Category Archives: Alt-right

The secretary of state might be a running dog of Oregons political establishment, but her argument against Kristofs candidacy seems entirely rational. The residency requirements for candidacy are not clear-cut, as Portlands alt-weekly Willamette Week notes: A candidate for governor must be a resident of three years standing, though resident isnt defined. But as the Oregonian reported, Kristof voted in New York state in the 2020 general election, he maintained his New York drivers license through December 2020, and he paid New York income taxes beyond November 2019. These lapses and choices converged, the secretary of state decided, to make Kristof a nonresident for the purposes of his candidacy. Kristof might call himself a native bird, but unless a judge overrules her, Fagan is the relevant taxonomist here.

The most disturbing part about Kristofs MAGA response to his DQed candidacy is how off-brand his tirade is. In his New York Times columns, hes been a by-the-rules stickler, endorsing due process and rule of law at most junctures. But Kristof the politician seems to think that just because he wants to be governor and just because he grew up in Oregon and just because he still owns a farm there and just because he has deep roots in the state, he deserves a spot on the ballot. Imagine this sort of governance-by-whim by Kristof should he decide to impose a statewide emergency, which governors in Oregon and other states can declare. Do Oregonians want him to riff off the top of his head and interpret the statutes to satisfy himself or do they want a more Talmudic reading of those powers? If satisfying the residency requirements for candidacy was an audition for Kristofs fitness for office, youd have to reject him.

As Trumpian and as imperious as Kristof might seem, his case does provide ammunition against the inconsistent and often ridiculous residency requirement many public offices require. If Kristof were running for the governorship of Florida, that land of transients, he would have to prove residency for an astounding seven years! But if he decided to run for Congress or the Senate from Florida (or any other state), establishing his mere inhabitancy at election time would suffice. To run for a seat in the House of Representatives, you dont even have to live in the district you intend to represent. The patchwork of residency requirements is so tattered that a school board member in Illinois got away with serving on his board after moving to Florida.

Residency requirements for state and local offices might be stupid, but theyre constitutional. So why do they exist? The arguments vary. Kristof is sort of right when he blames residency nitpicking on the existing political establishment. In the former Confederacy, candidates who migrated from the North during Reconstruction were labeled opportunists and meddlers in the Southern way of life and maligned as carpetbaggers. But few carpetbaggers fit the venal stereotype, historian Eric Foner has noted. Most carpetbaggers were former soldiers from middle-class families who went South seeking a livelihood, not political office. They aroused hostility because they upheld the equal civil and political rights of blacks, he wrote.

Some proponents of modern residency requirements defend them as a way to prevent grasping outsiders, who dont know anything about the state or locality, from buying their way into office and squeezing local candidates out of contention. Others defend residency requirements as the best way for voters to get to know the candidates and the candidates to get to know the populace. Even if this was once true and it probably wasnt its not true today when a candidate can come up to speed on his state and its voters can get up to speed on him quickly through mass media. And if residency requirements were all that essential, the framers of the Constitution would have imposed them. But they didnt, which is why Robert F. Kennedy and Hillary Clinton were allowed to tote their carpetbags into New York state and claim U.S. Senate seats. Both turned out to be pretty good representatives, disproving the maxim that outsiders are bad and insiders are good.

Like occupational licensing and other red-tape regulations, the residency requirements for public office serve mostly to protect incumbents from open competition. I previously opposed the Kristof candidacy in this column, writing that somebody who has demonstrated an ability to boss paragraphs around but possesses no political experience shouldnt be given the keys to the governors mansion. But theres also nothing magically qualifying about a candidate who has lived in a state for seven years compared with one who has lived there only seven months. Carpetbaggers and even semi-carpetbaggers like Kristof, shouldnt be excluded from running for office just because they dont satisfy an arbitrary set of prerequisites. Kristof shouldnt be allowed to run just because he wants to run, but residency provisions are a sham. Next time the office comes up on the ballot, let Oregon voters decide for themselves if they want a part-time resident and self-righteous do-gooder columnist to run the executive branch.

A simple and fair rule of thumb for political candidates would be this: Qualifying to vote should qualify you to run for office.

****** I would love the right to vote against Nick Kristof. Is there such a thing as a write-in vote against somebody? Send your ballots to [emailprotected]. My email alerts are registered to vote in all 50 states. My Twitter feed follows Nick Kristofs. My RSS feed votes several times in several elections every Election Day using Nick Kristofs name in an attempt to get him arrested for voter fraud.

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Opinion | Nick Kristof Just Destroyed His Own Brand. Hes Also Right. - POLITICO

Jan. 6, 2022, 6:34 p.m. ET

transcript

transcript

Those who stormed this Capitol, and those who instigated and incited, and those who called on them to do so, held a dagger at the throat of America. The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. Hes done so because he values power over principle. Because he sees his own interest as more important than his countrys interest, than Americas interest. On Jan. 6, we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful. The lawlessness, the violence, the chaos. I want to acknowledge our fallen heroes of that day. U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Howard Liebengood, Metropolitan Officer Jeffrey Smith, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Billy Evans, of a later assault. Now I ask all members to rise for a moment of silence in their memory. When the violent assault was made on the Capitol, its purpose was to thwart Congresss constitutional duty to validate the electoral count and to ensure the peaceful transfer of power. But the assault, did not deter us from our duty. So when I look back at that day, that is the lasting image, that in the end, democracy prevailed, that in two weeks later, there we were under that beautiful blue sky with leaders of both parties on that inaugural stage saying that, yes, our democracy stood tall. It brushed itself off, and we move forward as one nation under God with liberty and justice for all, as we always do. [singing] God bless America, my home, sweet home.

WASHINGTON This anniversary of Jan. 6 marked a turning point for President Biden, who for much of his first year in office avoided direct confrontation with his predecessor, Donald J. Trump.

On Thursday, Mr. Biden took deliberate aim at Mr. Trump, assailing him for watching television as the attacks unfolded, spreading a lie that the 2020 election was rigged, and holding a dagger at the throat of America when he encouraged his supporters to attack the United States Capitol.

But Mr. Biden held on to one vestige from the past year: He still refused to call Mr. Trump by name.

Here are four takeaways from the day.

As president-elect in November 2020, Mr. Biden and his staff proceeded with the transition process by treating Mr. Trumps attempts to reverse the election as little more than histrionics.

The calculation made back then by Mr. Biden and his advisers was that America was simply ready to move on, but on Thursday, the president was more willing than usual to address Mr. Trumps claims, calling him a loser in the process.

Hes not just a former president. Hes a defeated former president defeated by a margin of over 7 million of your votes in a full and free and fair election, Mr. Biden said. There is simply zero proof the election results were inaccurate.

His remarks set him down a more confrontational path with Mr. Trump, who holds a firm grip on his party and shows no sign of backing down from continuing to perpetrate a false narrative about the 2020 election. It is a development Mr. Biden spent his first year in office avoiding, but one that he seemed to embrace as a matter of necessity on Thursday.

On his Inauguration Day just under a year ago, Mr. Biden promised to be a president for all Americans. I will fight as hard for those who did not support me as for those who did. On Thursday, he appeared not as the peacemaker president but as a leader who had a warning for Americans who attacked the Capitol in service of Mr. Trump.

I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today, but I will not shrink from it either, Mr. Biden said. I will stand in this breach. I will defend this nation. And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.

Mr. Biden also reserved some of his ire for elected officials. For a leader who came into office speaking poetically about the art of bipartisanship politics is the art of the possible, he said early on and about the need to heal a fractured nation, Mr. Biden suggested that he was only interested in working with Republicans who have not tied their political fortunes to the falsehoods spread by Mr. Trump.

While some courageous men and women in the Republican Party are standing against it, trying to uphold the principles of that party, too many others are transforming that party into something else, Mr. Biden said. But whatever my other disagreements are with Republicans who support the rule of law and not the rule of a single man, I will always seek to work together with them to find shared solutions where possible.

The presidents remarks presented a stark choice: Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth but in the shadow of lies? In corners of the internet governed by Mr. Trump and his supporters, the answer seemed clear.

On a podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, a former Trump aide who was indicted in November for failing to comply with congressional investigators, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia deflected blame for the attack and suggested it was part of a government conspiracy.

In his own cascade of statements, Mr. Trump showed no sign that he was going to shrink from a fight. He assailed Mr. Biden for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and even the way he delivered his Thursday remarks.

He acts like hes aggrieved, Mr. Trump said in one of several statements, but were the ones who were aggrieved, and America is suffering because of it.

The Republican Party remains very much Mr. Trumps, his lies about a stolen election a litmus test that he is seeking to impose on the 2022 primaries with the candidates he backs. He is the partys most coveted endorser, its leading fund-raiser and the early front-runner in polling for the 2024 presidential nomination.

