10, 2015

Parishioners are terrified after protesters have disturbed Mass at several Catholic churches across the valley.

The group, Koosha Las Vegas, includes members who clearly identify themselves as former Muslims turned Christians. They've been entering churches during services, shouting at Catholics that they need to repent now or else, and filming the acts and posting them on the Internet.

The videos make clear the group has been active on the Las Vegas Strip and several other places around the valley. They're often seen with large signs and megaphones. The difference now is that they're going into houses of worship and causing disturbances. Parishioners tell Action News it's made them fear for their lives.

"Repent, and turn to Jesus Christ. Pope is a Satan! Pope is a Satan! Mary statue is a Satan!" the man behind the camera can be heard shouting.

The videos are taken by the very people passing out the pamphlets and shouting during mass in at least 3 incidents confirmed by police. The Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas confirmed to Action News "multiple disturbances at several of their properties."

"Stop worshipping to the idols! Idols not going to save you! You need Jesus Christ! You need the father, the son, and the holy spirit," a man shouts to a group of worshippers during Mass at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church on December 5.

Parishioners we talked to say they were initially scared because of the recent climate of terrorism, and the group makes clear many members are Muslims turned Christian. Although they're preaching the word of Christ to other Christians, to be told "your religion is not going to save you", clearly audible on video, they said was unsettling.

It's not just happening at church. The same group posted a protest outside Bishop Gorman Catholic School on Dec. 2. In that video, a man can be seen telling students, "If you look at the catechism of the Catholic church and you look at scripture, you know why god hates this religious system."

The scene was so unsettling to some parents that many tried to dismantle it, honking their horns in the video. The man behind the camera can be heard saying "The demons are angry guys. The demons are angry."

Las Vegas police tell Action News they did take a close look at the incidents and they do not appear to be related to any terrorist threat. They also said no arrests were made because technically no crime was committed.

The Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas says they are working with police to educate clergy across the valley about what has recently happened.

Channel 13 Action News Crime & Safety Expert Randy Sutton weighed in on the incidents to say how fearful our community should be after an act like this.

Sutton says, first of all, he disagrees with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department saying there was no crime committed. He says the men violated a Nevada statute, "disturbing a religious meeting." Sutton says they should absolutely be charged with a crime.

"It's a misdemeanor crime but it is a crime nonetheless, it's on the books for just types of situations like this. There are statues that could be utilized to end this type of behavior," said Sutton.

Sutton also says, if the men were asked to leave and they refused, they could be charged with trespassing too. The expert says this situation should be taken very seriously and it could have easily ended up violent. Sutton says, in light of recent terror attacks, every person in the church had a very good reason to be concerned.

"This is really unusual behavior. This isn't something that happens all the time. So the fact that it even happened, would be enough to cause alarm and legitimately so," he said.

STATEMENT FROM CATHOLIC LEAGUE FOR RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL RIGHTS

Bill Donohue comments on church invasions in Las Vegas:

Catholic churches in Las Vegas are being stormed by an organized band of crazed evangelicals known as Koosha Las Vegas. They invade churches during Mass, shouting at parishioners to repent. "Pope is Satan!" "Mary is a Satan!" "Stop worshipping the idols!" "Idols are not going to save you!" "You need Jesus Christ!" Police have confirmed at least three incidents.

Catholic school students are also being harassed. "If you look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church and you look at the Scriptures," the bigots scream, "you know why God hates this religious system."

The cops have thus far not made any arrests, claiming no law has been broken. They are mistaken.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees religious liberty. If that means anything, it means that people of faith must be free to practice their faith. Moreover, these Nazi-like tactics are prohibited by the Nevada Constitution, the second ordinance of which reads as follows: "That perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be secured, and no inhabitant of said state shall ever be molested, in person or property, on account of his or her mode of religious worship." There are also laws against trespassing, as well as hate crimes statutes.

We are asking the Office of The Sheriff at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to arrest any person who storms a Catholic church, or any house of worship. They need to be prosecuted with the full force of the law.

Contact the Sheriff: [e-mail]

Copyright 2015 Scripps Media, Inc.

http://www.ktnv.com/news/protesters-disturb-mass-at-catholic-churches-across-valley [with embedded video report]


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Protesters who stormed Las Vegas-area Catholic churches speak out

By: Jacqui Heinrich
Posted: 11:51 PM, Dec 10, 2015
Updated: 1:56 PM, Dec 11, 2015

Members of a collective shown in online videos storming several Las Vegas-area Catholic churches spoke to 10News' sister station in Las Vegas about the message they are trying to convey.

The group of self-proclaimed ministers says they prefer not to be referred to as a group at all, just "brothers in Christ." They also said the YouTube page Koosha Las Vegas, which features their videos, belongs to only one member of the group and does not speak for the whole body.

Ron Cardiel, the street minister who spoke to KTNV on behalf of the group, said while they didn't intend to make anyone fear for their lives, anyone living without "the true Jesus" should be afraid.

The videos in question show a group of men entering Catholic churches during mass, telling parishioners they need to repent and turn to Jesus or their religion will not save them.

Several churchgoers called police after they said they feared for their lives in light of recent terror attacks, and the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas confirmed multiple disturbances at several of their properties. Police confirmed at least three disturbances, including events at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church, St. Viator, and Bishop Gorman.

During a video, the man behind the camera can be heard loudly saying, "Repent and turn to Jesus Christ! Pope is a Satan! Pope is a Satan! Mary statue is a Satan!" as the men interrupt church services and distribute pamphlets.

Cardiel said, "If they're going to be afraid, I'd be afraid of dying without Jesus Christ, and dying in their sins."

He said the group never intended to scare anyone and always leaves when asked, adding that they typically enter the churches before mass begins so as not to interrupt services. He also said the material, however disturbing to some listeners, is something he feels compelled to share.

"They are in jeopardy, OK, they need to be right with God, come to the Biblical Christ. So the language used there is correct. The pope is a Satan, I don't know if he (the man in the video) has an accent, a language barrier, but the Pope is an false prophet," Cardiel said.

In response to people feeling threatened by the display in light of recent terror attacks, Cardiel said, "That's understandable considering what's been going on, but the difference between us and them is we worship the one true God and God is a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and of great kindness."

Cardiel did not clearly state whether he and his fellow ministers would continue entering churches despite the reaction from many people within the Catholic community.

Copyright 2015 Scripps Media, Inc.

http://www.10news.com/news/u-s-world/protesters-who-stormed-las-vegas-area-catholic-churches-speak-out-121115 [with embedded video report]


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Protesters disrupt Catholic Masses in Las Vegas — VIDEO

Las Vegas police Officer Mike Brambila speaks with reporters about a string of protests by the group Koosha Las Vegas during Mass services.
(Photo by Wesley Juhl/Las Vegas Review-Journal)


Steve Meriweather, a security consultant for the Diocese of Las Vegas, advises valley church-goers not to confront protesters if they encounter them during Mass.
(Photo by Wesley Juhl/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

By Wesley Juhl
Las Vegas Review-Journal
Posted December 11, 2015 - 4:18pm

In response to a string of protests that have disrupted Mass services across the valley, the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas wonders why we all can't just get along.

The Christian group Koosha Las Vegas began confronting parishioners in October and have hit about three churches, Metro officer Mike Brambila said at a press conference Friday.

The group has posted videos [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmvayUClDIhpo9V0201temw/videos ] of encounters on its YouTube channel [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmvayUClDIhpo9V0201temw ]. This week one showed members walking into a Mass, clad in jeans and T-shirts with slogans such as "Jesus is your only hope" and "repent or perish." After handing out pamphlets, one protester began shouting over an exasperated priest.

"Pope is a Satan!," the man shouts. "Mary statue is a Satan, is a dead religion. Stop worshiping to the idols!"

In the videos, Koosha Las Vegas members object to mainstays of the Catholic religion, including the Pope, the Virgin Mary and delivery of the Eucharist by a priest.

"I'm going to break this statue one day in Jesus' name," the same man says in another video posted on Nov. 1.

The Review-Journal reached out to the group for comment, but received no reply. The protesters, men in their 20s and 30s, appear in other videos holding large signs and preaching at UNLV, area high schools and the Las Vegas Strip. It isn't clear how many people are in the group.

Brambila refused to say whether the protesters had been identified, citing an ongoing investigation. He said Metro's Community Oriented Policing units are working closely with the Diocese on the matter. Police did not indicate there have been any assaults or that any property has been vandalized.

If caught, the men will likely face misdemeanor charges for disrupting a church service, although other charges, including trespassing, might apply as well, police said.

Friday's press conference came a day after the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights called on supporters to demand increased protection from Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo.

"The cops have thus far not made any arrests, claiming no law has been broken," Catholic League President Bill Donohue wrote in a prepared statement. "We are asking the Office of The Sheriff at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department to arrest any person who storms a Catholic church, or any house of worship. They need to be prosecuted with the full force of the law."

Steve Meriweather, a security consultant for the Diocese, said the church's main concern is keeping parishioners safe.

Koosha Las Vegas' message might be offensive to Catholic church-goers, but Meriweather said it's best to stay calm, document the experience on your phone and call the police if necessary if it happens to you.

"It could incite you or anger you," he said. "That's why we're sending that message not to confront them."

He said the protesters have a right to hold different beliefs, but they shouldn't be disrupting services.

Especially so close to the Christmas holiday.

"The message is that we all need to get along," he said.

Copyright ©GateHouse Media, Inc. 2015

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/protesters-disrupt-catholic-masses-las-vegas-video [with embedded video, and comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4re5e3z6MI [as embedded; with comments]; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QvBriRSess [as embedded; with comments]


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String of Protests Disrupt Catholic Church Services in Vegas

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DEC. 11, 2015, 10:15 P.M. E.S.T.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Police and church officials in Las Vegas are investigating a recent series of disruptive protests at Roman Catholic parishes that they say put worshippers on edge and led to plans for increased patrols around churches this weekend.

No injuries, damage or arrests resulted from demonstrations reported Oct. 31 and Dec. 5 at churches downtown, just off the Las Vegas Strip and several miles east of the Strip, police Officer Michael Rodriguez said Friday. There was also a protest at a Catholic high school on Dec. 2.

"All of these appear to be linked," Rodriguez said. "It appears to be the same tactic — going into the churches during services, handing out fliers and making inflammatory statements."

Each time, the men protesting were gone when police arrived.

Video uploaded to YouTube shows a few men, including two wearing T-shirts reading "Trust Jesus" and "Repent or Perish," walking down a church aisle, handing paper religious tracts to parishioners, declaring Christ as savior and shouting derogatory comments about the pope and Catholic icons.

The Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas confirmed what it called "multiple disturbances" at several locations.

"This group appears to be a Christian group trying to disrupt Catholic services," a diocese statement said.

The incidents were being investigated as a possible violation of a Nevada law making it a misdemeanor to disrupt religious meetings, said police Officer Mike Brambila, a member of a department community outreach unit.

"These persons are obviously disrespecting these houses of worship" and disrupting parishioners' ability to worship peacefully, he said.

Officers probably won't be posted at churches but would increase patrols nearby, Brambila said.

A video identifies the men as members of a group using the name Koosha Las Vegas. It wasn't immediately clear if the entity has a leader or spokesperson. No phone number or address was found for a man interviewed by television station KTNV as a representative of the group and a street preacher.

Troy Martinez, pastor of the East Vegas Christian Center and leader of a network of 104 churches active in community affairs in and around Las Vegas, said he did not recognize the man's name.

Brambila and Rodriguez didn't identify the men, whose faces are visible on video.

Diocese security consultant Steve Meriwether called the incidents "very unsettling" for church members. He said church leaders told parishioners not to confront demonstrators but to call police and record any similar incidents on cellphone video.

"We want people to be vigilant," Meriwether said. "Our churches are open to people, whatever they believe, as long as they're respectful. Imagine someone coming into your home and telling you what to do."

© 2015 Associated Press

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/11/us/ap-us-church-protests-vegas.html [also at e.g. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/12/12/string-protests-keep-las-vegas-catholic-church-worshippers-on-edge/ ]


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Meet The Mega-Donors Funding Donald Trump's Islamophobic Allies


Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are two of the biggest Republican Party donors sought by the party's presidential aspirants.
Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

Trump loves to cite their discredited research about how most Muslims want Sharia law in the U.S.

By Paul Blumenthal
12/10/2015 05:01 am ET | Updated [later] 12/10/2015

WASHINGTON -- When billionaire eccentric and Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump called for banning all Muslims from entering the United States of America [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-muslim-immigration-us_5665f75de4b072e9d1c7252b ], he used what appeared to be data backing up the fears his policy was designed to alleviate.

In his announcement, Trump pointed to a Center for Security Policy poll finding that 25 percent of Muslims “agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad” and 51 percent “agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Sharia.” The findings of this opt-in online poll, however, had already been widely discredited [ http://bridge.georgetown.edu/new-poll-on-american-muslims-is-grounded-in-bias-riddled-with-flaws/ ].

The Center for Security Policy, headed by the neoconservative Reagan-era Department of Defense official Frank Gaffney, is a node in a broad network of groups ginning up Islamophobia with conspiracy theories of a takeover of the federal government by the Muslim Brotherhood and the imposition of Sharia law across the United States. Gaffney had also called for a total ban on Muslim entry into the United States prior to Trump’s endorsement of the policy.

By citing the bogus data from Gaffney’s group, Trump helped shine a light on how the broader Islamophobic network [ https://islamophobianetwork.com/ ] works. Bogus statistics and trumped-up conspiracy theories are touted by mainstream figures to increase alarm and fear about Muslims.

Polls show Islamophobia to be a widely held position [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/terrifying-new-poll-shows-the-appeal-of-trumps-islamophobia-20151208 ] among Trump’s voters, and an examination of the funding behind groups stoking the fear shows that a portion of the Republican Party donor class agrees. Donors to the network include mainstream Republican Party donors, major conservative nonprofit trusts and nonprofit donor-advised funds that help conservative donors obscure their contributions to other groups.

Two reports from the liberal Center for American Progress, one released in 2011 [ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/report/2011/08/26/10165/fear-inc/ ] and an update in 2015 [ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/report/2015/02/11/106394/fear-inc-2-0/ ], titled "Fear, Inc.," explained how these groups have operated and exposed their largest donors. The network of groups the report said were involved in the Islamophobia industry included the Center for Security Policy, the Clarion Fund, Middle East Forum, Jihad Watch, the David Horowitz Freedom Center and a handful of others.

Before his death in 2014, Republican mega-donor Richard Mellon Scaife was one of the biggest donors to the network through donations from his charitable foundations. According to CAP’s reports, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Carthage Foundation and Allegheny Foundation combined to donate nearly $10.5 million to Islamophobic groups from 2001 to 2012, including $3.4 million to the Center for Security Policy. Scaife, the founding funder of the modern American right, also contributed $500,000 to 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s super PAC in 2012.

The Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation is another huge source of money for the Islamophobia network, with $6.5 million in donations from 2001-2012. The foundation, like the Scaife foundations, is a bedrock funder of right-wing causes and the conservative movement. The group’s board includes Washington Post columnist George Will and North Carolina mega-donor Art Pope. It has supplied more than $1 million to the Center for Security Policy.

The largest donors to Islamophobic groups are the related nonprofit donor-advised funds Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust. Donors Capital Fund and Donors Trust allow conservatives looking to contribute to their favored causes to put money in a fund and then direct that money at their own discretion. This structure promises that the donor’s contributions will only ever show up on tax forms as coming from Donors Capital Fund or Donors Trust.

More than $27 million in money held in the two funds has gone to Islamophobic groups from 2001-2012, according to CAP’s reports. The largest donation made was a $17 million contribution from a single anonymous donor to the Clarion Fund to pay for the distribution of the the anti-Muslim film "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against The West" in 2008. Gaffney sits on the board of The Clarion Fund.

It's not clear who is behind that $17 million contribution, but it could be casino billionaire and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson. The New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/nyregion/in-police-training-a-dark-film-on-us-muslims.html?pagewanted=all ] reported in 2012 that Adelson was involved in financing the distribution of "Obsession" as a newspaper insert during the 2008 elections. Adelson also reportedly hands out copies of the movie [ http://www.haaretz.com/adelson-in-israel-on-a-mission-for-charity-influence-1.227370 ] to participants in Taglit Birthright, a program he funds sending American Jews on an all-expenses-paid trip to Israel.

In the 2012 election, Adelson and his family contributed more than $100 million to super PACs supporting Republicans. Most Republican candidates have made a pilgrimage to his Vegas hotel to meet with him. Rubio is said to have courted him through weekly phone calls [ http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/09/sheldon-adelson-is-ready-to-buy-the-presidency.html ]. And every Republican presidential candidate, save Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), attended a Washington, D.C., event hosted by Adelson’s Republican Jewish Coalition on Dec. 3. The next Republican presidential debate is slated to be held at Adelson’s Venetian hotel and casino in Vegas.

Adelson is not the only Republican Party mega-donor who has contributed to Islamophobic groups.

Over the years, major Republican donors, including hedge fund managers Paul Singer and Seth Klarman, financier Roger Hertog and San Francisco Giants owner Charles Johnson have donated to the network. Singer’s family foundation donated $50,000 to the Center for Security Policy in 2003. The Klarman Family Foundation donated $45,000 to the Center for Security Policy between 2007 and 2009, and an additional $50,000 to the Middle East Forum in 2011. Since 2011, the Hertogs' family foundation has contributed $25,000 to the Center for Security Policy, $25,000 to the David Horowitz Freedom House and $20,000 to the Middle East Forum. Johnson’s foundation contributed $5,000 to the David Horowitz Freedom House in 2011.

A major super PAC donor and campaign bundler, Singer announced his support for Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) presidential bid in November. The Boston-based Klarman has contributed $100,000 to the super PAC supporting New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and $25,000 to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s super PAC. Hertog has spread his money around to super PACs supporting Bush, Rubio, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), former New York Gov. George Pataki and former candidate Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Meanwhile, Johnson has donated $1 million to Bush’s super PAC.

Other major Republican donors appeared on a list of 2013 donors to the Center for Security Policy acquired by reporter Eli Clifton [ https://www.scribd.com/doc/240859080/Center-for-Security-Policy-2013-Schedule-B ]. John Templeton, a major conservative Christian donor who passed away in 2015, donated $600,000. Templeton had backed former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum’s 2012 presidential bid and was a generous donor to the Republican Party. Foster Friess, Santorum’s main super PAC money man, chipped in $10,000 to the center. Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, a major bundler who donated $100,000 to Bush’s super PAC in 2015, contributed $50,000 to the group. New York businessman Ira Rennert, a multimillion-dollar donor to the super PAC that supported Romney, also gave $50,000.

For years, the groups these donors funded have pushed a narrative that Islam is a uniquely violent ideology at war with the West, and that its most radical followers had established themselves at the highest levels of government and influence.

Gaffney's group has claimed that Huma Abedin, an aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist were both plants from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. (The latter assertion regarding Norquist led to Gaffney being blacklisted from the Conservative Political Action Convention [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/15/144098/frank-gaffney-banned-from-cpac/ ].) A number of groups have also called for widespread surveillance of Muslims, the closure of mosques and the application of public pressure to prevent new mosques from opening.

These conspiracies and policies often bubbled up into political discourse with the help of Republican members of Congress like Reps. Louie Gohmert [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/26/louie-gohmert-muslim-brotherhood_n_3162677.html ] (R-Texas) and Peter King [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/congressman-wants-all-out-surveillance-on-muslims-blames-mor ] (R-N.Y.) and former Reps. Michele Bachmann [ http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/17/bachmann-deep-penetration-in-the-halls-of-our-u-s-government-by-the-muslim-brotherhood/ ], Allen West [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/allen-west-muslims_n_3422471.html ] and Sue Myrick [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/oct/15/gop-seeks-muslim-spy-probe/ ]. Newt Gingrich also promoted Islamophobia [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/singling-out-islam-newt-gingrichs-pandering-attacks/252300/ ] during his 2012 presidential campaign.

Now these groups and their beliefs have broken into the mainstream of Republican Party presidential politics. Not only has Trump endorsed a ban on Muslims' entry to the United States, but both Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared at an anti-Iran rally co-sponsored by Gaffney's Center for Security Policy in September. And all of the candidates have pushed for some kind of change to the admittance of Syrian refugees to the U.S., including bans on Muslim refugees, a policy promoted earlier in 2015 by Gaffney.

