Missouri National Guardsman tells of Training White Supremacists for an Expected Race War

From [HERE] A former Missouri National Guardsman provided combat training to a white supremacist group whose members were preparing for an expected race war, a recently released court document shows.

The court document detailing the guardsman's role in the American Front was made public in a Florida state court proceeding regarding charges filed in May against members of the group. The Associated Press isn't naming the former guardsman, whose enlistment ended in May, because he hasn't been charged. But other members of the group are charged with hate crimes and conspiracy, as well as paramilitary training in furtherance of a civil disorder. The court document shows that in July 2011, the guardsman went to Florida and trained American Front members on the AK-47 assault rifle and fighting techniques, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/MkW1tf) reported. Afterward, the group gave him a patch, a sign of membership, according to the document.

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White Party Candidate Romney Running on Race - not much else

From [HERE] Mitt Romney has finally figured out what to do with his vanquished rivals Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. They will be his senior advisers on race relations.  Both gentlemen are eminently qualified for this role.  Santorum, you may recall, is the man who stood before a group of white Iowans in January and said: "I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families." The candidate later attempted to argue that he had said "blah" rather than "black." 

Then came Gingrich, who in New Hampshire repeatedly dubbed President Obama "the best food-stamp president in American history." Then, as now, Gingrich claimed his branding of the first black president with a program that disproportionately benefits African-Americans had nothing to do with race. 

Romney, admirably, had largely avoided such dog whistles during the primary campaign. Then, last week, he released an ad that abandoned the high ground, falsely claiming that Obama had "quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform." It went on: "Under Obama's plan, you wouldn't have to work and wouldn't have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check." 

I covered welfare reform in 1995 and 1996 as a congressional reporter for The Wall Street Journal, so I have followed the issue closely. And Romney's assertion is, as has been widely documented, nonsense. Republican governors were among those requesting the recent waivers of the welfare work requirements, the "demonstration projects" that sparked Romney's attack. Ron Haskins, who as a Ways and Means Committee staffer in the 1990s helped draft the welfare law for House Republicans, told NPR that "there's no plausible scenario under which it really constitutes a serious attack on welfare reform." 

Why Romney is doing this is fairly plain. Romney polls best among white, working-class men, and he needs them to turn out in large numbers. Yet even at this late stage of the campaign, some of the GOP base remains suspicious of his candidacy -- a suspicion that was encouraged by last week's defense of "Romneycare" in Massachusetts by a Romney spokeswoman. And a poll by Pew Research Center last month found that nearly a quarter of white evangelicals were uncomfortable with Romney's Mormonism. Romney therefore has incentive to revive the culture wars, which also accounts for his ad last week claiming Obama had launched a "war on religion." 

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Judge hears challenge to conflicting Racist Florida voting laws

From [HERE] Florida Administrative Judge Thomas Crapps on Friday heard a challenge [text] to a voting rights law, HB 1355 [materials], filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) [advocacy websites] and Senator Arthenia Joyner [official profile]. The new regulation, which applies to only 62 of 67 counties, creates conflicting voting rules depending on the county. HB 1355 limits the window for early voting to one week prior to an election, down from the previously established two weeks, and imposes a series of additional regulations on organizations that enlist new voters, including requiring that they register with the state, submit periodic reports and file voter registration materials within 48 hours of completion. It also requires voters that have moved between any of the state's counties to use provisional ballots if they wish to update their information while at a polling location. The complaint alleges the newly implemented regulation violates the Voting Rights Act (VRA) [text] that requires state voting regulations to be "precleared" by the Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website]. Judge Crapps said he would rule on August 24.

There has been significant controversy surrounding voting rights in Florida recently. Over the last two months, the voter purge controversy caused the DOJ and various rights groups [JURIST reports] to call for an end to the purging of voter rolls. In July, Florida was given access to federal voter rolls [JURIST report] in an effort to continue the purge.

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Using 911 to Unmask Racism - White Media Can't Handle the "White Terrorist"

From [HERE] There is, however, another factor that likely explains some of the reticence of some Americans, including professional commentators, to focus very much attention on the Oak Creek massacre. Their disinclination to grapple with it has less to do with the victims than the gunman. The key factor isn't that they're Sikhs; it's that the apparent homegrown terrorist -- a term virtually no one would object to had a murderous Muslim burst into the Sikh temple -- was perpetrated by a white guy.

Hold the victims constant and give the perpetrator the last name Mohammed. Does anyone think for a moment that such an attack wouldn't still be the most discussed story at Fox News and National Review? And at various network news shows and unaffiliated newspapers for that matter? Instead Wade Michael Page was the gunman.