Mr. Trump has a rally scheduled in Arizona next week.

Mr. Bidens forceful condemnation of Mr. Trump was echoed by Democrats across the Capitol. Republicans were mostly absent.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, accompanied by her father, appeared to be the only elected Republican among dozens of lawmakers who gathered on the House floor on Thursday afternoon. Many Senate Republicans were out of town for the funeral of a former colleague.

Republicans were not totally silent. While calling last Jan. 6 a dark day, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said in a statement that it has been stunning to see some Washington Democrats try to exploit this anniversary to advance partisan policy goals that long predated the chaos at the capitol, a likely reference to a Democrat-led push for voting rights legislation.

Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who condemned the events of the day when they happened only to reverse course soon after, accused Democrats of politicizing the anniversary: Their brazen attempts to use Jan. 6 to support radical election reform and changing the rules of the Senate to accomplish this goal will not succeed, Mr. Graham said.

But there were some voices among unelected Republicans calling for something of a reckoning over the partys support for Mr. Trump.

Karl Rove, the strategist who helped George W. Bush win the presidency twice, used his Wall Street Journal opinion column to rebuke those Republicans who for a year have excused the actions of the rioters who stormed the Capitol, disrupted Congress as it received the Electoral Colleges results and violently attempted to overturn the election.

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At the Capitol on Jan. 6, a Day of Remembrance and Division - The New York Times

The Matrix, directed by the Wachowski siblings and released in 1999, is a film very much of its time. A postmodern confection, it gleefully blurred genres. It stole from Hong Kong action cinema, lifted themes and subject matter from the paranoid science fiction of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson, and was one of the first blockbuster Hollywood films to embrace a look and style based in the digital, computer-generated screen worlds of video games.

I remember it as a lot of fun when I first saw it, but rewatching it recently I was surprised by how flabby and messy it is. Once the central idea is revealed that humans are being kept as factory farm animals, and our life essences are being mined by a machine race that keeps us stoned and believing in an alternate simulated universe called the Matrix the film quickly runs out of energy. Video games dont rely on linear narrative to succeed. That is difficult to replicate in mainstream Hollywood cinema, which is hostage to the authority of the three-act story structure. The final 40 minutes of the film are repetitive and the faux gnostic mysticism that underlies the script is often laughable.

Nevertheless, there are genuine pleasures in that first film. The art design is striking, and Laurence Fishburne is sparkling, slyly sending up the archness of his lines while never undermining the story. That artfulness is matched by Hugo Weaving as the nefarious Agent Smith. Carrie-Anne Moss is assuredly dry as Trinity. Even Keanu Reeves, who gives his usual slothful, awkward performance as Neo, the revolutionary would-be Messiah, is a delight to watch: he is astoundingly beautiful. The sequel, The Matrix Reloaded, offered nothing new visually to counteract the lumbering stolidness of the writing, and by the third film, The Matrix Revolutions in 2003, all joy had been sucked out of the franchise.

There is only one genuinely pleasurable scene in the new Matrix film, The Matrix Resurrections, and it occurs very early on. Reeves is Thomas Anderson, a video game developer who is most successful for having designed a game called The Matrix, which the company he works for wishes to relaunch. At a storyboard brainstorming session, the young creatives rehearse all the possible reasons for reviving the game, from acknowledging the economic capital accruing from nostalgia to desiring a genuinely thrilling rethinking of the concept. A cynic in the room announces that all such reboots suck, that they never work. We have been warned.

The scene is not particularly elegant, or even that funny. Nevertheless, my hopes were raised for a moment. It suggested the filmmakers were aware of the promiscuous stealing from across genres and styles that gave some verve to the original film. The opening scenes had been disappointing stultifyingly grim with the actors forced to deliver huge amounts of exposition. The gentle self-mockery of the brainstorming scene offered hope for some lightness. But with Andersons realisation that he is really Neo, and that he has been malevolently returned to the Matrix, the film returns to the dull earnestness with which it began.

We really miss Fishburne, that droll humour that underlined his playing of the gnomic Morpheus. Surprisingly, I also missed Carrie-Anne Moss. Her tetchy, Amazonian playing of Trinity in the early film was a highlight, but in Resurrections most of her screen time is taken up playing her alter-ego in the Matrix, a subdued mother named Tiffany. Moss gets to finally shed that skin but her ensuing scenes are mechanical, enervating action sequences that offer her no opportunities as a performer.

Of the younger actors, only Jonathan Groff, as this episodes version of Agent Smith, seems to be having any fun. Hes not trying to emulate Hugo Weaving. Instead, he invests his role with a preening self-satisfaction that allows for some blessed comedy. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays a rebooted version of Morpheus, and though he is physically commanding, his acting abilities are limited. He doesnt seem capable of implying the dynamic cunning of the original.

Jessica Henwick plays Bugs, the revolutionary sent into the Matrix to rescue Neo. Every gesture and every line reading are performed with a solemn piousness that bogs down the film. Shes a dead weight and after a while I found myself groaning when she appeared in a scene. I knew I wasnt going to be having any fun at all.

The blame isnt completely Henwicks. The overblown piety is also integral to the sluggish script by director Lana Wachowski, co-written with Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell.Both are very fine novelists, but on the evidence of this script they have no sense at all of cinematic language, with seemingly every alternate scene requiring the actors to stop and start declaiming points of clarification to the increasingly byzantine and ridiculous plotting.

The Matrix Resurrections takes itself seriously, much more so than the original film, and it is written and directed with a solemn purpose, as if there was really some radical subversion inherent in the story. That deliberate soberness forecloses any sense of lightness or play. I was, for example, looking forward to seeing how the filmmakers would reference the fact that taking the red pill over the blue pill, which in the original film was a sign of enlightenment, is now one of the most popular alt-right memes. Well, they avoid it all together. If I were feeling charitable, I could say they did not wish to dignify the reactionary appropriation of the theme. Having sat through the turgid two-and-a-half hours of their film, however, my goodwill is depleted. The truth is that the writers lack the talent for either comedy or irony.

Why have they decided to resurrect The Matrix almost 20 years on? It doesnt take a brainstorm to realise it is all about the money. I want to be clear here that I have no problem with that. I have spent pleasurable moments in the cinema watching Lana Wachowskis films, and I have an affectionate regard for Carrie-Anne Moss and even for the accidental actor that is Keanu Reeves. We all have rents and mortgages to pay and families to raise, and I dont begrudge any of that to the people involved.

What is galling, however, is that there is no artfulness and no humour and no flair in any part of this film. The only glimmer of craft is in the editing work by Joseph Jett Sally, including the swift interpolation of scenes and images from the original films. The use of these rapid, almost subliminal, flashbacks seem a mirror of how our consciousness functions, of how memory is triggered and assimilated. But even his work is undermined by the end, as the action sequences limp endlessly along, directed stolidly and with no imagination. The finale looks like the finale to the last Marvel film, which looks like the finale to the Marvel film before it. Even in the single moment where one might think the director would try to imbue a sense of grace, when Trinity, upending the masculinist assumption of the first film, is the one who now can fly even that shot is perfunctory, lacking in beauty. It fails to make an impact. No one has bothered to work hard on this film.

I usually sit and watch a film through right to the end. I couldnt with this one. A cover by Brass Against, of Rage Against the Machines jarring, metallic hip-hop track Wake Up, plays over the end credits, and once singer Sophia Urista started name-checking Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, I knew I had to leave. It seemed a travesty that these figures of political integrity were being used to confer dignity to such a pompous and unimaginative film. Part of me wishes that the use of the song was cynical, but Im afraid that the intention is even worse than that. I think the filmmakers were using the song because they truly believe that they are doing something radical, that the new progressive Hollywood is somehow in step with the humanist aspirations of Dr King and the militant bravery of Malcolm X. The self-delusion is dumbfounding. This is a film created for only one reason: pure, venal greed. I must have taken the red pill. It stinks as much, if not worse, than the old Hollywood.

Arts Diary

FESTIVAL Fringe World

Venues throughout Perth, January 14February 13

INSTALLATION The Dingo Project

Ngununggula, Southern Highlands, until March 6

FESTIVAL Kids Summer Festival 2022

NGV International, Melbourne, January 1523

EXHIBITION Balgo Beginnings

South Australian Museum, Adelaide, until February 6

PHOTOGRAPHY Robert Rosen: Glitterati

Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, until June 19

Last Chance

VISUAL ART Jennifer Marshall

Handmark Gallery, Hobart, until January 10

THEATRE Defying Gravity

QPAC, Brisbane, until January 8

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper onJan 8, 2022 as "Matrix theory".

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The Matrix Resurrections - The Saturday Paper

Jury deliberations are underway in the civil case involving notorious white nationalist and neo-Nazi leaders who organized the two-day "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one person killed and scores injured.

In August 2017, extremists chanting "Jews will not replace us!" encircled counter-protesters on the University of Virginia campus, wielding and in some cases throwing burning tiki torches as they marched. One of the participants, neo-Nazi and Hitler sympathizer James Alex Fields Jr., drove his car from Ohio to attend, and later plowed it through a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year old Heather Heyer and injuring dozens.

Fields, a defendant in the lawsuit, is already serving multiple life sentences in prison for murder and hate crimes as a result of the car attack. The Virginia Court of Appeals denied an appeal from Fields on Thursday.

Police made very few arrests four years ago, according to an independent review of the events, with just a handful of far-right protesters and counter-protesters convicted on charges of assault or disorderly conduct.

Now, in the civil case, nine plaintiffs made up of current and former Charlottesville residents are seeking to prove that their constitutional rights were violated when the defendants entered into a conspiracy of racially motivated violence, and they are asking for compensatory and punitive damages for physical and emotional injuries.

In total, 14 individuals and 10 organizations are defendants in the case, including notorious leaders of long-established hate groups.

"The leaders, the promoters, the group leaders, the people who brought the army, the people who were the most violent members of the army. Those are the people who we ask you to hold accountable today," said Karen Dunn, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Here's where things stand.

The chaos and violence that descended upon Charlottesville that weekend in August 2017, as hundreds protested the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, was many things, attorneys for the plaintiffs argued Thursday, but it was not a joke.

"It is up to you to demonstrate loud and clear that contrary to what defendants would have you believe, none of this is funny and none of it is a joke," attorney for the plaintiffs Roberta Kaplan told the jury.

Three dozen witnesses testified, including experts on white supremacy tasked with decoding white supremacists' cryptic messages of violence, frequently masked by humor to grant members plausible deniability.

Among the plaintiffs is UVA student Natalie Romero, who woke up in the hospital after the car attack to ask if she'd ever walk again. Romero testified that she suffers from panic attacks, flashbacks and post-traumatic stress. Her traumatic brain injury clouds memories and prompted her to take a medical leave from college.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have cited scores of messages exchanged by planners via text, email, podcast and a cache of leaked posts circulated on the gaming app Discord riddled with racial epithets. The nearly four-week trial showcased an extensive digital trail left behind on message boards ahead of the rally, with alt-right participants also describing the use of flag poles, shields and cars as weapons.

In one now notorious message, Charlottesville resident and rally organizer Jason Kessler wrote to white nationalist leader Richard Spencer ahead of the rally: "We're raising an army my liege. For free speech, but the cracking of skulls if it comes to it."

"This is not a hypothetical thing," plaintiffs' attorney Karen Dunn told the jury Thursday. "Natalie Romero actually had her skull fractured."

The plaintiffs are supported by the nonprofit Integrity First for America, which has assembled and funded a large team of lawyers determined to prove that the defendants conspired to commit racially motivated violence.

"When counter-protesters were in their way, the defendants beat them with torches," Dunn said. "They plowed through them using their bodies. On Market Street, they charged through people with shields. And finally, they plowed through people with a car."

Kaplan first put a number on compensatory damages for their physical and emotional trauma Thursday. Plaintiffs hit during Fields' car attack are seeking $7 million to $10 million, while plaintiffs injured in other events that weekend have asked for $3 million to $5 million.

Plaintiffs' lawyers did not specify a dollar amount for punitive damages, which are imposed to make an example out of the offending party and to deter others from repeating their actions.

Instead, Kaplan asked the jury, "What would it take to make sure that defendants and their co-conspirators never ever do anything like this ever again?"

Defendants chose to forgo a uniform argument, instead offering a piecemeal defense that often led to a blame game and allegations that they were not friends who planned the deadly violence. Many touted their First Amendment right to protest, and cast violence as "self-defense" while dismissing racist comments as "jokes."

Attorney for lead organizer Jason Kessler, James Kolenich, said Thursday that despite proving defendants made "ridiculous" and "offensive" comments, plaintiffs have not proven individuals and organizations conspired to commit the racially motivated violence.

"They've proven to you that the alt-right is the alt-right. They're racists, they're anti-Semites. No kidding. You knew that when you walked in here," Kolenich told the jury.

"I want you to say: 'So what?'"

Kolenich argued that other defendants could not have foreseen what James Fields did.

Alt-right leader Richard Spencer and neo-Nazi podcast personality Christopher Cantwell represented themselves.

Spencer called the trial a "character assassination," adding that he did not participate in chat groups employed by organizers to plan the rally.

He then recalled former President Donald Trump's controversial insistence that there were "very fine people on both sides" after the violent weekend clash between white supremacists and counter-demonstrators.

U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon fired back at the defendant, noting that the president's comments were not submitted as evidence. "We can't go back to law school here. You have to follow the rules,'' the judge said.

Ignoring the judge's orders, Spencer added, "There were some bad people on both sides."

David Campbell, the attorney for James Fields, told jurors that while there is "no doubt" that Fields committed racially motivated violence, he acted as a "lone wolf" outside of any conspiracy.

Among the two dozen defendants, a slew of failures to comply with court orders, the destruction of materials requested in discovery, and overall uncooperative behavior resulted in court sanctions, fines and default judgments against several of the defendants.

Defendant Robert Warren Ray of The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website with deep links to hate groups, ignored the proceedings altogether, while defendant Jeff Schoep, former leader of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, claimed his cellphone accidentally dropped into the toilet, destroying potential evidence.

The plaintiffs' attorneys are using a combination of modern technology and a 150-year-old Reconstruction-era statute to pursue organizers of the deadly weekend rally.

The Enforcement Act of 1871, referred to colloquially as the Ku Klux Klan Act, was originally enacted to protect freed slaves in the South by outlawing movement "in disguise on the highway for the purpose of depriving, either directly or indirectly, any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws."

But the post-Civil War era statute one of the few laws that enables plaintiffs to accuse fellow citizens, rather than the government, of depriving them of their civil rights has been unearthed in civil litigation more than once this year.

Some Capitol Police officers and members of Congress are relying on the very same statute to bring their own civil lawsuits over the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. They're seeking to implicate organizers allegedly including Rudy Giuliani, members of the Proud Boys and even former President Donald Trump and others who have been accused of inspiring violence, including racially motivated violence, ahead of the riot.

"The KKK Act is sadly having a renaissance or resurgence in the year 2021 because we're living in a moment where violent extremism, violent white supremacy is also having a resurgence," Amy Spitalnick, executive director of Integrity First America, told CBS News. "But it should also be a reminder that we have to take action."

Both the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice including the FBI have called domestic violent extremism the greatest current threat to the U.S. homeland. Activists in Charlottesville have repeatedly called the 2017 rally a "precursor" to the January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.

President Joe Biden launched his presidential campaign by featuring video from Charlottesville, citing it as the reason he ran for president.

The jury gathered Friday morning to receive instructions from the judge. Members of the jury are tasked with determining if each defendant should be held responsible against a standard of a "preponderance of evidence," that is, whether the plaintiffs' claims are likely to be true, since this is a civil trial. This is a lower bar than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard for criminal convictions.

The 47 pages of jury instructions issued by Judge Moon note that while plaintiffs must prove the existence of a conspiracy of two or more people who were motivated "by animus against Black or Jewish individuals," plaintiffs do not have to prove any sort of "formal agreement" among the defendants.

On Friday, one of the 12 jurors was "excused for good cause" from the case after members of their family were possibly exposed to COVID-19. There are no alternate jurors in civil cases, which can proceed with as few as six jurors.

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What to know about Charlottesville's "Unite the Right" rally civil trial - CBS News

Rightwing extremists are using Covid controversies and online gaming as a way of recruiting young people, as data shows half of the most serious cases of suspected radicalisation reported by schools and colleges now involve far-right activity.

Figures published by the Home Office show twice as many young people in education in England and Wales last year were thought to be at risk of radicalisation by the extreme right-wing, compared with those at risk from Islamic extremists.

The new figures from the governments Prevent anti-extremism programme, covering 2020-21, show that 310 people were referred to Prevent by schools, colleges and universities because of far-right links. Just 157 were referred because of vulnerability to Islamic extremism.

But while fewer than one in five cases of suspected Islamic extremism were escalated by the authorities, nearly one in three cases involving far-right extremism were passed on to the governments Channel scheme, which aims to safeguard individuals thought most likely to be radicalised and drawn into terrorist activity.

Sean Arbuthnot, a Prevent coordinator for Leicestershire, said that while far-right extremism has been on the rise for several years, online apps and platforms were increasingly cropping up in referrals, including gaming platforms and chat apps such as Discord, as rightwing groups sought to reach young people.

While eight violent and racist rightwing groups have been proscribed by the government, Arbuthnot said he was concerned by far-right groups that have yet to be banned attaching themselves to existing controversies.

[Some] during the pandemic conducted leafleting campaigns, where they would promote the narrative that Covid is a hoax, that hospital wards are empty, and that you shouldnt get the vaccine. Then they load their leaflets with pseudo-scientific evidence. But at the same time they drop leaflets purporting that white people are going to be a minority in Britain, which plays into peoples fears, Arbuthnot said.

If you engage with them on a YouTube platform, and scroll through the comments section, you may then find links to more encrypted chatrooms or extreme right-wing codes or signs and symbols that you may be tempted to research.

Thats one of the troubling ways right-wing extremists can play on the fears that have resulted from Covid-19 and conspiracies, to groom, essentially, vulnerable young people in the online space.

One school leader in the east Midlands who asked not to be named said that the lockdowns and extended time spent out of school meant there had been a shock in hearing pupils return to school with dangerous and extreme attitudes.

A few came back, and it was like they were speaking a different language that I imagine they can only have picked up online, she said.

Research by UCLs Institute of Education earlier this year found teachers are seeing a rise in extremist views and conspiracy theories among pupils, but feel they lack the training or resources to tackle it.

Becky Taylor of the UCL Institute of Education, said: The teachers we spoke to told us it was rare for young people to join extremist groups, but it was very common for young people to express extreme views in schools.

Of the teachers surveyed, 95% had heard pupils express racist views, 90% had encountered homophobia or conspiracy theories and nearly three-quarters had encountered extremist views on women or Islamophobic views.

For teachers in the classroom, because young people can get quite deep into these views and can be very well versed in all the arguments, if you are not expert in these things yourself, it can be very difficult to challenge them, Taylor said.

Owen Jones, director of training and education for Hope Not Hate, said the charity was seeing younger students becoming involved in far-right extremism, including boys as young as 13, often using the Telegram messaging app.

Schools are poorly equipped to tackle the problem, Jones said, because the language of the new extreme right or alt-right has changed so much, that many teachers may not have a clue what students were talking about.

But Arbuthnot said schools and colleges in Leicester had developed bespoke projects using local organisations and charities, adapting their techniques as they became aware of new dangers.

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said the Prevent figures emphasised the need for improved support for schools in tackling those issues, as well as more action by platforms to block and remove harmful content and robust online regulation.

While overall referrals from the education sector under Prevent have fallen from close to 2,000 to 1,221 in 2020-21 the extended closure of schools, colleges and universities after March last year is responsible. The largest category of referrals was for individuals with unstable or unclear ideologies, but fewer than one in 10 of those referrals became Channel cases.

A Home Office spokesperson said: It is vitally important that if anyone has a concern about someone they think may be being radicalised, that they act early and seek help.

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Extremists using online gaming and Covid conspiracies to recruit youngsters - The Guardian

The Alternative Right is characterized by heavy use of social media and online memes. Alt-righters eschew establishment conservatism, skew young, and embrace whiteethnonationalismas a fundamental value.

Martin Luther King Jr., a fraud and degenerate in his life, has become the symbol and cynosure of White Dispossession and the deconstruction of Occidental civilization. We must overcome!National Policy Institute column, January 2014

Immigration is a kind of proxy warand maybe a last standfor White Americans, who are undergoing a painful recognition that, unless dramatic action is taken, their grandchildren will live in a country that is alien and hostile.National Policy Institute column, February 2014

Since we are fighting for nothing less than the biological survival of our race, and since the vast bulk of Jews oppose us, we need to err on the side of caution and have no association with Jews whatsoever. Any genuine Jewish well-wishers will understand, since they know what their people are like better than we ever can. Saving our race is something that we will have to do ourselves alone.Greg Johnson, White Nationalism & Jewish Nationalism, August 2011

I oppose the Jewish diaspora in the United States and other white societies. I would like to see the white peoples of the world break the power of the Jewish diaspora and send the Jews to Israel, where they will have to learn how to be a normal nation.Greg Johnson, White Nationalism & Jewish Nationalism, August 2011

At the core of the JI [Jewish Identity] is a malevolent supremacy. This is the manifest in their rejection of outgroups who wish to participate and innovate traditional Jewish cultural activities. Why reject diversity and progress within your community if not a false feeling of betterness? The root of this problem is, of course, a sexual feeling of inferiority. Mighty psychosexual urges must not be downplayed within group dynamics. As a remedy to this, the JI must be infiltrated with foreign members to procreate with their men and women. That way, the deep psychological psychosis can be treated at the root.A Critical Analysis of the Jewish Identity, The Right Stuff, January 2016

The new left doctrine of racial struggle in favor of non-Whites only, a product of decolonization and the defeat of nationalists by egalitarians after WWII, must be repudiated and Whites must be allowed to take their own side in their affairs. A value system that says Whites are not allowed to have collective interests while literally every other identity group can do so and ought to do so is unacceptable.The Fight for the Alt Right: The Rising Tide of Ideological Autism Against Big-Tent Supremacy, The Right Stuff, January 2016

This is our home and our kith and kin. Borders matter, identity matters, blood matters, libertarians and their capitalism can move to Somalia if they want to live without rules, in the West we must have standards and enforce them. The freedom for other races to move freely into white nations is nonexistent. Stay in your own nations, we dont want you here.Matthew Heimbach, I Hate Freedom, Traditionalist Youth Network, July 7, 2013

Those who promote miscegenation, usury, or any other forms of racial suicide should be sent to re-education centers, not tolerated.Matthew Heimbach, I Hate Freedom, Traditionalist Youth Network, July 7, 2013

The Alternative Right is a term coined in 2008 by Richard Bertrand Spencer, who heads the white nationalist think tank known as the National Policy Institute, to describe a loose set of far-right ideals centered on white identity and the preservation of Western civilization. In 2010, Spencer who had stints as an editor of The American Conservative and Takis Magazine launched the Alternative Right blog, where he worked to refine the movements ideological tenets.

Racist alt-right celebrity Richard Spencer was slated to speak at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Spencer describes the alt-right as a big-tent ideology that blends the ideas of neo-reactionaries (NRx-ers), who advocate a return to an antiquated, pseudo-libertarian government that supports traditional western civilization; archeofuturists, those who advocate for a return to traditional values without jettisoning the advances of society and technology; human biodiversity adherents (HBDers) and race realists, people who generally adhere to scientific racism; and other extreme-right ideologies. Alt-right adherents stridently reject egalitarianism and universalism.

At the heart of the alt-right is a break with establishment conservatism that favors experimentation with the ideas of the French New Right; libertarian thought as exemplified by former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas); anarcho-capitalism, which advocates individual sovereignty and open markets in place of an organized state; Catholic traditionalism, which seeks a return to Roman Catholicism before the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council; and other ideologies.

It is a reaction to the conservative establishment as exemplified by the nomination of Barry Goldwater for the presidency in 1964. According to Spencer, that solidified several aspects of contemporary conservatism, including an emphasis on liberty, freedom, free markets and capitalism. Spencer considers these ideas to be anti-ideals and says the alt-right is redefining categories for a new kind of conservative.

Spencer describes alt-right adherents as younger people, often recent college graduates, who recognize the uselessness of mainstream conservatism in what he describes as a hyper-racialized world. So, its no surprise that the movement in 2015 and 2016 concentrated on opposing immigration and the resettlement of Syrian refugees in America. Although such stances align with older forms of white racism, Spencer insists that the alt-right is a liberation from a left-right dialectic.

The alt-right is intimately connected with American Identitarianism, a version of an ideology popular in Europe that emphasizes cultural and racial homogeneity within different countries. One difference is that while European Identitarians indict the generation known as the 68ers, a reference to the left of the 1960s, their American counterparts attack baby boomers, who are presumed to comprise the bulk of the current Republican Partys base. But the movements on both continents are similar in accusing older conservatives for selling out their countries to foreigners.

Spencer left his Alternative Right blog on Christmas Day 2013 in order to focus on the Radix Journal, an online journal published by the National Policy Institute that promotes the creation of a white ethno-state. Spencers abrupt departure, referred to as the Christmas Day Purge, left the blog to two fellow white nationalists, Colin Liddell of the United Kingdom and Andy Nowicki, a former college professor. The blog has struggled since then to stay relevant to the white nationalist movement.

Matthew Heimbach, co-founder of the Traditionalist Youth Network, was slated to speak at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Although Spencer has positioned himself as the effective leader of the alt-right, other proponents include several well-known names on the far right, including Jared Taylor, editor of the American Renaissance racist journal; Greg Johnson of the publishing house Counter-Currents; Matthew Parrott and Matthew Heimbach of the Traditionalist Youth Network; and Mike "Enoch" Peinovich, who runs The Right Stuff blog. But the general population of the alt-rightis composed, by and large, of anonymous youths who were exposed to the movements ideas through online message boards like 4chan and 8chans /pol/ and Internet platforms like Reddit and Twitter.

The movement is not monolithic. The diversity of far-right ideologies that it includes has resulted in some disagreement with regard to Jews, and whether to blame them for the perceived plight of white culturea belief that has undergirded many sectors of white nationalism for decades. While some alt-right leaders are unquestionably anti-Semitic, others, like Jared Taylor, are not, seeing Jews simply as white people. For his part, Spencer has repeatedly brought in anti-Semites to speak at his events.

In March 2016, for instance, Spencer invited former California State University-Long Beach professor Kevin MacDonald, the author of a trilogy purporting to show that Jews seek to undermine the host Christian societies in which they often live, to speak at an event titled Identity Politics. After the event, Spencer stopped just short of questioning the Holocaust, telling a Huffington Post reporter that if it really happened, then of course it wasnt justified. If it happened differently than what the story weve been told [is], then I think that needs to be let out.

Social media have been instrumental to the growth of the alt-right. Legions of anonymous Twitter users have used the hashtag #AltRight to proliferate their ideas, sometimes successfully pushing them into the political mainstream.

The best example of that is probably the term c---servative a combination of cuckold and conservative, coined to castigate Republican politicians who are seen as traitors to their people who are selling out conservatives with their support for globalism and certain liberal ideas. The phrase has a racist undertone, as some of its backers have suggested, implying that establishment conservatives are like white men who allow black men to sleep with their wives. It received widespread media attention, including, to the delight of Spencer and others, in The Washington Post.

But the alt-right has taken on many more issues than that, including issues of high importance to white nationalists like the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the U.S. and Europe in 2015 and 2016, the Black Lives Matter movement and immigration reform. Propaganda campaigns also have been organized around hashtags such as #WhiteGenocide, a reference to the myth that white people are being subjected to an orchestrated eradication campaign; #ISaluteWhitePeople; #BoycottStarWarsVII, a racist campaign to protest the black actor who was cast in a lead role in the 2015 Star Wars reboot; and #NROrevolt, which arose after the National Review, a journal that has historically served as the gatekeeper to mainstream conservatism and has vehemently opposed Donald Trumps candidacy for president.

Trump is a hero to the alt-right. Through a series of semi-organized campaigns, alt-right activists applied the c---servative slur to every major Republican primary candidate except Trump, who regularly rails against political correctness, Muslims, immigrants, Mexicans, Chinese and others. They have also worked hard to affix the alt-right brand to Trump through the use of hashtags and memes.

The movement is not limited to the Internet. At least twice a year, Spencer reserves the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., for a coat-and-tie gathering of his followers. The events are open to reporters but also cloaked in secrecy attendees regularly use false names or refuse to identify themselves for fear of being labeled as racists. Topics and themes vary. The gathering in March 2015 was titled Beyond Conservatism and capitalized on the strength of the c---servative meme.

Identity Politics in March 2016 focused heavily on the continued success of Trumps presidential campaign. Each of the speakers featured there addressed a different facet of Trumps influence of politics and American culture. Kevin MacDonald classified Trumps rise as part of an implicit white backlash against present-day politics, while Spencer declared that Trump was merely creating a political space, intentionally or not, in which the alt-right could grow.

The alt-right also has a stable of publishing houses. Most notably, both NPI and Counter-Currents have publishing arms NPIs is Washington Summit Press that focus on historical and contemporary extremists. They distribute the works of such well-known white nationalist writers as Alexander Dugin, Corneliu Codreanu, Guillaume Faye and Alain de Benoist, along with more contemporary authors like F. Roger Devlin, Andy Nowicki, Greg Johnson and Richard Spencer.

Milo Yiannopoulos speaking at UC Santa Barbara, May 2016

In March 2016, Allum Bokhari and Milo Yiannopoulos wrote an article for the right-wing Breitbart news site that claimed that the alt-right was fundamentally about youthful provocation and subversion, rather than simply another vehicle for the worst dregs of human society: anti-Semites, white supremacists, and other members of the Stormfront set, a reference to an online forum run by a former Alabama Klan leader. Yiannopoulos, who was instrumental in the online harassment campaign against women in the electronic gaming world known as Gamergate, was not well received. Virtually every mainstream conservative publication, from the National Review to The Federalist, condemned it. And some on the furthest extremes of the alt-right attacked him as a Jewish homosexual, in the words of Andrew Anglin, who runs the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website, which Anglin describes as The Worlds Most Visited Alt Right Web Site. Anglin said Yiannopoulos had a history of engaging in sneaky Jewish tricks and added that this is how they get you. Clearly, the man seeks to undermine right-wing movements for Jewish purposes.

That last attack, which came despite the fact that Yiannopoulos has been photographed wearing a necklace with the German Iron Cross symbol, illustrates the diversity of opinion within the alt-right world. But, at the end of the day, neo-Nazis like Anglin, coat-and-tie racists like Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor, and oddball figures like Yiannopoulos have more in common, in terms of sharing a vision of society as fundamentally determined by race, than they disagree about.

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Alt-Right | Southern Poverty Law Center

Earlier this year, Twitter announced it was looking into its algorithms to learn if its platform had been causing unintentional harms. Now, the social media platform has published its initial findings, and it turns out, the sites algorithms boosts content from the political right, though its not quite sure why.

This trend was spotted in six out of the seven countries it studied, which included Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the US. The researchers honed in on if Twitters timeline favored political tweets from elected officials, as well as if certain political groups had their opinions amplified.

Tweets about political content from elected officials, regardless of party or whether the party is in power, do see algorithmic amplification when compared to political content on the reverse chronological timeline, researcher Rumman Chowdhury wrote on Twitter.

In six out of seven countries, tweets posted by political right elected officials are algorithmically amplified more than the political left. Right-leaning news outlets (defined by third parties), see greater amplification compared to left-leaning.

However, Twitter has yet to figure out why this is the case. According to Engadget, the study posited that it could be due to the right and left using different strategies on Twitter, though it said more research would have to be done to gain more insight into the discrepancy.

While this news may re-enforce some users views about social media not being a level playing ground for all views and opinions, Chowdhury felt algorithmic amplification is not problematic by default.

The team behind the study emphasized that the findings do not support the hypothesis that algorithmic personalization amplifies extreme ideologies more than mainstream political views.

Well, if more isnt done to determine why alt-right views are being favored by its algorithm, users on Twitter may not buy the story of fairness and equality the company is selling.

[via Engadget, cover image via Mano Kors / Shutterstock.com]

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Twitter Admits Its Platform Boosts Alt-Right Content But ...

Early in 2021, the Red, White and Blueprint media company was hot. In addition to posting docuseries episodes and podcasts, RW&B was known for widely spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and stirring up trouble with Shasta County politics, while supporting the now-faltering movement to recall three Shasta County supervisors.

The first docuseries episode, published in March, attracted more than 53,000 views. Episode 6, however, released in October, garnered just 2,700 views.

The podcasts, which consist of roundtable discussions between RW&B co-owners Carlos Zapata and producer Jon Knight, along with regulars Woody Clendenen and Lani Bangay and different guests, has faced the same fate of declining numbers.

A few months ago, the podcasts viewership numbers surpassed 1,000, but the most recent one, which went live on November 1, has less than 200 views and just 2 comments since it aired to a peak live viewership of around 25 people.

It is no secret that Red, White and Blueprint has gone cold and is in search of a post-Shasta-County-recall-attempt identity and a fresh cash flow as the recall movement barely gathered enough signatures to recall one of the three targeted supervisors, Leonard Moty, former Redding police chief and District 2 Supervisor.

Like Red, White and Blueprint, Zapatas popularity may also be on the skids. He was initially ultra-popular among many right-wing circles when he threatened the Shasta County Board of Supervisors with violence in the streets if they continued to go along with Gov. Gavin Newsoms pandemic mandates, despite the fact that few businesses in the county closed, and none were fined.

But now Zapata possesses a misdemeanor charge for disturbing the peace while fighting for his role in the May 4 attack on vocal recall opponent Nathan Pinkney. Hes on probation and must attend court-ordered anger-management classes.

Some sources privy to internal RW&B happenings, who asked to remain anonymous, have characterized Zapata as an egotistical megalomaniac. This observation leaves others speculating that Zapatas notable personality issues are in part what chased homegrown news reporter Courtney Kreider away from RW&B, even after Zapata allegedly lured her from a promising broadcast news job in Nebraska with the promise to be RW&Bs front-line media representative.

Other anonymous RW&B insiders have also said that Kreider, who broke ties with Red, White and Blueprint in May, no longer views Zapata in a positive light.

Upon being contacted for this article, although Kreider did not specifically mention Zapata, she did respond in writing that there were very good people involved in the Red, White and Blueprint with good hearts.

Regarding the Red, White and Blueprint movement, Kreider said that for some, It turned into a public battle driven by ego, and unfortunately not always facts.

