Detention camp for African migrants in Israel's south to hold up to 30,000 people

From [HERE] The detention compound being built in the south for African migrants will accommodate up to 30,000 people, despite Defense Ministry statements that it would house 12,400, an Interior Ministry protocol shows.

At a discussion held by Interior Ministry officials last month about the sewer treatment facility at the detention site, officials explained that the professional water and sewage committee had received a plan for a "compound housing up to 30,000 people."

The sewer treatment facility is also to serve other communities in the region. The Defense Ministry had stated during the detention center's planning process that it would accommodate more than 20,000 people. In June, the National Planning and Construction Committee was informed that by the middle of next year the state would have accommodation for 16,400 migrants in the detention center. According to plans presented by Defense Ministry officials, the existing Saharonim A and Ketziot prisons have room for 4,400 migrants and the soon-to- be-completed tent town would add 4,000 places.

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Racist Israeli hospitals refusing to treat African patients

Report: Jerusalem’s Bikur Holim Hospital refuses to treat a number of African asylum seekers under the premise that they don’t have health insurance.

From [HERE] In the past week, the Bikur Holim hospital in Jerusalem has turned away at least three Eritrean asylum seekers, according to a report in Maariv (Hebrew). After experiencing severe stomach pains, Nestah Ibrahim, a 21-year-old Eritrean woman who arrived in Israeli legally, was transported to Jerusalem’s Bikur Holim by ambulance. There, hospital workers asked her if she had money to pay for the visit. When she told them she did not, they told her to go somewhere else.

Speaking to Maariv, Ibrahim says,  I tried to explain to them that I’m new here, that I don’t have status and rights but they weren’t convinced and they told me: “Go to a different hospital.” I asked them to at least give me pills to make the pain go away but they did not agree to give them to me.

Earlier this month, Ynet reported that a Tel Aviv hospital, Sourasky Medical Center, will limit admissions of and ban visits by African asylum seekers “out of concern for the spread of infectious diseases to other patients.”

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Racist NY Post Frequently Exploits Shooting Victims To Push Pro-'Stop-And-Frisk' Agenda

From [HERE] With facts and statistics staring down the New York Post's attempted defenses of the New York Police Department's controversial stop-and-frisk agenda, the Post has been forced to resort to purely emotional appeals in their attempt to maintain public support for the policy.

Over the past few months, the New York Post has published several news pieces dedicated to interrogating the friends and family members of recent New York City shooting victims. Each story features someone emotionally close to the case speculating about whether ramping up the New York Police Department's controversial "stop-and-frisk" policy could have saved their loved ones' lives. Meanwhile, the Post's editorial page has been littered with hyperbole and graphic imagery -- fear mongering designed to scare readers into believing that ending stop-and-frisk will result in "more blood in the streets."

Several recent interviews in the news section of the New York Post have followed the above theme. Given the unconditional support for stop-and-frisk expressed by the Post's editors over past months, it's difficult to view these stories as anything more than an effort to exploit the raw emotions of their subjects in order to push the paper's political objectives in a "straight news" format.

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Mittens right at home in racist Israel: Palestinians outraged by Romney's comments at fundraiser

From [HERE] Mitt Romney told Jewish donors Monday that their culture is part of what has allowed them to be more economically successful than the Palestinians, outraging Palestinian leaders who called his comments racist and out of touch.

"As you come here and you see the GDP per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000 dollars, and compare that with the GDP per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality," the Republican presidential candidate told about 40 wealthy donors who breakfasted around a U-shaped table at the luxurious King David Hotel.

The reaction of Palestinian leaders to Romney’s comments was swift and pointed.

"It is a racist statement and this man doesn’t realize that the Palestinian economy cannot reach its potential because there is an Israeli occupation," said Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

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White Anaheim Councilwoman Happy that Latinos are Shut Out of Voting Process - "a win with no shots"

From [HERE] and [MORE] An Anaheim city councilwoman is apologizing for remarks celebrating as a "win with no shots fired" the abrupt end to Tuesday night's council meeting because of violent protests before two measures could be placed on the November ballot, including one eliminating citywide council seats.

