OCTOBER 27, 2018


NEWS AND VIEWS


FOR MORE ON THIS SUBJECT, SEE MY SECONDARY BLOG FOR THE DAY, “DOCUMENTING HATE IN THE USA AND IN OUR MILITARY 2018”

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/4-members-of-violent-white-supremacist-group-face-riot-charges-federal-authorities-say/
4 Members of Violent White Supremacist Group Face Riot Charges, Federal Authorities Say
OCTOBER 24, 2018 / by A.C. THOMPSON ProPublica

PHOTOGRAPH -- A still from "Documenting Hate: Charlottesville" that pictures Robert Rundo on the right.

Federal authorities announced riot charges against four members of the Rise Above Movement, a violent white supremacist group based in California. The charges relate to assaults carried out at protest rallies in California and Charlottesville, Virginia.

The charges against four men — Robert Rundo, Robert Boman, Tyler Laube and Aaron Eason — come weeks after four other Rise Above Movement members or associates were indicted on riot charges in Virginia, accused of engaging in violent assaults during the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in the summer of 2017. Only Rundo, Boman and Laube had been arrested as of Wednesday afternoon.

The four men indicted in Virginia have not entered pleas in the case.

FRONTLINE and ProPublica have been reporting on the Rise Above Movement since late 2017, and the U.S. attorney in Virginia noted that work.

The government’s accusations, made public on Wednesday against the four men, are laid out in a criminal complaint signed by an FBI agent who specializes in domestic terrorist groups.

“Through my training and experience,” the agent wrote, “I am familiar with terrorist organizations’ methods of operations, including their use of social media to communicate regarding coordination of strategic ideological goals, recruit and radicalize individuals, and coordinate violent extremist activities.”

The complaint then asserts that the four men, as part of the Rise Above Movement, planned and carried out attacks in three California cities as well as Charlottesville in 2017.

“The defendants used the Internet to coordinate combat training in preparation for the events,” the complaint states, “to arrange travel to the events, to coordinate attendance at the events, and to celebrate their acts of violence in order to recruit members for future events.”

Rundo, one of the men arrested this week, had been identified by FRONTLINE and ProPublica as the founder of the group. He is a native of New York City who had deepened his white supremacist leanings during a stint in state prison in New York.

The complaint asserts that investigators used the men’s social media and private communications, as well as videos and other material created by the group itself, to document specific acts of violence in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley, all in California, as well as Charlottesville.

In Huntington Beach, for instance, Laube is accused of assaulting a journalist at the rally; Rundo and Boman are also identified as having punched, kicked or otherwise set upon people at the rally on March 25, 2017.

It was not clear on Wednesday if the four men charged most recently had retained lawyers, and they could not quickly be reached for comment.

Documenting Hate logo

This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between ProPublica and FRONTLINE that includes documentaries beginning with Documenting Hate: Charlottesville, which aired on PBS in August 2018, and the upcoming film Documenting Hate: New American Nazis, which will air Tuesday, Nov. 20.

If you’ve witnessed or experienced hate crimes, harassment or incidents of bias, you can use this form to send information to FRONTLINE, ProPublica and other partners in the Documenting Hate project.


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Four Men Arrested Over Unrest During 2017 “Unite the Right” Rally
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Tonight on FRONTLINE: "Documenting Hate: Charlottesville"
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Documenting Hate: Charlottesville
FILM:
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WHATEVER IS FETID AND CORROSIVE OF THE GOOD, WE WILL SPREAD IT ON YOUR TREE OF LIFE, SEEMS TO BE THE MESSAGE HERE. THE KILLER WAS CAUGHT, SO WE SHOULD SEE HIM IN FRONT OF A COURT SOON.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46002549
Gunman opens fire at US synagogue
OCTOBER 27, 2018 8 minutes ago

The Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue in Pittsburgh GOOGLE

A gunman has entered a synagogue in the US city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and opened fire, police report.

Emergency services arrived at the Tree of Life Congregation Synagogue at about 10:00 local time (14:00 GMT), according to reports.

There are multiple casualties, a spokesman for the Pittsburgh police department said.

According to police radio, the gunman has now surrendered and is in police custody.

Police had warned people to stay in their homes during the incident at the synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighbourhood.



Lori Houy
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@WPXI_Lori
#BreakingNews Reports of an active shooter in a synagogue in Squirrel Hill. Huge police presence

10:33 AM - Oct 27, 2018 · Pittsburgh, PA
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US President Donald Trump tweeted to say that he was watching events.


Donald J. Trump
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@realDonaldTrump
Watching the events unfolding in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Law enforcement on the scene. People in Squirrel Hill area should remain sheltered. Looks like multiple fatalities. Beware of active shooter. God Bless All!

11:08 AM - Oct 27, 2018
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A service was taking place at the time of the shooting, according to the synagogue's official website.

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I DIDN’T KNOW THE NAME OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN MAN WHO WAS HIDEOUSLY DRAGGED TO DEATH BY THREE WHITE SUPREMACISTS IN THE INEVITABLE PICKUP TRUCK. I’M SURE THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE CELEBRATING THEIR LIFE. THAT BLACK MAN WAS JAMES BYRD, JR. THOUGH IT HAPPENED IN 1998 I HAVE NEVER FORGOTTEN IT. SEE THE ARTICLE BELOW THIS ONE FOR THE FATE OF AT LEAST ONE OF BYRD’S KILLERS.

THE STORY OF MATTHEW SHEPHERD LIKEWISE AFFECTED ME. I WOULD LIKE TO LOVE PEOPLE NO MATTER WHAT THEIR CHARACTERISTICS ARE, BUT I JUST CAN’T ALWAYS. CRUELTY HURTS ME, EVEN WHEN IT IS AIMED AT SOMEONE ELSE. THAT’S WHY I CAN’T STAND ASIDE AND SAY NOTHING. OFTEN WHEN I WRITE IN THIS BLOG, WHAT I AM ACTUALLY DOING IS GRIEVING FOR THE DECENCY THAT ALSO RESIDES IN HUMANS.

FOR SOME REASON, I HAVE ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD INSTINCTIVELY FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. I BELIEVE IF AMERICANS WERE MADE TO MEMORIZE MORE POETRY, WE MIGHT BE A BETTER SOCIETY.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45996040
Matthew Shepard: Hate crime victim interred in Washington DC
26 October 2018

PHOTOGRAPH -- Reverend Gene Robinson carries the ashes of Matthew Shepard, whose 1998 kidnap and murder cast widespread attention on hate crimes against gay people

Matthew Shepard has been laid to rest at the Washington National Cathedral, 20 years after he was brutally beaten and killed because of his sexuality.

The first openly gay Episcopal bishop, Gene Robinson, presided.

The men responsible for his 1998 murder admitted targeting Shepard because he was gay. His death is remembered as one of the worst US anti-gay hate crimes.

In 2009, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard Act, expanding hate crime laws to include sexual orientation.

After the public service, attended by hundreds, Shepard's ashes were formally interred in a smaller, private ceremony.

He is one of about 220 Americans interred in the capital's cathedral, including former US President Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller.

Read the full story:
The murder that changed America
Where is gay sex still against the law?

Image copyrightREUTERS
Image caption
Judy and Dennis Shepard walk behind Reverend Gene Robinson, who carries the ashes of their late son Matthew Shepard

The Bishop of Washington, Reverend Mariann Edgar Budde, also presided over the ceremony alongside the now-retired Rev Robinson of New Hampshire.

The service included music by the Gay Men's Chorus of Washington DC, LGBT youth chorus group GenOUT and Conspirare, a Grammy-award winning group that created music inspired by Shepard.

Rev Robinson, who was consecrated five years after Shepard's death, became a friend of the Shepard family, and it was through him that the National Cathedral internment process began.

"Let me just say I've been crying for a week now, so I'm pretty apt to cry during this sermon," Rev Robinson said in his opening remarks.

"Matt was luckier than most young gay men in 1998," he continued.

"He had parents and a brother who loved him. He loved his church, the Episcopal church, and they loved him back. And I have no doubt that Matt is in heaven."

The end of a long, torturous journey
Jude Sheerin, BBC News, Washington

It was a cathedral service both modern and traditional.

The chancel echoed to traditional hymns - and a recital of John Lennon's secular anthem Imagine.

There was the mournful toll of muffled bells - and a performance from a Broadway musical, sung by a gay men's chorus. There were Bible readings - and a homily from the first openly gay Episcopal bishop.

He openly wept, like many of the congregation. They came in their thousands to celebrate a life brutally cut short, a gay martyr whose ashes his parents have kept at home all these years for fear a memorial site would be desecrated.

On Friday, Judy and Dennis Shepard, dressed in black, held hands as they walked down the nave to take their seats.

It was just a few short steps, but it was the end of a long and torturous journey to finally lay their son to rest.

Read more about Matthew Shepard and the murder that changed America.

Image copyrightMATTHEW SHEPARD FOUNDATION
Image caption
Matthew Shepard was an openly gay 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming

On Tuesday 6 October, 1998, in Laramie, Wyoming, two men attacked Shepard, a 21-year-old openly gay university student.

They pistol-whipped him repeatedly before tying him to a fence and leaving him for dead.

Shepard soon became an internationally known symbol of the violence LGBT people face.

His death, along with the horrific murder of James Byrd Jr, a black man killed by white supremacists that same year, eventually led to the US government addressing gaps in federal hate crime law.

President Barack Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law on 28 October, 2009, expanding federal law to count crimes motivated by a victim's sexual orientation, gender or disability as hate crimes.

But some still contest whether Shepard's murder was a hate crime, and Wyoming is one of five US states that still have no criminal hate crime laws.

"The bigger picture here is what we human beings tend to do, which is to label someone different from ourselves as 'other', which is code for 'not really human'," Rev Robinson said during the service.

"People of colour know that. The LGBTQ community knows that. Every marginalised person and group in this country knows that. And we are seeing way too much of that at the moment."

Caitlyn Jenner ends support for Trump
Outcry over 'proposed change' to US trans law

Shepard's interment comes as the Trump administration is considering redefining gender as the genitalia one is born with. Doing so would affect around 1.4m transgender people in the US.


PRESIDENT TRUMP’S WORDS TO THE EFFECT THAT “VERY FINE PEOPLE WERE IN BOTH GROUPS AT CHARLOTTESVILLE,” WILL HOPEFULLY BE JUDGED IN THE LIGHT OF THE FACT THAT THESE THREE KILLERS WERE “WHITE SUPREMACISTS.” I BELIEVE EVEN TRUMP WOULD SAY THAT THESE ARE NOT SO FINE IF HE READS THIS STORY. AFTER THAT EVENT, EVEN THE CONSERVATIVE STATE OF TEXAS WROTE A HATE CRIMES LAW AND PASSED IT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd_Jr.
Murder of James Byrd Jr.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Byrd Jr. (May 2, 1949 – June 7, 1998) was a black man who was murdered by three white supremacists in Jasper, Texas, on June 7, 1998. Shawn Allen Berry, Lawrence Russell Brewer, and John William King dragged Byrd for three miles behind a pick-up truck along an asphalt road. Byrd, who remained conscious throughout most of his ordeal, was killed about halfway through the dragging when his body hit the edge of a culvert, severing his right arm and head. The murderers drove on for another mile and a half (2.4 km) before dumping his torso in front of a black cemetery in Jasper.[1][2] Byrd's lynching-by-dragging gave impetus to passage of a Texas hate crimes law. It later led to the federal Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, commonly known as the Matthew Shepard Act, which passed on October 22, 2009, and which President Barack Obama signed into law on October 28, 2009.[3]

No clear motive for the crime has been named. King, who prior to the murder of Byrd, had recently been released from a Texas prison, has claimed that he had been repeatedly gang-raped in prison by black inmates.[4] Berry and Brewer had also spent prior time in prison.[5]

Brewer was executed via lethal injection for this crime by the state of Texas on September 21, 2011.[6] King remains on death row while appeals are pending.[7][8][9] Berry was sentenced to life imprisonment and will be eligible for parole in 2038.[10]


HERE IS ANOTHER STORY ABOUT HUMAN STUPIDITY. I AM REFERRING TO INDIVIDUALS WHO BUY AN ANIMAL WHICH WILL CERTAINLY GROW UP TO BE TOO DANGEROUS TO LOVE. WHAT DO THEY DO? THEY TAKE IT OFF INTO A WILDLIFE AREA AND TURN IT LOOSE. UNFORTUNATELY, WHEN THAT HAPPENED IN THE EVERGLADES OF FLORIDA, THAT MAGNIFICENT NATURAL HABITAT, THESE PYTHONS THRIVED AND HAVE MULTIPLIED AND MULTIPLIED. THEY HAVE BEGUN COMING INTO PEOPLE’S YARDS. THIS VIDEO THAT GOES WITH THE ARTICLE IS BOTH WRYLY FUNNY AND INTELLIGENT. THERE’S NO SEASON ON KILLING PYTHONS, AND THIS LADY HAS BAGGED MANY. GUESS WHAT SHE DOES WITH THEM? SHE EATS THEM! I BELIEVE SHE ALSO GETS PAID A BOUNTY FOR THEM.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/burmese-python-invasive-species-in-florida-hurricane-andrew-legacy-cbsn-originals/
By MATT MORRISON CBS NEWS October 26, 2018, 8:08 AM
Burmese python invasion in Florida a hidden legacy of Hurricane Andrew

Watch the CBSN Originals documentary, "Burmese Python Invasion: Fighting Invasive Species," in the video player above. The full hour special premieres on CBSN Sunday, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET.

It's been 26 years since Hurricane Andrew became the costliest storm in Florida's history, but today residents of the Sunshine State are still paying the price in a way few would have imagined. Captive Burmese pythons let loose by Andrew's destruction have flourished in the southern Florida ecosystem, decimating local species in the process. And now there are signs this stubbornly invasive species may be poised to make its way beyond the state's borders.

Florida's current python problem had its genesis about a decade before Andrew hit. Pet owners and exotic animals exhibitors in the U.S. had started importing the Southeast Asian Burmese python — among the top 5 largest snake species — for their size and novelty in this part of the world. However, caring for what can grow to be a 15- to 20-foot-long, 200-pound predator can become overwhelming and dangerous. Floridians who found themselves incapable of caring for their pythons relieved themselves of that burden by releasing the snakes into Florida's Everglades, the largest wilderness area in the eastern U.S.

At 734 square miles, Everglades National Park is almost two-thirds the size of Rhode Island and filled with an abundance of wildlife. According to the National Park Service, it's the most significant breeding ground for wading birds in North America. The Burmese python was first sighted in the Everglades in the 1980's, but that turned out to be the calm before the storm.

On August 23, 1992 Andrew made landfall south of Miami as a Category 5 hurricane, one of the most powerful ever to hit the United States. Sustained winds whipped at upwards of 150 miles per hour, more than enough to rip roofs off homes and demolish buildings. One of the buildings affected was a breeding facility for Burmese pythons, and many of them escaped.

Hunting Excursions Latest In Effort To Curb Evasive Snake Population
A Burmese python captured in Davie, Florida, in 2013. JOE RAEDLE / GETTY IMAGES

Today the Everglades are overrun with the giant snakes and it's had devastating consequences. A 2012 study by the U.S. Geological Survey found that after Andrew exacerbated the Burmese python invasion of the Florida Everglades, populations of raccoons and opossums dropped roughly 99 percent and some species of rabbits and foxes effectively disappeared. Species that had long flourished here were being decimated by the aggressive newcomers.

Invasive species are often able to thrive because they lack natural predators in their new environments, and these snakes are no exception. According to Donna Kalil, a state-sanctioned python hunter in the Everglades area, by the time they reach just 2 years old, the only species that can threaten pythons in the Everglades are alligators.

"At this size, it can definitely take your cat and dog," Kalil said of one specimen she caught. Full grown, a Burmese python could swallow a deer or even a human being, whole.

"There's not many things that a snake is going to think about. They're going to say, 'Predator or prey?' Or, 'Can I eat you or are you going to eat me?'," Kalil said.

Florida's government has stepped in to try to control the burgeoning python population. In addition to contracting hunters like Kalil, they've allowed open season on the snakes all year long. Residents are authorized to catch and kill Burmese pythons by almost any means necessary, with no permit required, especially on private lands.

It's had some impact. As of May 2018, 1,000 Burmese pythons had been captured in Florida since the problem began.