Ken Gude, a senior fellow with the national security team at the Center for American Progress and a co-author of the "Fear, Inc." reports, says that prior to this year it seemed that the Islamophobia movement was largely confined to the fringe of conservative circles.

“Now, we see it breaking out into the mainstream and certainly Trump is the biggest example of it,” Gude said, also citing other public reactions following the Nov. 13 Paris attacks. “I don’t think we can say this is a fringe phenomenon any longer.”

Related

GOP Candidates Distance Themselves From Trump But Embrace His Favorite Islamophobe

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) talks with Frank Gaffney after addressing the South Carolina National Security Action Summit on March 14, 2015.
Three of them are even involved with noted bigot Frank Gaffney's conference.
12/10/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-gop-rivals-islamophobe_5669c3f6e4b0f290e5225902

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-islamophobia_5668a9d7e4b080eddf56e951 [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Petition calling for Donald Trump to be banned from Britain becomes the most popular EVER but tycoon insists the UK is ignoring its 'massive Muslim problem'

More than 450,000 people have signed the petition calling for Mr Trump to be banned from the UK, the most ever recorded on the government website
[the petition itself at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/114003 (as I make this post, 562,106 signatures)]
• Tycoon says UK MPs 'should be thanking me' over Muslim comments
• He tweeted: 'The UK is trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem. Everybody is wise to what is happening, very sad! Be honest'
• 'The UK politicians should be thanking me instead of pandering to political correctness. Government elites continue to be out of touch with the facts on the ground. Great leaders listen to and support law enforcement officials - they don't bury their head in the sand.'
• 400,000 have signed a petition demanding he is banned from Britain
• When asked about it he said: 'They don't know what they're getting into'
• Trump stripped of Scottish business ambassador role and honorary degree
• British Muslims react with fury and call controversial tycoon 'another Hitler'
• See more on Donald Trump's campaign at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/trump
10 December 2015
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3353967/Donald-Trump-says-British-critics-pandering-political-correctness-400-000-call-banned-UK-Muslim-hate-speech.html [with embedded video reports, and (over 7,000) comments]


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Donald Trump wins more support in US as petition to ban him from the UK passes half million signatures

Donald Trump stands with law enforcement officers in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
British ambassador to Washington delivers withering rebuke to US Republican presidential candidate over claims that Britain is struggling with radicalised Muslims
• Petition to ban Trump from UK becomes most popular ever
• FDR's family criticise Trump over internment comparison
[ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12045066/Franklin-Delano-Roosevelts-family-attack-Donald-Trump-over-Muslim-ban-policy.html ]
• Trump cancels Israel trip after dozens of MPs accused him of racism
• Dubai firm strips Trump's name from golf complex
• Trump says UK should thank him after losing Scottish degree title
• Allister Heath: Trump's pantomime villainy hinders war on Islamic terror
[ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12042793/Donald-Trumps-crude-villainy-will-make-it-harder-to-fight-Islamic-terror.html ]
• Meet the voters who support Trump
[ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12042501/Meet-the-voters-who-support-Donald-Trump.html ]
• British ambassador delivers withering rebuttal to Trump
[ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12045102/Our-man-in-Washington-delivers-withering-rebuttal-to-somebody-called-Donald-Trump.html ]
11 Dec 2015
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12044983/Donald-Trump-muslims-New-Hampshire-Muhammad-Ali-UK-petition-latest-news-live.html [with embedded video reports]


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Senior is banned from posing with his 'favorite' gun for yearbook photo - and now his father wants the school principal FIRED

Photo feud: North Dakota high school senior Josh Renville has submitted this portrait for his yearbook that shows him with an assault-style gun posing in front of an American flag.

Dad goes to war: Josh's father, Charlie Renville (left), is now calling for the firing of Fargo North Principal Andy Dahlen (right).

Facebook screed: Renville, who is seen in this photo posing with an array of dead birds, took to Facebook Tuesday and penned an angry tirade claiming that Dahlen is a lefty who doesn't believe in gun rights:
'So this is the state of freedom in our Nation today! Fargo North High school has rejected this picture for Josh's year book ......because in their words it promotes violence and breaks federal and state law, really! How? Well I call Andy Dahlen (head principle of North High), he is trying to state that people can not bring guns on school property, in his words "it's the law".
'Andy it's a picture. No different then the pictures in the school library of soldiers during anyone of our nations wars. Or what about hunting books? Do those pictures that violate federal law too? And what about schools in the surrounding area that have Trap and Skeet teams do those kids and their pictures break the law? How about their Letterman jackets with little rifles on them, does that break the law? And how does it promote violence? What item is illegal in this picture? I see a kid that loves his nation, loves free speech and loves the second the 2nd Amendment. The rifle is a rifle he built and it is his favorite rifle.
'Dahlen just doesn't like rifles, he doesn't believe in or support the second Amendment. He is a far left progressive who is using his position to promote his political agenda and push it on our children.(On a side note which is against school district policy) He has singled out my family over the years because of our traditional conservative values and beliefs!
'In my opinion he is out of control and morally bankrupt person who has been in his position way to long! He seems to have absolute power at Fargo North High school, and tries to bully teachers, students and families that disagree with him! Enough is enough he needs to be fired! So begins the fight for freedom....... we are only as strong as our weakest link!'
• North Dakota senior Josh Renville has submitted a photo for his yearbook that shows him with a gun posing in front of the US flag
• Fargo North High School has rejected the photo saying it violates school policy
• Principal Andy Dahlen said the school does not allow guns on its property nor does it allow 'students to wear clothing that depicts guns or weapons'
• Renville's father, who is an Air National Guardsman, took to Facebook claiming Dahlen is a far-left progressive who does not believe in gun rights
10 December 2015
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3354994/Father-senior-s-banned-posing-favorite-assault-style-gun-yearbook-photo-wants-school-principal-FIRED-claiming-s-against-Second-Amendment.html [with comments]


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Police: Edgewater man arrested with guns may have planned to attack government offices


Kirk Green in a mugshot after arrest in Maryland.
Edgewater Police Department
[ http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/11/1459319/-Grocery-shopper-alerted-police-to-a-man-s-strange-behavior-and-may-have-stopped-a-mass-shooting (with comments)]


Kirk Green, 56, of Edgewater, was charged with nearly a half dozen weapons offenses after police said he was found with guns and plans to attack government offices.
(Courtesy Photo / HANDOUT)

Anne Arundel police thwart potential mass shooting

By Tim Pratt
December 10, 2015, 6:07 PM

When Anne Arundel County police responded Saturday to a grocery story in Edgewater, officers said they found a man who was threatening people's lives and claimed to "own" the government.

Officers detained the man, 56-year-old Kirk Green of Edgewater, and later found guns, ammunition and plans to attack government agencies in his vehicle, police said.

Police said Green had circled locations on a map, and a journal was found in which he said he planned to "take back the land."

Green on Thursday was ordered held without bond on nearly a half-dozen charges, and law enforcement says a potential mass shooting was prevented.

"These types of situations are very serious," said county police spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure. "We all know in today's day and age, with current events in San Bernardino and the (Colorado) movie theater shooting, that it's a serious issue and we're going to handle it that way."

The investigation began about 5 p.m. Saturday, when officers were called to the Giant grocery store on Lee Airpark Drive for a complaint of a man talking to himself while shopping.

When an officer spoke with the man, later identified as Green, he stated "I own you and the government," police said.

Green also told the officer "I can kill people. I can kill everyone," according to charging documents.

A shopper approached the officer and said Green had threatened to stab and shoot him, along with others in the area, police said.

Green was taken into custody and transported to Anne Arundel Medical Center for an evaluation, police said. While there, he told police he had a rifle and a shotgun, police said.

Investigators learned Green was prohibited from possessing a gun due to a conviction in 2009 for illegal possession of a firearm.

Officers obtained a search warrant for Green's home in the 3500 block of Cedar Drive, where a housemate told police Green suffers from a mental health issue and may keep weapons in his vehicle, charging documents state.

Officers went back to the Giant parking lot and seized Green's vehicle, a silver Nissan Versa.

Police searched Green's vehicle Monday and discovered a Marlin 30-30 lever-action rifle and a Benelli 12-gauge shotgun. Investigators also found boxes of ammunition, earplugs and a brown leather briefcase.

Inside the briefcase investigators found numerous handwritten pages and documents containing government officials' private information, telephone numbers, office addresses and a log of attempts to contact those government officials, police said. The officials weren't named in charging documents.

Green told police he wrote the papers.

A handwritten journal also was found, police said, in which Green wrote he planned to "take back the land."

Green also wrote: "Keep track of targets = everything dead – NSA, CIA, FBI, Secret Service, DOD, IRS, Ssec, NASA, State Dept., White House, MD State Attorney, House of Rep, Navy," charging documents state.

There were multiple written accounts of Green attempting to contact government agencies, police said, and "take back territories" he believed belong to him.

In addition, a map book was found in which Green had circled multiple locations and cities, police said. Those locations and cities weren't named in charging documents and Frashure said that information wasn't immediately available.

Handwritten plans for the purchase of firearms were found, too, police said, plus receipts for the firearms and ammunition recovered from Green's vehicle.

Green was charged with two counts of illegal possession of a firearm, illegal possession of ammunition and two counts of possession of a firearm by a person with a mental disorder, according to online court records.

District Court Judge Shaem C.P. Spencer on Thursday ordered Green held without bond. No attorney is listed for Green in online court records.

Frashure and Anne Arundel State's Attorney Wes Adams credited the shopper who contacted police about Green, and the patrol officers' following up on the threats, with stopping a potential shooting.

"They could have prevented a greater tragedy from happening," Adams said.

The police department's Homeland Security and Intelligence unit, which works with the FBI and federal bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, is handling the investigation, but federal law enforcement officials have been notified, Frashure said.

Copyright © 2015, The Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/anne-arundel/ph-ac-cn-government-threats-arrest-1211-20151210-story.html [with comments]


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Police Union Endorses Trump After He Vows Death Penalty For Cop Killers

By Jill Colvin
12/11/2015 08:53 am ET

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the endorsement of a New England union that represents police and corrections officers Thursday evening, and said that, as president, he would call for the death penalty for any person who kills a cop.

The endorsement from the New England Police Benevolent Association comes as Trump remains under scrutiny for his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States ‘‘until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.’’ The proposal has been panned as xenophobic and un-American by many of Trump’s rivals, Republican leaders and others around the world.

Executive board members who attended a closed-door meeting to cast their votes said that Trump’s comments had come up briefly in their discussion. But they said that most of the conversation had centered on his past comments in support of police.

Trump was also the only invited candidate to show up to the meeting, said Jerry Flynn, the NEPBA’s executive director. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also responded to their invitation, but was unable to attend, he said.

‘‘Listen, our message very clear: It’s what is the next president of the United States going to do to unite this country in an effort to save police officers? Because it’s open season on police officers,’’ Flynn said before the vote.

‘‘At this point, those of us who are supportive of any party have to look at what is the best interest of our members,’’ he added.

The union represents nearly 5,000 members from about 200 locals across the region, according to Flynn, but has not received much attention from candidates campaigning in the early-voting state.

Trump, who spoke to gathered members and reporters before and after the endorsement was announced, stressed his support for police officers in his remarks.

‘‘Police forces throughout the country have had a hard time. A lot of people killed,’’ said Trump, his voice still hoarse with a bout of laryngitis.

He went on to call for the death penalty for any person who kills a cop.

‘‘I said that one of the first things I'd do in terms of executive order if I win will be sign a strong, strong statement that will go out to the country, out to the world, that anybody killing policemen, police woman, police officer, anybody killing a police officer, death penalty is going to happen, OK,’’ he recounted telling the executive board.

While there is currently a federal death penalty, states have their own laws on capital punishment and governors and legislatures have the authority to decide what those statutes look like independent of a presidential executive order. In states that have the death penalty, killing a police officer is often already considered an aggravating factor in deciding whether a defendant will be eligible for capital punishment.

Trump also expressed support for local police departments using military equipment, which the Obama administration has worked to curb following complaints about officers using riot gear and armored vehicles to confront protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

‘‘You know they’re taking away the military equipment,’’ said Trump.

‘‘Every time I see a conflict, I see a van pull up, I see an armor-plated Humvee pull up. I see almost a tank in some cases pull up. We've got to let our police have the finest equipment and the finest training and if we don't,’’ he said, ‘‘we’re making a tremendous mistake as a country.’’

Trump also acknowledged the backlash Thursday to his proposed Muslim ban, but told those gathered that he'd taken far more heat for his comments about Mexicans criminals entering the country illegally.

‘‘We've had a pretty interesting couple of days,’’ said Trump. ‘‘We have people talking. I will tell you that. And we have them talking very positively. Because people are saying, you know, Trump is right.’’

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday found that, while a solid majority of Americans oppose Trump’s proposal, Republicans are more receptive. The poll found that 42 percent of GOP respondents supported the idea, while 36 percent opposed it, according to NBC News.

Thursday’s event, which was closed to the general public, attracted around 150 protesters, who gathered in front of the Sheraton Portsmouth Harborside Hotel with signs denouncing Trump’s plan.

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.

© 2015 Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/police-union-endorses-trump-after-muslim-ban-proposal_566ad453e4b009377b2498a4 [with comments]


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American Nazi Party Chairman: Trump’s Muslim Ban Is Unrealistic


Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images


Rocky Suhayda
[ http://www.joemygod.com/2015/12/11/american-nazi-party-head-praises-donald-trump/ (with comments)]

“Unless Trump plans on ruling by Presidential Decree, I don’t see how he would implement ANY of his ‘plans,’ the rest of the sold out ‘mainstream’ political whores would block his every move.”

By Andrew Kaczynski
posted on Dec. 11, 2015, at 9:08 a.m.

Donald Trump’s plan to ban Muslim immigration has drawn rave reviews from America’s most prominent white nationalists [ http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/white-nationalist-and-anti-muslim-fringe-embrace-trump-propo ], but at least one prominent racist, who has spoken favorably of Trump in the past, is throwing cold water on the idea: the chairman of the American Nazi Party.

Rocky Suhayda, who runs the American Nazi Party, said he didn’t see how Trump would be able to implement any of his plans, saying he would be blocked after every turn.

“Look, this phrase ‘muslims’ is simply a PC code word to cover the reality of all these THIRD WORLD peoples invading OUR country,” Suhayda told BuzzFeed News in an email. “Don’t you realize that in about 2025, if these trends continue, White people will become a continuing MINORITY in our own land(s)?”

Suhayda, who often rotates between all caps and putting things in quotes, continued about how he thought soon there would be no more white European culture in America.

“If they sprinkled ‘holy water; on themselves and suddenly began praying to another Middle Eastern supernatural entity, would that suddenly make them all ‘ok?’ The systemites are determined to make ALL White homelands obsolete. Soon there will be no more White/European culture and peoples,” he continued. “Oh, there will be ALL non-White lands and peoples, be the brown, black or yellow - but, good bye White folks - except in the revised history books, where Whites will be denigrated as everything evil, by the new rulers…”

He then got to the point, Trump’s plan would never happen.

“Unless Trump plans on ruling by Presidential Decree, I don’t see how he would implement ANY of his ‘plans,’ the rest of the sold out ‘mainstream’ political whores would block his every move,” he said.

And, Suhyada pointed out, he doubted Trump’s sincerity.

“I seriously doubt if he even believes all what he says, but its nice to have someone like him saying it,” he said in an email.

Suhayda also pointed BuzzFeed News to past American Nazi Party reports where he had mentioned Trump. In one September report, the Nazi wrote that Trump’s statements showed the Nazi viewpoint wasn’t as unpopular as portrayed by the media.

“We have a wonderful OPPORTUNITY here folks, that may never come again, at the RIGHT time,” he wrote. “Donald Trump’s campaign statements, if nothing else, have SHOWN that ‘our views’ are NOT so ‘unpopular’ as the Political Correctness crowd have told everyone they are!”

“But, and here’s the kicker - so WHAT do we DO - sit back and heartily congratulate ourselves that our viewpoints are NOT the pariahs that we have been told that they are, and get all warm and fuzzy feeling,” he continued. “OR, do we FINALLY get SERIOUS about what we are supposed to be engaged in?”

Another September report, entirely on Trump, was largely supportive.

Wrote Suhayda:

Since as I predicted in my last ANPReport several weeks ago, the system’s controlled media whores are going after Donald Trump with a vengeance - filling the internet with gripping stories of Trumps “EVIL, RACIST, NEO-NAZI SUPPORT” - simply because of his realistic campaign statements on various issues, but especially his statements about stopping the Third World INVASION of America, building a “WALL” to secure our borders, and shipping 11 MILLION (or more) of these ILLEGALS back to where they came from.

He also made clear he’d avoid giving statements on Trump, knowing it would hurt Trump.

“Comrades, getting ‘sound bites’ in the ENEMY’S controlled MEDIA is not a wonderful accomplishment, especially when you’re being USED to harm someone else, that the ‘mainstream’ hates. I believe that it’s DISHONORABLE. It’s NOT how an Aryan should behave,” he wrote.

“Ok, so Donald Trump is stating things, that BEFORE - ONLY - a ‘HATER’ was accused of saying,” he continued. “The system is unhappy with him for saying those obvious (un-PC) truths. Do you HELP to PULL HIM DOWN? You COULD applaud WHAT he says, without making out you’re his best pal, and help the enemy SMEAR HIM while doing so, because YOU’RE viewed as a slimeball…”

And in August, the Nazi chairman wrote that Trump’s plans drew wide support, while saying he didn’t believe Trump that Trump believed what he was saying.

“Americans of ALL races are FED UP with this ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION — so he says that he’ll BUILD a WALL to keep them out! CHEERS! He states that ‘Political Correctness’ is disgusting and it’s time to STOP IT! More CHEERS! He DARES to turn his guns on the paid morons of the system controlled MEDIA! And regular folks LOVE it,” he wrote.

© 2015 BuzzFeed, Inc

http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/american-nazi-party-chairman-im-a-fan-of-trumps-rhetoric-but [with comments]


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How 70,000 Muslim Clerics Are Standing Up To Terrorism

Religious leaders are emphasizing that they don't consider terrorists to be true Muslims.

By Willa Frej
12/11/2015 11:17 am ET | Updated [late] 12/11/2015

Almost 70,000 Muslim clerics have come together to pass a fatwa against global terrorist organizations, including the Taliban, al Qaeda and the militant group that calls itself the Islamic State.

During an annual gathering of South Asian Sunni Muslims in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh this week, almost 1.5 million attendees [ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/70000-clerics-issue-fatwa-against-terrorism-15-lakh-Muslims-support-it/articleshow/50100656.cms ] signed a document protesting global terrorist activity, according to The Times of India.

This bolstered "clerics from across the world, who were part of the event, [to pass] the fatwa," said one of the clerics, Mufti Mohammed Saleem Noori. They want to spread the message that they don't consider groups like the Islamic State to be true Islamic organizations -- nor do they view members of these organizations as Muslims.

The chairman of the gathering said that last month's terror attacks in Paris, for which the Islamic State has claimed credit, inspired the group of clerics to pass the fatwa in order to spread the message that Muslims condemn terrorism.

Sunni seminaries in India have been passing similar fatwas since 2008 [ http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/madrasas-run-a-fatwa-campaign-against-is-in-bareilly/article7896184.ece ], The Hindu reports, but clerics are now particularly disturbed by the Islamic State. "This terror group has killed far more Muslims than Christians, westerners or any other religious community," said Maulana Qasim Nomani, a seminary leader. "It is a terror group with political ambitions."

"It is written in the Quran that killing one innocent person is equivalent to killing all humanity," said Mohammed Ehsan Raza Khan, the head of a shrine in Rajasthan.

Clerics also condemned Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for proposing an immigration and travel ban on Muslims [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-muslim-immigration-us_5665f75de4b072e9d1c7252b ] coming to the U.S. earlier this week. This kind of policy would "only cultivate hatred and divide people [ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/70000-clerics-issue-fatwa-against-terrorism-15-lakh-Muslims-support-it/articleshow/50100656.cms ]," one cleric said.