Councilwoman Gail Eastman made the remarks on a private neighborhood message board after the council failed to take up the ballot issues -- which are of particular concern to Anaheim's Latino community -- and illustrate to many a divide between wealthy neighborhoods and the impoverished city core. The City Council was planning to approve for the Nov. 6 ballot a measure that would require council members be elected from districts rather than at-large. The American Civil Liberties Union sued in June to require the city to establish such districts; saying the city in effect silences Latinos by shutting them out of the electoral process. Read the complaint.

In Anaheim, the city's mayor and four council members are elected "at-large," meaning they can come from any part of the city. No Latino is currently on the council and four of the five council members live in Anaheim Hills. The lawsuit calls for Anaheim to elect council members from individual districts – a move the plaintiffs say will ensure better representation of all residents, including Latinos. [MORE] 

Eastman posted this week on a private message board: "It's finally quiet in the hood and I've had time to collect my thoughts. The bonus now is that a threat of seeing either the TOT issue or districting on the November ballot is past. In spite of how it happened, it was a big time win for all who opposed seeing that placed on the November ballot." She later added, "Tonight we celebrate a win with no shots fired!"

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Former Florida Republican Party chairman said Party Leaders met to Discuss Ways to Suppress the Black Vote

From [HERE] Florida Republicans conspired to dampen voter turnout among African Americans, according to a former top party official currently battling criminal fraud charges. [...]

Former Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer has filed a lawsuit against his former colleagues, saying he was improperly denied a $130,000 severance package after being forced out his leadership position. In a deposition recorded in late May, Greer described a party that had fallen into disarray and become divided between competing factions. [...]

In addition to saying the Florida Republican had come under the sway of “whack-a-do, right-wing crazies,” he claimed that party leaders met and discussed ways to suppress the black vote.

His exact words about voter suppression: “They talked about not letting blacks vote” and that party officials believed that “minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party.

Shrinking White Population Could Mean the End of the Republican Party

Race, age and ethnicity are at the heart of the problem (problem? to whom - bw). And they portend not only the GOP's' death in California, but perhaps its destiny in the rest of America. Consider. Almost 90 percent of all Republican voters in presidential elections are white. Almost 90 percent are Christians. But whites fell to 74 percent of the electorate in 2008 and were only 64 percent of the population. Christians are down to 75 percent of the population from 85 in 1990. The falloff continues and is greatest among the young.

Consider ethnicity. Hispanics were 15 percent of the U.S. population in 2008 and 7.4 percent of the electorate. Both percentages will inexorably rise.

Yet in their best years, like 2004, Republicans lose the Hispanic vote 3-to-2. In bad years, like 2008, they lose it 2-to-1. Whites are already a minority in California, and Hispanics will eventually become the majority. Say goodbye to the Golden Land.

Asian-Americans voted 3-to-2 for Obama, black Americans 24-to-1. The Asian population in California and the nation is growing rapidly. The black population, 13 percent of the nation, is growing steadily.

Whites, already a minority in our two most populous states, will be less than half the U.S. population by 2041 and a minority in 10 states by 2020.

Consider now the Electoral College picture.

Of the seven mega-states, California, New York and Illinois appear lost to the GOP. Pennsylvania has not gone Republican since 1988. Ohio and Florida, both crucial, are now swing states. Whites have become a minority in Texas. When Texas goes, America goes.

This year could be the last hurrah.

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'Excuse me fine sir, are you an Undocumented Person?' White Supremacist Arizona sheriff denies targeting illegal immigrants by skin color

From [HERE] Racist Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio, denied on Tuesday that his deputies targeted people because of the color of their skin in a controversial crackdown on illegal immigration. Arpaio, sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, was testifying in a class-action lawsuit to test whether police can target illegal immigrants without racially profiling Hispanic citizens and legal residents. "I am against anyone racial profiling ... today as in my 50 years in law enforcement," Arpaio, a veteran lawman who recently turned 80, told the court during cross-examination.

Arpaio was also asked about a news release he issued after a sweep targeting illegal immigrants in 2008, in which he noted criticism from former Phoenix mayor Phil Gordon that his agency went after "brown-skinned people with cracked windshields." "We do not arrest people because of the color of their skin," said Arpaio, speaking in a slightly hoarse voice due to a recent case of influenza (white minded journalists find an excuse for everything). The plaintiffs' counsel, Stanley Young, asked Arpaio if he believed illegal immigrants entering Maricopa County had certain appearances and whether this included brown skin color. Arpaio replied: "No."

