Party of hate?

[psiberzerker]

Get a better boyfriend?

[Athos_131]

Lakeview’s Chicago Comics Damaged After 20 People Stormed In After Pride To Pepper Spray Woman, Throw Things At Her

A popular Lakeview comics shop suffered thousands of dollars in damages after a large group of people attacked a woman in the store after the Pride Parade.

The area around Chicago Comics, 3244 N. Clark St., “got a little nuts” shortly after officials said the parade would be canceled because of rain Sunday, said Raphael Espinoza, who’s worked at the comic shop for more than a decade. The attack on the woman left him and other Chicago Comics employees shaken and dealing with damages of $2,500-$3,000, he said.

At about 4 p.m. Sunday, a woman came into the store looking “exasperated,” Espinoza said. She asked employees to call 911 and went to the back of the store; shortly afterward, two or three friends of hers came in and also asked employees to call 911.

Espinoza was going to call the police when about 20 people “stormed through the front door,” knocking over glass display cases as they sought out the woman who had come in first, Espinoza said.

Espinoza tried to block the group from getting to the woman and her friends and the group’s members threatened him.

“‘No, you’re not going to get past me,'” Espinoza said he told the crowd. “I don’t know what’s happening but there [were] way more people trying to come after this individual and no matter what the circumstances that doesn’t seem like a fair situation.”

But some of the crowd members went down a different aisle to get to the woman. The crowd cornered the woman and about three of them started spraying her with pepper spray while the others grabbed hardcovers books and products and threw it at her.

The group got spooked — possibly by someone saying they’d called 911, Espinoza said — and went outside. Espinoza tried to lock them out but they threatened him again, saying they’d break down the doors to get to the woman.

It wasn’t until there was a siren in the distance that the group’s members ran off.

Espinoza locked the door and checked on the woman, who was begging for an ambulance, he said. Her face was red, her eyes bloodshot and she was crying for help.

Espinoza told the woman and her friends not to leave until an ambulance came to the door because he could still see members of the group circling the store.

It was about 15 minutes before the ambulance got to Chicago Comics and the woman was taken off to a hospital.

Police said the incident was reported to them: A 19-year-old woman told investigators a woman was following her so she ran into the store at about 4:10 p.m., but the woman confronted her there and sprayed mace in her face. The victim tried to run off again but the attacker kept spraying mace in her face down the street.

The 19-year-old was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital and was treated, police said.

“It was a lot to process. It was a lot to figure out what was going on, but a lot of it was things I wasn’t gonna get answers for, like why they were chasing her. What happened?” Espinoza said. “A lot of it was trying to figure out what the next step was.”

Espinoza said the customers who were left in the store helped him clean and were still interested in buying items, which helped the shop. The estimate of $2,500-$3,000 in damages covers ruined comic books, hardcovers and knickknacks and doesn’t take into account the display cases that were broken, he said.

The shop’s employees, including Espinoza, were unharmed but were shocked at what happened and the threats that had been leveled against them. He doesn’t know what happened, if anything, between the woman and the large group that led to the attack.

“We were just a little bit shook over the situation and how fast it escalated and just how quickly everything happened,” Espinoza said. “I think we’re mostly just mentally shook, but physically we are fine.”

Chicago Comics has never experienced anything similar at Pride, Espinoza said, though a fight outside the shop during the TBOX bar crawl did result in its windows being broken years ago.

Espinoza said those interested in helping the store should keep shopping at comics shops and supporting Chicago Comics.

Chicago Comics is open noon-8 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Wednesdays and Saturdays and noon-7 p.m. Sundays.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Arizona Governor Extremely Mad at Sneakers

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey is big mad.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Nike was pulling the Fourth of July version of the company’s Air Max 1 sneakers. The decision came after Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who was blackballed from the NFL, reportedly suggested the company not sell a shoe embroidered with what is commonly known as the Betsy Ross flag, an early design of the United States flag with 13 stars. The report led to a chorus of Online Conservatives declaring the company was again pacifying the SJWs of the world, and on Tuesday morning, Ducey decided to join in.

Starting at 5 a.m. ET on the dot, Ducey launched into a Twitter tirade about Nike’s decision. Ducey wrote that “our system of government and free enterprise have allowed them to prosper,” which, sure, but underpaying foreign factory workers seems to have helped a good amount, too.

Then, the Arizona governor dropped the announcement that the state will no longer be offering any financial incentives to Nike for its recently-announced plant near Phoenix.

Just yesterday, the Goodyear City Council signed off an agreement to bring one of the international shoe giant’s manufacturing facilities to Arizona—the setup would be the third Nike manufacturing plant in America. The city agreed to waive roughly $1 million in permit fees and reimburse Nike another $1 million, per AZCentral.

As Nike raked in $9.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018, and as its effective tax rate went from 13.7 percent to 6.4 percent thanks to the Republican tax law, I’m not exactly sad to hear the Goodyear city government might hold onto its $2 million. (Cities: Please stop giving massive corporations our money!)

Whether or not Arizona or Goodyear follow through with the threat is to be determined. All I’m really hoping for at this point is that we get a video of Ducey burning a pair of newly-bought Air Maxes to own the libs.

Ducey must have failed Business Law 101.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

2nd Customs and Border Protection-connected secret Facebook group shows mocking images

At least one other social media group with an apparent nexus to Customs and Border Protection has been discovered to contain vulgar and sexually explicit posts, according to screenshots shared by two sources familiar with the Facebook pages.

The secret Facebook group, "The Real CBP Nation," which has around 1,000 members, is host to an image that mocks separating migrant families, multiple demeaning memes of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and other derisive images of Asians and African Americans.

One meme posted following her Monday visit to a Texas border station depicts a manipulated image of her gesturing toward a water fountain with the caption "Is this a toilet?" Following her visit, Ocasio-Cortez charged that people were drinking water from a toilet at the station, an accusation that acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan has denied.

CNN obtained the images after a report published earlier this week of another secret Facebook group, called "I'm 10-15," for current and former Border Patrol agents that reportedly featured jokes about migrant deaths, derogatory comments about Latina lawmakers and a lewd meme involving at least one of them.

"Racism and sexism in the Border Patrol just doesn't belong," said the first source familiar with the images.

The existence of the group "I'm 10-15" was exposed by the investigative reporting group ProPublica. That Facebook group changed its name to "America First," and then archived the page on Monday, preventing any additional posts or comments, according to a second source and a screenshot of the page.

CNN has not been able to independently access and review either of the Facebook groups in question or verify how many group members in the private Facebook communities are or were affiliated with Customs and Border Protection.

Some members of "The Real CBP Nation" Facebook group reacted to the shuttering of "I'm 10-15" in screenshots of posts and comments.

"Disappointed on (sic) all of you who abandoned ship," said one commenter, along with two laughing emojis.

On Tuesday, another group member wrote, "Lost 7,000 members in a day. Impressive."
An additional comment said in part, "We're in this till the end #pleasedontjicmeorcalloig," which appears to be a reference to the Joint Intake Center and the Office of Inspector General.

A Facebook spokesperson told CNN on Friday that the company had removed content from the group that was in violation of the social network's policy.

"We have removed several pieces of content from the Group 'The Real CBP Nation' for violating our policies on Bullying and Harassment, Cruel and Insensitive content, and Sexual Exploitation of Adults. We believe in giving people a voice, but we also want everyone using Facebook to feel safe. That's why we have Community Standards and remove anything that violates them," said the spokesperson in a statement.
It was not clear when the content was removed.

A spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection did not comment on the substance of the online postings, but said the new information obtained by CNN was referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility. It was not clear if Customs and Border Protection's internal investigative office already knew about the second Facebook group or the content that was posted.

On Friday, Customs and Border Protection spokesperson Matt Leas told CNN in a statement that the agency is "investigating the posts to determine the facts."

"If the investigation verifies that employees posted content in violation of CBP's code of conduct, the findings will inform management decisions regarding appropriate disciplinary action. CBP does not tolerate misconduct on or off duty and will hold those who violate our code of conduct accountable. These posts do not reflect the core values of the agency and do not reflect the vast majority of employees who conduct themselves professionally and honorably every day, on and off duty," he added.

On Monday, Customs and Border Protection said it had immediately informed the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General and initiated an investigation following a media report revealing the existence of the Facebook group "I'm 10-15."

Responding to an inquiry about the "I'm 10-15" posts, Customs and Border Protection's assistant commissioner for the Office of Professional Responsibility, Matthew Klein, said in a statement Monday that those posts were "hosted on a private Facebook group that may include a number of CBP employees."

The reports of possible social media misconduct this week prompted calls from agency leadership to hold anyone responsible for violating standards of conduct accountable.

"We take all the posts that were put out today very seriously. These do not represent the thoughts of the men and women of the US Border Patrol. Each one of these allegations will be thoroughly investigated," said US Border Patrol Chief of Operations Brian Hastings in an interview on "Newsroom" with CNN's Brooke Baldwin on Monday.

The issue is not new, however, for Customs and Border Protection. In 2018, a senior official warned all agency employees of potential discipline, after having been informed of a private Facebook group with inappropriate and offensive posts, according to a memo obtained by CNN.

"Recently the Agency was made aware of a private Facebook group page that only a specific group of CBP employee could access, on which inappropriate and offensive posts were made," Klein wrote.

The memo, dated February 2018 and titled "Social Media Posts," did not identify a specific Facebook group but reminded employees of Customs and Border Protection's standards of conduct and anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies for workplace and off-duty employees that prohibit certain conduct on the grounds of discrimination or harassment.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

CBP officials knew about derogatory Facebook group years ago and have investigated posts from it before

U.S. Customs and Border Protection was aware of the inflammatory Facebook page where alleged Border Patrol agents posted racist, sexist and violent images — and the agency has investigated posts from the group on at least one occasion, an official said.

CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility, akin to an internal affairs division, received content from the group once called “I’m 10-15” in 2016, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a personnel investigation. The office carried out an inquiry and took disciplinary action, but the official did not say how many employees were involved or what sort of discipline was dispensed.

Even though some in the agency have known about the Facebook group for as many as three years, CBP officials do not conduct regular monitoring of private pages, the official said, adding that it would potentially interfere with members’ First Amendment and privacy rights. Instead, CBP responds when it’s presented with reports of wrongdoing.

Officials have said they weren’t aware of the recent posts to “I’m 10-15” — which has reportedly been renamed America First — and Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of Homeland Security, pledged “an immediate investigation” after the website ProPublica published an investigation revealing a bevy of offensive posts on the page.

“Any employee found to have compromised the public’s trust in our law enforcement mission will be held accountable,” McAleenan said on Twitter.

The fact that CBP officials knew the group existed — first reported by Politico — enraged lawmakers and migrant advocates.

“What is profoundly disturbing is that the Border Patrol agents and leadership who posted these heinous things have power over migrants — including vulnerable women and children,” said Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Tex.) on Twitter. “This is truly a broken agency in desperate need of complete reform.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who was the target of sexually violent posts on the Facebook page, said on Thursday that CBP officials told members of Congress the agency didn’t know about the group.

“Looks like CBP lied,” she said in a tweet.

On Friday, another Facebook group of apparent CBP personnel surfaced, revealing even more posts containing insensitive, derogatory and lewd content. The page, called “the Real CBP Nation,” was first reported by CNN and has about 1,000 members. The outlet did not review the group but did obtain images of it and images posted there, including jokes about migrant deaths and more memes attacking Ocasio-Cortez.

A Facebook spokesperson told The Washington Post that the company had removed several posts to that group because they violated policies on bullying and harassment, cruel and insensitive content, and sexual exploitation of adults. Facebook did not ban the group.

In a Tuesday letter to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) said the posts to the “I’m 10-15” group also appeared to violate the social network’s “Community Standards.” Cummings requested copies of all the posts and comments made on the group, including deleted content.

The Facebook spokesperson said the company couldn’t comment on that group because it is cooperating with CBP’s internal investigation.

CBP has its own code of conduct that many of the disclosed posts would likely violate. The agency’s standards direct its employees to “sustain the trust and confidence of the public they serve.”

“The conduct of CBP employees,” the policy says, “must reflect . . . a standard of personal behavior that reflects positively upon, and will be a credit to, both CBP and its employees.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Jesse Watters Says the Women's National Soccer Team Could Get Paid Fairly if They Kept Their Traps Shut

Leave it to Jesse Watters to say some sexist bullshit about how women can’t be paid fairly if they badmouth the president.

Speaking on Monday’s The Five on Fox News, Watters said the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, who just won the Women’s World Cup amid negotiating for fair salaries and working conditions, hurt their chances of being paid the same as the U.S. Men’s National Team because they couldn’t keep their opinions about President Donald Trump to themselves.

“The point is, though, that the women are not helping their case by their behavior,” Watters said, after saying that the women shouldn’t get paid more because they don’t bring in as much revenue as the men’s team.

“If you go out and you disparage the president, you act in unpatriotic ways, and then complain about not getting paid equally, well, what did you think is going to happen? People aren’t gonna watch,” Watters continued. “I talked to many people this weekend who said, ‘I love soccer, I’m not watching the U.S. women because I didn’t like what they said.’”

https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/1148346558099927041

Watters’ argument is entirely sexist—he wouldn’t dream of tsk-tsk-ing any white, male athlete who’d said they’re “not going to the fucking White House.” Trump went berserk after star forward Megan Rapinoe’s comments, claiming she disrespected the country and that he was inviting the team to the White House whether they won or not. After the team won, Trump congratulated them, and later said their push for equal pay depends on the “numbers.” In other words, the women’s team can shove it.

Fine, look at the numbers: This women’s final bested viewership of the men’s 2018 final game by 22 percent, becoming the most-watched soccer match on English-language TV in the U.S. since the women’s 2015 final, according to Fox Sports.

Watters’ colleagues on the program shrugged him off, with Juan Williams saying he wasn’t aware of this “truth” Watters alleged, with Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld saying they didn’t care about the women sharing their opinions about the president. Perino also said she thought the women’s team should be paid the same as the men. (Fox News hosts, for what it’s worth, have historically not held this “politics in sports is fine” stance when it comes to other athletes.)

Ahh yes, just the right amount of “balance” to unabashedly wave around this idiot’s sexist assertions all the while appearing to not cosign them.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

North Carolina Republican Compared His Anti-LGBTQ Plan to Saving Jews From Holocaust

Republicans really gotta stop using the Holocaust to grandstand their own offensive assertions and proposals.

North Carolina state Sen. Dan Bishop, the Republican candidate running in a special election for the Charlotte-area congressional seat left vacated by last year’s ballot-stuffing scandal, compared himself to Oskar Schindler when discussing his plans to minimize the effects of the state’s partial repeal of its 2016 bathroom bill, according to emails obtained and published by nonprofit Real Facts NC last week.

Schindler was the German industrialist and Nazi party member who helped save 1,200 Jews from murder during the Holocaust by employing them.

In one email from March 2017, Bishop and conservative advocates discussed undermining the potential partial repeal of the anti-trans House Bill 2, which Bishop authored in 2016. Bishop proposed a religious exemption with language protecting “creative professionals” who discriminate against people in the LGBTQ community when taking on projects. The repeal happened later that month, but without the inclusion of the exemption.

When asked “Whom are we attempting to protect here?” by a lawyer at an anti-LGBTQ hate group, pointing out the small number of people this protection would apply to, Bishop responded, “As Oscar Schindler said, as many as we can.”

When reached for comment on the 2017 email by HuffPost, Bishop campaign spokeswoman Jessica Proud directed the publication to another email in the records request, in which Bishop explained his reasoning for specifying the exemption for people committing “act of expressive creativity.”

“Senator Bishop’s next email (four minutes later) further explained his thought about the drafting of a religious conscience exemption: ‘Define the right too broadly, bad actors go free by cynical claims of religious belief. Define narrowly enough to protect the people likeliest to be targeted by the real haters,’” Proud told HuffPost.

One might think a comparison between someone who prevented hundreds of Jews from being murdered and Bishop’s own Republican anti-LBGTQ crusade for the religious freedoms of homophobic bakers and painters is strange and offensive, but it’s right in line with the rest of Bishop’s shitty politics.

Along with authoring the “bathroom bill,” which prevented local governments from passing ordinances mandating the rights of transgender people to use the bathroom aligned with their gender identity and made North Carolina an international laughingstock, Bishop also invested in the white supremacist social media website Gab, and has called the Black Lives Matter movement a “violent, racist movement” akin to white supremacist movements.

Bishop won a 10-way primary for the Republican nomination for the seat, after Islamophobic pastor Mark Harris dropped his bid for a second run following last year’s scandal. He’ll face Democrat Dan McCready, who’s making his second run for the same office in less than a year.

The special election is on Sept. 10—which means we have just two more months until this entire mess is laid to rest.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Man charged with assault after punching anti-Trump protester outside Cincinnati rally

Protesters were waving signs outside President Trump’s rally in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday when a red pickup truck pulled up to the crowd. Someone in the passenger seat started yelling, WCPO reported, and a few protesters shouted back. Suddenly, the door flew open and a man in a green polo hopped out, fists cocked.

As the crowd gasped and screamed, the man, later identified by local media as 29-year-old Dallas Frazier, landed a quick volley of punches to the face of Mike Alter, 61. Within a few seconds, a police officer rushed in to handcuff Frazier.

Another protester captured video of the beating, which quickly went viral.

Frazier has now been charged with assault, according to Hamilton County court records. He’s due in court at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, WXIX reported.

The confrontation came hours before another physical tussle ended with an arrest at a political rally 1,800 miles away in Tempe, Ariz. At a campaign event for Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a man in the crowd was charged with assault after arguing with members the AZ Patriots, a conservative group, The Washington Post’s Annie Linskey reported. AZ Patriots members said he tried to grab one of their cellphones as the group was being escorted out of the rally, and police said the man, who hasn’t been identified, refused their orders to leave.

Trump has faced repeated accusations and legal claims that he has encouraged violence against protesters at his rallies. When demonstrators interrupted his speech inside U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati on Thursday, the president used the moment to further his recent attacks on big, liberal cities.

“You must have a Democrat mayor,” he told the crowd. “Come on, law enforcement.”

That protest ended peacefully, unlike the scene outside the arena.

Alter, who spoke with WCPO, said protesters had been yelling back and forth with a few Trump supporters headed into the event when the red truck approached and Frazier started shouting.

“These guys pulled up in the pickup truck, everyone was yelling back and forth at them,” Alter told the TV station.

Frazier, who reportedly lives about an hour south of Cincinnati in Georgetown, Ky., then hopped out of the truck, flipped off his hat and raised his fists. Alter took off his own hat and gestured at him, but he later told WCPO that he wasn’t trying to encourage a fight.

“I was more questioning him,” Alter told the station. “Like really, you want to fight?”

That’s when Frazier let loose, landing at least three punches to Alter’s face before another protester shoved him back toward his truck. An officer then quickly arrested him.

Alter, who said he was attending his first anti-Trump demonstration, told WCPO his first thought was, “What the hell? . . . He started just whaling on my head.”

Police also labeled Frazier as the aggressor. In a report obtained by WCPO, the arresting officer says he “exited the vehicle, stated ‘you want some,’ then struck the victim multiple times in the face.”

The man driving the red pickup truck was also handcuffed, but it’s not clear if he was charged with a crime.

As police led Frazier away from the scene, his arms secured behind his back, the crowd of protesters modified a favorite chant from Trump’s rallies.

“Lock him up!” they yelled.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Attorneys ask for immediate suspension of controversial DA

Coffee County District Attorney General Craig Northcott needs to be immediately suspended so the board that regulates attorneys can investigate whether he’s competent to continue practicing law, a newly filed request argues.

Attorney Sunny Eaton, writing on behalf of more than 300 other lawyers, urged the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility to seek an emergency suspension of Northcott's law license due to his own statements that he does not believe domestic violence laws should be used to protect people in same-sex relationships.

Eaton cited Northcott’s recent written response to an ethics complaint she filed against him in early June.

“Mr. Northcott’s written reply to the complaint removes all doubt as to his current defiance of the rule of law and intent to further engage in conduct beneath the decency required of our profession along with raising serious questions as to his competency and fitness to practice,” Eaton wrote in a letter delivered Monday to the board.

Northcott’s record has faced intense scrutiny since his appointment in May as a special prosecutor in a case involving House Speaker Glen Casada.

Eaton and her colleagues filed the complaint against Northcott after a video emerged in which he told a religious conference that he does not use the state’s domestic violence laws in cases involving the LGBT community because he does not recognize their relationships.

In his written response, the Coffee County DA said that he believes that state’s domestic violence laws are intended to “promote and protect the sanction of the institutions of marriage and family.”

“I assume that two adults who live together that are of the opposite gender are involved in a marital-type relationship absent some other relationship that suggests otherwise,” Northcott wrote.

In cases where parties of the same gender are involved in a domestic violence situation, the DA said he assumes that they are not involved in an intimate relationship.

“In fact, my intent was in part to honor what I know has been the desire of the LGBTQ community – keeping the government out of their bedrooms,” he wrote.

Kathy Walsh, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, had a different take.

"I believe the LGBTQ wants the same protections that are afforded to other victims of domestic violence," she told NewsChannel 5 Investigates.

We showed Northcott's statement to Walsh.

"What's wrong with that is the law describes domestic abuse. It is a crime when someone places you in fear, when someone abuses you. It doesn't say that they have to be someone of the opposite sex," she said.

Tennessee's domestic violence laws apply to people living together -- such as roommates -- even if there is no sexual relationship.

Walsh noted that domestic assault laws allow the offender to be locked up for a 12-hour "cooling off" period to allow the victim to get out of the home, people convicted of domestic assault can have their guns taken away and repeated offenses can be classified as felonies with even stricter punishments.

"If you are not being charged with a domestic assault, you don't get the same kind of additional protections. And I think the reason why we have additional protections for domestic abuse victims is because the legislature has realized that these people are in great danger."

Eaton wrote that, "due to the power of Mr. Northcott's positon, he poses a substantial threat to the public."

Northcott said his policy was based on the 1996 vote to amend the Tennessee Constitution to outlaw same-sex marriage. That policy was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.

Eaton’s brief says that position should disqualify Northcott.

“Any attorney who believes he has the power to ignore the decisions of the United State Supreme Court is in violation of his oath and is disqualified from the practice of law,” she wrote.

Nothcott’s letter also responded to a separate complaint that he has made statements indicating a bias against Muslims.

He rejected suggestions that he believes only Christians have constitutional rights.

“This could not be further from the truth,” he wrote. “I have never believed this nor will I ever believe this.”

However, in a series of Facebook posts, Northcott had called Islam an “evil” religion and compared it to the Ku Klux Klan.

“There are no Constitutional rights. There are God given rights protected by the Constitution,” the DA wrote.

“If you don’t believe in the one true God, there is nothing to protect. No one other than God has given us any rights.”

#Resist

[Athos_131]

McGrath criticizes McConnell over photo depicting her name on a gravestone

Democrat Amy McGrath, who is running to unseat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, on Monday criticized the Kentucky Republican for a photo shared by his campaign that showed a gravestone with her name on it.

McConnell’s campaign tweeted the image hours after Saturday’s mass shooting in El Paso, in which 22 people were killed and more than two dozen were wounded. Nine others were killed in a shooting in Dayton, Ohio, early the next morning.

The photo shows five mock gravestones erected in a patch of grass, flanked by two “Team Mitch” signs. One reads “R.I.P Amy McGrath, November 3rd, 2020,” a reference to the date of the 2020 general election. Another reads “R.I.P. Alison Lundergan Grimes, November 4th, 2014,” a reference to the Democratic challenger defeated by McConnell that year.

The other gravestones reference socialism, the Green New Deal and Merrick Garland, who was then-President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee and whose nomination McConnell refused to bring to the Senate floor for a vote in 2016.

“The Grim Reaper of Socialism at #FancyFarm today,” McConnell’s campaign tweeted, along with a photo of the majority leader at the annual picnic in Kentucky. McConnell has frequently referred to himself as the “grim reaper” of the Senate, and Democrats have described the chamber under his leadership as a legislative graveyard.

“Hours after the El Paso shooting, Mitch McConnell proudly tweeted this photo,” Amy McGrath, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and combat pilot, tweeted Monday. “I find it so troubling that our politics have become so nasty and personal that the Senate Majority Leader thinks it’s appropriate to use imagery of the death of a political opponent (me) as messaging.”

McConnell’s campaign said that the photo was of a display built by supporters and that it was based on a newspaper cartoon.

“Our supporters built an homage to the Courier Journal cartoon at Fancy Farm and we posted their work,” McConnell’s campaign manager, Kevin Golden, said in a statement. “Amy McGrath has tweeted this very cartoon several times and it’s shameful that she’s pretending not to know exactly what it is referencing in order to politicize a tragedy.”

In July, McConnell’s campaign tweeted an image of the cartoon, which includes gravestones reading “RIP Health Care” and “RIP Coal Miners,” among others, in addition to the ones bearing the names of his political challengers.

“Although I profoundly disagree with a few of these grave stones, this might be my all-time favorite cartoon of the over 600 in my career,” the tweet quotes McConnell as saying.

McGrath retweeted the McConnell campaign’s tweet, taking aim at his record on black lung disease and accusing him of “laughing about the destructive effects of his failures.”

It's too bad his press secretary didn't break their shoulder also.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Attorney for Montana man who threw teen in national anthem attack says Trump rhetoric to blame

The attorney for a Montana man accused of throwing a 13-year-old boy to the ground at a rodeo because the teenager didn't remove his hat during the national anthem said Wednesday his client believes he was acting on an order from President Donald Trump.

The president's "rhetoric" contributed to Curt Brockway's disposition when he grabbed the boy by the throat and slammed him to the ground, fracturing his skull, at the Mineral County fairgrounds Saturday, attorney Lance Jasper told The Missoulian .

Jasper said Brockway is a U.S. Army veteran who believes he was acting on an order by the commander in chief. He added that Brockway's decision-making has been affected by a traumatic brain injury he suffered in a vehicle crash in 2000 while he was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington.

"His commander in chief is telling people that if they kneel, they should be fired, or if they burn a flag, they should be punished," Jasper said. "He certainly didn't understand it was a crime."

Brockway, 39, told a sheriff's deputy that he asked the boy to remove his hat out of respect for the national anthem before the start of the county rodeo, Mineral County Attorney Ellen Donohue wrote in the document describing the attack. The boy cursed at Brockway in response, and the man grabbed him by the throat, "lifted him into the air and slammed the boy into the ground," Donohue wrote.

Conduct during the playing of the national anthem has been an issue in recent years, with some NFL players kneeling to protest police brutality. Trump once called for NFL owners to fire players who kneel or engage in other acts of protest during the anthem.

"Trump never necessarily says go hurt somebody, but the message is absolutely clear," Jasper said. "I am certain of the fact that (Brockway) was doing what he believed he was told to do, essentially, by the president. ... Everyone should learn to dial it down a little bit, from the president to Mineral County."

Brockway, who is charged with felony assault on a minor, is a registered violent offender after being convicted of a 2010 charge of assault with a weapon.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Conservatives Are Flipping Out Because the New York Times Said Slavery Was Important

In the past few days, the New York Times has been rolling out the 1619 Project, a hugely ambitious effort to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to American shores and place slavery at the center of American history. Conservatives—as they are wont to do—have been completely losing their minds about it.

The project, led by New York Times Magazine staff writer Nikole Hannah-Jones, is actually quite straightforward. As Hannah-Jones writes in her introductory essay, it posits that “the year 1619 is as important to the American story as 1776”—that is, that the enslavement of black people shaped the identity of the United States just as much as the Declaration of Independence. (Other essays look at how slavery helped influence the development of American capitalism, prisons, and politics, among other things.) It’s a pretty remarkable package, and, though nobody is going to agree with all of its conclusions, pointing out that slavery and white supremacy shaped the country that America became should be as uncontroversial as pointing out that the sun shaped the movements of the planets. You can’t get one without the other.

But you can always count on conservatives to pretend otherwise, and they have been at peak freakout about the 1619 Project for days. Here is noted scholar Newt Gingrich:

https://twitter.com/newtgingrich/status/1162981114383949826

That’s right, folks, pointing out that slavery is important is a bunch of wild propaganda. Gingrich was not alone:

https://twitter.com/bhweingarten/status/1163157584469250049

https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1163409199537229825

https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1163272966827724800

These people! I wish the New York Times was as dedicated to “delegitimizing America” as these maniacs think it is.

But nobody has been as dedicated to melting down over the 1619 Project as fervent idiot Erick Erickson.

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1163210628703707136

Erick, you’re so close...

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1163244123463327754

Hoo boy. Yes, that’s Erick Erickson wondering why we’re bringing race into a discussion of...slavery. And getting angry that nobody’s talking enough about where white people fit into all of this.

Honestly, it’s not particularly worth engaging with these people seriously. But, as ever, their instant conniptions over the notion that America is stained at its core by racism is very instructive. What they are asking is that the lies about the United States that have sustained them for so many years be preserved, because, as Erickson (perhaps inadvertently) hit on so accurately, once you accept the very basic reality that we are a country founded on the backs of slaves, you start asking other questions about the myths we tell ourselves so persistently—and that terrifies a hell of a lot of people.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Neo-Nazi SWATters Target Dozens of Journalists

Nearly three dozen journalists at a broad range of major publications have been targeted by a far-right group that maintains a Deep Web database listing the personal information of people who threaten their views. This group specializes in encouraging others to harass those targeted by their ire, and has claimed responsibility for dozens of bomb threats and “swatting” incidents, where police are tricked into visiting potentially deadly force on the target’s address.

At issue is a site called the “Doxbin,” which hosts the names, addresses, phone number and often known IP addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other sensitive information on hundreds of people — and in some cases the personal information of the target’s friends and family.

A significant number of the 400+ entries on the Doxbin are for journalists (32 at last count, including Yours Truly), although the curators of Doxbin have targeted everyone from federal judges to executives at major corporations. In January 2019, the group behind Doxbin claimed responsibility for doxing and swatting a top Facebook executive.

At least two of the journalists listed on the Doxbin have been swatted in the past six months, including Pulitzer prize winning columnist Leonard G. Pitts Jr.

In some cases, as in the entries for reporters from CNN, Politico, ProPublica and Vox, no reason is mentioned for their inclusion. But in many others, the explanation seems connected to stories the journalist has published dealing with race or the anti-fascist (antifa) movement.

“Anti-white race/politics writer,” reads the note next to Pitts’ entry in the Doxbin.

Many of those listed on the site soon find themselves on the receiving end of extended threats and harassment. Carey Holzman, a computer technician who runs a Youtube channel on repairing and modding computers, was swatted in January, at about the same time his personal information showed up on the Doxbin.

More recently, his tormentors started calling his mobile phone at all hours of the night, threatening to hire a hit man to kill him. They even promised to have drugs ordered off the Dark Web and sent to his home, as part of a plan to get him arrested for drug possession.

“They said they were going to send me three grams of cocaine,” Holzman told KrebsOnSecurity.

Sure enough, earlier this month a small vial of white powder arrived via the U.S. Postal Service. Holzman said he didn’t open the vial, but instead handed it over to the local police for testing.

On the bright side, Holzman said, he is now on a first-name basis with some of the local police, which isn’t a bad idea for anyone who is being threatened with swatting attacks.

“When I told one officer who came out to my house that they threatened to send me drugs, he said ‘Okay, well just let me know when the cocaine arrives,'” Holzman recalled. “It was pretty funny because the other responding officer approached us and only caught the last thing his partner said, and suddenly looked at the other officer with deadly seriousness.”

The Doxbin is tied to an open IRC chat channel in which the core members discuss alt-right and racist tropes, doxing and swatting people, and posting videos or audio news recordings of their attacks.

The individual who appears to maintain the Doxbin is a fixture of this IRC channel, and he’s stated that he also was responsible for maintaining SiegeCulture, a white supremacist Web site that glorifies the writings of neo-Nazi James Mason.

Mason’s various written works call on followers to start a violent race war in the United States. Those works have become the de facto bible for the Atomwaffen Division, an extremist group whose members are suspected of having committed multiple murders in the U.S. since 2017.