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muslim-clerics-condemn-terrorism_566adfa1e4b009377b249dea [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Muslim clerics must reject notions of non-Muslim inferiority (COMMENTARY)


Muslim pilgrims pray around the holy Ka’bah at the Grand Mosque ahead of the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca on Sept. 21, 2015.
Photo courtesy of REUTERS/Ahmad Masood

Raza Ahmad Rumi
December 16, 2015

(RNS) After the Paris attacks and mass shooting [ http://mic.com/articles/129570/active-shooter-reported-in-san-bernardino-california-reports-of-injuries-deaths ] at San Bernardino, the debates on Islam have predictably intensified [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/20/the-endless-recurrence-of-the-clash-of-civilizations/ ], feeding hysteria and Islamophobia.

While the hate rhetoric is alarming, it is important to note that aspects of Muslim theology and jurisprudence constructed [ http://www.hudson.org/research/11172-the-prospects-for-reform-in-islam ] during the early years of the Islamic empire influence the wider belief system of extremists. And while most Muslims are not radicalized, they are exposed to extremist views that center on the radical notion of Islamic totalitarianism.

Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, Pakistan’s foremost progressive scholar of Islam, recently stated that the root cause of terror being committed in the name of Islam was “the religious thought” — both preached in madrassas (religious seminaries) and “propagated through political movements.” Ghamidi’s candid views were not acceptable to the clerics, who found ample space in Pakistan’s public spheres. In 2009 he was threatened and his associates attacked, and since 2010 he has been living in Malaysia.

As per Ghamidi’s analysis, a few doctrines shape the extremist mindset:

1. Polytheism, atheism and apostasy, committed anywhere in the world, are punishable by death. And through this, the clergy — and the militias they inspire — appropriate the power to punish. This is how the Islamic State terror group sources “legitimacy” to reshape its dominion, and by any means.

2. Only Muslims have the right to govern, and every non-Muslim government is illegitimate. Non-Muslim inferiority is intrinsically linked to the idea of Muslim supremacy and consequently the need to subjugate. Islamic extremists hold the overthrow of non-Muslim governments to be necessary and permissible whenever possible.

3. Muslims across the globe should be under the rule of a single Islamic government — the Khilafat, or caliphate. This notion occupies a central place in the radical mindset. Even today’s Muslim nation-states, numbering 56, have no legitimacy in the radicals’ eyes.

For all the Islamophobia poisoning the well, one cannot deny the swell of seminaries and clerics preaching such ideas today. The genesis of these concepts is linked to the expansion of the Arab Empire from the seventh century onward [id.]. The experiences of the Prophet Muhammad in defending his movement, and a few related Quranic verses, are cited as the rationale for such supremacist discourses. Over time, however, Muslims have favored a more nuanced, contextual interpretation of both the Quran and their prophet’s life. The popular mood currently, however, favors a cherry-picked and literal reading, divorced from time and place, and it is used to legitimize violence.

My own country, Pakistan, is a case study in the mal-effects that these ill winds generate.

In the wake of jihad in support of the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union, radical ideologies mushroomed. Transnational movements and groups such as al-Qaida, and now ISIS, mastered the employment of violence in the garb of Muslim resistance. Ironically, this has served only to endanger the lives and identities of Muslims globally.

Ghamidi believes that without counternarratives, the situation will worsen — not just in the Middle East, but wherever Muslims live and practice their faith. However, it remains to be seen how such measures can be taken when governments of the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, actively preach and export the same literalist doctrines –Wahhabism and Salafism — across the world. In a recent Freedom House report, Saudi textbooks were analyzed. Among other dangerous narratives, the textbooks taught young Saudis to “condemn and denigrate the majority of Sunni Muslims who do not follow the Wahhabi understanding of Islam, and call them deviants and descendants of polytheists.” Such ideas underlie ISIS’ vicious targeting of Muslims — who account for over 90 percet of those they have killed.

The official textbooks, written under the tutelage of a theocratic monarchy, also say that Shiite and Sufi Muslims are heretical and that these groups should be seen as polytheists. Similarly, Muslims must hate Christians, Jews and other “unbelievers” — and that the “Jews and the Christians are enemies of the (Muslim) believers.” Mainstream schools in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere teach that the “spread of Islam through jihad is a religious duty.” During the 1980s, such ideas were also imparted to Pakistani and Afghan children, and some of these textbooks continue to be used. Ironically, the University of Nebraska produced and supplied these textbooks, to further the cause of jihad against the Soviets.

Colonial scars, alongside fresh, neo-colonial wounds, have wreaked havoc in the Middle East. Today, Syria, Iraq and Libya are states only in name. Twentieth-century Middle Eastern states were artificially carved and ruled by dictatorships that prevented the emergence of democratic institutions — and in such a social and political landscape, the simplicity of the extremists’ message became a panacea. And yet for Muslim leaders, scholars and intellectuals, this can present no opt-out clause — their focus must remain on challenging popular narratives and conspiracy theories that pollute the minds of millions. That ISIS does not represent the Muslim corpus is a truism. However, it must also be accepted that popular discourses in Muslim societies often encourage hate.

Muslim leaders must reform religious and jurisprudential doctrines regarding non-Muslim inferiority, the global caliphate and capital punishments, and recognize that this will better equip them to deal with the complexities characterizing the world today. Blaming others for persistent problems is an easy path to take — but that will serve only to entrench Muslims deeper in the quagmire.

(Raza Ahmad Rumi [ http://razarumi.com/ , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raza_Rumi ] is a Pakistani policy analyst and journalist who is a scholar in residence at Ithaca College in New York and a fellow at Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.)

Related

American mosques trying to protect bodies and spirits from hate
http://www.religionnews.com/2015/12/15/american-mosques-trying-protect-bodies-spirits-hate/

Priest who survived ISIS: ‘My interfaith work saved my life’
http://www.religionnews.com/2015/12/11/priest-survived-isis-interfaith-work-saved-life/

© 2015 Religion News LLC

http://www.religionnews.com/2015/12/16/muslims-must-reject-notions-of-non-muslim-inferiority-pakistan-isis-taliban-christians-jews-saudi-textbooks-extremism/ [with comments]


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Even This Far-Right Leader Says She Wouldn't Go As Far As Donald Trump

“Seriously, have you ever heard me say something like that?"

By Sam Levine
12/11/2015 11:47 am ET | Updated late] 12/11/2015

Even Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's far-right National Front who once compared Muslims praying in the streets to the Nazi occupation, thinks Donald Trump has gone too far.

Asked in a television interview about Trump's proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, Le Pen said the idea was too much [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/world/europe/voter-insecurities-feed-rise-of-right-leaning-populist-politicians.html ].

“Seriously, have you ever heard me say something like that?" asked Le Pen, who has been accused of encouraging Islamophobia [ http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/22/marine-le-pen-faces-court-on-charge-of-inciting-racial-hatred ] in France. “I defend all the French people in France, regardless of their origin, regardless of their religion.”

Trump's comments have been rebuked [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/world-leaders-condemn-donald-trump_5668407ae4b0f290e52142f1 ] by leaders around the world, including British Prime Minister David Cameron and Canada's foreign minister. Several Republicans have also condemned Trump, but have stopped short [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-muslims-gop_5667397ee4b079b281908589 ] of saying they wouldn't support him for president.

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/marine-le-pen-donald-trump_566af974e4b009377b24b5b7 [with embedded video report, and comments]


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COACHELLA: Arrest in ‘fire bomb' mosque blaze


Officials investigate an arson/fire bombing at a Mosque at the 84600 block of Ave. 49 in Coachella on December 11, 2015.
RODRIGO PENA, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

BY PATRICK ONEILL
Published: Dec. 12, 2015 Updated: 11:42 a.m.

A 23-year-old man was arrested Friday, Dec. 11, in connection with a Coachella Valley mosque fire that officials are investigating as a possible hate crime.

Coachella police arrested Carl J. Dial at 8:58 p.m., in a Palm Desert neighborhood, jail records show. Dial is being held on suspicion of several felony crimes, including commission of a hate crime, maliciously setting a fire and arson.

A person who answered the phone at the Indio jail, where Dial is being held, said the arrest was in connection with the mosque fire.

The blaze began around noon Friday at the Masjid Ibrahim Mosque in the 84000 block of Avenue 49 in Coachella. Reymundo Nour, the mosque's acting imam, said people there described hearing a "loud boom" and seeing flames. He said the mosque had been "fire-bombed."

Smoke and flames were visible when firefighters arrived at the 1,800-square-foot building, and it took about 10 minutes to contain the blaze to the front lobby, according to a Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department news release. Smoke damage was reported throughout the mosque, with firefighters checking for other damage. The fire was extinguished by 12:46 p.m.

The facility was hit by gunfire in November 2014 in what authorities investigated as a possible hate crime. No one was injured in that incident.

Riverside County Sheriff's Department officials are calling the latest incident a possible hate crime, and Federal officials have stepped in to assist with the investigation.

Riverside County 4th District Supervisor John Benoit said although law enforcement officials haven't confirmed who threw a flammable device at the mosque, the local consensus is the attack appears to be retaliatory.

"If in fact this was an individual targeting a mosque, believing there were Muslims there . . . it's reprehensible, an act of terrorism," Benoit said. "Violence is not a good answer for violence."

Copyright © 2015 The Press-Enterprise

http://www.pe.com/articles/mosque-789164-fire-coachella.html [with comments]


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Man arrested on hate crime and arson charges in fire at Coachella Valley mosque


Law enforcement officials investigate the scene of suspected arson at the Islamic Society of Palm Springs on Dec. 11, 2015, in Coachella.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

By Brittny Mejia, Richard Winton, Paloma Esquivel and Sarah Parvini
December 12, 2015, 10:44 AM

A 23-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of a hate crime and arson related to a fire Friday afternoon at a Coachella Valley mosque.

Carl Dial was arrested about 9 p.m. Friday and booked on five felony charges, including commission of a hate crime, arson, maliciously setting a fire and second-degree burglary, according to law enforcement sources and Riverside County Sheriff’s Department booking records.

The fire at the Islamic Society of the Coachella Valley mosque is one of several incidents over the past week that officials are investigating as possible backlashes from the San Bernardino terrorist shootings. Authorities believe the shooters were self-radicalized Islamic extremists.

Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit, who visited the mosque Friday night, said he was alarmed that it may have been targeted.

“It's horribly lamentable that we would paint any group as undesirables based on the actions of an extremely small number of radical folks that don't represent the religion in any way,” he said.

“If in fact it was done with the mosque as a target ... it's reprehensible, and the people who perpetrated that act should be treated the way we would any other terrorist.”

Last year, a shot was fired into the same mosque; no one was hurt. That incident was investigated as a possible hate crime.

Friday’s fire was reported about 12:10 p.m. inside the mosque in the 84600 block of Avenue 49 in Coachella, said Jennifer Fuhrman, a spokeswoman for the Riverside County Fire Department.

The Sheriff's Department “believes this is an intentional act, and we are using all available resources to follow up on any leads that are brought to our attention,” Deputy Armando Munoz, a department spokesman, said in a statement Friday evening. “Cal Fire and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are assisting us with this investigation.”

The fire started about 15 minutes before an afternoon prayer service. Salahaldeen Alwishah, 27, of Indio said several worshipers were inside the mosque when firetrucks and sheriff’s vehicles swarmed the building.

In a telephone interview, Alwishah said he believed “it was the will of God” that more people weren’t inside when the flames erupted.

“We were just here trying to be free and practice our religion, just like everybody else,” he said.

The mosque’s congregation is a diverse group, made up of people from several countries and economic backgrounds, said Alwishah, who added that worshipers had a “feeling of devastation” after the incident.

Firefighters were able to contain the blaze to the lobby, but smoke caused damage throughout the 1,800-square-foot mosque. No one was injured.

On Friday evening, several sheriff’s deputies and other law enforcement officials were gathered near the charred frame of the mosque’s entryway. A window also appeared to have been blown out.

Details about the cause of the fire were not immediately available. Ojaala Ahmad, communications coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Los Angeles, said the group has been in touch with the FBI.

Ahmad said the mere thought of a blaze at a mosque is cause for concern after a spate of anti-Islamic incidents in California and elsewhere following the San Bernardino shootings. In that attack, authorities say a couple who had pledged allegiance to Islamic State terror figures opened fire Dec. 2 at a holiday party, killing 14.

Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the greater Los Angeles area's office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it was a "relief" to know someone was arrested in connection with the attack.

"The community was in fear," Ayloush said. "Thankfully, this happened before the main congregational prayer."

Ayloush said he hopes such an attack "doesn't repeat anywhere else."

"We hope it serves as a reminder that, unfortunately, hate speech has consequences. Hate incidents do not occur in a vacuum," he said. "They are the natural result of a climate fueled by hatred, by fear-mongering."

Ayloush said he does not want to rush to conclusions about whether the attack was a reprisal following the San Bernardino shootings, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was a misguided response to the violence.

"It's important for us to stand together in unity against those who engage in terrorism, in violence or bigotry," he said.

CAIR’s offices in Santa Clara and Washington, D.C., were evacuated Thursday after both buildings received threatening letters containing a powdery substance, Ahmad said. While it was later determined that the substances were not dangerous, the FBI is investigating both incidents, CAIR said in a statement. A caretaker at a Philadelphia mosque found a pig’s head on the doorstep of the building earlier this week, also sparking a police investigation.

A vandal scrawled the word “ISIS” on a truck outside an Orange County Sikh temple just days after the shootings. The Sikh community is sometimes targeted in anti-Islamic attacks because people mistake members’ dress and grooming for that of Muslims.

Buena Park police arrested Brodie Durazo, 20, on suspicion of vandalism at a place of worship. Prosecutors will determine whether to file hate crime charges against him.

“Obviously, it’s really upsetting, and it’s very unfortunate. In this case, in Coachella, we don’t know the motive behind it yet,” Ahmad said. “It just comes to show how real Islamaphobia is, how scary and how threatening it can become and how dangerous Islamaphobia is to our nation and fellow Americans.”

Dial, who was booked into the Indio jail, is scheduled to appear in court at the Indio Larson Justice Center on Dec. 16.

Related

After terror attacks, Muslim women say headscarves have made them targets for harassment
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-1210-muslim-women-headscarves-harassment-20151211-story.html

Since shootings, area Muslims fear unfounded suspicions and reprisals
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-sb-muslims-inland-20151212-story.html

San Bernardino may change minds on police use of surplus military equipment
http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-militarization-20151212-story.html

Rep. Loretta Sanchez responds to criticism over comment on Muslims
http://www.latimes.com/local/politics/la-me-pc-loretta-sanchez-comment-muslims-20151211-story.html

Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-suspect-arrested-for-hate-crime-arson-in-fire-at-coachella-valley-mosque-20151212-story.html [with comments]


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Abortion Protesters Target School: 'They Kill Babies Nearby! Tell Your Parents To Stop Them'


Antiabortion protesters outside of the Two Rivers Public Charter School, which is next to a new Planned Parenthood facility that is under construction in Washington, D.C., shown here in November 2015.
[ https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/charter-school-next-to-future-planned-parenthood-clinic-sues-anti-abortion-protesters/2015/12/09/63a2109a-9dfc-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html (with comments); the complaint at http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/two-rivers-public-charter-school-complaint-against-antiabortion-protesters/1831/ ]

One alleged protester spent five years in prison over plot to blow up a women's health clinic.

By TIM RYAN
Friday, December 11, 2015 Last Update: 2:25 PM PT

WASHINGTON (CN) - On the morning of Nov. 16, elementary school students arriving at Two Rivers Public Charter School were greeted by an 8-by-6 foot banner that read "They kill babies nearby! Tell your parents to stop them," allegedly held by a man who spent five years in prison for possessing a pipe bomb he planned to use to blow up an abortion clinic.

Now Two Rivers seeks an injunction to prevent the group of anti-abortion protestors, who object to a Planned Parenthood clinic set to be opened next year nearby, from staging their demonstrations outside the school, according to a complaint filed in Washington D.C. Superior Court Wednesday.

Two Rivers has been in operation since 2003 and now enrolls roughly 500 students between the ages of three and 14, according to the complaint. Two of its buildings are bright blue structures that stand across the street from one another near Gallaudet University in Northeast Washington.

The elementary school is also directly across the street from the future site of a Planned Parenthood facility.

"Laid bare, defendants' plan is to stop the construction of the adjacent Planned Parenthood facility by engaging in a concerted effort to aggressively confront students, harm their emotional well-being, upset their parents and guardians, and ultimately damage the school's reputation with the community," the complaint says.

The first protest the school mentions in its 30-page complaint occurred on Aug. 27, during parent-student-teacher conferences. That morning three people set up large posters with pictures of dismembered fetuses on them, positioned so students and parents had to pass them before entering the school, the school claims in the complaint.

Lauren Handy, one of the five protestors named as defendants in the suit, shouted at students - some of whom are as young as three - and parents who were entering the elementary school, according to the complaint.

"Tell your parents that you don't want to go to school next to a baby-killing center," Handy allegedly yelled at students and parents entering the school.

On Nov. 1, Jonathan Darnel, another protestor named in the complaint, sent an email to nine Two Rivers officials urging them to stop the Planned Parenthood construction by citing nine disturbances the clinic would bring with it, according to the complaint.

The email warned Two Rivers administrators of people "you wouldn't want your students interacting with" walking to the clinic; potential violence between "abortion-minded women" and their significant others; Planned Parenthood's "overtures" to middle-schoolers in order to "hook them on the perverse sexual lifestyle that they promote;" and the "loud" protests of anti-abortion sidewalk counselors trying to talk women out of abortions, according to the complaint.

At the end of the message Darnel insisted if the school didn't respond he would "feel a moral obligation to alert the community (including the parents of your students) [himself]," the complaint says.

"I'm sure you don't want to see me, my anti-abortion friends and our graphic images any more than we want to be in your neighborhood," Darnel wrote in bold type in his email, which is reproduced in the complaint.

Two weeks later Darnel, Handy, a man named Robert Weiler Jr. and another unidentified person were back outside the school holding the 8-by-6 foot sign near the student drop-off lane, the school says. The group constant moved around the school to thwart Two Rivers' attempts to shuttle students around the protests, according to the complaint.

Weiler was sentenced in 2006 to five years in prison after he was caught with a pipe bomb and a gun he intended to use to attack an abortion clinic in nearby Greenbelt, Maryland. He was released in 2011, but was arrested again in 2014 outside the same facility, according to the complaint.

The school says that at another protest, Larry Cirigano - also a named defendant in the suit - stood near the entrance of the middle school holding a sign with a picture of a bloody aborted fetus. Darnell shouted at students entering the school, "They are going to murder kids right next door if your parents don't do something about it," according to the complaint.

Two Rivers claims the protests and others planned for the coming months have caused irreparable harm to the school and its students. Some children have reported feeling "upset and sick," sometimes opting to stay away from the school, according to the complaint.

"One student was so upset by this incident that he began to feel sick and had to go home," the complaint says. "He was only able to return to school the next day with the promise that the school counselor would meet him at the front door."

The school seeks injunction preventing Darnel, Weiler, Handy, Ruby Nicdao and Cirigano from entering Two Rivers Public Charter School property, from blocking or obstructing access to the building, and from gathering within a reasonable distance of the elementary and middle school buildings during school hours, according to the complaint.

None of the defendants responded to email and phone requests for comment sent to personal accounts and to those of organizations with ties to them.

Copyright 2015 Courthouse News

http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/12/11/school-wants-abortion-foes-kept-from-students.htm [also at/head and subhead taken from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/abortion-protests-two-rivers-school_566b6284e4b011b83a6b67da (with comments)]


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Bomb arrests: 'This could have been very dangerous'


Darren Kyle Zafft and Jennifer Marie Cash are shown on Facebook page.
Facebook


Jennifer Marie Cash, 35, has been charged with multiple counts of possession of a destructive device and possession of a controlled weapon.
Jay Pickthorn / Argus Leader


Darren Kyle Zafft, 29, has been charged with multiple counts of possession of a destructive device and possession of a controlled weapon.
Jay Pickthorn / Argus Leader


Darren Kyle Zafft Facebook page.
Facebook


Darren Kyle Zafft Facebook page.
Facebook


Jennifer Marie Cash Facebook page.
Facebook

Investigation began after neighbor noticed bullet hole in wall; grenades, 100 guns found inside residence

At a glance
• Police found an arsenal of illegal guns, grenades and bomb-making materials inside a Sioux Falls home Thursday.
• Prosecutors have charged two people with multiple counts of possessing controlled weapons and destructive devices.
• A spokesman said police did not know the intent and had no indication of plans to use the weapons, "but at this point we just don't know."

Megan Raposa
11:33 p.m. CST December 11, 2015

Authorities seized an arsenal of illegal guns, grenades and bomb-making materials from a southeastern Sioux Falls apartment Thursday, days after a bullet pierced a neighbor's wall.

Officers executed a search warrant at 4901 E. 54th St. as part of an investigation into how a .22-caliber slug wound up inside a next door neighbor's mattress.

Darren Kyle Zafft, 29, and Jennifer Marie Cash, 35, were arrested and charged with multiple counts of possession of controlled weapons and explosives with criminal intent.

Police found 114 guns, including more than a dozen illegally modified rifles and shotguns. They found two handmade silencers, multiple grenades, about 10,000 rounds of ammunition and $20,000 cash. The bomb squad also removed gunpowder, fuses, and other equipment for making explosive devices.

"This could have been a very dangerous situation," police spokesman Sam Clemens said.

County prosecutor Aaron McGowan called Zafft a threat to law enforcement, citing a photo of a burning police car on Zafft's Facebook page. Zafft's bond was set at $1 million, cash only.

McGowan said Zafft is believed to be primarily responsible for the explosives and firearms in the home. Cash's bond was set at $5,000, cash only. Both made their initial court appearance Friday afternoon and were being held in Minnehaha County Jail.

The investigation began Sunday with a call from a resident of the apartment building who noticed a hole in his wall and later found a slug in a mattress. The property manager told detectives they had been in the adjoining unit recently and noticed several guns, Clemens said. A search warrant was issued Thursday.

"We don't have an answer to why they had them," Clemens said. "Whether or not we'll ever find out what his intent or purpose of having it, we may never know. I don't think we've had any indication that there was any type of plans to use these devices, but at this point we just don't know."

Family of gun collectors

Family members were at the apartment Friday morning. A man who identified himself as Zafft's uncle but would not give his name expressed frustration about the charges.

"They aren't going after criminals; they're going after guns. I blame Obama for this," the man said.

Guns were part of growing up for Zafft, his mother Lesa Zafft said following court Friday afternoon. Going through a gun-safety course at age 13 and getting a concealed carry permit at 18 were rites of passage for members of his family.

"Kyle would not think there's anything wrong with having kids around guns. He was raised that way," Zafft's grandmother Nancy Zafft said.

Zafft has a history of weapons-related arrests. He was arrested in 2010 in Minnehaha County on two counts of reckless use of weapons. He was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail. In 2005, he was charged with carrying a concealed weapon, discharging a weapon in city limits and disorderly conduct, but the charges were dismissed. He was also arrested in McCook County in 2003 for hunting from a motor vehicle. That charge was also dismissed.

In 2006, protection orders were filed against Zafft by two individuals, a man and a woman, but court documents offered no further details.

Lesa said many of the guns seized from Zafft's home were registered to other family members but stored at his and Cash's home after Lesa faced a felony conviction last year. Many of the guns also belonged to Zafft's grandfather, Nancy said.

"This has been years of collecting … he collects," Lesa said. "That's our family. We collect guns … They think ISIS is going on, and I'm sure we look like some little anti-terrorist cell."

But Zafft never expressed any anti-police sentiments, Lesa said, refuting McGowan's notion that her son would be a threat to law enforcement.

Zafft's hobby was working with guns. He could practically take them apart and put them back together in his sleep, according to his grandmother.

"He doesn't have a mean bone in his body," Nancy said.

Facebook pseudonym

Zafft's Facebook profile picture shows him shirtless, wearing ear muffs and holding an antique revolver. His cover photo is a burning police vehicle.

His posts include a photo of a man playing basketball in a turban, captioned with a joke about explosions. There are also jokes about Planned Parenthood shootings, and videos that appear to show Zafft filming an explosion and firing an automatic weapon.

Zafft tagged Cash in a photo of a pistol, which is captioned "December is … buy your husband a new glock month!"

Adam Vazquez has known Zafft and Cash as neighbors for three years. His children play with Cash's two kids during the summertime. He said Zafft "had a passion for firearms" and spoke about them as if he were a collector.

"It wasn't until my wife showed me his pseudonym on Facebook that it got kind of disturbing," Vazquez said.

Outside of his online presence, Zafft was "normal," Vazquez said.

"Jen, she seemed nice, and Kyle, he was different, but everyone has their quirks."

Neighbor Breteni Morgan knew the couple had many guns, and she expressed concern when she saw Zafft cleaning them in a neighborhood with lots of children.

"He would clean them all the time," Morgan said. "We always just saw him at night cleaning his guns."

Cash had no previous criminal record in South Dakota besides misdemeanor traffic offenses.

She works as an education assistant at Laura Wilder Elementary School. The Sioux Falls School District released a statement Friday afternoon, saying that students were never in harm's way.

"This individual was not at work today, and at this time, we have no reason to believe that our students or staff were ever in danger," the statement read. "However, because the safety of our students is our highest priority, we will continue to work with police in this investigation and we remain committed that our schools will continue to be safe places for our children."

More than 100 guns found, 15 illegal

Finding weapons isn't all that unusual, police spokesman Sam Clemens said, but the bomb materials were another story.

"Dealing with these explosives that's something we don't normally do. We don't know if he was putting these components together in the home or in another place; that's one of the things we're working on," Clemens said.

Fifteen of the 114 guns found had the shortened barrels or stocks, which are illegal.

The bomb squad secured all of the explosive components found in the home and worked Friday to test if any of the bombs, grenades or other materials were live.

The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms is investigating, and federal charges are possible, McGowan said in court Friday.

The police department prepared an affidavit in support of the search warrant, but it has not been filed yet with the court system. Clemens said the department has up to 10 days to file the document, and that because of the number of items discovered it likely will be several days before the affidavit is available.

Argus Leader Media reporters John Hult, Mark Walker and Katie Nelson contributed to this report.

© 2015 Argus Leader, a division of Gannett Satellite Information Network, Inc.

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2015/12/11/pair-arrested-after-weapons-bomb-materials-found/77151830/ [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Suspect in weapons arrest works for Sioux Falls schools


Jennifer Marie Cash, 35

Updated: Fri 3:53 PM, Dec 11, 2015

The Sioux Falls School District confirmed Friday afternoon that a woman arrested on weapons and explosives charges worked for the district.

Sioux Falls Police arrested Darren Kyle Zafft, 29, along with Jennifer Marie Cash, 35. Cash is an education assistant at Laura Wilder Elementary. Police say they found hundreds of guns and explosive devices and components to make explosives in their apartment.

A next-door neighbor in the 4900-block of E. 54th Street was changing his sheets Sunday when he noticed a hole in his sheets and mattress. The resident then found a .22 caliber bullet casing, along with a hole in the wall connected to the other apartment.

The neighbor alerted the police. Police obtained a search warrant for the apartment next door, and found more than one hundred guns, including more than a dozen illegal weapons such as shortened rifles. In addition to the guns, police found grenades, explosive devices, and components to make explosives.

In a statement, the Sioux Falls School District said Cash was not at work today, and at this time, we have no reason to believe that our students or staff were ever in danger. A district spokesperson says no decision has been made on Cash's continued employment with the school district.

Zafft and Cash both face multiple charges of possession of a destructive device, and possession of a controlled weapon.

All explosive devices have been removed from the suspects' apartment, and are being examined.

ATF is assisting in the investigation.

Email sent to Sioux Falls parents:

Good afternoon Sioux Falls Families, Today we were informed that Jennifer Cash, an education assistant at Laura Wilder Elementary, was arrested by Sioux Falls Police. She is charged with multiple counts of possession of a destructive device and possession of a controlled weapon. This individual was not at work today, and at this time, we have no reason to believe that our students or staff were ever in danger. However, because the safety of our students is our highest priority, we will continue to work with police in this investigation and we remain committed that our schools will continue to be safe places for our children. This message is not to alarm, but to inform. Thank you for partnering with us in keeping our students safe.

Copyright © 2015 KSFY Television

http://www.ksfy.com/home/headlines/Suspect-in-weapons-arrest-works-for-Sioux-Falls-schools-361606861.html [with comments]


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A Donald Trump Supporter Explains His Appeal

She calls him a "knight in shining armor."

By Sam Stein
12/11/2015 06:06 pm ET

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Donald Trump's remarkable persistence atop the Republican presidential primary pack has fueled the media's growing fascination with his throng of supporters.

After all, Trump has offended wide swaths of the voting public during the course of his campaign -- from Hispanics [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b ], to Asians [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/donald-trump-mocks-asians-broken-english-speech-article-1.2338344 ], to certain sects of Christians [ http://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/trump-questions-carson-s-religion-552377923761 ], to Iowans [ http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/260028-trump-us-stupid-for-buying-carsons-stabbing-story ], to African-Americans [ http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/8-of-the-sleaziest-things-donald-trump-has-said-20150616?page=2 ( http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/8-of-the-sleaziest-things-donald-trump-has-said-20150616 )], to women [ http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/donald-trump-support-female-donors-lowest-of-gop-candidates ], to people with disabilities [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-mocks-disabled-reporter_56572101e4b072e9d1c1d1c0 ], to individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome (er, "low energy [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/4/donald-trump-ben-carson-has-lower-energy-jeb-bush/ ]" people), to veterans who were captured during war [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/07/18/trump-slams-mccain-for-being-captured-in-vietnam/?postshare=2121437247780300 ], to Muslims [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-immigration/ ].

Considering all that, it's fair to ask: Who's left?

In recent days, a portrait has emerged [ http://www.newsweek.com/who-are-trumps-supporters-hard-stats-373560 ] (as they say in the biz). Trump's supporters are largely white, tend to be less educated, and are very much convinced that the government is stocked full of corrupt liars concerned only with political correctness.

They also have a slight case of hero worship when it comes to the real estate tycoon turned presidential candidate.

"I see Mr. Trump -- and you can quote me on this all you want -- I think he is the knight in shining armor," said Mary Donnelly of Concord, New Hampshire, who stood outside a Trump event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, last night and said she volunteers for his campaign.

In the video above, Donnelly describes Trump as “humble, loyal, truthful" -- odd labels for a man who boasts regularly about his prodigious wealth, has migrated from the Democratic Party to the GOP, and is proven wrong by fact-checkers [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-factcheck_565374b4e4b0d4093a58bf19 ] more often than the average candidate.

But never mind all that. To his followers, Trump is the one truth-teller in an industry flooded with bullshit artists. It is his unapologetic bluntness -- no matter how dark or fact-free his statements may be -- that constitutes his allure.

Take Frank Maxwell Jr., who said the following when The Daily Beast asked him [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/11/donald-trump-s-donors-asked-me-if-i-was-muslim.html ] about Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States:

I think he’s correct on that. I don’t like ’em. I wish they’d go back to the mid-East and stay there—all of ’em. I would refuse to get in a taxi cab with a Muslim driving it with a headband on.

They’re anti-Christian. And Jesus Christ says we need to forgive, but I’m not like that… I think we need to kill all the Muslims we can kill.

Or Bettina Norden, 60, who said this to The New York Times [ http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/11/us/politics/fear-of-terrorism-lifts-donald-trump-in-new-york-times-cbs-poll.html ]:

He’ll keep a sharp eye on those Muslims. He’ll keep the Patriot Act together. He’ll watch immigration. Stop the Muslims from immigrating.

Or, best yet, Susan DeLemus, who participated in this recent [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/11/this-one-donald-trump-supporter-does-more-to-explain-his-appeal-than-we-ever-could/ ] Trump-related focus group.

We've got people in positions of power who I know for a fact are liars. Liars. I watch the TV, my -- my president comes on the TV and he lies to me! I know he's lying! He lies all the time. I don't believe any one of them. Not one. I believe Donald. He says what I'm thinking!

(Samuel Wilkes contributed reporting.)

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-supporter-explains-herself_566b3509e4b0fccee16e95b4 [with the referenced embedded video, and comments]


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How computers are getting better at detecting liars

Results from a University of Michigan research project.
A group of researchers have developed new lie-detecting software, and it doesn't involve being hooked up to a polygraph machine.
December 12, 2015
A group of researchers from the University of Michigan may have found a better way to detect whether you’re lying – and it’s not the polygraph test.
Using videos from high-stakes court cases, the researchers have built a lie-detecting software database that uses a person’s words and gestures to detect behavioral patterns that may be out of the norm. While the software is still being tested, it was 75 percent accurate in identifying a deceptive subject during testing. Humans were only 50 percent accurate in guessing.
The database for the software took typical “lying behavior” – individuals who moved their hands more, tried to sound more confident and looked their questioners in the eye were more likely to be lying – and was taught to recognize these patterns in humans. Using machine-learning techniques, the team trained the software on a set of 120 video clips from actual trials.
[...]
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/Science-Notebook/2015/1212/How-computers-are-getting-better-at-detecting-liars


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Attacks on Trump just make these voters like him more

Through a one-way mirror, journalists observe a focus group of Donald Trump supporters in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday. The group was organized by political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz.
December 10, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/attacking-trump-just-makes-these-voters-like-him-more/2015/12/10/2de9edf8-9f44-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html [with embedded video reports, and comments]


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What social science tells us about racism in the Republican party

Donald Trump supporters "booed" the media after a heckler was removed as the Republican presidential candidate spoke during a campaign stop last month in Birmingham, Ala.
December 11, 2015
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/11/what-social-science-tells-us-about-racism-in-the-republican-party/ [with embedded video report, and comments]


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What Kind of Person Calls a Mass Shooting a Hoax?

Noah Pozner's sister at his grave in Newtown, Connecticut.
Sandy Hook father Lenny Pozner is one of too many parents painfully familiar with the answer. Dogged by a relentless conspiracy theorist, he's spent the past three years fighting to protect the honor of his murdered son.
December 11, 2015
http://www.thetrace.org/2015/12/sandy-hook-mass-shooting-hoaxers/


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Armed 'Three Percenters' Movement Now Confronting Muslim Americans


Armed demonstrators hold a protest outside the Islamic Center of Irving in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas. The movement has rallied against gun control efforts, patrolled the border with Mexico and recently begun confronting Muslim Americans.
Avi Selk/The Dallas Morning News via AP

"We will interfere with every move they (Muslims) make towards taking over our country."

12/11/2015 08:54 pm ET | Updated 12/12/2015 [c. 10:45 am] ET

DALLAS (AP) — They are known as "Three Percenters," followers of a movement that has rallied against gun control efforts nationwide, patrolled the U.S. border with Mexico and recently begun confronting Muslim Americans.

Followers describe themselves as armed "patriots." But some of their leaders have been blamed for threats and vandalism against lawmakers, police and Muslims. One prominent member from Phoenix prompted an FBI alert in November after posting an expletive-filled Facebook video saying he was headed to upstate New York with guns to challenge a Muslim group. A Three Percenter in suburban Dallas led a mosque protest by armed, masked men that same month.

Texas has been the scene of several other incidents this year that have raised anti-Muslim unease. Two Muslim gunmen in May were shot outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland. Police in Irving arrested a 14-year-old Muslim whose teachers thought his homemade clock was a bomb in September.

All this comes at a time when Texas has led a number of states trying to block the resettlement of Syrian refugees and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a "complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the U.S.

"We will interfere with every move they (Muslims) make towards taking over our country," Dallas protest organizer David Wright said in response to questions the Associated Press sent to his personal Facebook page. "We are ready to fight back if they come at us violently."

Wright, who plans to protest Saturday at a different mosque, hasn't advertised the "Three Percenters" name in his activities. But he claimed membership in comments on Facebook and told the AP he was a leader in a Texas chapter. A second Facebook profile appends the Roman numeral "III" to his name, as do other Three Percenters, and features a black "III%" patch as a background photograph.

The Three Percenters movement began in 2008, galvanized by President Barack Obama's election, followers and researchers say. The name comes from the disputed percentage of colonials who armed themselves and fought the British during the American Revolution.

The number of Three Percenters is unclear partly because anyone can ascribe to the movement. The man credited as the founder has claimed 3 million on his blog. One national Three Percenters' Facebook group has about 12,000 members, including people from all 50 states.

Followers appear to consist mainly of white, male, conservative gun owners who believe the nation has been pushed to a tipping point by socialists in government aiming to disarm them, strip their constitutional rights and take their property, according to groups that track anti-government movements.

The Three Percenters lack a formal command structure, but have ideological similarities with other groups such as minutemen or militias. Their founder, a former militia member named Michael B. "Mike" Vanderboegh, stresses what he calls "armed civil disobedience."

Vanderboegh, 63, a one-time nurse's aide who lives in Pinson, Alabama, looks the part of an elderly professor. With the cadence of a Baptist preacher, he blends references to God and fist-banging disdain for "predatory government."

"What they are selling is a lie told by pathological collectivist liars ... to satisfy their insatiable appetites for your liberty and your property, even at the cost of your life," he told a crowd this year in Canon City, Colorado.

A 2009 Anti-Defamation League report called Rage Grows in America featured Vanderboegh and the Three Percenters as a growing "anti-government" movement. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled him an extremist.

After the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 26, Vanderboegh sent emails to hundreds of Connecticut state police officers saying they risked "initiating hostilities" if they enforced new gun-control measures.

"People like Mike Vanderboegh and others, can cause all sorts of people from the fringes who might be listening to do a violent act," said Mark Pitcavage, a defamation league expert on anti-government movements.

In 2011, one of four suspected militia members charged in a plot to attack unnamed government officials in Atlanta cited Vanderboegh's self-published online novel as inspiration, federal authorities said. Vanderboegh said at the time that the book, about a deadly federal gun raid that spurred armed citizen resistance, was merely a "useful dire warning."

Wright borrowed from Vanderboegh's tactics last month. Wright posted the names and home addresses of Muslim residents and other "Muslim sympathizers" who spoke against a city of Irving resolution they called discriminatory. Vanderboegh once shared similar information on Connecticut state senators who supported gun-control measures after the Sandy Hook shooting.

Some Three Percenters, such as Kaleb Hill, say they don't share Vanderboegh's "extreme ideology."

"We are more concerned about exposing corruption and preserving the Constitution and our God-given freedoms," said Hill, who runs a Three Percenter group and Facebook pages from Mississippi. "Those who have anti-government views are not welcome in our group."

In response to AP questions, Vanderboegh did not specifically address characterizations of him as an extremist. He said, generally speaking, that not "all folks claiming to be 'Three Percenters' are."

Little is known about Wright's past. He says on Facebook that he's a general contractor originally from Garland, Texas, but has declined to share biographical information, citing security concerns. Wright posted pictures of himself armed and talks tough about jihadists on Facebook. In July, Wright wrote: "We should be setting traps for them and exterminating them."

Wright said he and his cohorts protest only at certain Muslim locations. The mosque they plan to picket Saturday is in the same suburb, Richardson, as a now-defunct charity that federal investigators said had illegally funded Hamas, an Islamic militant group.

Wright's group promises a "peaceful" event Saturday, Richardson police spokesman Sgt. Kevin Perlich said. The group staged a demonstration there in October with less than 10 people.

"We have never hurt anyone," Wright said. "We are careful to work within the law at all times as we prepare to defend our homes and communities from any offensive forces."

© 2015 Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/three-percenters-armed-muslim-americans_566b7a7ce4b011b83a6b6c25 [with embedded video report, and comments]


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Fox’s 2nd Largest Shareholder Expresses A Dim View Of Trump



by Kinsey Lowe
December 12, 2015 1:31pm

Fox’s largest and second-largest shareholders may agree on management of 21st Century Fox assets, but of a certain outspoken Republican presidential candidate, they have very different opinions.

Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal [ http://deadline.com/tag/prince-al-waleed-bin-talal/ ] on Friday called the GOP frontrunner Donald Trump [ http://deadline.com/tag/donald-trump/ ] “a disgrace” who doesn’t stand a chance of being elected.

Trump retorted that the prince is using “daddy’s money” to control U.S. politicians and “can’t do it when I’m elected”.