Kreiders statement begs the question about whether one of the egos in question may belong to Zapata.

Although Kreider agreed that Red, White and Blueprint does appear to be losing steam, she also spoke of a continued, common interest.

One thing RW&B and I will always share is the disgust with government overreach and those who feed at the altar of liberal media.

Regarding COVID-19, Kreider believes that the mainstream news is wrong to encourage people to be afraid of the disease. She also said that as someone who does not have children, she has not had to change her lifestyle because of COVID-19.

For example, Kreider said that her gym has remained opened, and she continued getting together with her friends and family.

I lived my life the same way I presented on the news, without fear she said.

During happier times for RW&B last March, Woody Clendenen, Congressman Doug LaMalfa, Courtney Kreider, Carlos Zapata and Jeremy Edwardson attend the Red, White and Blueprint premier for Episode 1.

Top photo: Carlos Zapata and Courtney Kreider on stage in April at RW&Bs first fundraiser at the Harmon Ranch in Palo Cedro. Bottom left: Kreider poses with Woody Clendenen and Carlos Zapata at the event. Bottom Right: Kreider poses with an American flag as she prepares to go on stage with Zapata.

Early on in the RW&B movement, Zapata was admired and well-received by a number of alt-right North State citizens as he exploited the fears and anxieties surrounding COVID-19. However, as the holiday season approaches, it appears that supporters may be moving on, away from Zapata and his agendas. Some former followers may be weary of the Zapata drama, and look forward to hanging out with their families for a normal holiday season, shopping for turkeys and hosting holiday meals. Others may be readying themselves for Black Friday deals and are excited about putting up Christmas trees.

While lately Zapata has complained on social media about the North State, and has even threatened to move to Texas, many Shasta County residents continue to face real struggles and serious challenges.

The cost of living has increased dramatically, leaving many rural folks in dire financial straits. Many working- and middle-class people who worked on the front lines as essential employees through the COVID-19 pandemic are tired. Some have lost their jobs. All the while, Red, White and Blueprint has offered them nothing in the form of tangible help.

While Zapata rambles on about freedom, liberty and tyranny using many of the the same buzz words he spoke at the Shasta County Board of Supervisors meeting in late August of 2020, and just as he did on InfoWars while being interviewed by Alex Jones, and just as he has done in several Red, White and Blueprint productions, the question remains: What is Carlos Zapata really doing for Shasta County?

Many people just want to get through the holiday season without drama, and Carlos Zapata is drama personified.

Still, Zapata seems oblivious. In his most recent podcast, Zapata started the show by saying, Its funny, like the deeper you get into this fight, the faster that things tend to happen.

While he was clearly referring to the recall movement, he could have just as easily been describing his own increasing irrelevance.

Mike Cendejas appeared as the guest on the most recent Red, White and Blueprint podcast. Last summer, he appeared in a Red, White and Blueprint merchandise advertisement with Jon Knight, Woody Clendenen, and a few other men and women carrying guns and assault rifles.

Left photo: Mike Cendejas carries an assault rifle while appearing in a Red, White & Blueprint advertisement for merchandise. Images shared by Carlos Zapata on Instagram.

Top, from left, Carlos Zapata and Woody Clendenen. Bottom, from left, Jon Knight, Mike Cendejas and Lani Bangay.

In his Facebook profile picture, Cendejas sports a Red, White and Blueprint shirt emblazoned with DYOS (Drain Your Own Swap) as well as a hat imprinted with the RW&B logo.

When tyranny becomes law, resistance becomes duty are the words written around Cendejass Facebook profile picture. In one photo he shows off a large tattoo that stretches across his back that features the preamble to the United States Constitution, atop a large bald eagle carrying the Liberty Bell.

Top Left and Right: Mike Cendejas Facebook profile pictures. Bottom Left: Cendejas as guest on a recent Red, White & Blueprint podcast.

Cendejas is an anti-masker, and is against requiring people to take the COVID-19 vaccine. During the podcast he described how he grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and moved to the North State in 2005 because of its natural beauty, and because he liked country music and had some friends in high school who barrel raced. Despite growing up in greater Los Angeles, Cendejas, who appears to be in his late 30s to early 40s, spoke during the podcast with somewhat of a Southern drawl.

Like Cendejas, Zapata also lived in Southern California as a kid before his family moved to Sonoma County, long before his arrival to Palo Cedro.

After briefly discussing the regions natural beauty, the group quickly transitioned to speaking about the people in Northern California.

The people really are different, Zapata said, adding, Were a different breed up here.

Not to say that theres not people like us down south; there is, Zapata said. Its just that theres a lot more of us up here.

Zapata also claimed that the people in Northern California value family and freedom.

Unsurprisingly, the group agreed with Zapatas divisive and ignorant anti-urban rhetoric.

Cendejas jumped into the conversation by noting that people in Northern California are, more willing to be a person to a person, as opposed to trying to get ahead on someone else and, You can shake a mans hand and realize that deal is gonna be what they say it is.

As the podcast progressed, Cendejas said he planned to attend a future school board meeting in Cottonwood, explaining, Its always been the moms deal to go to these things, while he worked and made the money, and that he wanted to be a good stand-up Christian man and show my boys that when it comes time to stand for something no matter whos in your way or what the obstacle is, you gotta stand for it.

Zapata chimed in and said it was important for regular men like Cendejas to stand up and attend school board meetings, illuminating yet again, how the Red, White and Blueprint podcast discussions are often drenched in gendered, and often sexist and toxically masculine language.

Were the last of a dying breed, Cendejas said, adding that his current anger is a result of state mask and vaccine requirements.

Needless to say, the men on the podcast agreed with Cendejass take on masks and the vaccine. Zapata went as far to state, I dont think you have the freedom, in my book, you know, to give your kid the shot.

Zapata has done his research, and, as he stated, even reads too much sometimes, and his conclusion is that the vaccine is killing children. Zapata also claimed that the vaccine may lead to a new wave of childhood strokes.

The Freedom Coalition

As the discussion turned to the nonexistent threat of Marxism, the men spoke about the Freedom Coalition meeting held a few days before the podcast on Oct. 28 at the Faith Community Church in Redding. The Freedom Coalition has been around since at least early 2021.

The Freedom Coalitions goal is to unite all of the far-right factions in the North State into one Christian-based alliance. The coalition contains seven committees (church, government, education, business, media, family, and arts and entertainment). Each committee is led by a different person, and the public is invited to join any one they wish.

In this region, Woody Clendenen, who has been involved with the coalition since at least March of 2021, is the head of the government committee.

Like, Red, White and Blueprint, the goal of the Freedom Coalition is to make change, county by county, and, as one of its spokespersons, Patty Plumb, cited at the meeting, wage a fight against so-called Marxism. Plumb, who is also the leader of the secessionist movement known as New California State Shasta, spoke for about 45 minutes on Oct. 28 as she outlined the different committees, yet she failed to provide any examples of the threat of Marxism.

Plumb also reminded the audience that the Second Amendment is available if the First Amendment has not been fully exhausted.

Patty Plumb at Freedom Coalition meeting and slides from her PowerPoint presentation.

After sharing that she and her husband have obtained their concealed weapons permits (CCW), Plumb quipped, Im a really good shot, I have to say.

The crowd sitting inside the church responded with laughter as Plumb stood before her Power Point presentation projected on a screen and a large crucifix.

The CCW thing was so fun because my husband and I have birthdays that are two weeks apart, so for my birthday, he got me a handgun, Plumb said. For his birthday, I got him patio furniture.

Plumb paused as the crowd laughed yet again, as she concluded her story with, So we sit on our patio and we clean our guns.

Patty Plumb and Thomas Fox discuss guns at the Freedom Coalition.

Thomas Fox, a Weaverville-based lawyer who dabbles in far-right politics, later took the stage and added his own statements, including those about firearms.

I believe in the Second Amendment so much you cant even see my gun right now. You can see my phone, Fox said, in reference to the phone strapped to his belt. If you dont believe me Im going to show you the other side.

He never showed the other side.

The talk of guns was reminiscent of a March 2021 Freedom Coalition meeting in Live Oak, approximately100 miles south of Redding, during which Church of Glad Tidings pastor Dave Bryan showed off his belt buckle pistol.

The Freedom Coalition is gaining momentum precisely as the recall movement and Red, White and Blueprint flounders on the brink of failure.

Like the leaders of the Red, White and Blueprint, the Freedom Coalition leaders have expressed zero interest in mobilizing against the high poverty rate in Shasta County, or homelessness, or citizens food insecurities, or a wide range of real working- and middle-class problems as the holiday season approaches. Both organizations, after all, are run by privileged, mostly white, middle- and upper-class individuals who have the luxury of free time to protest against masks and a vaccine designed to save lives.