(So, he perjured himself today. What criteria do police use to determine who is undocumented and who is not? What does an undocumented person look like to a reasonable Arizona police officer? This is the same game the NYPD and their racist Mayor play. Under the racist Arizona law any non-white person can be stopped on the basis of skin color. Being able to lawfully detain non-white persons at will is a pre-condition to genocide. In Nazi Germany yellow star badges were handed out to Jews in order to mark them. German Jews looked like Germans. Without the stars (and meticulous recordkeeping) there was no way to tell who was a semite and who was not. Fully integrated and assimilated into society at the time, Jews also mistakenly thought they were accepted as Germans.)

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Advocates Seek Injunction Against SB 1070: Arizona Law Allows Police to Stop, Detain Any Non-White Person

'Whats a smiling face when the whole state is racist?' In photo Arizona's white supremacist Governor Jan Brewer. Ugliness. She is eager to implement this racist Arizona law which legalizes police stops and detentions of persons based on physical characteristics. It would be reasonable under SB 1070 for police to stop and detain all persons who look Latino to the police -  any stop and detention of a non-white person. Sec. 2(B) cannot be implemented without violating the 4th Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures and the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause. From [HERE ] As Sheriff Joe Arpaio went on trial in Arizona this week for discriminating against Latinos and for usurping federal authority with his sweeping roundups of undocumented immigrants, a coalition of individuals and groups brought a related action in another federal court. The action asks the court to block enforcement of Section 2(B) of S.B. 1070, the notorious Arizona law that compels all law enforcement agencies in the state to copy and carry out the Arpaio model of harassment and humiliation.

The Supreme Court rejected the premise of S.B. 1070 last month on grounds that making foreign policy — of which immigration law is a part — is a federal responsibility. But it upheld the law’s “show me your papers” section requiring officers to check the immigration status of anyone they stop, arrest or detain on another basis if the officer has a “reasonable suspicion” the person is in the country illegally. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion said the court could not assume it would be applied in ways that conflicted with federal law until it took effect — as it did after the ruling.

The motion to enjoin Section 2(B) “involves additional claims, evidence, and irreparable injuries beyond what the Supreme Court had before it.” The challenge explains harms so obvious and unconstitutional that the judge does not need extensive proof of the section’s impact to block it. The Legislature “explicitly intended Section 2(B) to codify the practices” of Mr. Arpaio, the motion says, even after his powers had been restricted by earlier investigations into and challenges to his racial profiling. The practices the suit refers to include extended stops and detentions of Latinos to verify their status or for other immigration-related purposes. Public comments from law enforcement officials leave little doubt they intend to use these tactics.

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Emails from State Senator Show Racial Motivation of Arizona Law

"I've never been a hateful guy," Pearce (in photo) said in a 2011 interview. "It's disappointing that people would paint you as a hateful guy. ... Vigilant? Absolutely. But I'm not hateful. I just know my duty. My duty to my country, my God, my family and the rule of law."(He is right, this is not necessarily about hate. Racism/White Supremacy is systematic and calculated. Does he look like an angry emotional basket case to you? This here is a reaction to white fear of assimilation from a growing Latino population & white genetic annihilation. Being able to detain non-whites is a precondition to genocide. Watch your back. Plan accordingly.) From [HERE] Opponents of Arizona's controversial immigration law, Senate Bill 1070, are using dozens of e-mails sent by Russell Pearce over the past six years to allege that the law was racially motivated and that the former senator and sponsor of the legislation fabricated data to persuade the Legislature and Gov. Jan Brewer to support it. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona acquired thousands of Pearce e-mails through a public-records request and included dozens of them in a legal motion to block a portion of the law.

Advocates hope to use the e-mails to show a pattern of discrimination that, they believe, was Pearce's motivation for SB 1070 and thus prove that it violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. If they are successful in showing a pattern of discrimination, it could help persuade the courts to overturn the law, legal experts say. The emails would provide evidence of the racist intent of the Legislature. Smoking gun evidence rarely exists. 

The following are excerpts from e-mails Russell Pearce sent from 2006 to 2011. 

• "The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the U.S."
• "The birth rate among illegal immigrants is substantially higher than the population at large."
• "Last week, Denver's illegal aliens sang our national anthem in Spanish and bastardized the words of OUR country's most sacred song."
• "Battles commence as Mexican nationalists struggle to infuse their men into American government and strengthen control over their strongholds. One look at Los Angeles with its Mexican-American mayor shows you Vincente Fox's general Varigossa commanding an American city."
• "We create cultural and linguistic apartheid by creating a slave class of workers unassimilated while growing in numbers and antagonistic strength. This condition creates a perfect formula for rioting and violence that will tear our nation to pieces!"
• "They create enclaves of separate groups that shall balkanize our nation into fractured nightmares of social unrest and poverty."
• "Can we maintain our social fabric as a nation with Spanish fighting English for dominance?
• It's like importing leper colonies and hope we don't catch leprosy. 
• It's like importing thousands of Islamic jihadists and hope they adapt to the American Dream." 
• "9,000 people killed every year by illegal aliens," 
• "the illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of non-illegal aliens."

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"Liberal" San Francisco Considering Racist Stop & Frisk Policy

From [HERE] San Francisco has taken a political right turn since Gavin Newsom (care not cash) and it seems we might take a hard-right turn with Mayor Ed Lee considering a “Stop and Frisk” policy.

Ask any African-American male teenager or adult under 30 years of age and you’ll quickly understand that we already have “Stop and Frisk” in San Francisco. It’s an unwritten policy which we have struggled against since “Negros/blacks/Africans” arrived in numbers after WWII. However, to formalize such a blatantly racist policy is not just a human rights violation, but it actually authorizes African-Americans to be killed. The more confrontations between young African-American men and police will increase the number of those encounters that turn deadly. (this writer has overlooked that such a stop & frisk policy involves all persons of color not just Blacks. The minority population in SF is deep.) All clear thinking Americans must realize that taking the civil and human rights away from African-Americans walks us down a dangerous path. We are living in perilous times with “Stop and Frisk”, The Patriot Act and NDAA indefinite detentions. All of our constitutional rights are under attack.

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Racism Watch - 6/28/12

You go white girl! After Advancing Racial Attacks on Eric Holder, Megyn Kelly Plays The Race Card on Civil Rights Leaders Standing Up For Him From [HERE] Megyn Kelly had a lot of nerve "wondering" why civil rights leaders and Rev. Al Sharpton think that racism is involved in Republican attacks on Attorney General Eric Holder. After all, it was Kelly who spent weeks in 2010 helping a Republican activist deliberately gin up racial animosity against Holder - by depicting him as the enabler of scary black men coming to a voting booth near you. Now, she was deliberately ginning up racial animosity against those who might have taken notice.

Kelly’s voice dripped with contempt yesterday as she introduced a debate segment with a clip of civil rights leaders calling attacks on Holder a “witch hunt.”

Guest David Webb, a conservative African American, yet again played the part of what I call the designated black attacker.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I’m sick of the black, race-hustler Mafia, which is what this is, drumming up something… We have a legal issue, not just one dead border agent, over 300 dead Mexican citizens… and they’re trying to change the narrative.

Kelly read a quote from Rev. Al Sharpton saying that Holder was “in essence ‘stopped and frisked’ without probable cause.” Webb said emphatically that Democrats were “ABSOLUTELY” playing the race card. “It’s no longer the soft bigotry of low expectations of minorities. It’s the hard bigotry of ‘don’t you dare believe anything but what we tell you.’ Al Sharpton is a race hustler, plain and simple. He’s an old demagogue, along with the others.”

It’s worth noting that it was the other guest, liberal Alan Colmes, who told Webb there was no need for name calling. Kelly didn’t seem to mind.

I’m sorry to say that Colmes, who I think generally does a terrific job on Fox, missed the boat here. He argued that the Republican witch hunt against Holder was not because he’s black but because he’s a Democrat. “People tend to go after the Attorney General of the opposite party.”

Which is true on its face. But what Colmes missed is how race has been deliberately used in the right-wing attacks on Holder, including right there on Fox. And nobody has directed racial hostility toward Holder more than Megyn Kelly. Furthermore, since the voter I.D. laws the right wing promotes will disproportionately impact minorities, tearing down Holder now – when he has committed himself to defending voting rights – is a neat little pre-emptive strike. I’ve been writing about this for years.

And in case you don’t think Kelly was deliberately using race now to demonize Holder’s defenders, check out how, at about 6:10, she interrupted Colmes talking about the details of the Fast and Furious controversy Holder is embroiled in in order to bring the discussion back to race. “Let’s not get too deep into the weeds of Fast and Furious,” she said and brought up more of Sharpton’s racial remarks. “Why is he doing this?” she asked. It would be almost impossible to miss the condemnation in her voice.  (she 'might get choked by the grass' -bw). 

House apologizes for anti-Chinese laws; The resolution led by Rep. Judy Chu refers to 19th century bans on immigrants.

One hundred and thirty years after the Chinese Exclusion Act became law, the House expressed regret Monday for enacting discriminatory laws targeting Chinese immigrants.  The rare apology came on a resolution sponsored by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park), the first Chinese American woman elected to Congress. 

"This is a proud moment for all Americans who treasure justice and equality," said Carolyn Hong Chan, national president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance. Chu, whose grandfather was forced to register and carry a certificate of residence for about 40 years, told House colleagues: "It is for my grandfather, and for all Chinese Americans who were told for six decades by the U.S. government that the land of the free wasn't open to them, that we must pass this resolution.

"We must finally and formally acknowledge these ugly laws that were incompatible with America's founding principles," she added. "By doing so, we will acknowledge that discrimination has no place in our society."

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Racism Watch - 6/22/12

Pulling the Sheets Off the Racist Media. Much like with the Clinton presidency, there has been a consuming effort by the conservative media (and the Republican Party) to delegitimize the current Democratic presidency. The difference this time is that right-wing name-calling has been ramped up and a runaway lack of civility is now worn like a  badge of conservative honor. Recall that following Obama's 2010 State of the Union Address, conservative media players responded to the president's policy-heavy speech by calling him  a "grating," "flippant," "arrogant" "jerk" who's "cocky"  and can't hide his "fake sincerity." This, of course, after Glenn Beck strolled onto the set of Fox & Friends in July of 2009 and announced the President of the United States was a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people."

You probably can't even count the number of insults and smears that have been hurled at Obama by the GOP press, although Sally Kohn recently did a nice job of highlight some of the more vile broadsides: 

• "We're now governed by people who do not like the country" -- Rush Limbaugh re: President Obama
• President Obama wants to "destroy capitalism" -- Hermann Cain
• President Obama "certainly isn't one of us" -- John Hinderaker
• President Obama "doesn't put America first" -- John Hawkins
• Questioning President Obama's patriotism -- David Limbaugh
• President Obama is "ruling" the US according to the dreams of his "philandering, inebriated African socialist" Kenyan father -- Dinesh D'Souza
• President Obama was "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia" -- Donald Trump

And it's not just the fringe players, either. Supposedly serious pundits who work at places like the Wall Street Journal have also spent an inordinate amount of time calling the president names instead of actually critiquing his policies.  Journal columnist Bret Stephen lashed out at the president (and former Harvard Law Review editor) by calling him "stupid," while Peggy Noonan has labeled Obama a "boring" "loser" and a "walking headache" who ought to just "shut up." Erudite commentary this is not. [MORE] 

GOP Congressman: Police Should Target Muslims Because they’re Responsible For 90 Percent Of Terrorism. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) has a long history of demonizing American Muslims. But appearing on Fox News yesterday, King continued his factually challenged attack on Muslim Americans: What I am very concerned about is that while the overwhelming majority of Muslims are good people, the fact is even though Muslims are 1 percent of the population, almost 90 percent of the terrorist crimes are carried out by the Muslim community. And there are not enough people in the community willing to step forward and speak out against this and cooperate with law enforcement.

While the scope of King’s assertion is unclear, the reality is that a small percentage of terrorist attacks and plots in the U.S. are the result of Islamic extremism — 56 percent have been perpetrated by right-wing extremists (white people!), 30 percent by ecoterrorists and 12 percent by Islamic extremists. [MORE] 

Anti-racism ad campaign in Minnesota town called 'racist.' A controversy over an anti-racism campaign some local critics say is itself racist is roiling the Iron Range city of Duluth, Minn. The Un-Fair Campaign addresses what it calls ‘white privilege’ with billboards, posters and online videos assigning guilt to people with taglines like, “Is white skin really fair skin?” and “I am a white man. That’s unfair.” The ads are plastered across a city where 90 percent of the population is Caucasian.

The campaign aims to “raise awareness about white privilege in our community, provide resources for understanding and action, and facilitate dialogue and partnership that result in fundamental, systemic change towards racial justice,” according to its website. A coalition of co-sponsors including the City of Duluth, the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the NAACP, League of Women Voters and the YWCA hopes the effort will “result in fundamental, systemic change towards racial justice.”

But Phil Pierson, the creator of the STOP Racist Unfair Campaign, wants the signs to come down.  His group is trying to have the billboards removed from city streets and has petitioned the Duluth Human Rights Commission, one of the sponsors of Un-Fair to end the campaign. Fox News has [MORE]. 

Racism Watch - 6/21/12

"I Call Him A Monkey". Last week, right-wing radio host Barbara Espinosa of Arizona took to the airwaves and declared that she won't call Barack Obama "the first black president," explaining: "I voted for the white guy myself. I call him a monkey." And then she defended that statement, saying it was "prompted" by a cartoon someone sent her of Obama as a monkey. As Ta-Nehisi Coates put it: "One thing I've never seen is a bigot cite actual racism as a defense against their own racism."  Espinosa's naked bigotry brought to mind something ABC's Sam Donaldson wrote after the Daily Caller's Neil Munro shouted nativist idiocies disguised as questions during the president's immigration statement last week. Tucker Carlson defended his heckler-cum-reporter by comparing him to Donaldson, which irked the ABC newsman, who wrote to Huffington Post's Michael Calderone: "Never once did I interrupt a president in any way while he was making a formal statement."

Donaldson also made a larger point about the "incivility of the times:"

There is one more factor, let's face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there -- they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American! These people and perhaps even certain news organizations (certainly the right wing talkers like Limbaugh) encourage disrespect for this president. [MORE] 

And More Ugliness from the Right: Fox News Guest Under Investigation after Advocating for Demolition of Mosque. The South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-SFL) today called on the FBI to investigate a call by Pamela Geller, the leader of an anti-Muslim hate group, to demolish a mosque in that state. Geller, who appears as a regular guest on FOX News, posted an article on her blog, titled “Obama’s DOJ secretly drops terrorism charges in Taliban Case,” calling for a Florida Mosque to be demolished. This comes after the Department of Justice dropped charges against Irfan Khan, one of the defendants that was recently arrested and indicted on terrorism support charges.  “Calling for the destruction of a mosque may incite people to commit acts of violence against ordinary Muslims,” says CAIR-SFL Executive Director Nezar Hamze. “We are taking this call for the destruction of an American house of worship very seriously and have reported it to the FBI for review.”

Geller recently forged ties with the racist English Defence League (EDL) in Britain. She previously applauded the alleged desecration of Afghan corpses by U.S. Marines. On her hate blog, Geller wrote: “I love these Marines. Perhaps this is the infidel interpretation of the Islamic ritual of washing and preparing the body for burial.” Desecration by urination is a favorite Geller theme. She has posted images on her blog that include a fake photo of President Obama urinating on an American flag. [MORE] 

Natioinal Park Service's "Slave for a Day" program is by no means racist.  The July 8 event, which park ranger and event organizer Angela Roberts-Burton said is part of the historical site’s monthly black history educational series, caused a stir on the Internet for what some believe was insensitive wording. “By no means am I trying to, or are we the Park Service, trying to assimilate the atrocities that slave African-Americans endured,” Roberts-Burton said Wednesday. “This is just a glimpse of the hard work, being out in the heat and sun,” she said.

In the initial event description on the Hampton National Historic Site website, which was online until Tuesday, Roberts-Burton used the “Slave for a Day” heading. The release also used exclamation points to note that it was the “first time ever at Hampton!” and participants could “carry buckets of water with a yoke on your shoulders!” [MORE] and [MORE] 

Noose found at Calif. high school being investigated. California police are now investigating a large noose made of elastic tubing that was hanging off a football goal post at Davis Senior High School last week. They are trying to discover whether the incident was meant as a hate crime or a bad joke, CBS Sacramento reports. The Davis Join Unified School District believe that someone hung the noose between Thursday evening and Friday morning, shortly before it was discovered by a school employee. For the past few years, the northern California city of Davis has reportedly seen its share of hate crimes, including swastikas allegedly being hung on the campus of University of California, Davis. Activist Dr. Jann Murray-Garcia said "a noose is a symbol of terror," she said. "You can't let these incidents go unresponded."