Here are their respective tweets:

[Alwaleed_Talal]
@Alwaleed_Talal
.@realDonaldTrump
You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America.
Withdraw from the U.S presidential race as you will never win.
1:02 PM - 11 Dec 2015
[ https://twitter.com/Alwaleed_Talal/status/675390247165915137 (with comments)]

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Dopey Prince @Alwaleed_Talal wants to control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money. Can’t do it when I get elected. #Trump2016
9:53 PM - 11 Dec 2015
[ https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/675523728055410689 (with comments)]

The prince is a longtime backer of Fox Chairman and CEO shareholder Rupert Murdoch [ http://deadline.com/tag/rupert-murdoch/ ] who has said that some of Trump’s positions make sense [ http://deadline.com/2015/12/rupert-murdoch-donald-trump-support-muslim-ban-1201661034/ ]. Al Waleed’s 6.6% stake in 21st Century Fox is worth in the neighborhood of $1.7 billion, and he’s the second largest shareholder. 21st Century Fox maintains a 19% stake in Al Waleed’s media group Rotana [ http://deadline.com/tag/rotana/ ].

Copyright © 2015 Penske Business Media, LLC

http://deadline.com/2015/12/donald-trump-prince-al-waleed-bin-talal-1201665870/ [with comments]


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Donald Trump’s Latest Feud Is With a Prince

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia called Donald J. Trump a "disgrace" on Twitter.
Dec. 12, 2015
[...]
But Mr. Alwaleed’s insult may have stung a little deeper. During Mr. Trump’s period of financial distress in the early 1990s, when a debt of more than $900 million forced Mr. Trump to carve up some of his empire, the prince snapped up two jewels of the Trump brand: the Plaza Hotel in New York and Mr. Trump’s 281-foot-yacht, known as “Trump Princess.”
For Mr. Trump, the criticism from Mr. Alwaleed validated the attitude he has been taking toward Saudi Arabia during his campaign. ...
[...]
He wouldn’t mention another country, however, stating, “There are, but I’m not going to say it because I have a lot of relationships with people, but they are.”
It turns out those relationships might have soured [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/business/donald-trump-loses-luster-when-words-reach-the-middle-east.html ] as well. Mr. Trump’s name was stripped [ http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/12/11/world/middleeast/ap-ml-gop-2016-trump-mideast.html ] from a multibillion-dollar development on the outskirts of Dubai, and the Dubai-based Landmark Group responded by removing all Trump-branded products from the shelves of its Lifestyle retail stores.
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/12/donald-trumps-latest-feud-is-with-a-prince/


*


Trump ‘a disgrace’– Alwaleed


Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal

Dec 13, 2015

Riyadh — Donald Trump is a disgrace and should pull out of the United States presidential race, chairman of Kingdom Holding Company Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal tweeted late on Friday.

“@realDonaldTrump You are a disgrace not only to the GOP but to all America,” Alwaleed said on his official Twitter account, @Alwaleed_Talal.

“Withdraw from the US presidential race as you will never win.”

A statement early Saturday from Alwaleed’s office said his tweet was in response to Trump’s “anti-Islam statement.”

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, has been lambasted both in the US and abroad for his proposal made on Monday to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the US.

On Friday, protesters disrupted Trump’s speech at a $1,000-a-plate New York City luncheon.

Four protesters chanting “Trump is trying to bring us down, targeting people black and brown,” tried to storm a side entrance into the speech at Manhattan’s The Plaza Hotel as security staff pushed them away.

Later in Trump’s speech, about nine other protesters from various advocacy groups stood up to denounce his recent comments to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the US.

“I’m really frightened by that kind of rhetoric,” said Martha Acklesberg, 69, a member of the group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, who along with Judith Plaskow, 68, paid to hear Trump speech and then disrupted it in protest.

In Dubai, Trump’s image and name were removed from parts of a golf course and housing development.

The disappearance of at least some Trump branding from the multi-billion-dollar development on the outskirts of Dubai comes as concerns over his comments grow in the Middle East, a region in which the businessman long has sought money-making opportunities.

The company behind the Trump Towers in Istanbul, meanwhile, said it is “assessing” its partnership with the Republican presidential front-runner.

In Dubai, Trump had a deal with Damac Properties to license his name and image for a housing project and two golf courses for an undisclosed sum.

On Friday, a prominent advertising billboard showing Trump golfing that had stood at the Akoya development, where the housing and one of the golf courses is being built, was gone. All that remained of it was the board’s brown wooden background. Another billboard declaring the development “The Beverly Hills of Dubai” still stood nearby.

Trump’s name also appeared to have been pulled off one sign greeting visitors to the complex. The sign, outside a sales office at the site, originally had Trump’s name in lettering on a stone wall. But on Friday the letters were littering the ground in front of it.

— Agencies

© Saudi Gazette 2015

http://saudigazette.com.sa/saudi-arabia/trump-a-disgrace-alwaleed/ [no comments yet]


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Texas Plumber Sues Car Dealer After His Truck Ends Up on Syria’s Front Lines


The image of the truck was widely circulated on Twitter and published in news reports since 2014.
Credit via Twitter


ISIS fighters seen riding the work truck of Mark Oberholtzer, a Texas plumber.
Photo: Twitter
[ http://nypost.com/2015/12/13/texas-plumber-files-lawsuit-after-isis-was-seen-using-his-truck/ ]


Mark Oberholtzer
Photo: Facebook
[id.]

By CHRISTINE HAUSER
DEC. 14, 2015

A Texas plumber has filed a lawsuit against a car dealership after a used truck he sold showed up on the front lines in Syria being used by Islamist fighters. The logo and phone number of his company, Mark-1 Plumbing, were still visible on the doors.

After images of the truck appeared online, the plumber, Mark Oberholtzer of Galveston County, claims he lost business and received hundreds of threats that accused him of being a terrorist sympathizer. Mr. Oberholtzer is seeking more than $1 million in damages, in a lawsuit filed last week [ http://www.scribd.com/doc/293042163/Mark-1-Plumbing-Inc-v-Charlie-Thomas-Ford-Ltd ], according to his lawyer, Craig Eiland. A copy of the lawsuit was provided to The New York Times.

Mr. Oberholtzer’s truck began its strange journey from fixing leaky pipes in suburban Texas to the Syrian battlefield in 2013.

In October of that year, the lawsuit said, Mr. Oberholtzer handed over the 2005 Ford F-250 truck to AutoNation Ford Gulf Freeway in Houston as part of a trade-in deal for a newer model.

As the paperwork was being completed, Mr. Oberholtzer’s son started peeling off the decal on the truck that showed the phone number and name of the company, but the salesman told him to stop because it would harm the paint and said it would be removed later, the lawsuit said.

According to the lawsuit, the dealer sold the truck at auction in November 2013, and it was exported from Houston to Mersin, Turkey, the following month.

From Turkey, it apparently made its way to Syria and wound up being adapted to carry an antiaircraft gun in its flatbed manned by jihadi fighters, the lawsuit said.

Mr. Oberholtzer apparently thought little of it. But in December 2014, images of the truck and the weapon being fired were published on social media [ https://twitter.com/Weissenberg7/status/544561872390086656 ]. The lawsuit included one such example, taken from the Twitter account of a writer in Illinois who reports on jihadist groups and who said a Chechen was “using plumbing truck against regime in Aleppo.”

Mr. Oberholtzer’s secretary called him on Dec. 17, 2014, and told him there were news stories about it. Coverage started to spread, including a widely viewed segment, as the lawsuit notes, on “The Colbert Report,” which made light of it [ http://www.cc.com/video-clips/iccity/the-colbert-report-texan-s-truck-in-syria ].

“That country is going down the toilet,” Stephen Colbert, the host, said referring to Syria. “But for the first time, they know who to call to unclog it.”

By the end of that day, the lawsuit said, there were thousands of harassing and threatening phone calls to Mr. Oberholtzer’s office and other phone numbers with accusations that he supported terrorists. His staff and family members have also been subject to threatening calls, Mr. Eiland said.

Mr. Oberholtzer said his business had suffered. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents met with him and advised him to protect himself, the lawsuit said. He started carrying a handgun.

In September, after excerpts from the Colbert segment aired during an Emmy Awards ceremony, the calls to Mr. Oberholtzer flared up again, averaging 100 to 200 every day, the lawsuit said.

Nobody answered a phone call to the car dealership on Monday. Mr. Oberholtzer could not be reached either, but his lawyer, Mr. Eiland, said in a telephone interview that the family’s plumbing company, which has been in operation since 1984 and was also named as a plaintiff in the case, was still getting threats as news of the lawsuit spread.

According to Mr. Eiland, one of the callers said, “How can you call yourself American if you are supplying vehicles to ISIS?”

© 2015 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/texas-plumber-sues-car-dealer-after-his-truck-ends-up-on-syrias-front-lines.html


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2 Hawthorne mosques vandalized in wake of San Bernardino terror attack


The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque in Hawthorne was vandalized either late Saturday night or early Sunday morning. Mosque members discovered graffiti on the outside wall and fence of the building.
Photo courtesy the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

By Beatriz Valenzuela
Posted: 12/13/15, 2:30 PM PST | Updated: 12/13/15, [c.] 4:30 PM PST

HAWTHORNE >> Sunday morning worshipers were shocked to find someone had vandalized a Hawthorne mosque and placed a plastic grenade inside the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque.

“A few of our members went to early morning prayer at about 5 a.m. and they found graffiti on the outside wall and ‘Jesus’ was written on the fence,” said Zahid Mian, a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Baitus-Salaam Mosque, located at 13221 Prairie Ave. “As Muslims we don’t really find (the crosses) very offensive, but the act of vandalizing is disturbing.”

The mosque members called the Hawthorne Police Department when they found what they believed was a grenade inside, Mian said.

Officers cordoned off the area and later determined the grenade was plastic and didn’t pose a threat.

A short time later, police received a call that someone had scrawled “Jesus is the way” on the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, at 12209 Hawthorne Blvd.

In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting massacre on Dec. 2, which was carried out by Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik who were both Muslim, the attack on the Hawthorne mosques appears to be the latest targeting the Muslim community.

Riverside County sheriff’s investigators believe 23-year-old Carl James Dial, Jr. [ http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20151212/man-accused-of-arson-hate-crime-in-coachella-mosque-fire ] firebombed a Coachella Valley mosque Friday causing major damage. Officials say there were worshipers inside at the time of the incident.

Dial is due in an Indio courtroom Wednesday.

Dial was arrested a day later and booked on suspicion of committing a hate crime, arson and burglary, sheriff’s officials said.

The FBI is working with the Hawthorne Police Department in investigating both incidents as hate crimes, according to a police statement. The FBI is also assisting in the Riverside County sheriff’s investigation.

“We continuously work with our state and local partners to secure communities and to investigate and bring to justice those who would commit violent acts or make violent threats against others based on the victim’s Constitutionally-protected characteristics or beliefs, real or perceived,” states a release from the FBI regarding the vandalism. “The FBI takes seriously all acts or threats of violence and reminds the public to remain vigilant and immediately report any crimes or suspicious activity to law enforcement.”

This is the latest attack on the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in recent weeks across the nation. Shots were fired at a mosque [ http://abc7ny.com/news/shots-fired-at-ct-mosque-hours-after-paris-attacks-as-muslims-face-backlash/1089771/ ] in Connecticut hours after the Paris attacks, said Minaal Sayed-Malik, spokeswoman for Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Sadiqa Rashid Malik, president of the Los Angeles East chapter of the ladies auxiliary for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, said she was very confused by the vandalism in Hawthrone.

“We’re a very safe and peaceful community,” she said. “We don’t know what could have inspired somebody to do something like that. It is a hate crime and it is someone who is not very well aware of our community.”

For Mian, Sunday’s vandalism is shocking, but he said he is more concerned that people are acting out of misinformation about Islam.

“We worry people are getting the wrong message from the shooting in San Bernardino,” he said adding that the Ahmadiyya community encourages its’ neighbors to visit their mosques and learn more about Islam.

Every Friday at 1:30 p.m., the Hawthorne mosque offers services and invites the public. The Ahmadiyya community also has a mosque in Chino.

“We would like for people to come and ask us questions and learn about our beliefs and Islam,” he said.

Mian believes the mosque was vandalized either late Saturday or early Sunday morning. The vandals are being sought by police.

“Many of us fled Pakistan and places like that to come to America so we can worship freely,” Mian noted. “It’s kind of shocking because we all grew up thinking that America was the land of freedom and opportunity and everyone was respected for their beliefs.”

Despite the attack, Mian said he and other members do not fault the whole Christian community for the acts of a small minority.

“Christianity and Judaism, they are revered in the Quran,” Mian said. “We have respect for all the religions.”

Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call the Hawthorne Police Department at 310-349-2700.

Copyright © San Bernardino County Sun

http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20151213/2-hawthorne-mosques-vandalized-in-wake-of-san-bernardino-terror-attack [no comments yet]


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Paris teacher says he was stabbed by terrorist in school, then admits he lied
December 14, 2015
It was a Lie-SIS attack.
A nursery school teacher in a Paris suburb freaked out locals by claiming he was stabbed by an apparent ISIS militant — but later admitted he made the whole thing up.
[...]
The truth-twisting teacher, who has not been identified, claimed a man appeared in the school while the educator prepared for classes. The terrorist supposedly stabbed him with a box cutter and scissors and screamed, "This is Daesh, this is warning," using an alternative name for ISIS that the terror group itself hates.
[...]
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/paris-teacher-attacked-assailant-issuing-isis-warning-article-1.2464945 [with embedded video report, and comment]


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The President Provides an Update on the Counter-ISIL Campaign

Published on Dec 14, 2015 by The White House

Speaking at the Pentagon, President Obama spoke on the progress and strength of the U.S. and international campaign to degrade and destroy ISIL. December 14, 2015.

*

Remarks by the President on the Military Campaign to Destroy ISIL

The Pentagon
December 14, 2015

12:47 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, everybody. Today, the United States and our Armed Forces continue to lead the global coalition in our mission to destroy the terrorist group ISIL. As I outlined in my speech to the nation last weekend, our strategy is moving forward with a great sense of urgency on four fronts -- hunting down and taking out these terrorists; training and equipping Iraqi and Syrian forces to fight ISIL on the ground; stopping ISIL’s operations by disrupting their recruiting, financing and propaganda; and, finally, persistent diplomacy to end the Syrian civil war so that everyone can focus on destroying ISIL.

I just had a chance to meet with my National Security Council as part of our regular effort to review and constantly strengthen our efforts. And I want to thank Secretary Carter, Chairman Dunford, and Vice Chairman Selva for hosting us and for their leadership of our men and women in uniform. We heard from General Austin, who is leading the military campaign in the region, as well as General Votel, whose Special Operations forces are playing a vital role in this fight.

I want to provide all of you a brief update on our progress against the ISIL core in Syria and Iraq, because as we squeeze its heart, we’ll make it harder for ISIL to pump its terror and propaganda to the rest of the world.

This fall, even before the revolting attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, I ordered new actions to intensify our war against ISIL. These actions, including more firepower and Special Operations forces, are well underway. This continues to be a difficult fight. As I said before, ISIL is dug in, including in urban areas, and they hide behind civilians, using defenseless men, women and children as human shields.

So even as we’re relentless, we have to be smart, targeting ISIL surgically, with precision. At the same time, our partners on the ground are rooting ISIL out, town by town, neighborhood by neighborhood, block by block. That is what this campaign is doing.

We are hitting ISIL harder than ever. Coalition aircraft -- our fighters, bombers and drones -- have been increasing the pace of airstrikes -- nearly 9,000 as of today. Last month, in November, we dropped more bombs on ISIL targets than any other month since this campaign started.

We’re also taking out ISIL leaders, commanders and killers, one by one. Since this spring, we’ve removed Abu Sayyaf, one of their top leaders; Haji Mutazz, ISIL’s second-in command; Junaid Hussain, a top online recruiter; Mohamed Emwazi, who brutally murdered Americans and others; and in recent weeks, finance chief Abu Saleh; senior extortionist Abu Maryam; and weapons trafficker Abu Rahman al-Tunisi. The list goes on.

We’re going after ISIL from their stronghold right down -- right in downtown Raqqa, to Libya, where we took out Abu Nabil, the ISIL leader there. The point is, ISIL leaders cannot hide. And our next message to them is simple: You are next.

Every day, we destroy as well more of ISIL’s forces -- their fighting positions, bunkers and staging areas; their heavy weapons, bomb-making factories, compounds and training camps. In many places, ISIL has lost its freedom of maneuver, because they know if they mass their forces, we will wipe them out. In fact, since the summer, ISIL has not had a single successful major offensive operation on the ground in either Syria or Iraq. In recent weeks, we’ve unleashed a new wave of strikes on their lifeline, their oil infrastructure, destroying hundreds of their tanker trucks, wells and refineries. And we’re going to keep on hammering those.

ISIL also continues to lose territory in Iraq. ISIL had already lost across Kirkuk province and at Tikrit. More recently, ISIL lost at Sinjar, losing a strategic highway. ISIL lost at Baiji, with its oil refinery. We saw the daring raid supported by our Special Forces, which rescued dozens of prisoners from ISIL, and in which Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler made the ultimate sacrifice.

So far, ISIL has lost about 40 percent of the populated areas it once controlled in Iraq. And it will lose more. Iraqi forces are now fighting their way deeper into Ramadi. They’re working to encircle Fallujah and cut off ISIL supply routes into Mosul. Again, these are urban areas where ISIL is entrenched. Our partners on the ground face a very tough fight ahead, and we’re going to continue to back them up with the support that they need to ultimately clear ISIL from Iraq.

ISIL also continues to lose territory in Syria. We continue to step up our air support and supplies to local forces -- Syrian Kurds, Arabs, Christians, Turkmen -- and they’re having success. After routing ISIL at Kobani and Tal Abyad, they’ve pushed ISIL back from almost across the entire border region with Turkey, and we’re working with Turkey to seal the rest. ISIL has lost thousands of square miles of territory it once controlled in Syria -- and it will lose more. The Special Forces that I ordered to Syria have begun supporting local forces as they push south, cut off supply lines and tighten the squeeze on Raqqa.

Meanwhile, more people are seeing ISIL for the thugs and the thieves and the killers that they are. We’ve seen instances of ISIL fighters defecting. Others who’ve tried to escape have been executed. And ISIL’s reign of brutality and extortion continues to repel local populations and help fuel the refugee crisis. “So many people are migrating,” said one Syrian refugee. ISIL, she said, will “end up all alone.”

All this said, we recognize that progress needs to keep coming faster. No one knows that more than the countless Syrians and Iraqis living every day under ISIL’s terror, as well as the families in San Bernardino and Paris and elsewhere who are grieving the loss of their loved ones. Just as the United States is doing more in this fight -- just as our allies France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Australia and Italy are doing more -- so must others.

And that’s why I’ve asked Secretary Carter to go to the Middle East -- he’ll depart right after this press briefing -- to work with our coalition partners on securing more military contributions to this fight. On the diplomatic front, Secretary Kerry will be in Russia tomorrow as we continue to work, as part of the Vienna process, to end the Syrian civil war. Meanwhile, here at home, the Department of Homeland Security is updating its alert system to help the American people stay vigilant and safe.

And as always, our extraordinary men and women in uniform continue to put their lives on the line -- in this campaign and around the world -- to keep the rest of us safe. This holiday season, many of our troops are once again far from their families. And as your Commander-in-Chief, on behalf of the American people, we want to say thank you. We are grateful, and we are proud for everything that you do. Because of you, the America that we know and love and cherish is leading the world in this fight.

Because of you, I am confident that we are going to prevail.

Thank you very much, everybody.

END
12:56 P.M. EST

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/14/remarks-president-military-campaign-destroy-isil

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orZUHpXCdaQ [with comments], [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/12/14/president-provides-update-counter-isil-campaign , [embedded/more information at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/isil-strategy


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Donald Trump Releases Medical Report Calling His Health ‘Extraordinary’


Donald J. Trump at the University of South Carolina, Aiken, on Saturday.
Credit Travis Dove for The New York Times

By Maggie Haberman and Lawrence K. Altman
Dec, 14, 2015 2:38 pm ET Updated 11:02 pm ET

Donald J. Trump has released a letter [ https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/statement-on-donald-j.-trump-record-of-health ] from his personal physician attesting that his health is “extraordinary.”

The letter, gushing in tone and signed by Dr. Harold N. Bornstein of Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, was four paragraphs long and provided few specific laboratory test results. The letter made a sweeping declaration in a tone oddly similar to how Mr. Trump talks about himself.