As many know, COVID-19 is the real enemy, not Karl Marx, and deaths from it are hitting rural Republican spaces harder than anywhere else as the gap widens between counties won by Biden and Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Just yesterday in Shasta County the public health department released information that reported seven more deaths due to the virus Monday, bringing the death count to 27 in seven days.

The Freedom Coalition plans to meet every Thursday night at the Faith Community Church in Redding. These meetings are ideal for those wishing to gather with the same old minority of far-right wingers and aging Tea Partiers who have acted as a squeaky wheel in Shasta County politics over the last few years; now re-branded under a new name.

Freedom Coalition poster.

Back to the latest RW&B podcast, where, after the group talked about the Freedom Coalition, and the so-called threat of Marxism, Zapata led the men into a discussion about how he and his kind are actually an incredibly inclusive bunch.

Zapata said that while people on the outside accuse his State of Jefferson, militia-friendly gun-toting anti-vaxxer community of Lets Go Brandon -shouting homophobic North Staters of being divisive, Zapata believes otherwise.

Were actually really inclusive, Zapata said, way more inclusive than they are.

By they Zapata means liberals and leftists.

Zapata also claimed he is willing to meet in the middle with people. However, this claim, which he has stated before, rings hollow when measured against his past words and behavior.

This Carlos Zapata Instagram post was among evidence submitted by Nolan Weber, Shasta County Deputy District Attorney, during the trial that found Carlos Zapata, Elizabeth Bailey and Christopher Meagher guilty on four of five charges regarding their assault upon comic Nathan Pinkney.

Carlos Zapatas social media posts address the 2nd Amendment.

Carlos Zapata offered positive words on social media about the Proud Boys after they showed up to support him during his court arraignment.

After the group discussed a hodgepodge of topics that ranged from gender and sex education in schools to the importance of attending school board meetings, they joked around for a few minutes.

Clendenen joked that he, as a member of the militia, has his eyes on the FBI. Jon Knight joked that he was on the government list, probably because he is known to have attended the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C. Zapata joked that he, too, was on the list for spilling some water on some piece of shit kid at a bar and that he was happy for getting kicked off Facebook and Instagram.

Zapatas court case and conviction for disturbing the peace while fighting for his role in the attack on Nathan Pinkney last May was the groups final podcast topic.

Zapata started the discussion with an announcement, making it publicly known that he planned to attend the Shasta County Board of Supervisor meeting the following day on Nov. 2. This statement came across as if he were proactively claiming the space before Nathan Pinkney, since part of Zapatas trial sentencing requires he stays 100 yards away from Pinkney. Despite that legal fact with real legal consequences, Zapata said if Pinkney showed up at the meeting, Zapata expected someone to remove Pinkney from the board chambers.

What actually occurred the following day was far different from Zapatas boastful prediction. Prior to the meetings start, Pinkney was seated in the front row of the board chambers. Zapata entered the chambers momentarily with his son, but ended up leaving without incident after being quietly spoken to by a Shasta County marshal.

As an aside, this new marshal has been stationed inside the board chambers since the departure of the former deputy Greg Walker, who ceased working as a Shasta County Sheriff Deputy shortly after a series of stories appeared about him here on A News Cafe.

After he was no doubt asked to leave the board chambers, Zapata was seen talking on his phone and pacing outside the Shasta County Administrative Center. He never returned to the chambers, even after Pinkney later left before the meetings end.

One of the last points Zapata made in the podcast about the trial was that it felt good to be finished with it, although Zapata said he was was not ecstatic about the way it all went down, adding that the justice system is, out to get yah.

Zapata opined that people are guilty until proven innocent, and that the Shasta County District Attorney took the case against him a so-called productive member of society who has never been in trouble instead of going after real criminals.

Is walking up to somebody a crime? asked Zapata in reference to the video of him, Christopher Meagher and Elizabeth Bailey approaching Pinkney at the back door of Pinkneys place of employment before the two latter individuals Zapatas friends viciously assaulted Pinkney as he retreated inside the restaurant. Meagher and Bailey were convicted of disturbing the peace while fighting and battery. Meagher received jail time for punching Pinkney.

Zapata claimed that he, Meagher and Bailey approached Pinkney because hed sent Zapata text messages.

However, if, as he claimed, Zapata was walking up to Pinkney to talk, why did Bailey grab Pinkney and rip his shirt as he walked away, just before Meagher punched him?

Despite the jurys decision to find the three co-defendants guilty on four of the District Attorneys five charges, Zapata said during the podcast that, The jury knew what a piece of shit he [Pinkney] is.

Zapata also said that the community now knows what a piece of garbage Pinkney is.Zapata expounded upon that thought.

I dont care what I say anymore, hes a piece of shit, Zapata said. If hes working right now in this town, its only for a little bit, you know, until we find out where he works, and they fire him because people need to know that thats not the kind of person we want in this community.

Carlos Zapata, Christopher Meagher, & Elizabeth Bailey walking up abruptly on Pinkney and Meaghers assault.

Without citing any examples, Zapata claimed that Pinkney terrorizes people, gets businesses shut down, wants to be a pain in peoples asses before threatening Pinkney publicly on his podcast by saying that Pinkney was not going to be in this community much longer.

Zapata then named where Pinkney had been working, the Airpark Caf in Redding, as the group joked they should show up at his workplace.

Pinkney recently revealed through his social media accounts that he worked at the Airpark Caf, but the joke was on Zapata and the others during the podcast discussion as Pinkney had not worked there for some time, something he revealed only after the podcast.

In a video shared by Pinkney on Facebook in which he responded to some of Zapatas podcast remarks, Pinkney minced no words, starting by referring to Pinkneys potential future civil lawsuit against Zapata.

Keep giving me shit to use in court because Im going to own your fucking restaurant one day and Im going to turn it into a socialist fucking soup kitchen called Bidens, Pinkney said in his social media video.

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Courtney Kreider Responds to Sagging Popularity of Red ...

When Stephen Bannon called his website, Breitbart, the platform for the alt-right this summer, he was referring to a movement that promotes white nationalism and argues that the strength of the United States is tied to its ethnic European roots. Its members mostly stick to trolling online, but much of what they do isnt original or new: Their taunts often involve vicious anti-Semitism. They make it clear that Jews are not included in their vision of a perfect, white, ethno-state.

On the opposite side of American politics, many progressive groups are preparing to mount a rebellion against Donald Trump. They see solidarity among racial minorities as their goal, and largely blame Trumps election on racism and white supremacy. Three-quarters of American Jews voted against Trump, and many support this progressive vision. Some members of these groups, though, have singled out particular Jews for their collusion with oppressive powercriticisms that range from inflammatory condemnations of Israel to full-on conspiracies about global Jewish media and banking cabals.

These are rough sketches of two camps, concentrated at the margins of U.S. political culture. On the extreme right, Jews are seen as impurea faux-white race that has tainted America. And on the extreme left, Jews are seen as part of a white-majority establishment that seeks to dominate people of color. Taken together, these attacks raise an interesting question: Are Jews white?

Jewish identity in America is inherently paradoxical and contradictory, says Eric Goldstein, an associate professor of history at Emory University. What you have is a group that was historically considered, and considered itself, an outsider group, a persecuted minority. In the space of two generations, theyve become one of the most successful, integrated groups in American societyby many accounts, part of the establishment. And theres a lot of dissonance between those two positions.

As pro- and anti-Trump movements jockey to realize their agendas, the question of Jews and whiteness illustrates the high stakesand dangersof racialized politics. Jews, who do not fit neatly into American racial categories, challenge both sides visions for the country. Over time, Jews have become more integrated into American societya process scholars sometimes refer to as becoming white. It wasnt the skin color of Ashkenazi Jews of European descent that changed, though; it was their status. Trumps election has convinced some Jews that they remain in the same position as they have throughout history: perpetually set apart from other groups through their Jewishness, and thus left vulnerable.

From the earliest days of the American republic, Jews were technically considered white, at least in a legal sense. Under the Naturalization Act of 1790, they were considered among the free white persons who could become citizens. Later laws limited the number of immigrants from certain countries, restrictions which were in part targeted at Jews. But unlike Asian and African immigrants in the late 19th century, Jews retained a claim to being Caucasian, meaning they could win full citizenship status based on their putative race.

Culturally, though, the racial status of Jews was much more ambiguous. Especially during the peak of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Jews lived in tightly knit urban communities that were distinctly marked as separate from other American cultures: They spoke Yiddish, they published their own newspapers, they followed their own schedule of holidays and celebrations. Those boundaries were further enforced by widespread anti-Semitism: Jews were often excluded from taking certain jobs, joining certain clubs, or moving into certain neighborhoods. Insofar as whiteness represents acceptance in Americas dominant culture, Jews were not yet white.

If youre a secular Jew, how are you a Jew? It has to be through your cultural or ethnic identity.

