All Things American Xenophobia & White Supremacy

[LFC]

TPM has a very good piece called Markup Of For The People Act Revealed Depth Of GOP’s Adherence To Disinfo.

On Tuesday, the Senate Rules Committee held a highly-anticipated markup of S. 1, otherwise known as the For The People Act. The legislation would implement crucial reforms to our elections system, including automatic and same-day voter registration, independent redistricting commissions and a small-donor matching system for congressional elections, making it a top priority for congressional Democrats and fair elections advocates.

The markup, a key part of the legislative process in which lawmakers discuss amendments to proposed legislation before voting on whether to advance the bill, lasted more than eight hours and showcased the contention between Republicans and Democrats about the future of democracy in the U.S. Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appeared at the markup, a rare event that signaled how highly both sides prioritize this issue. Democrats, including Schumer and Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), made a strong case for S. 1. Klobuchar stated that “we were reminded in a very visceral way on January 6 that it is up to us to protect against threats to our democracy,” and Schumer called the decision to support or oppose the For The People Act a “legacy-defining choice.” Meanwhile, Republicans sitting on the other side of the table criticized every aspect of the bill, falsely calling it a “brazen power grab” by Democrats.

Not every moment of the markup was as contentious as its opening. There were moments that reminded us how government could work, perhaps when lawmakers are elected by the people, not special interests. However, the fiery speeches and intense disagreements give us an accurate picture of the long and hard fight ahead. Understanding the good, the bad, and the ugly of this markup offers some glimmers of hope on the fate of the landmark fair elections legislation.

The Republicans are clinging to their lies and accusing Democrats of plotting to do what Republicans are literally in the process of doing. Same old, same old.

Despite these compromises, Republicans heavily criticized the bill, offering amendments designed to gut key provisions of the For The People Act and speculating that the bill will keep Democrats in power by rigging all future elections — an untrue and absurd claim.

Republicans’ central argument was this: The For The People Act is a partisan power grab that will keep Democrats in power forever by opening the door to voter fraud, allowing ineligible people to vote, and generally rigging elections for Democrats. The problem with this argument is that S. 1 would do none of those things.

[pnwguy]

May 14, 2021 18:56:11 GMT LFC said:

TPM has a very good piece called Markup Of For The People Act Revealed Depth Of GOP’s Adherence To Disinfo.

... and generally rigging elections for Democrats. 

Translation:  Holding elections favors Democrats, unless we can stop their voters from participating.

The GOP wants to be the New Soviet Union, with only one party on the ballot.

[goldenvalley]

May 14, 2021 19:08:44 GMT pnwguy said:

May 14, 2021 18:56:11 GMT LFC said:

TPM has a very good piece called Markup Of For The People Act Revealed Depth Of GOP’s Adherence To Disinfo.

Translation:  Holding elections favors Democrats, unless we can stop their voters from participating.

The GOP wants to be the New Soviet Union, with only one party on the ballot.

The GOP does show a marked lack of confidence in its ability to attract more party members that will vote for them.

[goldenvalley]

removed duplicate

[LFC]

Racism isn't always obvious. That doesn't make it any less racist.

Carlette Duffy felt both vindicated and excited. Both relieved and angry.

For months, she suspected she had been low-balled on two home appraisals because she's Black. She decided to put that suspicion to the test and asked a white family friend to stand in for her during an appraisal.

Her home's value suddenly shot up. A lot.

During the early months of the coronavirus pandemic last year, the first two appraisers who visited her home just west of downtown Indianapolis, valued it at $125,000 and $110,000, respectively.

But that third appraisal went differently.

To get that one, Duffy, who is African American, communicated with the appraiser strictly via email, stripped her home of all signs of her racial and cultural identity and had the white husband of a friend stand in for her during the appraiser's visit.

The home's new value: $259,000.

"I had to go through all of that just to say that I was right and that this is what's happening," she said. "This is real."

Now she wants justice. Along with the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, Duffy has filed fair housing complaints against the mortgage lenders and appraisers she accuses of undervaluing her home because of her race.

