August 26 and 27, 2017
News and Views
SATURDAY, AUGUST 26 -- HURRICANE HARVEY IS IN GALVESTON, TEXAS. FORECASTERS ARE EXPECTING SOME TWO AND A HALF FEET OF RAIN OR MORE AROUND THE AREA, OR “POSSIBLY CATASTROPHIC FLOODING.” WHEN HARVEY MADE LANDFALL, THE STORM WAS GAUGED AT 160 MPH, CATEGORY 4, AND IS NOW DOWN TO A CATEGORY 1, 130 MPH WIND.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27 – WATER IS EVERYWHERE. TREES ARE THRASHING AROUND ENDLESSLY, EVEN LARGE TREES. CARS ARE FOUNDERED AND SITTING IN THE ROADS. ODD-LOOKING FLOATING VEHICLES OF VARIOUS SORTS ARE MOVING PAST WITH RESCUED PEOPLE AND DOGS IN THEM. IF I WERE FEELING PARANOID, I MIGHT THINK IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD. LOOK AT THE CBS FOOTAGE. THERE IS A PHOTO OF A YOUNG MAN CARRYING A YOUNG ASIAN WOMAN IN HIS ARMS, WITH THEIR NEW BABY IN HERS, THROUGH SOME THREE FEET OF WATER. IT’S LIKE SOME OF THOSE SHOTS FROM VIETNAM IN 1970. IT TELLS THE REAL STORY.
MOTHER NATURE IS MAGNIFICENT, IF PROFOUNDLY DANGEROUS. THE TELEVISION FOOTAGE THIS MORNING WHEN I WOKE UP WAS SPELL-BINDING. ONE STORM LIKE THIS ONE, NAMED DORA, CAME DIRECTLY INTO JACKSONVILLE, FL, IN THE EARLY 1960S AND LEFT FLOODWATER THAT CUT OFF ALL POWER FOR TWO WEEKS, THEY SAY. I HOPE THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN THIS TIME.
MY TWO EXPERIENCES WITH A HURRICANE, AND NEITHER WAS THIS LARGE AND DANGEROUS, WAS SAFE ENOUGH BUT THE AIR WAS SO HOT AND MOIST THAT I COULD BARELY BREATHE IT. THERE WAS ALSO THE LACK OF LIGHT. FOR MANY OF US, MYSELF INCLUDED, THAT IS FRIGHTENING. BE SURE TO GET SOMETHING BETTER THAN THOSE LITTLE FLASHLIGHTS IF YOU CAN. I HAVE NOW AN “ENERGIZER WEATHER READY LED NIGHTLIGHT.” I’M MENTIONING THE WHOLE NAME IN CASE YOU WANT TO GIVE IT A TRY. IT COSTS ONLY A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF MONEY, AND GIVES FOUR DIFFERENT LEVELS OF ILLUMINATION. IT BEATS FLASHLIGHTS ANY DAY OF THE WEEK. THAT WAY IF YOU GET IN A NERVOUS TWIT WITH THE CONFINEMENT AND PITCH BLACK DARKNESS, YOU CAN READ A BOOK. ALSO, INVEST IN A “WEATHER RADIO” WHICH IS TUNED IN TO THE EMERGENCY STATIONS. IF A TORNADO IS HEADING TOWARDS YOU, IT WILL GIVE A “HEADS UP.” THE CBS HERE IS A LIVE VIDEO ONLY. BOTH ARE BELOW.
SATURDAY HURRICANE VIDEO LIVE ACTION ONLY
https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/heavy-damage-where-hurricane-harvey-makes-landfall/
Heavy damage where Hurricane Harvey makes landfall
LIVE NEWS COVERAGE.
AUGUST 26, 2017, 7:03 AM| Hurricane Harvey made landfall late Friday night in Rockport, Texas, as a Category 4 storm with winds at 130 mph. More than 210,000 residents are without electric power Saturday morning and extensive flooding is expected over the next few days. Manuel Bojorquez reports from Victoria, Texas, just a few miles from the eye of the storm.
THERE ARE MANY EXCELLENT SLIDES WITH THIS MSN.COM ARTICLE. GO TO THE WEBSITE AND VIEW THEM ALL.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/3000-guard-troops-called-up-as-%E2%80%98catastrophic%E2%80%99-harvey-causes-deadly-floods-in-texas/ar-AAqIsgx?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp
3,000 guard troops called up as ‘catastrophic’ Harvey causes deadly floods in Texas 1 / 27
The Washington Post
Dylan Baddour, Kevin Sullivan, Wesley Lowery, Robert Samuels
2 hrs ago – AUGUST 27, 7:47 PM
HOUSTON — More than 3,000 national and state guard troops are being deployed to assist with relief and recovery efforts as the nation’s fourth-largest city and surrounding areas try to cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which has transformed into a disaster of historic proportions. President Trump plans to travel to Texas on Tuesday.
Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in a news conference that the perpetual rain and dire flash flooding has produced the strongest storm the state has seen in at least 50 years. He could not confirm death totals nor the number of evacuations, but the National Weather Service has said there have been reports of as many as five deaths. The service issued a statement that the storm was “catastrophic” and “beyond anything experienced.”
Outside the Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Southwest Houston, Nichelle Mosby stood up to her knees in floodwater in the parking lot Sunday, grimacing with a towel over her head to block the rain.
Mosby and six family members, including a 4-year-old girl, had come from Louisiana to visit relatives. When Harvey hit over the weekend, they booked into the Courtyard, where they are stranded with dozens of other guests.
“We went through Katrina, but this feels different,” she said. Instead of a gradual buildup of rising water, “this was like a gush of water that came up too fast.”
By Sunday afternoon, the Weather Service was predicting that parts of Texas could receive nearly 50 inches of rain, what would be the largest recorded total in the state’s history. Communities in Southeast Texas, already experiencing water so high that it engulfed vehicles up to their car handles, were continually being beaten down by heavy, sideways rain.
[FEMA director calls storm a ‘devastating disaster,’ says it could be the worst in Texas history]
The flood warnings also came with urgent pleas for residents to be cautious, stay indoors and not attempt to travel flooded roadways. Police and rescue workers implored residents who see floodwaters rising near their homes to make their way to the highest point possible — even if it is a roof — while awaiting rescue. On Saturday night, a woman was found dead near her vehicle, believed to have been trapped during a flood.