Attacks like his are disconcerting to some white Americans for a seldom acknowledged reason. Since (the dawn of time when white people realized they are a worldwide minority that is genetically recessive -bw) 9/11, many Americans have (used 911 to unmask their white supremacist fear of non-whites -bw) conflated terrorism with Muslims; and having done so, they've tolerated or supported counterterrorism policies (against non-whites) safe in the presumption that people unlike them would bear their brunt. (If Mayor Bloomberg and the NYPD sent officers beyond the boundaries of New York City to secretly spy on evangelical Christian students or Israeli students or students who own handguns the national backlash would be swift, brutal, and decisive. The revelation of secret spying on Muslim American students was mostly defended or ignored.)      

In the (pretextual) name of counterterrorism, many Americans have given their assent to indefinite detention, the criminalization of gifts to certain charities, the extrajudicial assassination of (non-white) American citizens, and a sprawling, opaque homeland security bureaucracy; many have also advocated policies like torture or racial profiling that are not presently part of official anti-terror policy.

What if white Americans were as likely as Muslims to be victimized by those policies? What if the sprawling national security bureaucracy we've created starts directing attention not just to Muslims and their schools and charities, but to right-wing militias and left-wing environmental groups (or folks falsely accused of being in those groups because they seem like the sort who would be)? There are already dossiers on non-Muslim extremist groups. In a post-9/11 world, Islamic terrorism has nevertheless been the overwhelming priority for law enforcement, and insofar as innocents have suffered, Muslims have been affected far more than any other identifiable group, because the bulk of the paradigm shift in law enforcement hasn't spread beyond them. (What if a Black man from a militant 'hate whitey' group rolled up and shot a group white people in some lilly white area on Christmas? - (remember this incident happened during Ramadan and Page probably mistakenly believed the victims were Muslim. The same mistake Romney claims to have made today [HERE]). Please believe that police would be stopping & frisking every group (more than one) of Black males in sight and handing out gold (Nazi) stars to Blacks. -bw)

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Tulsa shooting statements should be admissible: White Terrorists Made Racial Slurs After Killing Blacks

Some residents of the north Tulsa neighborhood where the shootings happened expressed doubts that justice will be served and said the racial disparities in this city of 391,000 people can be seen just in how much attention the case has garnered. "If it was two blacks who killed three whites, they would have brought the rafters down on them," said north Tulsa resident James McClellan, who lives close to where one of the killings occurred. "My granddaddy always told me there were two types of justice: white justice and black justice." From [HERE] Tulsa prosecutors say one of two men accused of gunning down three black people in April understood his rights after he was arrested and voluntarily gave statements to police. Jake England, 19, and Alvin Watts, 33, face murder and hate crimes charges stemming from the Easter weekend shootings that killed William Allen, Bobby Clark and Dannaer Fields as they were walking near their homes on Good Friday. 

In a 15-page court filing Monday, First Assistant District Attorney Doug Drummond said accused shooter Jake England's confession should be admitted into evidence because a video recording of the interview proves he was properly read his Miranda rights before any questioning began.

Drummond said those rights included "an unambiguous statement that anything he said would be used against him in a court of law." Attorneys for England have asserted that police took statements from him in violation of his constitutional rights. Attorneys for the other defendant, Alvin Watts, have filed a similar motion, but that hasn't been resolved. A judge will consider the motions at a hearing next Tuesday.

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Connecticut town that is 95% White sued for allegedly trying to ‘keep out’ black residents

From [HERE] A small Connecticut town is being sued for allegedly discriminating against minorities in an effort to keep its black population "so low that it does not register above zero percent," according to a federal complaint. The town of Winchester "systematically and unlawfully" works to keep out African-American families by denying access to federal housing vouchers known as Section 8, according to a lawsuit brought by the Connecticut Fair Housing Center and plaintiff Crystal Carter.

"We are challenging a pattern of denying minorities fair access to housing," said Greg Kirschner, staff attorney for the Connecticut Fair Housing Center . Carter, a single mom of six children, joined the lawsuit after she was allegedly told by the Winchester Housing Authority (WHA) that she was ineligible to apply for Section 8 housing in the town because she was not already a resident.

The WHA also told Carter "that Winchester was not on a 'bus line,' there were no real jobs there, and it was in the 'woods,'" Courthouse News Service reported.

According to census data, 94.4 percent of Winchester's 11,000 residents are white and 4.5 percent are Hispanic. The number of African-American residents is “statistically zero,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit claims the WHA is keeping minorities out by enforcing a "residency requirement" for those wishing to apply for Section 8 vouchers in its 17 communities. Kirschner says the practice violates Section 8 guidelines.

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"There are Thousands of other Angry White Men like Page Out there" - White supremacists react to Sikh massacre

From [SPLCC] Message boards and forums across the racist radical right have erupted in the days following Wade Michael Page’s deadly rampage at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, with some racists calling the skinhead gunman “brother,” commending his actions on behalf of the white man and excoriating those who have tried to distance themselves from the racist cause.

“Take your dead and go back to India and dump their ashes in the Ganges, Sikhs,” wrote Alex Linder, the foul-mouthed neo-Nazi who operates the racist website Vanguard News Network (VNN), on his forum. “You don’t belong here in the country my ancestors fought to found, and deeded to me and mine, their posterity. Even if you came here legally, and even if you haven’t done anything wrong personally. Go home, Sikhs. Go home to India where you belong. This is not your country, it belongs to white men.”

Others on VNN responded similarly, warning that Page was not alone in the threat he posed.

“[T]here are thousands of other angry White men like Page out there, the vast majority of them unknown,” a commenter named OTPTT wrote. “When will they, like Page, reach their breaking point, where they give up all hope for peaceful activism, and reach for their guns and start shooting at the first non-Whites they see?”

Larry Loper, head of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Hammerskins, a violent skinhead group, paid tribute to his fallen “brother” on Facebook. “I really don’t feel to disagree or agree what Wade did,” Loper wrote. “All I feel is loss and sympathy for a brother that was overwhelmed by pain and frustration. I could care less though for those injured and wounded other than Wade.”

The reaction comes as police continue to investigate the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism because of the targets of Page’s crime, his deep involvement in the racist music scene and his connections to the Hammerskin Nation, a network of regional skinhead factions that historically dominated the U.S. racist skinhead world.

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Republicans Blasted Obama Administration For Warning About Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism

From [HERE] The gunman in the shooting at a Sikh temple over the weekend has been labeled a potential domestic terrorist — defined as one who incites politically-motivated violence against his or her own country. In Wade Michael Page’s case, that political motivation was likely white supremacy, a growing problem in the United States.

But when, in 2009, the Department of Homeland Security reported that white supremacy is the US’s biggest threat for domestic terror, it was met with harsh criticism. Conservatives blasted the department for defining terror threats too broadly, instead of focusing on potential Islamic terrorists. Then-House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) was one of those who berated DHS, saying that they weren’t focusing on the real threats the US faces:

[T]he Secretary of Homeland Security owes the American people an explanation for why she has abandoned using the term ‘terrorist’ to describe those, such as al Qaeda, who are plotting overseas to kill innocent Americans, while her own Department is using the same term to describe American citizens who disagree with the direction Washington Democrats are taking our nation. Everyone agrees that the Department should be focused on protecting America, but using such broad-based generalizations about the American people is simply outrageous.

The report was titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” and it named white supremacists, radical anti-abortionists, and a few “disgruntled veterans” as most susceptible to recruitment by extremist groups, or to harboring resentment that may lead to domestic terrorism. DHS stressed that, during recessions, these threats go up, and law enforcement should be on the lookout for such extremism:

DHS/I&A has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy—separate from any formalized group—which hampers warning efforts..[...]

Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to rightwing extremists. DHS/I&A is concerned that rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.

The report’s findings were congruous with previous studies that indicate right wing extremism is responsible for more instances of violence every year (with the exception of 2001, when the September 11th attacks happened) in the United States than Islamic extremist. It also tracks with the rise of hate groups in the US since 2000. Sec. Janet Napolitano ended up withdrawing the report and apologizing to veterans who felt they’d been called out, stressing that the threat was limited to a very small number of veterans.

Page, the Sikh temple shooter, was one of these veterans. According to Oak Creek, Wisconsin law enforcement, he served in the army from 1992 to 1998. He was administratively discharged in 1998, and had a known “patterns of misconduct.” After leaving the service, he was arrested twice, once for a DUI and once for criminal mischief — both in the 1990s.

The gunman had also been tracked by the Southern Poverty Law Center for around a decade because of his ties to white supremacy groups. While he apparently “popped up” on the FBI’s radar about six years ago, it seems they had no active investigation.