“If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” Dr. Bornstein wrote in the final paragraph of the letter, which was dated Dec. 4 but not released until Monday.

The note also came 11 days after Mr. Trump, 69 and a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, vowed on Twitter [ https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/672401996826206208 ] to release a “full medical report” about his physical health and fitness to serve as president, which he said would “show perfection.” His pledge came after a Politico report [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/trump-withholds-medical-records-216376 ] pointed out his penchant for fatty foods, his lack of routine workouts and, until now, his refusal to release a medical report.

In releasing the letter, Mr. Trump erred by attributing the medical report to his current physician’s father, Dr. Jacob Bornstein. “I am proud to share this health report, written by the highly respected Dr. Jacob Bornstein of Lenox Hill Hospital.”

The note begins as an open letter [ https://www.donaldjtrump.com/images/uploads/trump_health_record.pdf ], “To Whom My Concern,” apparently meaning, “To whom it may concern.” The email from Mr. Trump that contained the note said it was from his doctor, Jacob. According to an obituary [ http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=jacob-bornstein&pid=139843879 ], Jacob Bornstein died in 2010; the note lists Jacob Bornstein as Mr. Trump’s previous physician.

Dr. Harold Bornstein said in his letter that he had taken over his father’s practice and had cared for Mr. Trump since 1980. “Over the past 39 years, I am pleased to report that Mr. Trump had no significant medical problems,” giving a duration that suggested he had been caring for him since 1976.

Mr. Trump was a patient of the senior Dr. Bornstein. Presumably, the son had access to his father’s records to account for the four-year difference in time. It is an unusual instance in which a politician’s health has been attested to by a single physician group over such a long period of time.

A “recent complete medical examination” of Mr. Trump “showed only positive results,” the letter said. It gave few specifics about that examination but contained a number of flamboyant descriptions. For example, Dr. Bornstein said Mr. Trump’s blood pressure, 110/65, and laboratory test results were “astonishingly excellent.” Presumably, the normal blood pressure reading was without benefit of any medication to lower a higher blood pressure.

Mr. Trump has lost “at least 15 pounds” in the past 12 months. But his exact weight before and after the loss was not stated. Reporters who have covered Mr. Trump’s campaign said their impression was that he had gained weight over recent months.

Mr. Trump takes a low-dose aspirin (81 milligrams, or baby aspirin) daily as well as a statin to lower his high cholesterol, the report said. The letter did not state the levels of Mr. Trump’s cholesterol and other lipids before and after the statin therapy. Aspirin and the statin were the only drugs Dr. Bornstein said Mr. Trump was taking.

The letter said Mr. Trump did not use tobacco or alcohol products and had no history of cancer or bone or joint surgery. His only reported surgical operation was an appendectomy at age 10.

Reporters have asked Mr. Trump about his military draft status. He said he had received medical deferments from the Vietnam War because of a bone spur in his foot. When asked about it over the summer, Mr. Trump said he could not recall which foot was afflicted. Reporters who have covered Mr. Trump in recent months said they have not noticed him wincing or limping while walking.

A low prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, level of 0.15 was one of the few specific test results stated by Dr. Bornstein. The fact that the physician said Mr. Trump “has suffered no form of cancer” would exclude removal or destruction of prostate tissue as a reason for such a low PSA level. Dr. Bornstein did not indicate when the test was performed or whether it had been repeated.

For many years, doctors checked the PSA level to detect prostate cancer. But recently, some groups have recommended against routine testing, saying the choice should be discussed between patient and doctor.

Dr. Bornstein made no mention of whether Mr. Trump received a flu shot annually or whether he has received standard immunizations like those against tetanus and pneumonia.

The physician’s letter also gave a subjective appraisal of Mr. Trump’s physical strength and stamina, which were said to be “extraordinary,” but the report did not include any objective measurements to support this.

In a cover letter to Dr. Bornstein’s letter, Mr. Trump said: “I am fortunate to have been blessed with great genes — both of my parents had very long and productive lives.” He did not say his father, Fred, developed Alzheimer’s disease [ http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/26/nyregion/fred-c-trump-postwar-master-builder-of-housing-for-middle-class-dies-at-93.html ] beginning in his late 80s. The genetics of most forms of Alzheimer’s and dementia are not known with certainty. Doctors and patients consider it prudent to be aware of such a risk and to be checked if specific signs become apparent.

The objective measures that Dr. Bornstein used in saying Mr. Trump, if elected, would be the healthiest president were unclear.

While physicians are supposed to be advocates for their patients, a number of ethicists and historians have cautioned them not to become boosters or to distort or mislead the public when discussing the medical history of a patient who is politically active.

Physicians who have served in the White House and candidates’ personal physicians have lied or distorted their patients’ medical history in the past, including the doctors of Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. In interviews, recent White House physicians said they would not risk jeopardizing their reputations to hide any serious ailment affecting a president in their care.

The note from Dr. Bornstein praised Mr. Trump’s “physical strength and stamina.” Those are the specific words [ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/23/donald-trump-steals-from-his-attacks-on-bush-to-hit-hillary-clintons-stamina/ ] that Mr. Trump has used to tar Hillary Clinton, who is leading in polls for the Democratic presidential nomination. Mrs. Clinton months ago released a lengthy doctor’s note that included information about her concussion in December 2012 and her recovery.

© 2015 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/12/14/donald-trump-releases-medical-report-calling-his-health-extraordinary/


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Donald Trump would be America's healthiest president, doctor's letter says

Non-drinking, non-smoking Donald Trump’s blood pressure is ‘astonishingly excellent’ but his cardiovascular status is, perhaps slightly disappointingly, only ‘excellent’.

Statement on Donald J. Trump Record of Health
December 14, 2015
I am proud to share this report, written by the highly respected Dr. Harold Bornstein of Lenox Hill Hospital, stating that I am in excellent health. I am fortunate to have been blessed with great genes --- both of my parents had very long and productive lives. I have truly enjoyed working on the campaign trail with one objective in mind, to Make America Great Again! People have been impressed by my stamina, but to me it has been easy because I am truly doing something that I love. Our country will soon be better and stronger than ever before. – Donald J. Trump
[ https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/statement-on-donald-j.-trump-record-of-health / https://www.donaldjtrump.com/images/uploads/trump_health_record.pdf , http://www.vox.com/2015/12/14/10122890/donald-trump-health-records ]
He was declared unfit to fight in Vietnam but according to the Republican candidate’s physician ‘his physical strength and stamina are extraordinary’
14 December 2015
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/14/donald-trump-health-doctor-letter-americas-healthiest-president [with comments]


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Terrorism Is Now Americans' Top Concern

Republicans are far more worried about terrorism than Democrats.
12/14/2015 Updated 12/15/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/terrorism-poll_566ef831e4b011b83a6bee6d [with comments]


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A Running List Of Shameful Islamophobic Acts Since The Paris Attacks

This is not OK.
11/20/2015 Updated 12/16/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/all-the-islamophobic-acts-in-us-canada-since-paris_564cee09e4b031745cef9dda [with embedded video reports, and comments; 73 such incidents reported as I make this post, article continues to be updated]


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A Letter From ISIS to Donald Trump


Paul Vernon/AP

By Mohamed Elmenshawy
Posted: 12/14/2015 12:48 pm EST Updated: 12/14/2015 3:59 pm EST

"Dear Donald Trump, leading candidate for the Republican nomination:

Thank you for your cooperation, we sincerely hope it continues.

You, and what you represent, make our job so much easier, and truly make our quest for war without end between Islam and the West a reality."

The above is how I imagine the Islamic State's leadership (Da'esh or ISIS) responded to Donald Trump's latest remarks calling for a ban upon all Muslims' entry to the United States. Little more than unadulterated racist hatred, Trump's anti-Muslim diatribe must have greatly pleased ISIS's delusional leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Billionaire Trump announced his pledge to prevent all Muslims from entering the United States only a few short days after terror attacks waged by an American-born Muslim and his Pakistani wife in San Bernardino, CA. Trump, who styles himself as an expert of public opinion, justified his proposal on the grounds that, as a matter of religious principle, all Muslims hate Americans.

Trump's remarks were so outlandish that fellow Republican presidential candidates, as well as senior party leaders felt, compelled to condemn them, stating that Trump's invectives contravened both American and GOP values. As of yet, Trump has neither rescinded nor apologized for his comments; if anything, he has only become more consistent in his vitriol. Though Trump clearly does not represent every American, his remarks have placed millions of American Muslims in danger, engendering hatred and stoking the flames of Islamophobia.

Since its foundation nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, Muslims have played a crucial role in American society. Originally arriving as African slaves, Muslims have consistently immigrated to the United States since the end of the Civil War. Today, Muslims work in such prominent industries as diverse as film, literature, sports, and space; thousands even serve in America's armed forces. Though the US Government does not account for religion when conducting its census, independent analysis estimate close to 7 million Muslims reside in the United States. There are about 3000 mosques spread across all 50 states.

Furthermore, most American Muslims enjoy a higher standard of living than the norm, with 66% earning more than the United States $50K median household average yearly income. Unlike their counterparts throughout Europe, American Muslims do not live in poor, isolated, and ghettoized neighborhoods; instead, Muslims in the US reside wherever they desire, in the exact same areas as their Christian, Jewish, or Hindu neighbors. Though few are politically active at the national level, two members of the House of Representatives are Muslim, Keith Ellison (D - MN) and Andre Carson (D - IN).

One day before Trump announced his xenophobic proposal, President Obama addressed the nation from the Oval Office about his strategy for confronting terror and defeating Da'esh, enlisting Muslims in the fight against Islamic extremism. During his address, Obama categorically rejected the notion that Muslims should be treated differently than other American, noting that "American Muslims [have long been] and are prepared to fight and die for their country." Despite Obama's repeated assurances that terrorists do not represent Islam or Muslims, as well as has continued to refusal to refer to Da'esh as "Islamic" so as to deny it any semblance of the religious legitimacy it so desperately craves, Trump's remarks were considered more important and more meaningful.

Trump's provocative sound bite proved far more resonant than Obama's conciliatory speech for a variety of reasons, chief among them the fact that Trump's message of religious intolerance echoes ISIS' strategic goals of initiating a sustained conflict with Western nonbelievers, most notably the US. Da'esh will exploit Trump's foolhardy remarks to deepen the divide between Muslims and the US and recruit more disaffected youths to its ranks, just as it did when criticizing America's hypocritical response to the Syrian refugee crisis; Trump's statements legitimizing hatred and causing more instances of anti-Muslim violence and harassment will only lead to similar results.

Lest Trump's recent statements be dismissed as an inarticulate slip of the tongue, we should remember that his campaign has been chock full of diatribes against nearly every other minority group, regularly insulting women, Mexicans, the poor, and the disabled. As of this writing, Trump remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination, garnering at least 30% of the vote in recent polls of likely voters in the Republican primary. Most troublingly, Trump's proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the US does not seem all that dissonant with views of the American public; recent opinion polls conducted over the past several weeks indicated that 37% of Americans view Islam negatively and 28% of American's believe Islam is a religion that promotes violence.

Despite the fact that the US is by far the most religious society in the West, its constitution is purely secular, as is its executive branch, legislature, and judiciary. In fact, the words "God" and "Christianity" never appear in the entire document, even more than 70% of Americans identify as Christian. The constitution only discusses religion as it pertains to the First Amendment's prohibition upon religious-based discrimination as well as its decree that Congress may make no law based in nor impugning upon religion, in addition to that, no religious test may be administered to anyone seeking federal employment. Accordingly, because the president is legally obligated to "preserve, protect, and defend," the Constitution, the White House asserted that Trump's anti-Muslim comments "disqualify" him from seeking the Presidency.

When political theorist Samuel P. Huntington published his seminal work, "the Clash of Civilizations" in 1993, it was met with nearly universal derision. Years after his death in 2008, the Clash of Civilizations remains highly controversial for how it depicts relations between the Muslim world and the West. Today, Da'esh and other like-minded terrorist groups, as well as hateful individuals like Donald Trump, give credence to Huntington's contentious and conflict-provoking theories long since discredited my mainstream thinkers and politicians.

In sum, ISIS' letter to Trump could only conclude as follows:

"Dear Trump, we wish you all the best.

We sincerely hope that you become the next President of the United States in order to strengthen our shared ties.

Happy Holidays,
ISIS"

Mohamed Elmenshawy is Washington Bureau Chief for Alaraby Television Network, and a columnist for the Egyptian Daily Alshorouk.

Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mohamed-elmenshawy/a-letter-from-isis-to-don_1_b_8785648.html [with comments]


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Marine Le Pen Far From Humbled by National Front’s Bruising Defeat


Marine Le Pen, the National Front leader, was anything but conciliatory after the announcement of election results on Sunday.
Credit Francois Lo Presti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Video [embedded]
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a candidate with France’s far-right National Front Party, spoke to supporters after losing her bid for election in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region.
[ http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/100000004092136/marion-marechal-le-pen-loses-election.html ]

By ADAM NOSSITER
DEC. 14, 2015

PARIS — Marine Le Pen’s concession speech after her National Front party lost in every region of France [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/world/europe/france-regional-elections-national-front.html ] on Sunday was anything but conciliatory, despite more than 70 percent of voters rejecting the far-right leader’s message of hostility toward immigrants and open borders.

That bristly intransigence, analysts say, is the key to both the National Front’s history and its destiny, and the reason — in the absence of truly dire economic conditions — that a takeover by the far right in France is not likely anytime soon.

What gives the party its fiercely loyal following — its vituperative denunciation of migrants, its unconcealed hostility toward Muslims, its xenophobic “France [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/france/index.html ] for the French” message — also makes it an impossible partner for any political group closer to the mainstream and helps block its advancement as a political force.

Throughout the country, in Sunday’s second round of regional voting, the mainstream parties formed a de facto alliance against the National Front, which even lost in the two regions where Ms. Le Pen and her niece Marion Maréchal Le Pen were favored to win.

In those areas, in the deindustrializing, high-unemployment north and in a south full of those who still regret the loss of French Algeria, the third-finishing Socialist Party pulled out of the race, allowing the mainstream right party of the former president, Nicolas Sarkozy [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/nicolas_sarkozy/index.html ], to win.

Permanent outsider status for the National Front — outside the “golden palaces of the Republic,” as Ms. Le Pen sneered Sunday — was the result. A similar dynamic was in play in departmental elections in March, when over half of the left’s voters switched to the mainstream right candidate in the second round, and the right went on to win 535 out of 538 contests with the National Front.

Jérôme Fourquet, a polling expert, noted that the “Republican front was effective, as a big proportion of the left’s voters voted for the right,” meaning Mr. Sarkozy’s party. In the southern region around Nice, 65 percent of those who voted Socialist in the first round voted for the right’s candidate in the second, and in the north around Lille, where Ms. Le Pen was running, the figure was 70 percent, Mr. Fourquet said at a news conference.

The gravelly voiced party leader, perpetually sucking on an electronic cigarette, appears to both revel in that status and to be embittered by it. And since she represents the “courageous and determined patriots,” defeat is never her party’s fault. Nevermind the big turnout Sunday — jumping by more than eight percentage points between the first and second rounds, suggesting an electorate mobilized to beat her — and the lopsided rejection.

Instead, she was the victim of a conspiracy, she told her disappointed supporters in the strangely high-flown language that is the uneasy bearer of her populist message.

Sunday’s loss “revealed the fundamental lie on which has rested for decades the French political system,” Ms. Le Pen said. What was “revealed with no possible ambiguity were the hitherto occult connections of those who claim to oppose each other but who, in reality, share power, without ever resolving your problems, and worse, lead the country, from one mandate to another, into submersion” by migrants “and into chaos.”

In other words, the two mainstream parties, the Socialists and the Republicans, ganged up on her, and she lost.

The party “doesn’t realize that in order to win power, it has to make allies and expand its audience,” said Sylvain Crépon, a political scientist and an expert on the National Front. “You can see the limits of its strategy. Any alliance with the right is impossible,” he added.

To be sure, Sunday’s election was not a total loss for the party. It tripled the number of councilors who will sit on the country’s regional assemblies, to 358, providing a potent carrier for the party’s message. And it scored a record number of votes, 6.8 million — 400,000 more than the previous record in the 2012 presidential election.

Ms. Le Pen made it clear that she is looking forward to the 2017 presidential election. “In relation to 2017, she is clearly positioning herself,” said Valérie Igounet, a historian who specializes in the National Front. The party’s “political representatives are now spreading themselves out all over France,” she said.

But Ms. Le Pen will face the same hurdle then. “Their ideas continue to repulse over 70 percent of the French,” Mr. Crépon said.

Both right and left freely steal from the National Front’s ideas, with the left often sounding law-and-order themes and the right vowing to crack down on immigration. “The other two parties wage their campaigns around the Front’s ideas,” Mr. Crépon said. But they are always careful to avoid its extreme xenophobia and its anti-Muslim rhetoric.

“What distinguishes the National Front is its outrageousness, its radicalism,” Mr. Crépon said. The party’s dilemma, never resolved, is that “if it is too radical, it marginalizes itself, but if it normalizes itself, it becomes too commonplace.” As Ms. Le Pen’s father, Jean-Marie, the party’s founder, once remarked, none of its base voters would be interested in a National Front that sounds too tame.

The party’s supporters made that much abundantly clear at a boisterous flag-waving rally here last week. “With all this immigration, and then the immigration leading to terrorism; she said it, and nobody was listening,” said Nellie Viaro, a National Front municipal councilor from the Paris suburbs.

“She’s a woman of conviction who is persecuted by the Socialists,” said Yves Breugnot, a party activist. He added, referring to France’s flag, “With the Socialists, there is no blue-white-red, there is only red.”

There were no big winners in Sunday’s vote, though the ruling Socialists did better than expected, holding on to five regions to the right’s seven and getting just under 30 percent of the vote. Mr. Sarkozy’s party, with just over 40 percent, was hoping to sweep the boards but fell far short, a result interpreted by most pundits as a sign of strength for the Socialist president, François Hollande, in the pre-electoral period before 2017.

France’s stagnant economy and high unemployment have kept Mr. Hollande at rock bottom in the polls for much of his tenure. But he rose in popularity after the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/12/world/europe/victory-for-frances-right-wing-party-appears-to-be-imperiled.html ], when he was credited with unifying and reassuring a frightened country. That rise was reflected in Sunday’s less than disastrous regional poll results.

Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting.

© 2015 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/world/europe/marine-le-pen-far-from-humbled-by-national-fronts-bruising-defeat.html


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Donald Trump Rally Turns Ugly: 'Light The Motherf**ker On Fire!'

A pattern emerges.

By Igor Bobic
12/15/2015 12:41 am ET | Updated 12/15/2015 [c.] 10:00 am ET

A Las Vegas rally for Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump turned ugly Monday night, the eve of a Republican presidential debate, after multiple protesters interrupted the candidate's speech.

According to reporters at the event, held at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino, protesters clashed with security guards as they were escorted from the room. Some of the protesters appeared to be Black Lives Matter activists and gun control supporters [ https://twitter.com/WaPoSean/status/676616749194723330 ].

At one point, as security guards attempted to remove a black man from the rally, an attendee said, “Light the motherfucker on fire! [ https://twitter.com/mckaycoppins/status/676611661487190018 (embedded, with embedded video)]”

More color from MSNBC's Benjy Sarlin:

Benjy Sarlin
@BenjySarlin
Things shouted as Black Lives Matter protestor dragged away at Trump rally:
"Kick his ass!"
"Shoot him!"
"Bitch!"
"Sieg Heil!"
9:55 PM - 14 Dec 2015
[ https://twitter.com/BenjySarlin/status/676611394549121024 ]

This isn't the first time a rally for Trump has turned ugly. A black protester was hit, kicked and pushed [ http://fusion.net/story/236868/trump-black-protester-kicked-punched-alabama/ ] to the ground at a rally in Alabama last month.

During his speech, which lasted for more than an hour and was generally well received by a large crowd, Trump basked in the glory of new polling data showing him advancing his lead over his rivals for the GOP nomination. He said he was going to win in Iowa and do so "big" in New Hampshire, promising he would "never be a politician."

“This is not going to be a waste of anybody’s time,” Trump said of his campaign.

Of his surging rival, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who appears poised to overtake Trump in Iowa, the businessman had only pleasantries.

“I like Cruz, he’s a good guy," Trump said.

Trump criticized politicians for being beholden to well-funded super PACs.

“The super PACs totally control the candidate,” he said. “That’s what sick about the system."

Most of his derision, however, was centered on the press, which was penned in a holding area near the back of the room.

"I staged that," Trump said at one point, as security guards escorted a protester out of the event. "It was the only way I could get the cameras to pan the crowd."

He misstepped near the end of the speech, when he urged residents of Nevada, which holds caucuses, to vote in a primary.

"When you have your primary, go out and vote please!" Trump said, garnering cheers and applause.

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-las-vegas-rally_566f9151e4b0e292150f05fe [with (separate) embedded video report, and comments]


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Shouts of ‘Hail Trump,’ Call to Light Protester ‘On Fire’ Heard at Rally

Trump holds a sombrero as he makes his way through the crowd on Monday night.
December 15, 2015
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/12/call-to-light-protester-on-fire-at-trump-rally.html [with embedded videos, and comments]


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Trump Supporter Yells “Light The Motherfucker On Fire” As Protester Is Dragged Away At Rally

Multiple protesters were removed from a Donald Trump rally in Las Vegas on the eve of the final Republican presidential debate of the year.
Dec. 15, 2015
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mbvd/trump-supporter-yells-light-the-motherfucker-on-fire-as-prot [with embedded videos, and comments]


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What Donald Trump Has Built


Donald Trump.
Credit Robyn Beck/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Andrew Rosenthal
December 15, 2015 5:09 pm

As the 2016 electoral contest slouches toward actual voting, I wonder whether Donald Trump is happy with the results of a campaign that he has built almost entirely on hatred, fear and personal invective. Does he have any remorse over what he’s created, or is it all just part of the show for him?

On Monday, in Las Vegas, where Mr. Trump held a rally ahead of Tuesday’s Republican debate, Trump supporters attacked and cursed protesters while Mr. Trump’s security thugs dragged them out of the room.

Cell-phone video [ https://twitter.com/mckaycoppins/status/676611661487190018 ] taken by a BuzzFeed reporter recorded a Trump supporter urging the security guards to set fire to one of the protesters, calling him a word I wouldn’t use even if Times style did not prohibit the publication of obscenities. Another audience member reportedly shouted “Sieg Heil [ http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/trump-audience-member-yells-nazi-salute-protester-removed-las-vegas-rally ].”

The videos are stomach-churning, as a white crowd filled with rage gathers around a black man on the floor.

Mr. Trump’s reaction was unsurprising. “What an evening in Las Vegas, Nevada!” he wrote on Facebook [ https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/photos/a.488852220724.393301.153080620724/10156414357265725/ ]. He said: “There is something special happening out there, and the silent majority — is silent no more!”

(Mr. Trump’s repeated use of “silent majority” is chilling in part because Richard Nixon popularized the phrase. Was he a role model for Mr. Trump?)

Mr. Trump did not publicly mention the attacks on the protesters, although at another recent rally in Birmingham, Mr. Trump said he thought a Black Lives Matter protester who was attacked by Trump supporters got what he deserved “because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” He also has been critical of members of the press who had the un-American temerity to record the attacks.

There is certainly something happening out there, Mr. Trump, and it is disgusting. Watching Mr. Trump’s repugnant antics, I have to wonder whether his hate-filled mob can possibly be a majority, even of today’s right-wing, reactionary Republican Party. I certainly hope not.

© 2015 The New York Times Company

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/what-donald-trump-has-built/ [with comments]


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Suspect in Juba restaurant fire arrested



By Kevin Bonham on Dec 15, 2015 at 5:03 a.m.

The suspect in last week’s arson fire at Juba Coffee House and Restaurant [ http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/local/3898763-update-fire-grand-forks-somali-restaurant-intentional-marshals-say ] has been arrested.

Matthew William Gust, 25, was apprehended overnight in Polk County by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the Grand Forks Police Department reported this morning.

Gust, East Grand Forks, was charged Friday with arson, a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

He was booked into Northwest Regional Corrections Center in Crookston at 12:45 a.m. today on a fugitive from justice charge, Sgt. Phil Schroeder said.

The fire was ignited at about 2 a.m. Dec. 8 inside the Somali restaurant at 2017 S. Washington St., causing about $90,000 in damage to the business. Other businesses in Juba’s building also were affected.

No one was injured in the fire.

Court papers reveal police believe a molotov cocktail, in the form of a 40-ounce beer bottle containing gasoline, was thrown through the window of the restaurant.

The fire occurred just days after a Nazi-like symbol was spray-painted on the restaurant’s exterior above the words “go home.” However, police have not linked the two incidents.

© Grand Forks Herald and Forum Communications Company

http://www.grandforksherald.com/news/local/3903920-suspect-juba-restaurant-fire-arrested


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The President Speaks at a Naturalization Ceremony

Published on Dec 15, 2015 by The White House

President Obama delivered remarks at a naturalization ceremony for new U.S. citizens at the National Archives. December 15, 2015.

*

Remarks by the President at Naturalization Ceremony

National Archives
Washington, D.C.
December 15, 2015

11:56 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Well, good morning, everybody. Thank you Deputy Secretary Mayorkas, Judge Roberts, and Director Rodriguez. Thank you to our Archivist, David Ferriero, and everyone at the National Archives for hosting us here today in this spectacular setting.

And to my fellow Americans, our newest citizens -- I’m so excited. (Laughter.) You are men and women from more than 25 countries, from Brazil to Uganda, from Iraq to the Philippines. You may come from teeming cities or rural villages. You don’t look alike. You don’t worship the same way. But here, surrounded by the very documents whose values bind us together as one people, you’ve raised your hand and sworn a sacred oath. I’m proud to be among the first to greet you as “my fellow Americans.”

What a remarkable journey all of you have made. And as of today, your story is forever woven into the larger story of this nation. In the brief time that we have together, I want to share that story with you. Because even as you’ve put in the work required to become a citizen, you still have a demanding and rewarding task ahead of you -- and that is the hard work of active citizenship. You have rights and you have responsibilities. And now you have to help us write the next great chapter in America’s story.

Just about every nation in the world, to some extent, admits immigrants. But there’s something unique about America. We don’t simply welcome new immigrants, we don’t simply welcome new arrivals -- we are born of immigrants. That is who we are. Immigration is our origin story. And for more than two centuries, it’s remained at the core of our national character; it’s our oldest tradition. It’s who we are. It’s part of what makes us exceptional.

After all, unless your family is Native American, one of the first Americans, our families -- all of our families -- come from someplace else. The first refugees were the Pilgrims themselves -- fleeing religious persecution, crossing the stormy Atlantic to reach a new world where they might live and pray freely. Eight signers of the Declaration of Independence were immigrants. And in those first decades after independence, English, German, and Scottish immigrants came over, huddled on creaky ships, seeking what Thomas Paine called “asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty…”

Down through the decades, Irish Catholics fleeing hunger, Italians fleeing poverty filled up our cities, rolled up their sleeves, built America. Chinese laborers jammed in steerage under the decks of steamships, making their way to California to build the Central Pacific Railroad that would transform the West -- and our nation. Wave after wave of men, women, and children -- from the Middle East and the Mediterranean, from Asia and Africa -- poured into Ellis Island, or Angel Island, their trunks bursting with their most cherished possessions -- maybe a photograph of the family they left behind, a family Bible, or a Torah, or a Koran. A bag in one hand, maybe a child in the other, standing for hours in long lines. New York and cities across America were transformed into a sort of global fashion show. You had Dutch lace caps and the North African fezzes, stodgy tweed suits and colorful Caribbean dresses.

And perhaps, like some of you, these new arrivals might have had some moments of doubt, wondering if they had made a mistake in leaving everything and everyone they ever knew behind. So life in America was not always easy. It wasn’t always easy for new immigrants. Certainly it wasn’t easy for those of African heritage who had not come here voluntarily, and yet in their own way were immigrants themselves. There was discrimination and hardship and poverty. But, like you, they no doubt found inspiration in all those who had come before them. And they were able to muster faith that, here in America, they might build a better life and give their children something more.

Just as so many have come here in search of a dream, others sought shelter from nightmares. Survivors of the Holocaust. Soviet Refuseniks. Refugees from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia. Iraqis and Afghans fleeing war. Mexicans, Cubans, Iranians leaving behind deadly revolutions. Central American teenagers running from gang violence. The Lost Boys of Sudan escaping civil war. They’re people like Fulbert Florent Akoula from the Republic of Congo, who was granted asylum when his family was threatened by political violence. And today, Fulbert is here, a proud American.

We can never say it often or loudly enough: Immigrants and refugees revitalize and renew America. Immigrants like you are more likely to start your own business. Many of the Fortune 500 companies in this country were founded by immigrants or their children. Many of the tech startups in Silicon Valley have at least one immigrant founder.

Immigrants are the teachers who inspire our children, and they’re the doctors who keep us healthy. They’re the engineers who design our skylines, and the artists and the entertainers who touch our hearts. Immigrants are soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen who protect us, often risking their lives for an America that isn’t even their own yet. As an Iraqi, Muhanned Ibrahim Al Naib was the target of death threats for working with American forces. He stood by his American comrades, and came to the U.S. as a refugee. And today, we stand by him. And we are proud to welcome Muhanned as a citizen of the country that he already helped to defend.

We celebrate this history, this heritage, as an immigrant nation. And we are strong enough to acknowledge, as painful as it may be, that we haven’t always lived up to our own ideals. We haven’t always lived up to these documents.

From the start, Africans were brought here in chains against their will, and then toiled under the whip. They also built America. A century ago, New York City shops displayed those signs, “No Irish Need Apply.” Catholics were targeted, their loyalty questioned -- so much so that as recently as the 1950s and ‘60s, when JFK had to run, he had to convince people that his allegiance wasn’t primarily to the Pope.

Chinese immigrants faced persecution and vicious stereotypes, and were, for a time, even banned from entering America. During World War II, German and Italian residents were detained, and in one of the darkest chapters in our history, Japanese immigrants and even Japanese American citizens were forced from their homes and imprisoned in camps. We succumbed to fear. We betrayed not only our fellow Americans, but our deepest values. We betrayed these documents. It’s happened before.

And the biggest irony of course was -- is that those who betrayed these values were themselves the children of immigrants. How quickly we forget. One generation passes, two generation passes, and suddenly we don’t remember where we came from. And we suggest that somehow there is “us” and there is “them,” not remembering we used to be “them.”

On days like today, we need to resolve never to repeat mistakes like that again. (Applause.) We must resolve to always speak out against hatred and bigotry in all of its forms -- whether taunts against the child of an immigrant farmworker or threats against a Muslim shopkeeper. We are Americans. Standing up for each other is what the values enshrined in the documents in this room compels us to do -– especially when it’s hard. Especially when it’s not convenient. That’s when it counts. That’s when it matters -- not when things are easy, but when things are hard.

The truth is, being an American is hard. Being part of a democratic government is hard. Being a citizen is hard. It is a challenge. It’s supposed to be. There’s no respite from our ideals. All of us are called to live up to our expectations for ourselves -- not just when it’s convenient, but when it’s inconvenient. When it’s tough. When we’re afraid. The tension throughout our history between welcoming or rejecting the stranger, it’s about more than just immigration. It’s about the meaning of America, what kind of country do we want to be. It’s about the capacity of each generation to honor the creed as old as our founding: “E Pluribus Unum” -- that out of many, we are one.

Scripture tells us, “For we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as were all our fathers.” “We are strangers before you.” In the Mexican immigrant today, we see the Catholic immigrant of a century ago. In the Syrian seeking refuge today, we should see the Jewish refugee of World War II. In these new Americans, we see our own American stories -- our parents, our grandparents, our aunts, our uncles, our cousins who packed up what they could and scraped together what they had. And their paperwork wasn’t always in order. And they set out for a place that was more than just a piece of land, but an idea.

America: A place where we can be a part of something bigger. A place where we can contribute our talents and fulfill our ambitions and secure new opportunity for ourselves and for others. A place where we can retain pride in our heritage, but where we recognize that we have a common creed, a loyalty to these documents, a loyalty to our democracy; where we can criticize our government, but understand that we love it; where we agree to live together even when we don’t agree with each other; where we work through the democratic process, and not through violence or sectarianism to resolve disputes; where we live side by side as neighbors; and where our children know themselves to be a part of this nation, no longer strangers, but the bedrock of this nation, the essence of this nation.

And that’s why today is not the final step in your journey. More than 60 years ago, at a ceremony like this one, Senator John F. Kennedy said, “No form of government requires more of its citizens than does the American democracy.” Our system of self-government depends on ordinary citizens doing the hard, frustrating but always essential work of citizenship -- of being informed. Of understanding that the government isn’t some distant thing, but is you. Of speaking out when something is not right. Of helping fellow citizens when they need a hand. Of coming together to shape our country’s course.

And that work gives purpose to every generation. It belongs to me. It belongs to the judge. It belongs to you. It belongs to you, all of us, as citizens. To follow our laws, yes, but also to engage with your communities and to speak up for what you believe in. And to vote -- to not only exercise the rights that are now yours, but to stand up for the rights of others.

Birtukan Gudeya is here from Ethiopia. She said, “The joy of being an American is the joy of freedom and opportunity. We have been handed a work in progress, one that can evolve for the good of all Americans.” I couldn’t have said it better.

That is what makes America great -- not just the words on these founding documents, as precious and valuable as they are, but the progress that they’ve inspired. If you ever wonder whether America is big enough to hold multitudes, strong enough to withstand the forces of change, brave enough to live up to our ideals even in times of trial, then look to the generations of ordinary citizens who have proven again and again that we are worthy of that.

That’s our great inheritance -- what ordinary people have done to build this country and make these words live. And it’s our generation’s task to follow their example in this journey -- to keep building an America where no matter who we are or what we look like, or who we love or what we believe, we can make of our lives what we will.

You will not and should not forget your history and your past. That adds to the richness of American life. But you are now American. You’ve got obligations as citizens. And I’m absolutely confident you will meet them. You’ll set a good example for all of us, because you know how precious this thing is. It’s not something to take for granted. It’s something to cherish and to fight for.

Thank you. May god bless you. May god bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END
12:19 P.M. EST

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/12/15/remarks-president-naturalization-ceremony

*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMFEFn2ifkE [with comments]. [embedded at] https://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2015/12/15/president-speaks-naturalization-ceremony


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Muslim Americans Are More Likely to Reject Violence, Intolerance Than Many Other Americans


Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

By David Bier and Matthew La Corte
Posted: 12/15/2015 12:30 pm EST Updated: 12/15/2015 [c.] 1:15 pm

Donald Trump has proposed profiling [ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/dec/6/donald-trump-profiling-people-prevents-crime-if-th/ ] Muslim Americans and shutting down [ http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/trump-close-mosques-216008 ] mosques. He claims [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/07/politics/donald-trump-muslim-ban-immigration/ ] that Muslim "hatred is beyond comprehension." But the truth is that Muslim Americans are not only integrating into U.S. society, but are actually more opposed to violence and more tolerant in many ways than many other Americans.

Muslim Americans Hold Mainstream Religious and Political Views

Muslims are similar to other religious Americans. Pew's major survey [ http://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf ] of Muslims in 2011 found that religion was equally important to Christian and Muslim Americans. Christians and Muslims also attend religious services with about the same frequency. Only 35 percent [ http://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf ] of Muslims saw their religion as the only true faith, compared to 30 percent of Christians. Like 64 percent of U.S. Christians, a majority of Muslim Americans think different religions can lead to eternal life. Pew even found [ http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf ] that Muslims are much less prone to scriptural literalism than Evangelicals.



Most American Muslims arrived in the United States after 1990, yet they are almost as likely as Christians to prioritize their American identity over their religious identity. As matter of fact, Muslims are [ http://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf ] much more likely than Evangelical Christians to see themselves as Americans first. More than two-thirds of Evangelicals identify as Christians first and Americans second.

The fear that Muslim Americans might be more loyal to other Muslims around the world than they are to their own country is unfounded. Gallup's major survey of American Muslims [ http://virtuecenter.s3.amazonaws.com/files/2012-08-27-17/MAR_Report_ADGC_Bilingual_072011_sa_LR_web.pdf ] in 2010 found that Muslim Americans were the least likely of any American religious group to strongly identify with their coreligionists abroad.



Far from being clannish, Pew found that 93 percent of Muslim Americans had [ http://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf ] close non-Muslim friends. A majority reported that most of their friends were non-Muslim. At the same time, 92 percent of U.S. Muslims don't oppose women working outside the home (98 percent of Americans agree). Pew also found [ http://www.pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf ] that 62 percent of Muslims said they were "OK" with Muslims marrying non-Muslims, and another 11 percent said it depends. American Christians were not asked this exact question, but in 2014, Pew found that 77 percent [ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/16/so-you-married-an-atheist/ ] of white Evangelicals would be unhappy if an immediate family member married an atheist.



Pew finds that U.S. Muslims are [ http://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf ] politically moderate (38% moderate; 27% liberal; 25% conservative). They were [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/republicans-muslim-vote-george-w-bush-donald-trump/419481/ ] also swing voters in the 2000s, first going strongly for George W. Bush in 2000 before flipping to John Kerry and Democrats since 2004.

Muslim Americans Are Less Likely to Support Intolerance, Violence

While there are no good polls on the attitude of American Muslims toward Sharia religious law,* U.S. Muslims score higher than most other believers on Gallup's "religious tolerance" index [ http://virtuecenter.s3.amazonaws.com/files/2012-08-27-17/MAR_Report_ADGC_Bilingual_072011_sa_LR_web.pdf ]. The index categorizes individuals as either "isolated," "tolerant," or "integrated," based on their level of agreement with five statements about other faiths. Not all Americans share Muslim Americans' openness to other faiths. In fact, recent Public Policy Polling (PPP) polls found many Republicans in Iowa [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2015/09/trump-still-leads-iowa-clinton-in-good-shape.html ], North Carolina [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_NC_92915.pdf ], and New Hampshire [ http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_NH_120315.pdf ] believe Islam should be banned.



In 2010, Gallup also asked [ http://virtuecenter.s3.amazonaws.com/files/2012-08-27-17/MAR_Report_ADGC_Bilingual_072011_sa_LR_web.pdf ] whether "targeting and killing civilians by the military" can be justified. U.S. Muslims were the only religious group that opposed such targeting. Protestants, Jews, and Catholics believed it could be justified. Muslim Americans were also the most strongly opposed of any religious group to "targeting and killing by individuals or small groups." Catholics, Protestants, and Jews were all more than twice as likely to support civilian strikes.



Internationally, Muslim views are more varied. Gallup found [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/28762/majorities-muslims-americans-see-religion-law-compatible.aspx ] strong support for Sharia law in several countries, and Pew found [ http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/04/worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-full-report.pdf ] support for violence against civilians "in defense of Islam" at high levels in several Middle Eastern countries. This suggests that either the Muslims moving to the U.S. are from the more moderate Muslim communities abroad or that they assimilate quickly. A combination of both is likely. Islamic totalitarians, such as ISIS, consider [ http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/targeting-europes-refugees-is-not-the-answer ] it a form of apostasy to emigrate from a Muslim society to a secular one. Meanwhile, in America, young Muslims are pioneering [ http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/the-un-mosquing-of-american-muslims/411103/ ] more liberal forms of Islam-or abandoning [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ahmed-eid/young-american-muslims_b_4109256.html ] the faith.

Extremism Is Not Unique to Islam-or a Significant Threat

Even if 5 percent of U.S. Muslims view al-Qaeda [ http://www.people-press.org/files/2011/08/muslim-american-report.pdf ] favorably, does that mean we will face a constant barrage of attacks? Actually no. It's possible for large numbers of people to hold dangerous views on violence without acting on them, as evidenced above. But here's more evidence: according to a YouGov poll [ https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/ebn4roofxg/tabs_HP_OP_Abortion_20151203.pdf ] this month, some 4 percent of Americans support attacks on abortion providers. Another 7 percent of Americans are unsure if those attacks are immoral. There have been two dozen murders or attempted murders, as well as many other attacks by anti-abortion extremists since 1993, but we understand that nearly all pro-life proponents oppose this kind of violence and those that don't would never act on their views.



Why don't some people understand that the same is true for Muslims? The problem is that 83 percent [ http://publicreligion.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/PRRI-Brookings-What-it-Means-to-be-American-Report.pdf ] of Americans dismiss violence by Christians as not being committed by "real" Christians, while only 48 percent do the same for Muslims. But the unpleasant reality is that other ideologies are also subject to distortion by violent extremists. The New America Foundation, for instance, finds [ http://securitydata.newamerica.net/extremists/deadly-attacks.html ] that various ideologies that it identifies as "right-wing" have been responsible for 18 instances of deadly attacks and 48 deaths since 9/11, compared to 9 attacks and 45 deaths caused by jihadists.

Americans simply should not let their lives be dictated by a fear of terrorism of any kind. As security expert John Mueller has documented [ http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/did-the-u-s-overreact-to-the-911-attacks-undoubtedly/ ], Americans are more likely to be killed by almost anything else over the last fifty years. Americans murdered [ https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_1_murder_victims_by_race_ethnicity_and_sex_2014.xls ] more people on any two days last year than were killed by terrorists in the last 10 years. Shutting down mosques and banning Muslims will not make America any safer. Rather than treating them as enemies, America should see Muslim Americans as allies in our fight for freedom and peace.

*Frank Gaffney [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/behind-trump-bogus-statistics-article-1.2459360 ], the conspiracy theorist [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/individual/frank-gaffney-jr ] at his Center for Security Policy, has online "polls" from "Muslims" that are bogus, as has been explained by others [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/07/donald-trumps-call-to-ban-muslims-from-coming-to-the-u-s-has-a-very-bad-poll-at-its-center/ ].

Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bier/muslim-americans-violence_b_8812234.html [with comments]


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Saudi Arabia announces 34-state Islamic military alliance against terrorism

By Noah Browning and John Irish
Tue Dec 15, 2015 1:06pm EST

DUBAI/PARIS (Reuters) - A new Saudi-led Islamic alliance to fight terrorism will share information and train, equip and provide forces if necessary for the fight against Islamic State militants, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Tuesday.

Saudi Arabia announced earlier on Tuesday the formation of a 34-nation Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, a move welcomed by the United States which has been urging a greater regional involvement in the campaign against the militants who control swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria.

"Nothing is off the table," al-Jubeir said when asked whether the initiative could include troops on the ground.

"It depends on the requests that come, it depends on the need and it depends on the willingness of countries to provide the support necessary," he told a news briefing in Paris.

A statement carried by Saudi state news agency SPA said the new coalition would have a joint operations center based in Riyadh to "coordinate and support military operations".

The states it listed as joining the new coalition included Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and several African nations.

The list did not include Shi'ite Muslim Iran, the arch rival of Sunni Saudi Arabia for influence across the Arab world. Tehran and Riyadh are ranged on opposite sides in proxy conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

The statement cited "a duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of all terrorist groups and organizations, whatever their sect and name, which wreak death and corruption on earth and aim to terrorize the innocent."

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter welcomed the announcement after arriving at Incirlik airbase in Turkey on Tuesday at the start of a regional tour designed to drum up support for the U.S.-led campaign against Islamic State.

"We look forward to learning more about what Saudi Arabia has in mind in terms of this coalition," he told reporters.

"But in general it appears it is very much in line with something we've been urging for quite some time, which is greater involvement in the campaign to combat ISIL (Islamic State) by Sunni Arab countries," Carter added.

Islamic State has pledged to overthrow the monarchies of the Gulf and has also mounted a series of attacks on Shi'ite Muslim mosques and security forces in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

ISLAMIC STATE NOT SOLE TARGET

In a rare press conference on Tuesday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia's 30-year-old deputy crown prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman said the new coalition aimed to "coordinate" efforts to fight terrorism in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan.

"There will be international coordination with major powers and international organizations ... In terms of operations in Syria and Iraq, we can't undertake these operations without coordinating with legitimacy in this place and the international community," bin Salman said, without elaborating.

He offered few concrete indications of how the new coalition's military efforts might proceed.

Asked if the new alliance would focus only on Islamic State, bin Salman said it would confront "any terrorist organization that appears in front of us".

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbors have been waging war for nine months against Iran-allied rebels in Yemen, launching hundreds of air strikes there.

A ceasefire took effect in Yemen on Tuesday as parties to the civil war began United Nations-sponsored peace talks in Switzerland in a new push to end fighting that has killed nearly 6,000 people.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelaty and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Related Coverage

Saudi Arabia says sending special forces to Syria under discussion
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-saudi-idUSKBN0TY28B20151215

© 2015 Thomson Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-security-idUSKBN0TX2PG20151215 [with embedded video]


*


34-nation Islamic alliance formed to fight terrorism


Arab News

Published — Tuesday 15 December 2015
Last update 15 December 2015 4:24 pm

RIYADH: Thirty-four nations have agreed to form an “Islamic military coalition” to fight terrorism, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman has said.

Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed told a news conference late Monday that the alliance will set up a joint operations center based in Riyadh to “coordinate and support military operations to fight terrorism” across the Muslim world.

Joining Saudi Arabia in the alliance are Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Turkey, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Djibouti, Senegal, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Gabon, Guinea, Palestine, Comoros, Qatar, Cote d'Ivoire, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Malaysia, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Yemen.

All the group’s members are part of the larger Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which is headquartered in Jeddah.

A joint statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said more than ten other Islamic countries, including Indonesia, have also expressed their support for this alliance and will take the necessary measures in this regard.

It said Islam forbids “corruption and destruction in the world” and that terrorism constitutes “a serious violation of human dignity and rights, especially the right to life and the right to security.”

The statement said the alliance affirms “the principles and objectives of the charter of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which calls for member states to cooperate to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and rejects all justifications and excuses for terrorism.”

“Achieving integration, closing ranks and uniting efforts to combat terrorism, which violates the sanctity of people's lives, threatens regional and international security and peace, poses a threat to the vital interests of the nation and undermines coexistence in it,” the statement added.

© Copyright of Arab News 2015

http://www.arabnews.com/featured/news/850596 [with comments]


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The Origins of Intolerance in America


Bloomberg via Getty Images

By John Tirman [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tirman/ ]
Executive Director, MIT Center for International Studies [ http://web.mit.edu/cis/ ]
Posted: 12/15/2015 1:09 pm EST Updated: 12/15/2015 [c.] 2:15 pm EST

In the last few weeks, the alarming rise of vitriolic anti-immigrant, xenophobic rhetoric from the right wing has alarmed a large segment of the American people, but equally disturbing is how much support these noxious views are getting from the public. After the civil rights achievements of the 1960s, it was widely assumed that tolerance and diversity would win the day. Many studies [ https://reason.com/archives/2014/06/10/with-immigration-familiarity-breeds-resp ] show that growing familiarity with the "other" typically yields more tolerant attitudes. But this recent spasm of hatred is shocking in its intensity and in the apparent rejection of that decades-long progress toward social peace. Many even call it fascism [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tirman/is-it-fascism_b_8762926.html ]. Why has this reversal suddenly appeared?

Current attitudes toward Muslim immigration and accepting Syrian refugees are revealing. A CBS poll [ http://www.pollingreport.com/terror.htm ] taken December 9-10 shows rejection of Donald Trump's suggestion that Muslims be banned from entering the United States (58 percent opposing Trump's proposal, and 36 percent supporting). A far slimmer plurality, 46-44 percent, opposes keeping a database on Muslims in the country. Republicans in that survey supported the Muslim ban by 54-38 percent, and the database of Muslims by 60-31 percent.

On Syrian refugees, Republicans are opposed to allowing them into the country, 76-22 percent. (Democrats are 66-32 percent in favor of taking refugees.) On unauthorized immigrants -- mainly Mexicans and Central Americans -- a similar partisan divide appears: Democrats and independents favor legal residency by wide margins, while Republicans say they should be deported by a 63-34 percent. The polls [ http://www.pollingreport.com/immigration.htm ] are relatively consistent over the past several months.

The surveys basically tell us what we already sense from the Republican Party leadership and the presidential candidates in particular. But they don't answer the question of how tens of millions of Americans have adopted such harsh ideas. It's easy to conclude that these attitudes are being cultivated by Fox News and the right-wing blogosphere -- commentators like Laura Ingraham and Michelle Malkin, among many others, have been spewing anti-immigrant vitriol for more than a decade.

The right-wing entertainment complex has doubtlessly added fuel to the fire, but it didn't start it. There has long been anti-immigrant sentiment in the country, and it's been a staple of the extreme right wing. But the phenomenon, as I argue in Dream Chasers: Immigration and the American Backlash [ https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/dream-chasers , http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Chasers-Immigration-American-Backlash/dp/0262028921 ], is broader than mere xenophobia. Over the past forty years, incomes have stagnated for the middle class, while social dynamics have encroached upon residual "privilege" -- e.g., gay and lesbian activism resulting in same-sex marriage, women's empowerment, affirmative action for African-Americans, and sharp growth in illegal immigration.

Of the last, heated resistance from the right has increasingly relied on the false complaint that Hispanics aren't assimilating (rather than an older, also false argument about job stealing) and are demanding educational reforms [ http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/11/us/arizona-mexican-american-studies/ ] that are fundamentally anti-American. These kinds of arguments reflect a cultural anxiety about the rapidly growing minority populations in the United States, which demographically is heading toward a majority of minority ethnicities. And these anxieties -- sometimes expressed violently, as with black church burnings, or through discriminatory laws and practice -- are targeting Christians among blacks and Hispanics. With the Syrian refugee crisis and the San Bernardino shootings, the volatile component of Islam is added to the mix.

Recently some explanations beyond the historical aversion to foreigners in our midst, or racism, have come to the fore. We have known about income stagnation for some years, and that stagnation for the middle class, broadly defined, has persisted for four decades. But a recent study by the Pew Research Center found that one-fifth of Americans are living in poverty or near poverty (defined as a family of three with an income of less than $31,402 annually), many have slipped economically since the Bush recession [ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c3de7f66-9f96-11e5-beba-5e33e2b79e46.html ( http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c3de7f66-9f96-11e5-beba-5e33e2b79e46.html#axzz3uKLqaAfQ )] and have never found their footing in a country that off-shores many semi-skilled jobs and has steadily shrunk the social safety net since the Reagan era. One indicator is child poverty, affecting as much as two-fifths of all American kids, with devastating long-term consequences of persistent poverty through their lifetimes. And it's not just a problem of the inner city: one in seven white kids is poor.

The economic doldrums for the white middle class was powerfully set out in a shocking study [ http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/15078.full.pdf ] led by Nobel Economics Laureate Angus Deaton and his colleague Anne Case, both at Princeton, and published this autumn. They found that after many years of a decline in mortality for all groups and ages in the United States, over the last two decades the mortality rate for middle aged whites had risen, even as it continued to fall for the elderly and non-whites, and indeed for all groups in all other industrialized countries. The rise in this death rate, moreover, was due to self-poisoning, in effect. "The change in all-cause mortality for white non-Hispanics 45-54 is largely accounted for by an increasing death rate from external causes, mostly increases in drug and alcohol poisonings and in suicide," the authors note.

The rise in white mortality is apparently gender neutral, but it is strongly correlated to education. "The turnaround in mortality for white non-Hispanics," Deaton and Case write, "was driven primarily by increasing death rates for those with a high school degree or less." It's also worth noting that self-poisoning rose for all age groups of whites, and morbidity (incidence of poor health) followed the same pattern as mortality, and a sharp rise in disability may follow for the same reasons, the authors conclude.

The results of the study are not entirely surprising. Nationally leading incidence of smoking, obesity, porn use, and divorce rates are found in the Old Confederacy. One explanation for this is a resistance to social authority -- especially what's perceived as political correctness -- in personal health, relations between the sexes, and the like.

It's difficult not to see the Case-Deaton study as a key to the accumulating white anger that drives right-wing extremism to ever uglier heights. The prospects for living as well as their parents, or fulfilling the dreams fostered by popular culture begin to unravel in one's forties, and the easy availability of alcohol, opiates, and other drugs is one release. So is fascistic political noise-making. Barbara Ehrenreich notes [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/barbara-ehrenreich/middle-class-life-expectancy_b_8687694.html ] in a fine essay this month that lower- and middle-class whites had, for decades, a sense of superiority over blacks and Hispanics, and men over women, but these sturdy old pillars of privilege have eroded, even reversed -- especially in popular culture -- in about the same period of economic and physical decline. "It's not easy to maintain the usual sense of white superiority when parts of the media are squeezing laughs from the contrast between savvy blacks and rural white bumpkins," she writes. "White, presumably upper-middle class people generally conceive of these characters and plot lines, which, to a child of white working class parents like myself, sting with condescension."

This is not merely a reversal of recent, post-Jim Crow vintage in the neo-Confederate South and its Western outposts. The self-awareness of white men regarding masculinity has been transforming for generations, always in the shadow of the "Lost Cause." In a brilliant piece of analysis [ http://scholarworks.gsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1064&context=english_diss ] about the changing image of the "Southern Gentleman" in American literature, scholar Emmeline Gros traces an underlying "anxiety" even at the height of plantation culture, which became more enervated through the ensuing decades.

"The fears of critical questioning and disruption that were already expressed at the beginning of the [19th] century acquire full meaning in the postbellum South," she wrote in 2010, "as the gentleman's mistrust of the 'carpetbagger,' the 'northerner,' the 'non-genteel,' the 'foreigner,' the 'other' becomes an obsession, ... the indicator of a problematic 'de-masculinization' of the Southern character which reduced the possibilities for 'heroic' or 'chivalric' action." Stripped of what Southern white men considered their birthright, weakened by low educational achievement and self-poisoning, they have resorted to the South's traditional and emotionally avenging tactic of hatred -- now-psychotic hatred of foreigners, blacks, gays, and women.

The challenge to white privilege reached another transition point with the election of Barack Obama, which has prompted seven years of madness on the right. Obama is not only black (actually "worse": mixed race) and African (not from the once-subservient slave culture), he has earned a place among the elite, the Harvard Law wiz and hyper-achiever, popular throughout the world, the ultimate cool, street-smart dude made good. In important ways, however, his ascension -- not only to the White House, but to a pantheon of great presidents -- is mainly symbolic in this respect: he arrived at a time not merely of disruption, but rupture, the crackup of white, male privilege that has controlled, root and branch, American politics for nearly 400 years.

Because of this rupture of the fundaments of American political culture, it is a turbulent time and will remain so for many years to come. The vitriolic intolerance practiced by Trump and Cruz and the Republican Party (and too many Democrats and Northerners, too) is a septic symptom of decline, a bitter residue of the dark side of the American experience, but perhaps it is only the decline of white privilege, and not of the great democratic experiment that is the best of America.

Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-tirman/the-origins-of-intolerance_b_8812476.html [with comments]


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Malala Shuts Down Donald Trump In The Most Elegant Way Possible


Credit: Richard Stonehouse via Getty Images

"The more you speak about Islam and against all Muslims, the more terrorists we create."

By Ed Mazza
12/16/2015 12:10 am ET | Updated 12/16/2015 [c.] 10:45 am ET

Malala Yousafzai offered up a reality check for Donald Trump and any other politician attacking the entire Muslim faith.

"The more you speak about Islam and against all Muslims, the more terrorists we create [ http://www.channel4.com/news/malala-yousafzai-im-a-feminist-and-a-muslim ]," she said in an interview with Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.

Yousafzai, who last year became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate when she won the Nobel Peace Prize [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/10/nobel-peace-prize_n_5963634.html ], was asked about the "wild things being said about Islam and Muslims," such as the GOP presidential candidate's call to stop all Muslims from entering the United States.

She said:

"It's important that whatever politicians say, whatever the media say, they should be really, really careful about it. If your intention is to stop terrorism, do not try to blame the whole population of Muslims for it because it cannot stop terrorism. It will radicalize more terrorists."

In a separate interview with AFP, Yousafzai called Trump's comments "tragic" and "full of hatred [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12052826/Malala-Yousafzai-condemns-Donald-Trumps-ideology-of-hatred.html ], full of this ideology of being discriminative towards others."

Yousafzai was shot in the head and nearly killed in 2012 because she went to school and advocated for girls to receive an education. Despite the attempt on her life, she continues to promote these causes.

Education, not discrimination, is the key to stopping terror, she said.

"If we want to end terrorism we need to bring quality education so we defeat the mindset of terrorism mentality and of hatred [ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12052826/Malala-Yousafzai-condemns-Donald-Trumps-ideology-of-hatred.html ]," Yousafzai said at ceremony in England marking the first anniversary of a Taliban assault on a school in Pakistan, which left 134 children dead [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peshawar-school-attack_565e9b06e4b08e945fed6551 ].

Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/malala-donald-trump_5670de1de4b0dfd4bcbfe8d0 [with comments]


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Ahead Of GOP Debate, Clinton Rips Republicans On National Security


Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks about her counterterrorism strategy during a speech at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis on Tuesday.
Charlie Neibergall/AP

Jessica Taylor
December 15, 2015·8:16 PM ET

Hillary Clinton outlined her plan to combat ISIS and radicalization in the U.S. on Tuesday, swiping at GOP candidates just hours before their debate that "shallow slogans don't add up to a strategy."

After an address last month [ http://www.npr.org/2015/11/19/456666913/hillary-clinton-says-allies-should-prioritize-fighting-isis-over-assad ] where she pivoted from the White House in how she'd take on the terrorist group overseas, Clinton on Tuesday addressed how she'd stop homegrown terrorism — just weeks after two shooters inspired by ISIS killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif.

But even as she explained ways she would halt would-be jihadists, she was careful not to draw a link between terrorists and all Muslims — even meeting with a group of local Muslim community leaders before her speech at the University of Minnesota.

"We cannot give in to fear," Clinton said. "We can't let it stop us from doing what is right and necessary to make us safe, and doing it in way that is consistent with our values. We cannot let fear push us into reckless actions that end up making us less safe. Americans are going to have to act with both courage and clarity."

The Democratic presidential frontrunner blasted Donald Trump specifically, saying his proposal to block all Muslims from entering the country was dangerous.

"Demonizing Muslims also feeds a narrative that jihadists use to recruit new followers around the world, that the United States is at war with Islam," Clinton said. "As both the Pentagon and the FBI have said in the past week, we cannot in any way lend credence to that twisted idea. This is not a clash of civilizations. It's a clash between civilization and barbarism and that's how it must be seen and fought."

Clinton also took a shot across the bow at rising Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (though didn't mention him by name) for an earlier comment that he would "carpetbomb" ISIS until the sand glowed, and also slammed him for holding up Senate nominations.

"Bluster and bigotry are not credentials for becoming commander-in-chief," Clinton said.

Outlining what her campaign called a "360-degree strategy to keep America safe," Clinton's first step would be to shut down ISIS recruitment in the U.S., focusing especially on curbing its influence and reach online. To do so, she said Washington and Silicon Valley need to work together.

"Our security professionals need to more effectively track and analyze ISIS's social media posts and map jihadist networks, and they need help from the tech community," she said. "Companies should redouble their efforts to maintain and enforce their own service agreements and other necessary policies to police their networks, identifying extremist content and removing it."

Clinton also called for stopping "ISIS recruits from training abroad, and prevent foreign jihadists from coming here," pointing specifically at greater collaboration between and with European countries to track whether people have spent time in Iraq and Syria.

"The United States and our allies need to know the identities of every fighter who makes that trip, and then share information with each other in real time," Clinton said.

She also underscored that Muslim Americans should be key partners in identifying and stopping radicalization at home.

"There are millions of peace-loving Muslims living, working, raising families, and paying taxes in our country," she said. "These Americans may be our first, last, and best defense against home grown radicalization and terrorism. They are the most likely to recognize the insidious effects of radicalization before it's too late, intervene to help set a young person straight."

Clinton's specific steps outlined Tuesday follow her break with the White House last month, where she called for more airstrikes and special operations forces and better intelligence in the fight against ISIS.

While it won't be easy for President Obama's former secretary of State to try and distance herself from his foreign policy, it's one she needs to do as much as she can — this week's NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that 73 percent of all voters want a different approach than Obama.

© 2015 npr

http://www.npr.org/2015/12/15/459903072/ahead-of-gop-debate-clinton-rips-republicans-on-national-security [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18zS14Jk0d4 [comments disabled] [the WaPo livestream of the complete event at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFt9w79Amzw (with comments) (event begins at the c. 1:24:20 mark)]


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