More than 66,000 homes were without electricity, and local news stations reported that Ben Taub Hospital, one of two trauma centers in the city, would soon have to evacuate.
The U.S. Coast Guard dispatched five helicopters, and Houston is expecting about 40 additional boats to find those in need of help, Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a news conference. He defended the decision not to issue evacuation orders, noting that it would have been a “nightmare” to empty out the population of his city and the county all at once.
“You literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road,” Turner said.
SLIDES 1 THROUGH 86
As officials worked to execute a strategy, desperate families and residents crafted some of their own. At the urging of Houston police, they set out with boats and kayaks to help their friends in need. Families in flooded homes blew up inflatable pool toys to ferry children as they made their way out on foot.
In Katy, Erica Stietenroth, 38, said she was in tears driving around trying to find an open pharmacy to help her 8-year old daughter, who had a 105-degree fever. The emergency room on Saturday night didn’t have the drugs she needed for her strep throat, so doctors wrote her a prescription.
She awoke Sunday morning and started her desperate search, ultimately finding a pharmacy inside a local grocery store — but it was unstaffed because people couldn’t get in to work. An employee who happened to come in to shop for food got permission to mix the medication for her.
“I was crying my eyes out for my baby girl,” she said. “By the grace of God, that employee was there.”
By 7 a.m. Central time Sunday, the National Weather Service had recorded close to 25 inches of rain around Houston, with an additional three to seven inches expected. Warnings for flash flooding and tornadoes remained in place for a large swath of the state, and storm surges are expected along the coast, bringing flooding to typically dry areas. William H. Hobby Airport was shut down.
“There’s flooding all over this city,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said in a live stream video early Sunday morning. “We have one fatality, and a potential second fatality from the floodwaters out here.”
William “Brock” Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said he expects the agency to be working in the area for years as Texas recovers from the storm.
[‘All night of slam, bang, boom,’ then a scramble to assess the hurricane’s damage]
As it scrambles to open shelters across Texas, the Red Cross command center in Houston is now “physically isolated” because of floodwaters, said Paul Carden, district director of Red Cross activities in South Texas, which includes Corpus Christi.
“The advice is if you don’t have to be out, don’t be out,” said Bill Begley, a spokesman with the Joint Information Center in Houston around 7:30 a.m. Central time. He said most of the calls for help it has received have come from residents who tried to drive through the storm and wounded up getting stuck in high water.
President Trump praised the way the city’s officials are handling the flood, tweeting at 8:25 a.m. that the “Good news is that we have great talent on the ground.” He promised to head to Texas “as soon as that trip can be made without causing disruption. The focus must be life and safety.”
Southwest Airlines flight attendant Allison Brown estimated that at least 50 flight attendants, a number of pilots, airport staff and hundreds of passengers have been stranded at Hobby Airport since at least 1 a.m. Sunday.
Brown said the airport flooded so quickly that shuttles were unable to get to them out. They were told by police that it would be unsafe to attempt to leave.
“Luckily we have the restaurant staff or else we would’ve been stuck with no food,” Brown said. “Waters in the road are around four feet — minimum — surrounding the airport.”
In Southwest Houston, the Brays Bayou had overflown its banks and completely swamped a bridge near the hotel, with waters rising at least 10 to 20 feet or more since Saturday. Its powerful brown flow carried large tree branches and other debris.
All roads in the area were underwater, and a park across the bayou was completely flooded. A car nearby had been abandoned, its doors left open. City traffic lights were still blinking red and green over the empty and flooded bridge, but most buildings visible in the area seemed to be dark and possibly without power.
In the lobby of the Marriott Courtyard there, John McMillian, 70, sat eating breakfast with his wife, Debbie McMillian, 64, and their daughter, Tara, 29.
They were in town so John McMillian could have five days of treatment for his leukemia at MD Anderson Cancer Center just down the road. He had three days of treatment and was supposed to have his fourth on Sunday, but now they were stranded.
“If push came to shove, we could always wade to the hospital,” he said.
“I’m not going to let him, don’t worry,” his wife added.
She said her new Acura was underwater in the parking lot.
“I haven’t even made the first payment on it yet,” she said.
Local station KHOU went offline while covering a live rescue of a driver in an 18-wheeler stuck in more than 10 feet of water near the Interstate 610 loop.
The reporter was able to flag down a rescue crew, but as the rescue was about to take place, the station went dark. The main office said the station had to evacuated because floodwaters seeped into the building.
Harvey pounded the Texas coast on Saturday, making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane that destroyed buildings and caused widespread power outages as residents evacuated towns. Later downgraded to a tropical storm, Harvey crept inland, then stalled and dropped hours of torrential rain that officials said has caused catastrophic flooding across a broad section of the state.
In Katy, Michele and Joel Antonini were in line at a cavernous HEB supermarket with 20 sacks of groceries. They had come out in the rain to buy food for elderly neighbors they would probably be taking in from Grand Lakes, where they used to live.
They bought sheet cakes, a roast, chips, hot dogs and hamburgers.
“We just want to be ready if they are hungry and can get out,” Michele said. “We just want to be ready to help.”
Amanda Picard, 35, a CrossFit trainer, said that they live behind a creek and that all their neighborhood lakes were flooded. They said they were doing a grocery run in case the storm goes on for days.
“It’s gonna be a long haul,” said Picard, who was shopping for spring mix and frozen pizza with her husband and 6-year-old.
The small coastal town of Rockport, which took a direct hit from the storm, as search and rescue operations continued in ravaged areas that are still largely inaccessible. Officials said Rockport could receive as much as 60 inches of rain through midweek.
“We’ve been devastated,” Rockport Mayor C.J. Wax said in a telephone interview. “There are structures that are either significantly disrupted or completely destroyed. I have some buildings that are lying on the street.”
To the west, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg urged residents to continue to stay off the roads as Harvey neared the city and brought wind gusts of up to 60 mph and heavy rain. The city is under a flash flood watch and tropical storm warning.
“We don’t want anyone in San Antonio to let their guard down,” Nirenberg said.
The storm made landfall at 10 p.m. Central Time on Friday with 130 mph winds — the first Category 4 storm to hit the United States since Charley in 2004. By late morning Saturday, it had lost some of its punch but still had hurricane-force winds of 80 mph, having drifted to about 25 miles west of the inland city of Victoria. Shortly after noon, the National Hurricane Center downgraded Harvey to a tropical storm, with sustained winds of 70 mph.
Farther east, the hurricane has put officials in New Orleans and across Louisiana on alert, and Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said Saturday that it could be a week before the state has to cope with flooding. He said the pumping system in New Orleans, which flooded earlier this month after a heavy downpour, is steadily improving. “We’re a long ways from being out of the woods, but we are very thankful it hasn’t been more severe up to now,” he said of the storm.
Trump signed a disaster proclamation for Texas on Friday night after Abbott sent him a written request saying that “Texas is about to experience one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the state.” White House aides said Trump will visit Texas soon.
Trump said in tweets Saturday morning that he is closely monitoring the situation from Camp David, Md., and that federal officials have been on the ground since before the storm hit. He urged residents to “be safe” and pledged a thorough federal response. “We are leaving nothing to chance,” he wrote. “City, State and Federal Govs. working great together!”
Sullivan reported from Houston, Galveston and Victoria. Baddour reported from Houston. Samuels reported from Washington. Tim Craig in Rockport and Corpus Christi, Brittney Martin in San Antonio, Ashley Cusick in New Orleans, Mary Lee Grant in Port Aransas, Tex., Sofia Sokolove in Austin, Emily Wax in Katy, Tex., and Joel Achenbach, Sandhya Somashekhar and Angela Fritz in Washington contributed to this report.
BACK TO POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY WITH FIRST A UNITED NATIONS WARNING TO THE USA OVER RACIST/POLITICALLY RIGHTIST GROUPS AND THEN A TEN-DAY MARCH BY POLITICAL AND CULTURAL ACTIVISTS FROM CHARLOTTESVILLE TO WASHINGTON DC, WHERE THE GOAL IS TO “CONFRONT WHITE SUPREMACY AND DEMAND PRESIDENT TRUMP'S REMOVAL FROM OFFICE.”
THE PLAN FOR THE MARCH IS AT THE WEBSITE CALLED “CONVENING PARTNERS,” AT HTTP://WWW.CVILLE2DC.US/CONVENING-PARTNERS.HTML. THAT’S APPARENTLY ONE OF THOSE TOO CUTE YOUNG PEOPLE’S WAY OF SAYING: “CHARLOTTESVILLE TO DC.” COOL. I CAN GET BEHIND THAT! FOR THE LIST OF PARTICIPANTS AND A GREAT NEW MEME FOR EACH, GO THE WEBSITE.
GROUPS FEATURED THERE AS OF TODAY ARE , “ACTION GROUP NETWORK, COLOR OF CHANGE, CENTER FOR POPULAR DEMOCRACY, DEMOCRACY SPRING, IFNOTNOW, IUPAT, THE MARCH FOR RACIAL JUSTICE, MILLION HOODIES, MOVEMENT FOR JUSTICE, THE MOVEMENT FOR BLACK LIVES, THE PEOPLE'S CONSORTIUM, PICO, RESIST HERE, UNITED WE DREAM, WOMEN'S MARCH, WORKING FAMILIES PARTY.”
TRUMP AND THE RIGHTIST THINKERS ONE AND ALL MAY WIN YET, BUT NOT WITHOUT A FIGHT!
THE UN WARNING AND RESPONSES:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/23/charlottesville-un-committee-warns-us-over-rise-of-racism
Race issues
Charlottesville: United Nations warns US over 'alarming' racism
US urged to ‘unequivocally and unconditionally’ reject discrimination
Trump remarks ‘scary and disturbing’ – former spy chief James Clapper
Haroon Siddique and Oliver Laughland
Wednesday 23 August 2017 08.00 EDT
Photograph -- Neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other alt-right factions rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, on 12 August. Photograph: ddp USA/REX/Shutterstock
A UN committee charged with tackling racism has issued an “early warning” over conditions in the US and urged the Trump administration to “unequivocally and unconditionally” reject discrimination.
The warning specifically refers to events last week in Charlottesville, Virginia, where the civil rights activist Heather Heyer was killed when a car rammed into a group of people protesting against a white nationalist rally.
After a UN warning over racism, America’s self-image begins to crack -- Nesrine Malik
Such statements are usually issued by the United Nations committee on the elimination of racial discrimination (Cerd) over fears of ethnic or religious conflict. In the past decade, the only other countries issued with early warnings have been Burundi, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan and Nigeria.
The United States has been warned under the procedure in the past when Cerd raised the issue of land rights conflicts with the Western Shoshone indigenous peoples in 2006.
“We are alarmed by the racist demonstrations, with overtly racist slogans, chants and salutes by white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Ku Klux Klan, promoting white supremacy and inciting racial discrimination and hatred,” said Anastasia Crickley, chair of the committee.
Quick Guide
What happened at the Charlottesville protests?
Donald Trump faced widespread criticism after he blamed “both sides” for the violence in Charlottesville. Although the Cerd statement did not refer to him by name, it called on “the government of the United States of America, as well as high-level politicians and public officials, to unequivocally and unconditionally reject and condemn racist hate speech and crimes in Charlottesville and throughout the country”.
Crickley also urged the US authorities “to address the root causes of the proliferation of such racist manifestations”.
Play Video -- How Donald Trump emboldened the US far right
Duration Time 4:21
Lecia Brooks, director of outreach for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights group, said the UN’s early warning underlined the need for American leaders to “clearly and unconditionally condemn hatred and bigotry”.
“It is a sad day when the president of the United States has so thoroughly failed to denounce white supremacism that UN experts must warn the US about the dangers of racism,” Brooks said.
“Unfortunately, Trump’s racist and xenophobic campaign, and his lukewarm condemnation of white supremacists, has heightened racial tensions in America to the point that it’s raising alarms in the global community.”
Sherine Tadros, Amnesty International’s UN representative, welcomed the UN’s move. “It is significant that the UN is speaking out publicly against the actions of the new US administration, which it so far has been reluctant to do,” Tadros said.
Jasmine Tyler, US program advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, urged the White House to heed the UN warning. “As a black woman raising a black son, and a human rights advocate, I can hardly believe the times we’re living in,” Tyler said.
“The Trump administration should take the Cerd’s early warning very seriously and rescind its decision to eviscerate the mandates and budgets of US civil rights institutions; end its attempt to exclude white nationalism from the federal government’s Countering Violent Extremism programs; and end immigration and refugee policies based on anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant sentiment.”
The warning was issued on 18 August but came to light on Wednesday, the day after protests outside a rally by the president in Phoenix, Arizona.
Trump used Tuesday’s event to portray himself as the victim of events in Charlottesville, branding journalists who “do not like our country” as the true source of division in America. He also accused the “crooked media” of “trying to take away our history and our heritage” and read out previous statements that he said condemned hatred, bigotry and violence.
And he complained that the media had not given him enough credit for condemning hate groups. “I said everything,” the president said. “I hit them with neo-Nazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazi. I got them all in there, let’s say. KKK, we have KKK. I got them all.”
Protesters outside the Trump rally in Phoenix raise their hands after police used teargas to disperse the crowd. Photograph: Matt York/AP
The former director of national intelligence James Clapper later described Trump’s remarks as “downright scary and disturbing”. The former spy chief, who served under Democratic and Republican presidents, also called into question Trump’s fitness to serve.
“How much longer does the country have to, to borrow a phrase, endure this nightmare?” Clapper said on CNN.
Following Clapper’s remarks, the former British ambassador to the US, Peter Westmacott, compared Tuesday’s rally to Nazi Germany.
“Shades of 1933 Germany,” Westmacott tweeted, claiming Trump’s speech was “an invitation to autocrats” in countries without the US’s system of checks and balances “to play the same game more dangerously”.
Immediately after the rally, police said they used pepper spray to disperse protesters outside the rally – who numbered in their thousands, according to Arizona media – after being pelted with rocks and bottles.
The Phoenix police chief, Jeri Williams, told reporters that four people had been arrested, including three on assault charges.
In February, the SPLC said the number of hate groups in the US had risen for a second consecutive year and that “the radical right was energised by the candidacy of Donald Trump”. Until last week, his chief White House strategist was Steve Bannon, a rightwing ideologue and former editor of Breitbart, which Bannon called “a platform for the alt-right”. Bannon has returned to Breitbart News as executive chairman.
In its statement, Cerd also called on the US to ensure that the freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly are not exercised with the aim of destroying or denying the rights and freedoms of others, ensuring “such rights are not misused to promote racist hate speech and racist crimes”.
The committee monitors compliance with the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, which the US ratified in 1994.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ten-day-march-from-charlottesville-to-dc-to-start-monday/ar-AAqK8kG
Ten-day march from Charlottesville to DC to start Monday
The Hill
John Bowden
August 27, 2017
Photograph -- Charlottesville to hold 'community recovery town hall' -- © Provided by The Hill
Activists are set to start a 10-day march from Charlottesville, Virginia to Washington, D.C. on Monday to confront white supremacy and demand President Trump's removal from office.
"The March to Confront White Supremacy," is set to start in Charlottesville Monday, Aug. 28 and end in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Sept. 6. Organizers say the march will be followed by an occupation of Washington, D.C. with daily nonviolent demonstrations.
"This is the time to confront white supremacy in our government and throughout our history. We demand that President Trump to be removed from office for allying himself with this ideology of hate and we demand an agenda that repairs the damage it's done to our country and its people," the website for the march reads.
"This will be a sustained civil disobedience campaign, so bring what you need to stay," they added.
"The March to Confront White Supremacy," is being planned by a number of activist groups such as the Women's March, Working Families Party, the Action Group Network, United We Dream, Color of Change, and others.
Violence erupted in Charlottesville earlier this month at a protest when a man with alleged ties to white nationalists killed one person and injured dozens more by ramming his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. Tensions were further inflamed when Trump responded to the violence by blaming "many sides" for the violence.
The attack spurred demonstrations against white supremacy around the country, including Durham, North Carolina, where protesters surrounded and toppled a Confederate statue in the days after the violence. Other cities around the country have chosen to take down or cover Confederate monuments in the wake of the Charlottesville attack.
RIGHT WING PRESS CONFERENCE:
THIS ARTICLE FROM SAN FRANCISCO DOESN’T MENTION ANTIFA, BUT THE CROWD SIZE REMAINS LARGE. THE VIDEO ON THIS ONE IS VERY GOOD. PATRIOT PRAYER IS A NAME THAT I’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE, BUT THEY ARE CLEARLY IN THE ALT-RIGHT CATEGORY. THEY ALSO OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T WANT TO GET HURT TODAY, SO THEY CALLED IT OFF, PROMISING A LATER DATE AND AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION. BOTH OF THESE TWO ARTICLES ARE TALKING ABOUT THE SAME THING, AND EVEN HAVE THE SAME TITLE AND TIME OF PUBLICATION, BUT THEY AREN’T DUPLICATES. THE THIRD IS A BRIEF INTERVIEW REPORT WITH THE RIGHTIST LEADER NAMED JOEY GIBSON. SCAN THROUGH ALL FOR INFORMATION.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hundreds-march-against-right-wing-press-conference-in-san-francisco/
CBS/AP August 26, 2017, 5:43 PM
Hundreds march against right-wing press conference in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO -- Hundreds of people are marching around San Francisco's Alamo Square park holding signs condemning white supremacists and chanting, "Whose streets? Our streets!"
Police in riot gear lined up Saturday along a fence erected at the park after the right-wing group Patriot Prayer said it planned to hold a news conference at the location.
At least one person was detained outside Alamo Square as demonstrators gathered to disrupt a press conference by the alt-right group Patriot Prayer, CBS San Francisco reports. However, Patriot Prayer leaders called off the news conference hours earlier and said it would be held at an unspecified indoor location.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hundreds-march-against-right-wing-press-conference-in-san-francisco/
CBS/AP August 26, 2017, 5:43 PM
Hundreds march against right-wing press conference in San Francisco
Video -- San Francisco Police Officers arrest a protester outside of Alamo Square Park in San Francisco, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017. MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ / AP
Around 1:30 p.m., a group of demonstrators blocked the Central Freeway off-ramp into San Francisco's Western Addition, backing up traffic on Highway 101.
Patriot Prayer leaders originally obtained a permit from the National Park Service to stage a rally Saturday at Crissy Field in the shadows of the Golden Gate Bridge.
But late Friday cancelled their plans for Crissy Field and said they would instead by a Alamo Square Park. The city closed the park, ringed it with police and S.F. Muni re-routed its bus lines.
Mayor Ed Lee has denounced the group as inviting hate. Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson has denied that his group is racist.
"We don't trust this group. I never have from the beginning," Lee said of Patriot Prayer.
There have been dozens of free speech rallies across the country.
PHOTO OF RIGHTIST LEADER OF NEW GROUP WITH INTERVIEW
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Patriot-Prayer-leader-ends-up-at-Crissy-Field-12002349.php
Patriot Prayer leader ends up at Crissy Field after all
By Catherine Ho, San Francisco Chronicle and Hamed Aleaziz Updated 5:59 pm, Saturday, August 26, 2017
IMAGE 1 OF 3 -- Photo: Santiago Mejia / The Chronicle -- Joey Gibson makes a statement at Crissy Field following the cancellation of the Patriot Prayer event on Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif.
It was a “crazy day” for Joey Gibson — one that ended with the Patriot Prayer leader showing up at the spot in the Presidio where he had once scheduled a rally for the right-wing group.
Gibson called off that event the day before it was to have been held Saturday, saying he would hold a news conference in Alamo Square Park instead. When police closed the park, Gibson hit the road, first to an online chat with friends, then to a press conference in Pacifica and finally to Crissy Field.
There, he joined about 20 would-be rally participants, some of whom said they had come from Oregon and Washington to attend the aborted rally.
I INCLUDED THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE, THOUGH THE FIRST WORD OF THE TITLE IS MORE THAN A LITTLE NAUGHTY, IT DOES SHOW HOW DEEP THE RESENTMENT AGAINST FASCISTS IS IN ONE OF THE MOST LIBERAL STATES IN THE COUNTRY.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/24/san-francisco-dog-poo-protest-patriot-prayer-rally
The far right
Turd Reich: San Francisco dog owners lay minefield of poo for rightwing rally
Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco
Thursday 24 August 2017 15.46 EDT
‘I just had this image of alt-right people stomping around in the poop,’ says the organizer of an unusual protest ahead of Saturday’s Patriot Prayer rally
When a group of far-right activists come to San Francisco to hold a rally this Saturday, they will be met by peace activists offering them flowers to wear in their hair.
Also, dog shit. Lots and lots of dog shit.
Hundreds of San Franciscans plan to prepare Crissy Field, the picturesque beach in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge where rightwing protest group Patriot Prayer will gather, with a generous carpeting of excrement.
Charlottesville: United Nations warns US over 'alarming' racism
“I just had this image of alt-right people stomping around in the poop,” Tuffy Tuffington said of the epiphany he had while walking Bob and Chuck, his two Patterdale terriers, and trying to think of the best way to respond to rightwing extremists in the wake of Charlottesville. “It seemed like a little bit of civil disobedience where we didn’t have to engage with them face to face.”
Tuffington, a 45-year-old artist and designer, created a Facebook event page based on the concept, and the dog owners of San Francisco responded in droves. Many have declared their intention to stockpile their shitpiles for days in advance, then deliver them in bags for the site. (The group is also planning to reconvene on Sunday to “clean up the mess and hug each other”.)
Quick Guide -- What happened at the Charlottesville protests?
The presence of Patriot Prayer, whose “free speech” events in the Pacific north-west have frequently sparked violent street battles, in notoriously liberal San Francisco has city authorities on edge. Elected officials unsuccessfully pressured the National Park Service to deny the group a permit, and the police department is planning to deploy every available officer.
But for many San Franciscans, an unwelcome visit from members of the “alt-right” is an opportunity to fight back in the spirit of the city by the bay – with flower power, drag queens, a little creativity, and an assist from the animal kingdom.
Play Video -- Duration Time 3:04
The battle over Confederate statues
Shannon Bolt, a behavior scientist who works at Crissy Field,* intends to confront Patriot Prayer in the spirit of the Summer of Love. “As white supremacists and neo-Nazis gather in our midst, we’ll tune into the love frequency again and meet their hatred with flowers for their hair,” she wrote in a Facebook event description.
If security forces keep the protest and counter-protest separate, Bolt told the Guardian, “We will have to offer our Flowers Against Fascism to them symbolically.”
There will also be contingents of clowns, kayakers, cars, and kids – all hoping to use their particular strengths (humor, seaworthiness, the ability to monopolize parking spaces, and cuteness, respectively) to thumb their noses at hate.
“You have a significant number of people who would like to go and punch Nazis, and then you have people who think they should be entirely ignored,” said veteran labor and LGBTQ rights activist Cleve Jones. “In between you have all sorts of creative and crazy ideas. I kind of like that.”
Quick Guide
What is the 'alt-right'?
Jones is working with local drag queen Juanita More to host a rally and march for equality beginning at Harvey Milk Plaza in the city’s Castro district. “There’s this desire to create fear,” he said of media coverage showing torch-wielding racists spewing hateful chants. “With these kinds of creative actions, we dispel fear. We say we’re going to fight you and we’re going to have a ball doing it and we’re going to laugh and love each other.”
Jones is also taking inspiration from the German town of Wunsiedel, where residents have responded to an annual neo-Nazi march by sponsoring an “involuntary walkathon” that raises funds for anti-extremist causes.
He is raising money for ten local organizations that reflect the diversity of San Francisco, including the Transgender Law Center, Disability Rights and Education Defense Fund, and Muslim Advocates. A similar Wunsiedel-inspired effort has been launched by Jewish Bar Association of San Francisco, which has raised more than $100,000 for the the [sic] Southern Poverty Law Center under the banner “Adopt-a-Nazi”.
“When the dust has settled and the smoke has cleared,” Jones said, “I hope that the appearance of rightwing extremists in San Francisco will raise a significant amount of money for the people they seek to harm.”
Update: This article has been amended to add that the dog poop protesters’ plan to clean up after themselves.
AMERICAN FASCISM NOW AND EARLIER. THIS IS A VERY GOOD ARTICLE VIEWING OUR CURRENT UPSURGE OF EXTREME NEGATIVITY AS A POPULACE ALONGSIDE ITS’ MIRROR IMAGES FROM THE EARLY 1900S, THE ‘50S, AND ‘60S. ANGER REDUCES FEAR, SO WE PREFER IT. MOST ARE AFRAID, BUT SOME ARE JUST TRYING TO CREATE CONFLICT IN OUR STREETS AND PERHAPS, JUST PERHAPS, A REVOLUTION.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/17/fascism-history-united-states; the united states was never immune to fascism. not then, not now, david motadel, thursday 17 august 2017 06.00 edt.
It has never been more important to acknowledge the history of fascism and neo-fascism in America. David Motadel is an assistant professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science
VIDEO -- Pro-Nazis gathered in Madison Square Garden in 1939
America is currently experiencing a wave of increasingly aggressive far-right and neo-fascist activism. Observers have routinely considered fascism an ideology alien to American society. Yet it has deeper roots in American history than most of us have been willing to acknowledge.
Consider the interwar period. The crisis years of the 1920s and 1930s not only gave rise to fascist movements across Europe – a moment captured in Ernst Nolte’s classic The Three Faces of Fascism – but around the globe. The United States was no exception.
Charlottesville reveals an emboldened far right that can no longer be ignored
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Across the country, fascist and proto-fascist groups sprang up. The most prominent among them was the paramilitary Silver Shirts movement, founded by William Dudley Pelley, a radical journalist from Massachusetts, in 1933.
Obsessed with fantasies about a Jewish-Communist world conspiracy and fears about an African American corruption of American culture, its followers promoted racism, extreme nationalism, violence and the ideal of an aggressive masculinity. They competed against various other militant fringe groups, from the Khaki Shirt movement, which aimed to build a paramilitary force of army veterans to stage a coup, to the paramilitary Black Legion, feared for its assassinations, bombings and acts of arson.
An important role in this history was played by radicalized parts of the Italian and German American community. Inspired by the ascent of Mussolini, some Italian Americans founded numerous fascist groups, which were eventually united under the Fascist League of North America.
Many commentators still feel uneasy speaking about fascism in America. They consider fascism to be foreign to US society
Even bigger was Fritz Julius Kuhn’s German-American Bund, founded in 1936. Its members considered themselves patriotic Americans. At their meetings the American flag stood beside the Swastika banner. At a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York on 20 February 1939, a crowd of 20,000 listened to Kuhn attacking President Franklin D Roosevelt, referring to him as “Frank D Rosenfeld” and calling his New Deal a “Jew Deal”.
The gathering ended in violent clashes between protesters and participants. Similar riots took place on the west coast. The New York Times reported: “Disorders attendant upon Nazi rallies in New York and Los Angeles this week again focused attention upon the Nazi movement in the United States and inspired conjectures as to its strength and influence.”
To be sure, most of these groups were peripheral. And yet historians have shown that the appeal of fascism among many Americans in the interwar years should not be underestimated. The ideology found prominent supporters, from the writer Ezra Pound, who from Italy called Americans for an alliance with Mussolini, to the aviator Charles Lindbergh, who in the 1940s campaigned against Washington’s entry into the war.
When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labelled ‘made in Germany’
Fascist agitators published widely circulated newspapers and aired radio shows, which reached millions, preaching virulent antisemitism, nativism and anti-Communism. Many of them had no obvious links to their fascist counterparts in Europe and cushioned their message with American nativism and Christian piety.
“When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labelled ‘made in Germany’; it will not be marked with a swastika,” a US reporter warned urgently in 1938. “It will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism’.” Sinclair Lewis’s novel It Can’t Happen Here, published a few years earlier, had made a similar point.
During the second world war, American fascists suffered a serious blow. At the great sedition trial of 1944, some of the movement’s key proponents were charged with treason. In the postwar years, however, scores of new groups emerged. Some saw themselves in the tradition of the interwar period, such as the American Nazi party, founded in 1959 by the flamboyant war veteran George Lincoln Rockwell, which copied its ideology and iconography from Germany’s Nazi party.
White nationalist and neo-fascist movements in the US have grown by 600% on social media, outperforming Isis
Yet many of these groups transformed and began to look very different from their predecessors of the 1930s. Not all wore jackboots, armbands and uniforms any more. Not all assembled at torch rallies. They embraced new discourses of globalization, migration and multiculturalism. Today, neo-fascism has many faces, with movements ranging from neo-Nazis to neo-Confederates to segments of the alt-right.
The United States has never been immune to fascism. But many commentators still feel uneasy speaking about fascism in America. They still consider fascism to be foreign to American society. They often assume that American exceptionalism makes the country immune to any fascist threat. Fascism has no place in our master narrative of American history. Conversely, in most global histories of fascism, America is no more than a footnote.
And yet it has never been more important to acknowledge the history of fascism and neo-fascism in America than it is today. Over the last five years, according to a recent study by George Washington University, white nationalist and neo-fascist movements in the US have grown by 600% on Twitter, outperforming Isis in nearly every category, from follower numbers to numbers of tweets.
Although they remain fringe groups, Trump’s victory has given them new confidence. Never in history have they felt more empowered. Many of them saw his election as their victory. The chorus of support ranges from the American Nazi party supremo, Rocky Suhayda, who sees Trump as a “real opportunity”, to the white supremacist leader David Duke, who said he was “100% behind” Trump.
How a 1947 US government anti-Nazi film went viral after Charlottesville -- Read more below this article.
They cheered as he failed to mention Jews on Holocaust Remembrance Day. They cheered as he refused to condemn the Minnesota mosque attack. They cheered as he relativized the rightwing violence by blaming “all sides” after the murder in Charlottesville. It is perhaps the first time in American history that the racist far-right sees the elites in the White House as its allies.
Trump has long done little to distance himself from these groups. In fact, he has all too often shamelessly tapped into their discourses, using dog-whistles, and continues to maintain a tacit, though increasingly shaky, alliance with them.
More than a decade ago, the historian Robert Paxton, well versed in the long history of fascism and neo-fascism in America, warned in his important book The Anatomy of Fascism about the “catastrophic setbacks and polarization” which “the United States would have to suffer” if “these fringe groups” were “to find powerful allies and enter the mainstream” of American politics.
His words may turn out to be prophetic.
David Motadel is an assistant professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science
https://www.buzzfeed.com/gabrielsanchez/american-hate?utm_term=.ttZj8L52o#.dgdWAYmN1
Disturbing Pictures From The History Of America's Nazis
Since the 1930s, American Nazi parties have sought to advance their agenda of hate, bigotry, and ignorance.
Posted on August 15, 2017, at 6:03 p.m.
Gabriel H. Sanchez
Gabriel H. Sanchez
BuzzFeed News Photo Essay Editor
In the early 20th century, US political groups such as the Free Society of Teutonia and the Friends of New Germany, aligned themselves with the bigoted ideology of Nazi Germany. These groups were known to distribute hate-filled propaganda and hold rallies that promoted anti-Semitism, racism, and their own twisted view of American nationalism. Some groups even hosted Nazi summer camps for American children.
Nazism in America reached disturbing heights on Feb. 20, 1939, when an organization known as the German American Bund held a rally in New York City's Madison Square Garden, attended by some 20,000 pro-Nazi Americans. Following the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent defeat of Nazi Germany, many of these larger organizations dissolved from the mainstream, but a revival of white supremacy principles during the civil rights era fueled a revival of neo-Nazi hate groups, such as the American Nazi Party and the National States' Rights Party.
This photo essay reveals the long and horrifying history of American citizens who have chosen to pledge their allegiance to Nazism since the 1930s.
This essay includes violent images that some may find disturbing.
All images and captions contained in this essay are from or adapted from Getty Images.
DON’T BE A SUCKER!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/14/dont-be-a-sucker-anti-nazi-film-charlottesville
The far right
How a 1947 US government anti-Nazi film went viral after Charlottesville
Don’t Be a Sucker, a 17-minute film made in 1947 by the US war department to warn against fascism, was retweeted over 130,000 times last weekend
Adam Gabbatt
Monday 14 August 2017 11.41 EDT
Video – Don’t Be a Sucker – 1947 – 17 minutes
An anti-fascist film produced in the wake of the second world war has gone viral in the wake of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville that culminated in one person being killed and 19 injured this weekend.
Don’t Be a Sucker was released in 1947 by the US war department, building on an earlier wartime version made in 1943. The 17-minute film depicts a man lamenting African Americans and “foreigners” taking jobs, before drawing parallels between such white nationalism and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.
A clip was shared widely on Twitter and elsewhere on Sunday, as people drew parallels between the scene depicted in the film and the current climate in the US.
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1947 anti-fascist video made by US military to teach citizens how to avoid falling for people like Trump is relevant again.
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Michael Oman-Reagan of the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada was among the first to share Don’t Be a Sucker.
Keith Ellison, a US congressman from Minnesota and the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, was among others to share the film.
It’s easy to see why Don’t Be a Sucker has had such an impact.
The clip opens with a man on a soap box declaring himself “an American American” and railing against people “holding jobs that belong to me” to a seemingly appreciative crowd.
“I’ve heard this kind of talk before but I never expected to hear it in America,” says a man with a European accent.
He is standing next to a man in a grey trilby, who seems to be being won over by the message from the soap box – until the speaker says that the US also needs to rid itself of masons.
“What’s wrong with the masons? I’m a mason. Hey, that fellow’s talking about me,” says the man in the grey hat.
“And that makes a difference, doesn’t it?” says the man with the European accent.
He explains that he grew up in Hungary before becoming a university professor in Berlin.
In Germany, the man with the European accent says, “I heard the same words we heard today”.
“But I was a fool then. I thought Nazis were crazy people, stupid fanatics. But unfortunately it was not so,” he continues. “You see, they knew that they were not strong enough to conquer a unified country.
“So they split Germany into small groups. They used prejudice as a practical weapon to cripple the nation.”
• This article was amended on 16 August 2017 to clarify that a version of the film was made in 1943.
WHAT, OR WHO, IS 2ND VOTE? THIS COMES FROM MY EMAILS.
THERE’S A NEW KID ON THE ALT-RIGHT BLOCK THESE DAYS, “2ND VOTE.” THEY LEFT THE FOLLOWING EMAIL FOR ME. THEY ARE AN ORGANIZATION SET UP TO EXPOSE CORPORATIONS THAT SUPPORT LIBERAL CAUSES (WHILE LEAVING ALONE THOSE WHOSE PERSUASIONS LIE TO THE RIGHT). THAT WAY THE RIGHT COWS CAN GROW FAT, WHILE THE LEFT COWS WILL GROW LEAN – VICTORY BY ATTRITION; SINCE THE RIGHT-LEANING AND “PATRIOTIC” GROUPS CAN REFUSE TO BUY THEIR PRODUCTS, THUS HOPING TO WEAKEN THEIR POWER IN THE SOCIAL, FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL “MARKETPLACE.”
NOTE THAT “LIBERALS” ARE THE BAD GUYS HERE AND REFUSING TO BAKE THE GAY COUPLE’S WEDDING CAKE IS ONE OF A CHRISTIAN BUSINESS OWNER’S CIVIL RIGHTS, BUT BEING SERVED WHILE GAY IS NOT! IT IS SUCH A COMMON THING FOR ANY OUTSIDE GROUP TO BE HARASSED OR WORSE WITH NO CONSEQUENCES, THAT SINCE ACLU, SPLC, AND SOME OTHER “WATCHDOG” GROUPS HAVE SUCCESSFULLY WON CASES IN FAVOR OF THE MINORITY, THE BIG DOG NOW CRIES “UNFAIR! SPLC IS ATTACKING MY NON-PROFIT MARGIN.
I PERSONALLY UNDERSTAND THE GAY AND LESBIAN DILEMMA. THEY “DISCOVER” THAT THEY ARE GAY RATHER THAN PLANNING IT IN MOST CASES. IT IS A PART OF “WHO THEY ARE,” AND THEY HAVE NO INTEREST IN PEOPLE OF THE OPPOSITE SEX IN MANY CASES. SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS NOT “A CHOICE,” AND THEREFORE NOT A “SIN” UNLESS IT INVOLVES A FORCED RATHER THAN A POSITIVE DECISION TO PARTICIPATE. THAT’S MY VIEW, AND AS A “BIG D LITTLE D DEMOCRAT,” THAT’S THE KIND OF SOCIETY I FEEL WE SHOULD HAVE; AND AS FOR THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER, THEIR VIRTUES SO FAR OUTWEIGH THEIR FLAWS THAT I WILL CONTINUE TO CONSIDER THEM A BASIC PART OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY.
IF THEY HAVE WRONGLY ADDED A GROUP TO A LIST OF BAD DUDES, THEN THEY SHOULD REVERSE THAT ERROR, REVIEW THE WAY THEY MAKE THE JUDGMENT, AND MOVE ON. IT INTERESTS ME GREATLY THAT THEY ARE MOST CONCERNED THAT THE MINISTRY IN QUESTION IS MAINLY WORRIED ABOUT ITS’ LOSS OF INCOME THAN ANYTHING ELSE. AS FOR 2ND VOTE, I’M GOING TO “UNSUBSCRIBE” THE NEXT TIME I GO TO MY EMAILS.