Courtney Radsch, advocacy director at the nonprofit Committee to Protect Journalists, said lists that single out journalists for harassment unfortunately are not uncommon.

“We saw in the Ukraine, for example, there were lists of journalists compiled that led to harassment and threats against reporters there,” Radsch said. “We saw it in Malta where there were reports that the prime minister was part of a secret Facebook group used to coordinate harassment campaigns against a journalist who was later murdered. And we’ve seen the American government — the Customs and Border Protection — compiling lists of reporters and activists who’ve been singled out for questioning.”

Radsch said when CPJ became aware that the personal information of several journalists were listed on a doxing site, they reached out and provided information on relevant safety resources.

“It does seem that some of these campaigns by extremist groups are being coordinated in secret chat groups or dark web forums, where they can talk about the messaging before they bring it out into the public sphere,” she said.

In some ways, the Doxbin represents a far more extreme version of Exposed[.]su, a site erected briefly in 2013 by a gang of online hoodlums that doxed and swatted celebrities and public figures. The core members of that group were later arrested and charged with various crimes — including numerous swatting attacks.

One of the men in that group — convicted serial swatter and stalker Mir Islam — was arrested last year in the Philippines and charged with murder after he and an associate allegedly dumped the body of a friend in a local river.

Swatting attacks can quickly turn deadly. In March 2019, 26-year-old serial swatter Tyler Barriss was sentenced to 20 years in prison for making a phony emergency call to police in late 2017 that led to the shooting death of an innocent Kansas resident.

My hope is that law enforcement officials can shut down this Doxbin gang before someone else gets killed.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump admin asks Supreme Court not to extend sex discrimination ban to sexual orientation

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court not to extend a sex discrimination ban to include sexual orientation, arguing that the language for the law was not intended for that purpose.

The Justice Department argues that the language in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prevents employment discrimination "because of sex,” does not apply to sexual orientation, in an amicus brief filed Friday.

The Justice Department says the term “sex” is not otherwise defined in the law, arguing that it therefore means the “ordinary meaning of ‘sex’” which is refers to a person being “biologically male or female.”

“It does not include sexual orientation,” the department said in the brief. “Discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, standing alone, does not satisfy that standard.”

The filing relates to the cases of Gerald Bostock, a man who claims he was fired by Clayton County, Ga., for being gay, and Donald Zarda, who claims he was fired as a skydiving instructor at Altitude Express, for being gay.

Bostock’s case was dismissed by lower courts.

Zarda filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint and a lower court granted summary judgement on the claim. A Second Circuit affirmed the decision. Zarda has since died and the case is now with his estate.

The Justice Department argues in the brief that Bostock’s case should be affirmed and Zarda’s ruling should be reversed.

The defense over the language in Title VII is similar to one the Trump administration made last week in a Supreme Court filing arguing that federal civil rights laws do not protect transgender workers.

#Resist

[Jed_]

So I watched this movie Divergent the other night for the second time.  The bad people in it are called Erudite, the scientists and other smart people.  It got me thinking about how distrustful people who aren’t smart of those who are.  Perhaps starting with Dr. Baron von Frankenstein movies have frequently portrayed smart people as evil.

Does this partly explain Trump’s popularity with the dumb deplorables and their hatred of liberals?

[_priapism]

Does this partly explain Trump’s popularity with the dumb deplorables and their hatred of liberals?

Yes.

[Lois]

Does this partly explain Trump’s popularity with the dumb deplorables and their hatred of liberals?

Yes.

Yes.

[_priapism]

FOUR MALE LAWMAKERS (3 REPUBLICANS, ONE REPUBLICAN WHO RECENTLY DECLARED HIMSELF AN INDEPENDENT) VOTE AGAINST HOUSE BILL TO MAKE LYNCHING A FEDERAL HATE CRIME

[Shiela_M]

FOUR MALE LAWMAKERS (3 REPUBLICANS, ONE REPUBLICAN WHO RECENTLY DECLARED HIMSELF AN INDEPENDENT) VOTE AGAINST HOUSE BILL TO MAKE LYNCHING A FEDERAL HATE CRIME

I don't know what's more ridiculous, that 4 men voted against it, or the fact that there was need for a vote to begin with.  It should just be.

[MissBarbara]

FOUR MALE LAWMAKERS (3 REPUBLICANS, ONE REPUBLICAN WHO RECENTLY DECLARED HIMSELF AN INDEPENDENT) VOTE AGAINST HOUSE BILL TO MAKE LYNCHING A FEDERAL HATE CRIME

The line in the story that caught my eye: "Republicans accused the legislation of being an overreach by the federal government and encroaching on states' rights."

I then noted that the three GOP lawmakers who opposed the bill are all from the South.

That's not a coincidence...