Over time, though, they assimilated. Just like other white people, they fled to the suburbs. They took advantage of educational opportunities like the G.I. bill. They became middle class. They thought they were becoming white, says Lewis Gordon, a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut. Many of them stopped speaking Yiddish. Many of them stopped going to synagogue. Many of them stopped wearing the accoutrements of Jewishness.

Jews think about questions of race in their own lives with incredible diversity. There are many different kinds of Jews: Orthodox, secular, Reform; Jews by birth, Jews by choice, Jews by conversion. Some Jews who arent particularly religious may identify as white, but others may feel that their Jewishness is specifically linked to their ethnic inheritance. If youre a secular Jew, how are you a Jew? It has to be through your cultural or ethnic identity, Gordon says. Whereas if youre a religious Jew, you would argue that youre a Jew primarily through your religious practices. As Jews assimilated into American culture, ironically, investment in religiosity paved the way for greater white identification of many Jews, he says, allowing more religiously observant Jews to think of themselves as white, rather than ethnically Jewish.

Goldstein sees it differently. Whiteness and engagement with the categories of white and black are a reflection of a level of acculturation into a larger society, he says. The Orthodox are not just religiously different [from other Jews], but socially separated, he adds. They tend to see the world through the lens of their own community. In other words, their categories for understanding themselves and others might not be white and nonwhite; theyre more likely to be Jewish and non-Jewish.

Other Jews might not think about race much, in the same way that a lot of white folks in America dont think about race much. Lacey Schwartz, a filmmaker born to a Jewish mother and an African American father, but who long believed she was born to two white parents, experienced this firsthand. I grew up in a space where we were all white, but it was almost like we didnt have a race, she says. These days, she works as an educator in Jewish communities, trying to help people talk about what race and racial diversity meantopics they havent necessarily thought through before. Within the Jewish community, we have to talk about whiteness, because people have to understand where they fit in, she says.

Its important for Jews to become more aware of their white privilege.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, argued that Jews do grapple with raceand in fact, they have been at the forefront of struggles for racial equality like the civil-rights movement. Theres no doubt that the vast majority of American Jews live with what we would call white privilege, he says. They arent looked at twice when they walk into a store. They arent looked at twice by someone in uniform That obviously isnt a privilege that people of color have the luxury of enjoying. And yet, even though light-skinned Jews may benefit from being perceived as white, [Jewish] identity is shaped by these exogenous forcesostracism, and exile, and other forms of persecution [like] extermination. I think there is this sense of shared struggle programmed into the DNA of the Jewish people.

As much variability as there is in how Jews might see their own whiteness, theres even greater variability in how others see them. For many Americans, if theres a secular European Jew walking [down the street], Americans are not going to see the difference between a Polish Jew and a Polish Catholic, Gordon says.

For those who do see Jews as a distinctive group, many complicated factors might shape their views. For example: If Jews generally lack racial awareness, as Schwartz contends, that may exacerbate the hostility of the far left. I think its important for Jews to become more aware of their white privilege[its] one of the problems Jews have had in relating to African Americans, Goldstein says. This has often come up specifically over the issue of Israel: Some Jews have found themselves at odds, for example, with those black activists who describe Israels actions toward Palestinians as a form of global white supremacy, interpreting that racialized language as offensive.

Theres also ambiguity in whether non-Jews perceive Jewish distinctiveness in terms of race or religion. When anti-Semites [talk about] Jews, they mean a racial category, Gordon argues. I think theyre looking at Jews the way an anti-black racist looks at a light-skinned black person. In working with Jewish groups around the country, he says, he has found that religious Jews are much more likely to view anti-Semitism as a form of religious discrimination. But he doesnt see it that way. Anti-religion is more like between Protestants and Catholics or between a Zen Buddhist and Buddhist, or conflicts that Reform Jews have with Orthodox Jews, Gordon says. I see anti-Semitism as a racism. I dont see anti-Semitism as simply about being anti-religion.

The vast majority of American Jews94 percent, according to Pewdescribe themselves as white in surveys. But many Jews of colorblack, Asian, and even Mizrahi Jewsmight identify their race in more ambiguous terms. Whiteness isnt a simple, static category that can be determined by a quick question from a pollster.

White is a kind of cultural constructa way of thinking of yourself, and a way that other people think about you, Goldstein says. Whiteness itself is a very fluid and contested category. Race is not just a matter of skin pigmentation or ethnic background. It is determined by both individuals and their observers, and the boundaries of whos in or out of one group or another change constantly.

Its not that unprecedented that groups of disillusioned, disaffected populations of workers lash out and use Jews as a scapegoat.

So, are Jews white? Theres really no conclusion except that its complicated, Goldstein says. This is not the kind of question that searches for an answer, though. Its a question designed to illuminate. It can be difficult to understand why many, although not all, Jews are scared of whats to come in a Trump administration. Even Goldstein, who studies Judaism and anti-Semitism for a living, says he finds it hard to believe that Jews are in any real danger of losing their status in American society. Jews today are integrated into all of the mainstream institutions of American life: Theyve held the presidencies of all the major universities that once restricted their entrance; they are disproportionately represented in all the branches of government.

And yet, no matter how much prestige Jews may amass, their status is always ambiguous. White is not a skin color, but a category marking power. American Jews do have power, but they are also often viewed with suspicion; and having power is no assurance of protection. According to the FBIs hate-crime statistics, a majority of religiously motivated hate-crime offenses are committed against Jews each year. This has been the case every year since the FBI first began reporting hate-crime statistics in 1995, when more than 80 percent of religiously motivated crimes were against Jews. These days, that percentage is closer to 50 percenta sign not that Jews are safer, but that other groups have been increasingly targeted.

Its not that unprecedented that groups of disillusioned, disaffected populations of workers lash out and use Jews as a scapegoat for problems that are really caused by a quickly changing society, Goldstein says. It is instructive to know that Jews have been in situations in which they were integrated and had status, and that hasnt necessarily protected them. Sometimes, it makes them vulnerable.

Are Jews white? is another way of asking, Are Jews safe in this unknown future that is to come? To some, it seems unthinkable that they would not be. To others, it seems unthinkable that they would.

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The Alt-Right Reopens Questions of Jewish Whiteness - The ...

If I was planning a coup detat and the overthrow of the government of the United States of America, Id not really go out of my way to blab about what I knew, before or after the event.

If what they say is true about Steve Bannon, a man best thought of as Donald Trumps Svengali, then I too wouldnt be cooperating that much with the authorities about what I did or did not know about the protests (to put things euphemistically) at the Capitol on 6 January.

Whether it was a pro-Trump rally where things got a bit out of hand or an attempt to seize control of the levers of government and to frustrate the ratification of a democratic election is what is in question at the the various Congressional inquiries now underway. What was Bannon doing in Washington on 6 January? And what did Bannon mean when he predicted, a day before, that all hell would be let loose? We all have our views.

From Bannons point of view, stonewalling must be the best option. Saying as little as possible is a constitutional right, arguably, and no one can actually force him to tell anyone anything. He can use his high-profile platform to argue, if hes minded to engage, that the whole process is illegitimate, being conducted by an unlawfully elected fake assembly, and motivated by a desire to protect a Democrat president elected through fraudulent means. Donald Trump, in this version of reality, is still the president of the United States, and Bannon and his allies only recognise his authority.

Therefore, Bannon might point out, hes under no obligation to hand anything over or give up any information to a body, the US Congress, that is operating under false pretences and has itself usurped the true democratic government of the US the Trump administration. Indeed, silence would add to his aura of power and mystery. It gives him leverage, too what will the establishment offer in return for his information?

The worst and also the best thing that could happen to Bannon is that Congress finds him guilty of contempt, sends him to jail for a year and slaps a $100,000 fine on him. The whole Bannon shtick, absurdly, is that hes the little guy being bullied by a fraudulent, selfish, crooked elite looking, as ever, after their own interests, and terrified of the people and the peoples continuing president, Donald J Trump.

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Nothing suits Bannon more than to be seen as the victim, even if his travails are entirely self-inflicted. Nothing would be more satisfying than a one-year spell in prison, where, like some notable figures from the past, he would spend his time writing his memoirs and setting out his political philosophy and patriotic mission.

Congress presently seems set on making Steve Bannon into a sort of conservative Nelson Mandela, a political prisoner banged up for his beliefs, victimised for his defiance of an illegitimate regime. No doubt he will do well out of it.

You wonder, though, what might happen if the Congress ever tried to come after Trump personally theyve already tried to get their hands on personal records and Trump tells them to get lost and they send him to prison too. Trump and Bannon might share a cell, assuming the Justice Department can locate a cell big enough for these two outsize egos. It would be an unusual place to launch the Republicans 2024 presidential bid.

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Nothing would suit Steve Bannon more than to be an alt-right martyr in prison - The Independent