However, the python population has grown far faster than hunters can catch them. The snakes inhabit a vast area and reproduce rapidly. One female can lay up to 100 eggs a year and has a lifespan upwards of 15 years. Estimates of how many Burmese pythons now inhabit the Everglades range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

With their numbers growing and their food supply dwindling, the pythons are expanding their territory. In November 2012, a Burmese python was spotted as far north as southern Georgia. The species' spread is limited by temperature and other environmental conditions it needs to survive, but experts fear that climate change will eventually enable the snakes to migrate even farther north.

Experts say once an invasive species gains a foothold in an ecosystem, it's there to stay, often with devastating consequences. As Florida's Burmese pythons multiply and expand their territory, they seem destined to become Hurricane Andrew's most lasting — and unwelcome — legacy.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


EVEN IF YOU’RE TIRED OF ARTICLES ON FACEBOOK, READ THIS ONE, BECAUSE IT EXPLAINS THE OTHERS. THE PUBLIC POLICY MANAGER TIM SPARAPANI QUIT IN DISGUST. I WONDER IF HE LOST HIS PENSION AS WELL? I HOPE NOT, BECAUSE I REALLY HATE TO SEE THE GOOD PUNISHED FOR THEIR HONORABLE ACTIONS.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/watch-how-facebook-built-a-surveillance-machine/
THE FACEBOOK DILEMMA: A TWO-NIGHT SPECIAL EVENT
WATCH: How Facebook Built a “Surveillance Machine”
OCTOBER 25, 2018 / by PATRICE TADDONIO Assistant Director of Audience Development

It was late in 2011, and Facebook was on the verge of something big.

The company was preparing to take its rapidly growing business to the next level by going public.

To the press, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg had downplayed the extent of the personal data Facebook was collecting, and emphasized a commitment to users’ privacy: “Our business model is by far the most privacy-friendly to consumers,” Sandberg said in November of 2011.

But internally, as part of Zuckerberg’s quest to show investors and advertisers the profit that could be made from Facebook’s most valuable asset — users’ personal data — Sandberg would soon lead Facebook in a very different direction.

In the above scene from The Facebook Dilemma, a FRONTLINE documentary that comes to PBS Mon., Oct. 29 and Tues., Oct. 30, go inside Facebook’s choice to seek new ways to collect personal data on users, wherever they went.

In the face of flattening revenue, in March of 2012, “she basically said, like, we have to do something. You people have to do something,” Antonio García Martínez, a former Facebook product manager, tells FRONTLINE. “And so there was a big effort to basically pull out all the stops and start experimenting way more aggressively.”

In the months leading up to Facebook’s initial public offering in May of 2012, the company didn’t just seek to gather more data on its users, but to partner with outside data brokers to be able to offer more targeted ads on the platform.

This is “data that the consumer doesn’t even know that’s being collected about them because it’s being collected from the rest of their lives by companies they don’t know, and it’s now being shared with Facebook, so that Facebook can target ads back to the user,” says Facebook’s former director of global public policy Tim Sparapani, who was so uncomfortable with the direction Facebook was going that he left before the company’s work with data brokers took effect.

For potential advertisers, Facebook’s moves would add up to a winning formula: “They made a product that was a better tool for advertisers than anything that had ever come before it,” venture capitalist and early Facebook investor Roger McNamee tells FRONTLINE.

But for users, it would mean something else.

“What Facebook does is profile you,” Zeynep Tufekci of UNC Chapel Hill says in the above excerpt from the documentary. “If you’re on Facebook, it’s collecting everything you do. If you are off Facebook, it’s using tracking pixels to collect what you are browsing. And for its micro-targeting to work, for its business model to work, it has to remain a surveillance machine.”

For more on Facebook’s growth and its consequences, watch FRONTLINE’s The Facebook Dilemma. This two-part documentary premieres Monday, Oct. 29 and Tuesday, Oct. 30 on PBS (check local listings) and online at pbs.org/frontline.

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"I Was Just Flabbergasted." Discovering Cambridge Analytica.
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Facebook Insider Says Warnings About Data Safety Went Unheeded By Executives
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FILM:
The Facebook Dilemma: A Two-Night Special Event