Sad to see we had a similar experience. We had a lowball appraisal that was clearly not just due to incompetence. Important data was intentionally left out of the inputs where all he had to do was plug it in. Did you know that hardwood floors, a tiled kitchen, granite countertops, and a 40 SF walk-in shower tiled in tumbled marble with a bench, two regular shower heads, a rain shower head, and a hand shower head don't add to the value of your home? Yes, we were actually told that. We too tried to go to the actual appraisal company and they didn't give it shit because correcting the asshole who didn't like the interracial couple didn't put any money in their pocket. Oh, yeah. And the comps were total jokes. Not one of the 4 resembled our home and they ignored the 3 my wife sent them that were all within 3 miles of our house.

[goldenvalley]

May 15, 2021 1:26:42 GMT LFC said:

Racism isn't always obvious. That doesn't make it any less racist.

Sad to see we had a similar experience. We had a lowball appraisal that was clearly not just due to incompetence. Important data was intentionally left out of the inputs where all he had to do was plug it in. Did you know that hardwood floors, a tiled kitchen, granite countertops, and a 40 SF walk-in shower tiled in tumbled marble with a bench, two regular shower heads, a rain shower head, and a hand shower head don't add to the value of your home? Yes, we were actually told that. We too tried to go to the actual appraisal company and they didn't give it shit because correcting the asshole who didn't like the interracial couple didn't put any money in their pocket. Oh, yeah. And the comps were total jokes. Not one of the 4 resembled our home and they ignored the 3 my wife sent them that were all within 3 miles of our house.

Wow. I can only hope that karma will catch up to that appraiser to give him what he deserves.

[LFC]

This is MAGA country where racism is alive, well, and not just tolerated but viewed as the acceptable norm. That includes the government and the police where, as the article states, "the criminal, voting and nuisance laws that appear to invariably favor white people." Welcome to Southern policing in the 20s i.e. the 1920s.

For many protesters, the statue symbolized the deep injustices that continue to plague America: the police and vigilante violence that killed George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others; the criminal, voting and nuisance laws that appear to invariably favor white people; the backlash that seems to follow every small gain in Black political power.

Their demonstration, the first of its kind here in living memory, signaled that a vocal demand for change was rising in Alamance County, a place where the civil rights movement never flourished. Even with the surging national momentum of Black Lives Matter, the protesters knew the odds of change were steep. Black people still endured racial slurs in the town square and grocery stores. The governing boards of the city and county were all-white and had been that way, with briefexceptions, for a century and a half. Many Black people feared even going downtown.

Alamance County offers a rare view into the fight for racial justice in small-town America. With its long history of violently suppressing Black political action, it is an especially bitter battlefield in the national conflict over race, police and power. Locals seeking change launched a stubborn rebellion after Floyd’s death, bound together by grief and a sense of profound unfairness. Law enforcement cracked down, sending dozens to jail. People calling themselves Confederates backed the status quo, and some grew increasingly radical.

A raucous and diverse coalition of church leaders, longtime activists and newfound converts collided with the most visible representative of the local power structure: Sheriff Terry Johnson. A tireless political operator, Johnson had served as the county’s top law enforcement official since first being elected in 2002. So dominating was his presence that supporters and opponents alike refer to Graham as “Terry’s Town.”

Johnson first banned demonstrations on courthouse grounds, but a federal judge ruled against him in early August. Switching tactics, the 71-year-old sheriff kept the heat on by outfitting his deputies in military gear and repeatedly arresting protesters for minor infractions. His actions delighted his base of voters, who like to describe Alamance as North Carolina’s last bastion of conservatism, a place where “Southern heritage” has yet to be diluted by outsiders. And he inspired the Confederates, who saw in him their truest defender.

Since Floyd’s death in Minneapolis last May, Johnson and his deputies have jailed scores of protesters. A judge and a prosecutor deemed some of the charges unconstitutional. Deputies arrested a woman at one protest for swearing after they tackled her husband. At another, they arrested a man for impeding traffic by standing on a curb with a sign held aloft. Charges against both were dropped.

[LFC]

QAnon continues to become even more Nazi-esque.

There’s a war brewing within the QAnon community.