4th Amendment Vanishing: For Black & Brown Women, NYPD Stop-And-Frisks Are Even Worse

From [HERE] Street stops by the New York Police Department are about as effective for women as for men—that is, they turn up very few guns—but as The New York Times illustrates in a Tuesday report, they often feel a lot more intrusive. As The Times' Wendy Ruderman reports, The NYPD's policy is gender-blind, unlike the TSA's, which requires a same-gendered officer for pat-downs, so women who get stopped as part of New York's controversial stop-and-frisk program often find male officers' hands running along their waists, groins, and armpits (areas where training guidelines say weapons are often hidden) and sometimes rummaging through their purses. This creeps many women out, for example in the case of a woman who was stopped while police were looking for a male rape suspect, according to Ruderman:

"They tapped around the waistline of my jeans," Ms. Pope said. “They tapped the back pockets of my jeans, around my buttock. It was kind of disrespectful and degrading. It was uncalled-for. It made no sense. How are you going to stop three females when you are supposedly looking for a male rapist?”

That does sound pretty unpleasant, especially when you consider how few guns officers find through stop-and-frisk. "Last year, New York City police officers stopped 46,784 women, frisking nearly 16,000. Guns were found in 59 cases, according to an analysis of police statistics by The New York Times. While the number of women stopped by officers in 2011 represented 6.9 percent of all police stops, the rate of guns found on both men and women was equally low, 0.12 percent and 0.13 percent, respectively," Ruderman writes. Street stops, which are heavily criticized for unfairly targeting people of color, have decreased this year as the city has faced extra scrutiny.

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African immigrants in Greece face Discrimination and the threat of violence

Greece Rounding Up Blacks: 6,000 suspected undocumented Africans detained [MORE] 

In photo Greek protesters and immigrants living in Greece march during an anti-racism rally in central Athens April 24th. The rally was against fascist attacks and the government's plans to create detention centers for illegal immigrants. From [HERE] A backlash against waves of immigrants using Greece as a jumping off point to enter Europe has led to a surge in racist-driven assaults, a report from US-based Human Rights Watch group claimed, and political leaders said they are fearful that extremist groups are trying to create a fascist state.

In a report entitled Hate on the Streets -- Xenophobic Violence in Greece, which came out after six months of research in Athens and other Greek cities, lead researcher Judith Sunderland said the group found at least 300 attacks in three months against Asian and African immigrants, including brutal beatings of teenage boys and pregnant women by gangs of men.

Anti-immigrant fervor has grown in Greece because of a devastating economic crisis that has seen pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensioners leaving Greeks worried about their futures, while rising crime has been blamed on immigrants by groups such as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. There are an estimated 1 million immigrants, many of them illegal, in Greece, a country with a population of 11 million.

"We hope we can convince them this is important even in the midst of an economic crisis because if they don't address it now, it will get worse … you have gangs of thugs roaming around attacking people," Sunderland, who met with ministry of public order and citizen protection officials, told SETimes.

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Another Ramadan White Terror Attack: Mosque Burned Down in Joplin - again

From [HERE] and [HERE] The shooting at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin is the day’s worst example of hateful violence — but it is not, sadly, the only one. Early Monday morning, someone set fire to the Islamic Society of Joplin during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan. The mosque couldn’t be saved, so now there are 50 Muslim families in Joplin, Missouri — the same town devastated by a tornado last May — without a place to worship.

The destruction follows earlier fires, including one on July 4, when someone threw a flaming object onto the mosque’s roof. If it was an attempt at arson, it wasn’t a very good one. There wasn’t much damage, though the miscreant managed to be captured in a security video, and the FBI offered a reward for information on the arson. Oddly, despite the video evidence and reward, there was never an arrest. Muslims in Joplin probably weren’t surprised: When they opened their mosque and community center in 2007, their sign was torched. That crime, too, remains unsolved. The media is focused on documenting the property damage. What's missing is the chilling effect the terrororist act has on the civil liberties on Muslims freedom to worship, freedom to associate and freedom to live. But please believe that these folks are catching hell not only because of their religion but also because they are non-white -- bw.  

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Sikh Temple Terrorist was Neo-Nazi

From [OPP] and [HERE] The shooter in the shooting at a Sikh Temple in suburban Milwaukee that killed six people before police gunned him down has been identified as Wade Michael Page, a member of the Hammerskin Nation HSN, the oldest and most violent neo-Nazi bonehead organization in the United States.

According to the Anti-Defamation League website, Hammerskin Nation was formed in Dallas, Texas in the late 80s, adopting the crossed hammers - the symbol used by the fascists in Pink Floyd's the Wall - as their organization's logo. At its peak. HSN was able to boast dozens of chapters across the United States and worldwide. They are best known for holding concerts around the country known as Hammerfest, but also for the murders and other violent acts that have been committed by HSN members over the past 20 years. As of late the organization has lost the strength it once had, and other organizations like Volksfront and the Vinlander Social Club - an organization founded from the remnants of the Outlaw Hammerskins, which were former Hammerskin members that were ousted - came into being.

Wade Michael Page strode into the temple carrying a 9mm handgun and multiple magazines of ammunition and opened fire without saying a word, authorities said. When the shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee ended, six victims ranging in age from 39 to 84 years old lay dead. Three others were critically wounded. One of three patients fighting for their life is Oak Creek Police Officer Lt. Brian Murphy.

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Shrinking White Population Leading to Racism against Non-whites in the UK

From [HERE] Bradford is at the heart of the UK and it was once the wealthiest city in Britain, riding the wave of the industrial revolution, its mills churning out textiles that dressed the world. But Great Britain is no longer the great empire that it once was, and today, the city of Bradford is not defined by industrial or political power but by poverty, inequality and social decline. Another thing that has changed is the make-up of the residents themselves. White Christian Anglo-Saxons used to be the only racial and religious denomination in Bradford. But then the children of the empire started migrating to the UK in search of better lives - and stayed. British society became multi-racial and multi-cultural. Britain embraced multiculturalism, mosques jostled with church spires on some city skylines and Chicken Tikka Masala became the nation's favourite dish. The problems started when the once colourful minority became, in places like Bradford, the majority. Native Britons felt left behind, especially as times got tougher. There were race riots in Bradford in 2001. The so-called white working class is angry and alienated and the divide between communities seems to be growing. Add the threat of home-grown terrorism and religious extremism and it becomes a volatile cocktail. The Cafe discusses multiculturalism, race riots, poverty and Islamophobia and what it really means to be British in the 21st century. [MORE]

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White Terrorist Kills Seven at Sikh Temple in Wisconsin: Witnesses fear community was targeted in hate crime

Another White Man Goes Off: In photo an Oak Creek police officer, speaks with members of the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek following a mass shooting inside and outside the Sikh Temple. They are probably not talking about how the killer acquired his guns -  but the media will blame the guns. No photo or other info has been released about the white man who did this. From [HERE] and [HERE] At least seven people have been killed after a gunman opened fire at a Sikh Temple Sunday in a Milwaukee suburb, according to reports. According to the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, the dead include the man authorities believe was the lone shooter. He was described as a white man in his 30s who was bald or balding with a heavy build in a sleeveless T-shirt. People inside the temple claimed they saw multiple gunmen, so police have continued to sweep the area as far out as a mile away, according to CNN.

At a press conference, Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said they were treating the attack as a "domestic terrorist-type incident", and that the FBI would take over the criminal investigation. [MORE]  The shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin will place new focus on a religion that is the fifth largest religion in the world with 27 million adherents, but it is one of the smallest faiths practiced in the US.

'Mistaken for Muslims'

There are an estimated 250,000 Sikhs in the US. About 3,000 Sikh families live in southeastern Wisconsin, according to local reports. Local Sikhs had met in a rented space on the south side of Milwaukee until 2007 when the Oak Creek Gurudwara, as Sikh temples are known, was built. The 17,500 square-foot Gurudwara has parking for a hundred cars. Sikhism was founded in South Asia more than 500 years ago. Observant Sikhs do not cut their hair, and male followers often cover their heads with turbans and refrain from shaving their beards.

Members of the Sikh community in the US were physically attacked after the 9/11 terrorist attacks by racists who were also attacking America's Arab and Muslim communities. Witnesses to the shooting on Sunday have expressed fears that once again their community may have been targeted as part of a hate crime.

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Romney Refuses to Condemn Bachmann’s Islamophobic Witch Hunt

From [HERE] Mitt Romney refused to condemn Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other Republicans who have alleged that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is part of a Muslim Brotherhood campaign to infiltrate the American government. During an event in Reno, Nevada Romney dodged a question about the allegations, saying simply, “I’m not going to tell other people what things to talk about. Those are not things that are part of my campaign.” A growing number of Republicans, including House Speaker John Beohner (R-OH) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) have condemned Bachmann. But not Mittens. Watch Romney’s remarks [HERE]

This isn’t the first time the former Massachusetts candidate has failed to speak out against extremists in his own party. Romney refused to directly repudiate Donald Trump’s claims that President Obama was born in Kenya just hours before he is scheduled to appear with the reality T.V. star for a fund raiser in Las Vegas, NV. He also wouldn’t decry Rush Limbaugh for calling Sandra Fluke a “slut” or speak out against social conservatives who opposed his decision to hire an openly-gay national security spokesperson.

Romney’s foreign policy adviser John Bolton, however, has defended Bachmann’s call for the government to investigate the alleged Muslim Brotherhood plot.