THE EMAIL:
https://mg.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=ccqud6rgfgqm0#2564278328
2ndVote
Here are your 2ndvote news headlines from this week:
MEET THE LIBERAL CORPORATIONS SUPPORTING SPLC'S ASSAULT ON CHRISTIANS AND CONSERVATIVES
D. James Kennedy Ministries has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) over the reckless and politically motivated use of the ?hate group? tag...
THE DEFAMATION LAWSUIT
http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/august/d-james-kennedy-southern-poverty-law-center-splc-hate-map.html
D. James Kennedy Ministries Sues SPLC over Hate Map
Coral Ridge broadcaster is first Christian group to take Southern Poverty Law Center to court over ‘anti-LGBT’ label.
KATE SHELLNUTT AUGUST 24, 2017 10:20 AM
Image: D James Kennedy Ministeries, Frank Wright
A venerable Christian ministry based in Fort Lauderdale recently saw its name listed on a CNN map of “all the active hate groups where you live,” as well as in local news reports as the No. 1 hate group in Florida.
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D. James Kennedy Ministries shares sermons, devotionals, and religious liberty messages inspired by the late founder of Coral Ridge Presbyterian, a prominent Florida megachurch. In media coverage after Charlottesville, the Christian broadcaster was mapped alongside about 60 “hate groups” in the Sunshine State, using designations from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
“Enough is enough,” said Frank Wright, president of D. James Kennedy Ministries, which filed a lawsuit against the SPLC on Wednesday. The organization also sued GuideStar and Amazon Smile for their use of the SPLC list.
Conservative Christian organizations have challenged the SPLC’s “anti-LGBT” category for years, but Wright’s is the first to take legal action—spurred by the controversial watchdog group’s increasingly vocal activism during Donald Trump’s presidency. The SPLC recently received a prominent boost from Apple, which pledged a $1 million donation and will launch a new feature to allow users to donate directly from iTunes.
The civil rights advocacy organization made a name for itself in the 1970s, providing legal defense for victims of the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists. (Wright and other conservative Christian leaders are quick to applaud them for this history.) However, as the SPLC expanded beyond race to other cultural issues like sexuality and immigration, it has also shifted attention toward what it calls the “radical right,” drawing allegations of bias from many conservatives and some on the left as well.
D. James Kennedy Ministries—formerly called Truth in Action—claims that the SPLC falsely labeled it as a hate group with the intention to hurt its reputation and fundraising efforts, according to a 39-page lawsuit filed in federal district court in Alabama (where the SPLC is headquartered).
The suit alleges that the ministry’s inclusion on the list of hate groups amounts to defamation—spreading false, harmful information—as well as a trademark violation, misrepresenting the ministry in order to drum up fundraising support. Wednesday’s filing made the same claims against the charity-research site GuideStar for promoting the SPLC designation, seeking an injunction against further use of the “hate group” label and damages from both organizations.
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Wanting to call out “hateful rhetoric” during a “highly politicized moment,” GuideStar recently added the SPLC designations onto its profile pages—including for Christian nonprofits who stand for traditional marriage like the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Liberty Counsel, the Family Research Council (FRC), and the American Family Association—then removed the hate labels after backlash in June. The controversy made many of these groups, their leaders, and their supporters even more upset over the prominence of the SPLC’s categorizations.
Over the past week, several Christian groups on the list demanded apologies and retractions for being labeled hate groups in the Charlottesville coverage, including by CNN. ADF took particular offense since the news overlapped with the fifth anniversary of an attempted shooting at the FRC’s Washington office by a suspect who used the SPLC hate group list to target them.
The FRC applauded the suit, saying “The SPLC is inciting hatred against Christians, which has already led to violence. It needs to stop.”
CNN later corrected the hate map it ran online, correcting the headline to “more closely align with the content of the piece” as being the SPLC’s assessment and not CNN’s own. It also removed the full list of group names, and stated “context has been added regarding some groups who oppose their inclusion on the SPLC list.”
In its lawsuit, D. James Kennedy Ministries also alleges religious discrimination by Amazon’s charity partner program AmazonSmile, which makes a small donation to shoppers’ designated nonprofits. Since AmazonSmile uses the SPLC as one way to determine organizations’ eligibility, and the SPLC based its “anti-LGBT” designation on the ministry’s Christian convictions, the suit claims that D. James Kennedy Ministries was wrongly excluded from the program and possible donations due to its religious beliefs.
Part of their defense against calling opposition to same-sex marriage hateful comes from the US Supreme Court decision that made it legal. “Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises,” the court wrote, “and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.” (The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability quoted the same line in its response to GuideStar’s use of the hate group label for certain Christian organizations.)
The ministry is being represented by one of its board members, David C. Gibbs III, who was the lead attorney in the Terri Schiavo case and works with the Christian legal group National Center for Life and Liberty.
Wright said his ministry has been preparing its suit for months, but moved it up after Charlottesville drew so much attention to the SPLC list. One older donor even called his office last week to ask, “Since when is D. James Kennedy Ministries a hate group?”
The organization took out a full-page ad in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel to dispel the characterization, running an open letter under the headline: “D. James Kennedy Ministries Is Not A Hate Group.”
“We do not hate anyone,” Wright wrote. “We have been falsely branded by the SPLC for nothing more than subscribing to the teachings of the historic Christian faith. We are a nonprofit ministry whose deeply held Christian convictions energize our mission to faithfully proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
D. James Kennedy Ministries released a documentary last month focused on the SPLC’s work to “demonize” conservative and Christian groups, and offers donors a pamphlet entitled “The Southern Poverty Law Center: Exposed.”
Christian ministries and legal organizations on the SPLC hate map include:
Abiding Truth Ministries
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF)
American Family Association
American Vision
Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM)
Citizens for Community Values
D. James Kennedy Ministries
Family Research Council (FRC)
Family Research Institute
Illinois Family Institute
Liberty Counsel
Mission: America
Pacific Justice Institute
Pass the Salt Ministries
Pray in Jesus Name Project
Ruth Institute
Save California
Traditional Values Coalition
World Congress of Families
Maajid Nawaz, a British critic of Islamist extremism, also threatened to sue SPLC in June over his inclusion on a list of anti-Muslim extremists, and political commentator Bill Maher offered his support. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who also appears on the same list, wrote for The New York Times that “Taking a stand against the neo-Nazi display we saw in Charlottesville is an impulse that should be cheered,” but Americans “need to find more trustworthy and deserving partners to work with than the SPLC.”
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