One one side you have an upstart anonymous account called GhostEzra who has amassed a massive following in the space of a few months by spreading wild claims about President Joe Biden being a fake played by Hollywood star James Woods in a mask. In recent weeks, the account has become more and more extreme, spreading Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi content.

One the other side is a group of established influencers who’ve spent years promoting QAnon by pretending that the conspiracy theory isn’t intrinsically antisemitic. But these influencers, who have a smaller combined following than GhostEzra, aren’t worried about the antisemitic content itself; they’re just worried that the extremist language being used to express that antisemitism is damaging the QAnon brand.

“Do you see how disinformation accounts hurt our movement?” CJTruth, part of the establishment QAnon influencer group, wrote on Telegram last week.

For all their outrage, none of the established influencers has debunked the Holocaust denial content or antisemitic posts. Instead, they have focused on the damage that being so openly antisemitic is doing to their ability to recruit new followers to the movement.

At a time when the QAnon movement is in a state of flux, with former President Donald Trump out of office and the anonymous poster known as Q gone silent, experts see the embrace of more extremist views as a dangerous trend. They point out that GhostEzra’s account has become “a hub for radicalization,” where more extreme groups can recruit QAnon followers.

“There was always antisemitism, or elements of it, in QAnon, but the type of content being shared in the GhostEzra channel is not the norm and has taken very extreme turns,” Marc-André Argentino, a Ph.D. candidate at Concordia University who studies QAnon and similar far-right movements, tweeted.

Besides the standard QAnon conspiracies—that a group of Democratic and Hollywood elites is operating an underground sex-trafficking ring, COVID-19 is a hoax, and the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump—GhostEzra also promoted some truly wild claims.

These included the claim that President Joe Biden is in fact Hollywood actor James Woods in a mask. They also claim that the earth is flat and that outer space is fake.

“[These theories] called back to the creative ferment of QAnon's peak, when absolutely anything would go as long as you could convince a few people of it,” the anonymous founder of the Q Origins Project, which seeks to document how the movement came about, told VICE News.

But last week, the underlying antisemitic content that GhostEzra had always been pushing came to the fore in a series of posts on their Telegram channel that left no doubt about just how extreme the account was.

It began by promoting the neo-Nazi film “Europa – the Last Battle” a 10-part film that claims Jews created Communism, and deliberately started both world wars as part of a plot to found Israel by provoking the innocent Nazis, who were only defending themselves.

Almost all the 4,000 comments responding to the post on Telegram are positive, with very few pushing back against the openly racist message.

On Tuesday night the account posted more Holocaust-denial content. The post attracted over 3,000 comments, the second of which was a link to a neo-Nazi channel whose tagline is “Exposing the Jews is our Mission.”

This network effect that’s getting QAnon supporters radicalized into more extreme groups is deeply troubling.

[LFC]

The San Jose gunman was a racist facing a disciplinary hearing. Sounds like a MAGAt who can't understand how America has fallen so low that he can't even use racist slurs at work anymore.

NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned that the gunman who shot and killed nine VTA co-workers before taking his own life Wednesday was under investigation for allegedly making racist remarks to coworkers and was scheduled to attend a disciplinary hearing on the day of the attack.

According to law enforcement sources, Samuel Cassidy, 57, had been the subject of recent complaints including accusations that he was making inappropriate racial remarks to colleagues while on the job as a station maintenance worker.

Authorities with knowledge of the investigation say the gunman had also reportedly boasted to coworkers about having guns and explosives. It remains unclear, however, what authorities knew about those allegations, and whether they were to be discussed at a so-called Skelly hearing set for the shooter later Wednesday.

Sheriff’s investigators issued a statement Thursday describing the gunman as a “a highly disgruntled VTA employee for many years” but did not go further in attributing any specific motive.

So far, authorities have seized three semiautomatic handguns and 32 illegal high-capacity 12-round magazines.

Authorities found “materials for bombs, detonator cords, the precursors to an explosive,” at one rail yard locker, Smith said, adding there was evidence the shooter had used a timer device to delay setting fire to his home.

[LFC]

Bye bye, shitbag.

The leader of a violent white supremacist gang has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for racketeering and drug conspiracy, KTVB reports.

Wesley Gullett, the president of the New Aryan Empire, was also sentenced to five years supervised release. In February he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering and conspiracy to possess methamphetamine with intent to distribute.

"This defendant used his corrupt white supremacist organization to commit heinous crimes of violence," said Jonathan D. Ross, Acting United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. "These despicable acts, which included trying to murder a witness, will now appropriately be punished with 35 years in prison, where this defendant can no longer wreak havoc and poison our community."

The New Aryan Empire got its start in Arkansas prisons and later graduated to organized crime.

[LFC]

"Race norming?" Really, NFL? Welcome to the new century, same as the old century.

The NFL on Wednesday pledged to halt the use of "race-norming" — which assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive function — in the $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims and review past scores for any potential race bias.

The practice made it harder for Black retirees to show a deficit and qualify for an award. The standards were created in the 1990s in hopes of offering more appropriate treatment to dementia patients, but critics faulted the way they were used to determine payouts in the NFL concussion case.

Wednesday's announcement comes after a pair of Black players filed a civil rights lawsuit over the practice, medical experts raised concerns and a group of NFL families last month dropped 50,000 petitions at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia — where the lawsuit had been thrown out by the judge overseeing the settlement.

Senior U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody later took the unusual step of asking for a report on the issue. Black retirees hope it will include a breakdown of the nearly $800 million in payouts so far by race. They fear the data will never come to light.

"Words are cheap. Let's see what they do," said former Washington running back Ken Jenkins, whose wife Amy Lewis led the petition drive on behalf of NFL friends struggling with cognitive problems. Jenkins, an insurance executive, has so far been spared.

[LFC]

Look! It's right-wing racist cancel culture in full bloom!

What at first blush appeared to be a short audio malfunction at Monday's Memorial Day ceremony in Markillie Cemetery turned out to be anything but.

A ceremony organizer turned off the microphone when the event's keynote speaker, retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter, began sharing a story about freed Black slaves honoring deceased soldiers shortly after the end of the Civil War.

The microphone was turned down for about two minutes in the middle of Kemter's 11-minute speech during the event hosted by the Hudson American Legion Lee-Bishop Post 464.

Cindy Suchan, who chairs the Memorial Day parade committee and is president of the Hudson American Legion Auxiliary, said it was either her or Jim Garrison, adjutant of American Legion Lee-Bishop Post 464, who turned down the audio. When pressed, she would not say who specifically did it.

Suchan said organizers wanted this part excluded because it “was not relevant to our program for the day," and added the “theme of the day was honoring Hudson veterans.”

[AnBr]

[Deleted]

It's not just white rage. Rage of the dominant community gets a free pass. It is true everywhere

[LFC]

Take a look at two textbooks used to teach about slavery and the Civil War in Louisiana. These are not from the 1960s but are modern day books. Pity the poor slave owner who lost their property! It is about as close as you can get to speaking approvingly of slavery without wearing a white robe and hood.

[LFC]

You call them Nazis but Republicans call them part of their base and they're traveling to small towns all over Texas despite a lot of these towns not wanting them there.

According to the report, the Nazis have been traveling through Texas to hold dozens of rallies in every town they can.

In an April Fort Worth incident, just three White Lives Matter protesters showed up. They weren't welcomed either with counter-protesters and anti-racists, who outnumbered them, showing up. A later event in Houston was canceled when anti-racists showed up there.

Talk of Nazi behavior has resurfaced in Houston where a group of nurses claims that the requirement that they get a vaccine is somehow like the Nurenberg trials or Nurenberg code.

There's a general concern that Texas is experiencing something similar to the racist rallies they had in 2016 and 2017. One Austin event had a few dozen armed neo-Nazi protesters turned violent when tensions flared.

"It wasn't until this year that White Lives Matter protests started cropping up again in Texas," said the report. "They organize the demonstrations on Telegram, a messaging app where they also share propaganda and conspiracy theories. All around the Dallas area, white nationalists have been putting up flyers, stickers and posters. But they don't stay up for long. Almost as soon as the stickers start popping up around town, anti-fascists swoop in and deface them."

But the Dallas Observer closed by saying that what is most concerning is the degree to which their ideology has been welcomed into Fox News.

"Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently pushed a line of argument not that different from the Great Replacement theory, claiming that Democrats wanted open borders because immigrants would vote for them," said the report.

[LFC]

Another one who is proud to be racist.

According to private chat logs obtained by Vice News, a neo-Nazi and ex-Marine has plans to turn the state of Maine into an all-white ethnostate.

Chris Pohlhaus, 34, who has thousands of followers on his popular far-right social media network, sent a series of messages on Telegram that details his plans for white people to move to Maine and make a "white future" for themselves.

Speaking to Vice News, Pohlhaus said that he's "not doing anything illegal."

"I want to be in the coldest, [furthest], whitest area I can be," he said.

Reacting to his messages in the Telegram private chat room, some of Pohlhaus said that they now have ambitions to move to Maine. One person suggested a "Nazi home owners association" during the discussion.

"I don't see Maine ever getting below 75% white ever," another user wrote. "Maybe with our efforts we can raise it higher than it is now."

Pohlhaus is known for posting threats and racist statements in the online far-right ecosystem. He once said that "race traitors will get no human rights" in the coming "war." He also recently praised the Canadian man who mowed down a Muslim family of five (killing four of them) with his truck in an Islamophobic terror attack in London, Ontario.

I want him in the coldest, furthest, whitest area he can be too. The moon is pretty cold, far, and bright white plus there are no people of color for him to worry about.

[AnBr]

Hey, the moon is a harsh mistress.

[LFC]

Legislation to make Juneteenth a national holiday unanimously passed the Senate and passed the House 415-14. So who were the 14 who voted against? And other than being Republican what do they have in common? Hmmmm. If only we could see what it was.

Here's one of these assholes who justified his vote with (wait for it...) critical race theory! It really is the right-wingnuts' favorite new toy.

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) on Wednesday announced his opposition to making Juneteenth a federal holiday as the House gears up for its vote to commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S.

In a statement issued Wednesday, Rosendale argued that making Juneteenth a federal holiday would open the floodgates for the Left to push the so-called “critical race theory” that has Republicans across the country up in arms.

“Let’s call an ace an ace. This is an effort by the Left to create a day out of whole cloth to celebrate identity politics as part of its larger efforts to make Critical Race Theory the reigning ideology of our country,” Rosendale said. “Since I believe in treating everyone equally, regardless of race, and that we should be focused on what unites us rather than our differences, I will vote no.”

Celebrated on June 19, Juneteenth marks the anniversary of Major General Gordon Granger’s 1865 announcement in Galveston, Texas of the end of slavery in accordance with President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.

Forty-eight states — which includes Rosendale’s home state of Montana — currently recognize Juneteenth as a state or ceremonial holiday.

[AnBr]

[pg]

May 15, 2021 1:26:42 GMT LFC said:

Racism isn't always obvious. That doesn't make it any less racist.

Carlette Duffy felt both vindicated and excited. Both relieved and angry.

For months, she suspected she had been low-balled on two home appraisals because she's Black. She decided to put that suspicion to the test and asked a white family friend to stand in for her during an appraisal.

Her home's value suddenly shot up. A lot.

During the early months of the coronavirus pandemic last year, the first two appraisers who visited her home just west of downtown Indianapolis, valued it at $125,000 and $110,000, respectively.

But that third appraisal went differently.

To get that one, Duffy, who is African American, communicated with the appraiser strictly via email, stripped her home of all signs of her racial and cultural identity and had the white husband of a friend stand in for her during the appraiser's visit.

The home's new value: $259,000.

"I had to go through all of that just to say that I was right and that this is what's happening," she said. "This is real."

Now she wants justice. Along with the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, Duffy has filed fair housing complaints against the mortgage lenders and appraisers she accuses of undervaluing her home because of her race.

Sad to see we had a similar experience. We had a lowball appraisal that was clearly not just due to incompetence. Important data was intentionally left out of the inputs where all he had to do was plug it in. Did you know that hardwood floors, a tiled kitchen, granite countertops, and a 40 SF walk-in shower tiled in tumbled marble with a bench, two regular shower heads, a rain shower head, and a hand shower head don't add to the value of your home? Yes, we were actually told that. We too tried to go to the actual appraisal company and they didn't give it shit because correcting the asshole who didn't like the interracial couple didn't put any money in their pocket. Oh, yeah. And the comps were total jokes. Not one of the 4 resembled our home and they ignored the 3 my wife sent them that were all within 3 miles of our house.

Before I comment more, is your appraisal for a sale?

[LFC]

Jun 19, 2021 17:18:42 GMT pg said:

May 15, 2021 1:26:42 GMT LFC said:

Racism isn't always obvious. That doesn't make it any less racist.

Sad to see we had a similar experience. We had a lowball appraisal that was clearly not just due to incompetence. Important data was intentionally left out of the inputs where all he had to do was plug it in. Did you know that hardwood floors, a tiled kitchen, granite countertops, and a 40 SF walk-in shower tiled in tumbled marble with a bench, two regular shower heads, a rain shower head, and a hand shower head don't add to the value of your home? Yes, we were actually told that. We too tried to go to the actual appraisal company and they didn't give it shit because correcting the asshole who didn't like the interracial couple didn't put any money in their pocket. Oh, yeah. And the comps were total jokes. Not one of the 4 resembled our home and they ignored the 3 my wife sent them that were all within 3 miles of our house.

Before I comment more, is your appraisal for a sale?

For a refi.

[pg]

Refi- that can get complicated. I have no idea of your market, but things are starting to get wonky. Far too many appraisers rely on online "guess-timates", and don't take the time to actually look at real comps, near you. It's basically a bunch of kids out there who are enthusiastic AND non-homeowners.

Small piece of advice (and you already may be well ahead of me):

NO more with the appraiser. You and your wife have done enough. If you trust your lender, they are with whom you speak. If you have a trusted Realtor, that person can give you REAL comps, to be submitted to the lender. Ask your neighbors- somebody knows somebody- always. And you and your wife can always start anew- and quickly- with another lender.

As to the interracial couple issues...Sag. It's very difficult for me to even respond, considering that I've not been that person. But knowing you as a reasonable, educated and composed man, I wouldn't argue.

It breaks my heart to know this happens. Jesus H Christ- is this the 50's? Hell, no. There are Federal laws against this sort of discrimination.

Find a HUD certified lender and try again.

[LFC]

Jun 22, 2021 0:11:05 GMT pg said:

Small piece of advice (and you already may be well ahead of me):

NO more with the appraiser. You and your wife have done enough. If you trust your lender, they are with whom you speak. If you have a trusted Realtor, that person can give you REAL comps, to be submitted to the lender. Ask your neighbors- somebody knows somebody- always. And you and your wife can always start anew- and quickly- with another lender.

Thanks for the advice. Many lenders require an appraisal but I agree that they don't know what they're doing. That's true for both comps and home valuation. We've bumped into the incompetent but this one case was egregious. When you're told that a tiled kitchen, high-end granite countertops, wood floors, emergency generator, or even a 40SF tumbled marble shower with high end fixtures and a built in bench don't impact the value of your home you know you're being hosed. It was basically x bedrooms, y bathrooms, and z square feet. Our stone work and landscaping didn't matter either. We know the appraisal program has inputs for those kinds of upgrades. They were just studiously left out.

Fortunately we don't expect to ever have to apply for a mortgage again in our lives. This was the last one to pull equity out for a serious expansion project that we're in the midst of that will allow us to more comfortably live on the first floor as my wife's health issues have become more frequent. The new garage is in and is being wired as I type though there are some punch list items to get finished. Attaching breezeway is built. Next up we blow out two walls to the old garage space, have post and beam installed for the weight, tear out the existing flooring in most of the first floor, level up the entire space, put down the same engineered hardwood throughout, install natural stone tile in the breezeway, install a wet bar, install cabinets for storage, put a wood ceiling into the vaulted ceiling of the breezeway, reface the fireplace, and so on. We've been telling people that when it's all done we'll live in a 1,500 SF 1BR 1.5BA first floor home ... that just happens to have a pile of rooms above us.

[goldenvalley]

I know this should go in Political Humor but it fits so perfectly here: