Hatred of Jews — It's Here, Real and as Dangerous as Ever

'Antisemitism is not just the Jewish community’s issue. It’s everybody’s'

Madison, Wisconsin — I was perusing an excellent new Substack website of a progressive, writing about the anniversary of the Iraq War invasion and lies.

Left a 'hello' comment for author from my wife and me, who had picked the gentleman up from the Dane County airport 20 years ago.

Then I was immediately trolled by this lunatic, one Clarence Wilhelm Spangle, writing in part: "Fuck you and your Jewish god. . . . The United States government is a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Israeli political Action Committee."

I had not been trolled like that in a while and not with this vile anti-Semitism.

I called a friend who has devoted the majority of his life fighting for civil liberties and against anti-Semitism, Mikey Weinstein, and received the following profile intel on Clarence Wilhelm Spangle:

First, the name ‘Nordic Pagan Solider” was not significant other than being connected to this Clarence Wilhelm Spangle. I found two other websites where this Clarence Spangle posts virulently anti-Semitic Hitler-loving garbage.  The first is Bitchute (a site similar to YouTube) and along with anti-Semitic videos such as "FUCK YOU AND YOUR JEWISH GOD RACE MIXING LOSERS," his about section contains the Nazi SS motto, “ϟϟ Meine Ehre heißt Treue ϟϟ”

 Ref: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/cwspangle/

From there, I found a website called Ancient Faces where Spangle posts pictures of Hitler and used the same Nazi SS motto. However, he also posted his interest in the surname Wilman and made a few posts regarding a real person named August E Wilman who died in Carmel, California in the early 2000s.  

Ref: https://www.ancientfaces.com/user/clarence-spangle/394802 and ref: https://www.spokeo.com/August-Wilman/California/Carmel/p40458225405

I’d speculate that he’s related to this August Wilman or a friend but with that nugget of real information he provided, I found a Clarence W Spangle living in Jacksonville, Florida.  Of most interest, this Charles Spangle also lived in Carmel, California from 2001-2012 just six miles away from where August Wilman lived. So almost certainly this Charence W Spangle living in Jacksonville, Florida is the one making these hate posts.

I’ve attached Spangle’s current address and phone information.   

The point is anti-Semitism is getting worse, and I urge folks to consider lending their voice against it.

It takes little imagination to contemplate nonsensical, incoherent myths, contrived races, demonized enemies of the people and lunatics in politics can explosively combine to catastrophic result.

If we could time-travel to 1930, and speculate on the rise of an anti-Semitic lunatic, we would likely postulate France or Russia.

In any event, post-World War II, we carry on an obligation to never forget and never let idiocy go unchallenged.

Lend your support to Stand Up to Jewish Hate.

Retweet:

Antisemitism is not just the Jewish community’s issue. It’s everybody’s. Retweet this video with #🟦 to show your support. #StandUpToJewishHate pic.twitter.com/fJrSRFtguW

— Stand Up to Jewish Hate (@StandUp2JewHate) March 27, 2023

My wife and I have always admired World War II veterans, though we know well U.S. work against anti-Semitism was less than perfect.

Still, we beat the Nazis, and their project to destroy the European Jews. 

Today and always, I salute fighters against Nazis and standing up to Jewish hate.

From Mikey Wienstein to Al Liethen, and millions more, thank you.

Wisconsin's Al Liethen - Stood up to anti-Semitism in WW II

Wokists Want Cheating for Black Students at UCLA, Prof Who Said No, Suing for his Suspension and Banning

Just when one thinks cancel culture and wokism cannot become more deranged, news comes a UCLA professor, Gordon Klein, is fighting back against his past suspension and banning for his refusal to help black students cheat, (see Common Sense with Bari Weiss).

Reports Newsweek:

A University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) professor who was suspended and later reinstated for refusing to give Black students leniency on their final exams following the death of George Floyd has filed a lawsuit against the school.

Gordon Klein, who teaches financial analysis, law, and public policy at UCLA,filed a lawsuit Monday claiming that he suffered financially and emotionally because of the incident. Although he retained his position, Klein alleged he was dropped from consulting jobs at law firms and other corporations and that his reputation was tarnished as a result.

Klein discussed his reasons for suing the school with a post on the website 'Common Sense with Bari Weiss' and said he was seeking unspecified damages 'not only to correct the tortures he had endured but also to protect academic freedom.'

A group of UCLA students had targeted 80 professors and demanded black UCLA students' performance on final exams be treated with "leniency," if poor grades resulted, specifying that the grades be registered only if black students did well.

This "no harm" grading system for black students only was demanded following the George Floyd murder.

Klein refused, and was summarily suspended and banned from the UCLA campus, (see Common Sense with Bari Weiss) before being reinstated in Oct 2020. 

Now, Klein is suing the University of California system, (Reason).

Writes Klein: "As I noted in my legal complaint, the student clarified, in a subsequent conversation with a university investigator, that he 'intended that the requested adjustments apply to Black students and not the class generally.'"

Klein had sent a reply to the student claiming to speak for all black students, and was met with a shower of invective; "One email, dated June 11, read: 'You are a typical bigoted, prejudiced and racist dirty, filthy, crooked, arrogant Jew kike mother f**ker! Too bad Hitler and the Nazis are not around to give you a much needed Zyklon B shower.'"

This is the mentality of wokes who would judge people by skin color, disregarding character and all other qualities and commitment, as they sink into old-school anti-Semitism.

Fight and Defeat Racism, Enough of 'Healing' Talk in Baraboo, Wisconsin

Baraboo, Wisconsin - We're white and proud of it.

Baraboo white boys deserve a medal

Madison, Wisconsin — The worst place to be black in the nation is Wisconsin.

That's because of, in part, the work of provincial, small-town bureaucrats exemplified in Baraboo, Wisconsin — home of the Nazi salute and white-power iconography.

Nothing to see here, just a bunch of crazy kids, is the current line of crap emitted by Baraboo Mayor Mike Palm and Baraboo School District Administrator Lori Mueller and other damage-control, say-nothing know-nothings, (Susan Endres, WISC-TV).

Baraboo is Wisconsin.
---
I lived here all my life.

My first 19 years, I lived in Fond du Lac — where nigger jokes and Jew jokes were frequent, and black people, at least in 1970s-early 1980s, did not reside.

I never met or saw one black person in Fondy, and I was a runner at the time and from a news family. I knew or at least encountered the entire City north-to-south, east-to-west many-times over.
---
Reporting from Baraboo on the first of three community meetings, Susan Endres, (WISC-TV), reveals some hope for an open acknowledgement of reality, as opposed to the bureaucratic blather of Baraboo School District Administrator Lori Mueller:

Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman said she doesn’t wish to condemn the boys, many of whom probably didn’t understand the meaning of the salute or intend to cause harm, but noted that the image must be viewed in the context of growing anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia.

'While seeing the image of a Nazi salute has a particular effect on Jews, this isn’t just about Jews. This about white supremacy,' she said, eliciting applause from the audience. 'There cannot be healing until we acknowledge and confront the political climate in which we live.' 

That's right.

For shining a light, however harsh, on the ongoing obscenity of Wisconsin, the kids deserve a medal.

Swastikas, Pro-Trump Graffiti Defaces Anti-Fascist Plaque Outside Synagogue in Madison, Wisconsin

Unknown person(s) defaced a plague honoring the anti-fascist
Abraham Lincoln Brigade outside the Gates of Heaven Synagogue
building at the popular James Madison Park in Madison, Wisconsin.
Photo is from Dylan Brogan at the Isthmus.

Update: See also Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism's report on the incident and the series documenting hate, (Ibrahim and Hall).
 ---
Madison, Wisconsin — A plaque celebrating the Abraham Lincoln Brigade's anti-fascist battles during the Spanish Civil War was defaced with swastikas some 20 yards outside the Gates of Heaven Synagogue building at the popular James Madison Park about one mile from the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.

The community is at a loss for words, (Isthmus, Wisconsin State Journal).

As even progressive cities face emboldened rightwingers, long-time Madison residents do not know where the bottom of racist activity lies.

Reports Rob Schultz:

'I'm horrified, I'm sad. I would have hoped that we were beyond this — especially in Madison,' said Dawn Berney, the executive director of Jewish Social Services of Madison. 'But xenophobia is everywhere, even in Madison.'

Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said that the graffiti was the act of ignorant people. 'Given the enabling rhetoric from Donald Trump, particularly since Charlottesville, we know that vicious racist and Nazi attacks have increased. While we know that over 99% of the people of Madison abhor and reject this terrible act, let it stand as a reminder that there are always a few ignorant people who would destroy our liberty and rights,' Soglin said in a statement. 'I ask that they come forward not to be punished but to explain themselves. True patriots never hide and attack in the darkness; striking in silence and in the shadows lies in the heart of cowards and fools.'

The act was committed in the progressive and activist Madison Isthmus, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the first of the Jewish High Holy Days.

Wisconsin has for many decades been a home to anti-Semitic groups such as the John Birch Society and assorted hate groups.

Most concerning is the generic fascism in rural and small-town Wisconsin often dominated by xenophobic white people who vote Republican and support Gov. Scott Walker.

Use the F-word, Morons

George Grosz, Rosenwald Collection; 1951.10.299;
National Gallery of Art

Updated - The collection of American ding-bats who voted the fascistic, anti-Semitic, white-nationalist, anti-immigrant Donald Trump into the presidency won't have a problem with Trump's backing the fascistic, anti-Semitic, white-nationalist, anti-immigrant Marine Le Pen of France.

Juan Cole notes this is the first time in American history a U.S. president backs a fascist France.

Last week, Trump said, "Le Pen is 'strongest on borders, and she’s the strongest on what’s been going on in France,'" (The Politico).

Have not to this point heard anyone in the don't-offend Democratic Party note Donald Trump is a fascist.

Or that Le Pen is a fascist. Or even the most-mild offering of a political valuation that fascism is anti-human.

From this morning's New York Times on the fascist National Front and Marine Le Pen:

The rapid-fire endorsements of Mr. Macron [against Le Pen], coming from across the political spectrum, represented a dynamic that has always prevailed in France when the National Front approaches executive power — the cross-party, anti-far right alliance the French call the 'Republican Front.' The question now is whether that front can hold this time, as well.

Ms. Le Pen has oriented her appeal around what analysts and politicians call the 'un-demonization' of her party — the shedding of its racist, anti-Semitic, Nazi-nostalgic roots. That strategy has scored big results. Until the last week of the campaign, when she turned even more sharply anti-immigrant, her speeches were shaped around what she depicted as regaining France’s 'sovereignty,' breaking with the European Union and “restoring” France’s frontiers.

The two largest parties in American political culture do not comprise a 'Republican Front' guarding democracy. Fascism as a word is a political imprecation in the United States, now.

Trump Adminstration Flies Under Color of Alt Right; Denied Holocaust Gassing During Passover

Zyklon B labels shown as evidence at the Nuremberg trials
The first and third panels contain the German Pest Control Company
emblem and the brand name Zyklon. The center
panel reads "Poison Gas!" "Cyanide Preparation! [skull and crossbones]
to be opened and used only by trained personnel."
The labels were used as evidence at the
International Military Tribunal trial of war criminals at Nuremberg.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of
National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

Holocaust Remembrance Day, (Yom Hashoah), this year is April 24. It would be fitting to do something, say something, express something as an openly anti-Semitic Trump adminstration stains the world.

Update: See (Fandos, Landler, NYT).

Each new utterance on the Holocaust by Trump administration officials should lead thinking people to question the very decency of the American presidency.

This week, the latest imbecilic Holocaust rant emitted during Passover by White House spokesperson, Sean Spicer, follows by weeks the series of prepared anti-Semitic histrionics by high-level administration staffers during International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January, and subsequent Holocaust-related follow-up statements in January and February that shocked the world, (Mal Contends).

Trump had campaigned in the months leading to the November 2016 Election Day using anti-Semitic tropes, drawing a respectfully appalled response in the American political culture.

At a White House briefing this week, Spicer justified the missile strike in Syria by falsely claiming even Hitler didn't use chemical weapons.

From NYT: " ... misconstruing the facts of the Holocaust — Nazi Germany’s brutally efficient, carefully orchestrated extermination of six million Jews and others — Mr. Spicer instead drew a torrent of criticism and added to the perception that the Trump White House lacks sensitivity and has a tenuous grasp of history."

Madness. Calls for Spicer's resignation abound.

White House spokesperson Sean Spicer raises
outcry with talk of Hitler, Assad
and Poison Gas (Fandos, Landler, NYT)

That the Trump adminstration—already staffed with anti-Semites, white supremacists and Alt Right crazies—has neither a fundamental understanding nor a decent appreciation of the Holocaust should lead to an intimidate eight-day halt of non-vital United States government operations. Spicer's resignation is not enough.

Spcier's comments are not a communication problem, not a mistake, they evince an indecent administration.

Every member of Congress should refuse to enter their offices and the Capitol, and district offices. As well, the closing of all Congressional offices is warranted until a full accounting by the Trump adminstration is accomplished.

This won't happen of course, the rightwing crazies and white supremacists hold sway in the United States, and resistance is weakening.

Notes Alex Emmons in The Intercept, whose text is reproduced below:

While defending Donald Trump’s strike in Syria, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on Tuesday that not even Adolf Hitler used chemical weapons during the World War II.

'You had a — someone as despicable as Hitler — who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons. So you have to, if you’re Russia, ask yourself is this is a country and a regime that you want to align yourself with?'

When asked for clarification, Spicer said that he meant dropping chemical weapons on unsuspecting towns of Germans.

'When it comes to Sarin gas, he was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Ashad [sic] was doing. … He brought them into the Holocaust center, I understand that.'

Spicer continued:

'In the way that Assad used them, where he went to towns, dropped them down to innocents — into the middle of towns — I appreciate the clarification there, that was not the intent.'

After the news conference, Spicer issued yet another statement, this one in writing:"In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust, however, I was trying to draw a contrast of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on innocent people."

[For the edification of the Trump administrator:] According to the American Chemical Society, Hitler stockpiled large amounts of Sarin gas during the Second World War, but never used them on a European battlefield.

But it is common knowledge that poison gas was his method of choice for the mass murder of Jews, LGBT people, and others during the Holocaust. More than a million people were killed by the poison gas Zyklon B — a derivative of cyanide — at the Auschwitz camp alone.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that Hitler’s overall death toll includes as many as 6 million Jews, over 7 million non-Jewish Soviet citizens, nearly 2 million non-Jewish Polish civilians, people with disabilities, Gypsies, and an undetermined number of political prisoners and LGBT people.

Artist and intellectuals risked their lives in NAZI-occupied territories in expressing opposition to fascists, militarism and genocide, (a word  did not exist prior to 1944, during World War II). Their work lives today.

Today, the Trump adminstration is launching a war on art, Only fools laugh at the future:

George Grosz, God of War, 1940 - Fear of the Other

Recall the anti-Semitic nature of he Trump adminstration revealed in January, (Mal Contends):

George Grosz, God of War, 1940 -
Fear of the Other

The White House failure to mention the destruction of European Jews and anti-Semitism in its statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day occurred because the White House is "incredibly inclusive" and takes "into account all of those who suffered," White House spokesperson Hope Hicks said in remarks to CNN this weekend, (Tapper, CNN).

The explanation by Hicks pleads that so many millions were slaughtered in the Holocaust that mentioning the European Jews is not consonant with the stated White House commitment to inclusion.

That Hicks' remarks are nonsense threatens to blow into a controversy the likes of which not even Trump has yet seen.

Millions of Americans openly assert Trump is a fascist and white supremacist, abetted by white supremacist and chief White House political advisor, Stephen K. Bannon.

The mission of International Holocaust Remembrance Day is to bear witness today, and the suggestion that inclusion compels the White House to not mention Jews and anti-Semitism is scandalous.

Writes CNN's Jake Tapper:

The presidential reference to the 'innocent people' victimized by the Nazis without a mention of Jews or anti-Semitism by the White House on International Holocaust Remembrance Day was a stark contrast to statements by former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Anti-Defamation League Director Jonathan Greenblatt tweeted that the "@WhiteHouse statement on #HolocaustMemorialDay, misses that it was six million Jews who perished, not just 'innocent people' and 'Puzzling and troubling @WhiteHouse #HolocaustMemorialDay stmt has no mention of Jews. GOP and Dem. presidents have done so in the past.'

Asked about the White House explanation that the President didn't want to exclude any of the other groups Nazis killed by specifically mentioning Jews, Greenblatt told CNN that the United Nations established International Holocaust Remembrance Day not only because of Holocaust denial but also because so many countries -- Iran, Russia, Poland, and Hungary, for example -- specifically refuse to acknowledge Hitler's attempt to exterminate Jews, 'opting instead to talk about generic suffering rather than recognizing this catastrophic incident for what is was: the intended genocide of the Jewish people.' 

The latest [January 2016] outrage by the White House follows Trump's executive order banning Muslims from seven countries from entering the United States in an act that signals Trump's open commitment to racism and Islamophobia as official policy.

Trump Playing with Xenophobia with His Own Dangerous Pathology

Asked about anti-Semitism, Trump ignores question,cites
2016 Electoral College win in response,
(Brian Williams, 11th Hour)

Anti-Semitic incidences on the rise, you ask? Hey, I won 306 Electoral College votes, says Trump.

What?

It's nothing new for a politician to ignore a reporter's question and offer a reply that is utterly unresponsive to what is asked. Some call it message discipline.

However, Donald Trump has a problem, the problem of the psychopath—displaying no empathy and a self-absorption so complete that not even a query about anti-Semitism and hate can pierce his pathology.

Here is the question directed at Trump at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday:

Question: "Mr. President, Since your election campaign and even after your victory, we've seen a sharp rise in anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic incident[s] across the United States, and I wonder what do you say to those among the Jewish community in the States and in Israel and maybe around the world who believe and feel that your administration is playing with xenophobia and maybe racist tones."

Trump: "Well, I just want to say that we are very honored by the victory that we had. 306 Electoral College votes. We were not supposed to crack 220, you know that, right? There was no way to 221. But then they said there's no way to 270....

Text of reporter's question and Trump's reply is below; from Sopan Dap of the New York Times, (Twitter):

(Twitter)

 Video below from Brian Williams 11th Hour, and Talking Points Memo:

Tracking Hate during the Trump Administration

Goya Por una navaja (For a clasp knife). A garroted priest
grasps a crucifix in his hands. Pinned to his chest is a
description of the crime for which he was
killed—possession of a knife (Disasters of War;
Plate 34, Wikiwand).

Post-election analyses have attempted to discern the meaning of the Donald Trump election.

It's indisputable: Trump's relentless invectives against blacks, Latinos, women, Muslims, and LGBTQ Americans, (actually running a campaign on an open platform of hate), did not disqualify this lunatic who has created a disturbing 21st-century alliance with Russia, domestic white supremacists, the 'Christian' right, the rightist elements of the FBI and totalitarian movements around the globe.

Most Americans recognize Trump as a pathological liar and a malignant sociopath, but nevertheless some 25 percent of the electorate still voted for him. But the votes do not support coherent policies beyond transferring money and power to billionaires and diminishing civil liberties.

The fact is that most Trump voters do not care about public policy, do not know public policy, macro-economics, fiscal policy, monetary policy and federalism, for example. Trump voters are not too keen on Constitutional democracy as a system of governance, period.

Trump is a visceral embodiment of resentment and angst, a figure that says 'fuck you' to blacks, Latinos, immigrants, liberal Jews, Hillary Clinton, multi-national corporations and others while Trump promises to erect an America-first edifice—a vague, nonsensical construct hazy in the "post-truth, post-fact, post-everything Trump fog," (Schwarz, The Intercept). Trump is the strutting reenactment of the American myth.

Much of the corporate press—refusing to jettison the ridiculous journalistic conventions of neutrality and nihilism—has come to the realization that pretending that Trump is not a fascist and burying its collective head in the sand is no longer a tenable approach to reporting the news.

Now comes a corrective action from the New York Times, an editorial column entitled This Week in Hate that tracks hate crimes and harassment around the country since the election of Donald Trump.

Begun last year and now in full operation one day after the inauguration, the Times has decided to chronicle what is happening in the faith that knowledge begets action. The Times' publishing decision is an important step.

From This Week in Hate:

This Week in Hate highlights hate crimes and harassment around the country since the election of Donald Trump.
Reliable data on hate crimes is hard to come by. As reports of racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic harassment and attacks poured in after the election of Donald Trump, many Americans wondered whether they represented a nationwide increase in hate crime. While the Southern Poverty Law Center saw a dramatic increase in reports after the election, it’s not yet clear whether this indicates a nationwide trend.

That’s one reason This Week in Hate is joining with ProPublica and a coalition of other organizations to work on, a project that aims to gather data on hate crimes and incidents of bias around the country. Documenting Hate will analyze information from law enforcement, news reports, nonprofit groups and individuals in order to investigate topics like how many hate crimes occur annually, which parts of the country have the highest prevalence and whether the frequency or severity of hate crimes has changed since the election of Mr. Trump. This Week in Hate and several news organizations will publish results from those investigations. Here are some reports of hate crimes and harassment that have drawn public attention in recent days.

• As many as 16 Jewish community facilities in the Eastern United States received bomb threats last Monday. At a community center in Rockville, Md., more than 300 people, including 200 preschoolers, were evacuated. No bombs were found at the facilities, but the F.B.I. is investigating the threats.
• A swastika and the word “bomb” were found on a bathroom wall at a Jewish community center on Staten Island last Wednesday. Police investigated and did not find a bomb.
 • Last Monday, a woman in Nampa, Idaho, discovered that her car had been vandalized with the words “go back”; paint was poured over the car, its windows were smashed and its radio and air conditioner were damaged. The car’s owner was born in Nigeria but is not a recent immigrant. Police are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.
• A former Republican Party county chairman in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, discovered last Monday that his van had been vandalized with an anti-Trump message.
• The garage of a family in Sylvania Township, a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, was vandalized last Tuesday with a swastika and a racist message aimed at Arabs. Police are investigating the incident. One of the family members, 21-year-old Malak Ayache, has painted over the vandalism with the message “Toledo [heart]s Arabs” to mark the support her family has received from neighbors since the incident. “I honestly want everyone to know that this negative, hateful act is not going to affect this family,” she said.

Documenting Hate has developed a form to help people report hate crimes or incidents of bias for inclusion in the data analysis. If you have experienced, witnessed or read about a hate crime or incident of bias or harassment, you can use the form to send information about the incident to the Documenting Hate partners, including This Week in Hate.

The form is not a report to law enforcement or any government agency. You can access the form here
If you have experienced harassment, these resources may be helpful. If you witness harassment, here are some tips for responding. You can contact This Week in Hate at weekinhate@nytimes.com #

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Condemns Hateful Rhetoric at White Nationalist Conference

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum condemns white
nationalist conference held by the Neo-NAZI National
Policy Institute on Nov. 19 at the Ronald Reagan Building

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has issued a statement of condemnation aimed at exhortations and statements made at a conference of American white nationalists.

From United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:

November 21, 2016

MUSEUM CONDEMNS HATEFUL RHETORIC AT WHITE NATIONALIST CONFERENCE; CALLS ON THE NATION TO CONFRONT HATE SPEECH

WASHINGTON, DC – The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is deeply alarmed at the hateful rhetoric at a conference of white nationalists held on November 19 at the Ronald Reagan Building just blocks from the Museum.

According to press reports, Richard Spencer, the leader of the National Policy Institute – a white nationalist think tank – that sponsored the conference, made several direct and indirect references to Jews and other minorities, often alluding to Nazism. He spoke in German to quote Nazi propaganda and refer to the mainstream media. He implied that the media was protecting Jewish interests and said, “One wonders if these people are people at all?” He said that America belongs to white people. His statement that white people face a choice of “conquer or die” closely echoes Adolf Hitler’s view of Jews and that history is a racial struggle for survival.

The targeting of Jews was central to Nazi racist ideology. The Germans attempted to kill every Jewish man, woman and child they could find. Nazi racism extended to other groups. By the end of World War II, the Germans and their collaborators had murdered six million Jews and millions of other innocent civilians, many of whom were targeted for racial reasons.

The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words. The Museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a living memorial to the Holocaust, inspires citizens and leaders to confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity. Its far-reaching educational programs and global impact are made possible by donors nationwide. Learn more at ushmm.org.
###

White Supremacist Blasts Merrick Garland and "Jewish Agenda"

According to David Duke, "three open Jewish members" is too many on SCOTUS, because "those Jews" will do "whatever the Jewish agenda is."

Hrafnkell Haraldsson has the story.

Paul Ryan Begins Congressional Malpractice as Speaker

Scott Walker gazes and tears up as Paul Ryan speaks at
Republican convention in 2102 in Tampa, Florida.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) is playing hard-right politics—posturing and lying—with real lives and deadly consequences as he begins his tenure as House Speaker.

The Ayn Rand fanatic is taken seriously by establishment Washington, and is routinely accurately described as a liar and fool by Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman and the majority of Janesville, Wisconsin voters.

It's no surprise 'Lying' Ryan is playing the demagogue on the refugee crisis and ginning up fears of the others as one of his first acts of duplicity as Speaker.

Notes a New York Times lede editorial:

The House is expected to vote Thursday on H.R. 4038, the American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015, which Republican sponsors say 'would put in place the most robust national-security vetting process in history' for refugees, one that would 'do everything possible to prevent terrorists from reaching our shores.'

Conceived partly in response to the Paris attacks, the bill seeks to 'pause' admission of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Though there are real fears of terrorism, this measure represents election-year pandering to the xenophobia that rears up when threats from abroad arise. People who know these issues — law enforcement and intelligence professionals, immigration officials and humanitarian groups — say that this wrongheaded proposal simply would not protect Americans from 'foreign enemies.'

Ryan's sop to Republican-voting bigots is SOP.

Less known is Ryan's 2014 floating an onerous but at least a version of a comprehensive immigration bill that had support of the vast majority of the American public, the majority of the House and Senate but plays horribly with the neo-fascist GOP base.

Ryan had stoked speculation he was considering a run for the presidency earlier this year, a consideration aborted perhaps after Ryan learned he might to have work weekends, and his noise about immigration reform bill breaking up families would come back to haunt him, (Kim, The Politico) (Frontline, WGBH Educational Foundation).

Republicans bring shame

A House Speaker Ryan has to appear and behave bigoted and xenophobic about refugees fleeing, about the only mission accomplished by Republican-led Congressional sessions beyond sabotaging a robust economic recovery.

Obama Action for Refugees and Immigrants

President Obama's two executive orders regarding executive prosecutorial discretion (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA)) on undocumented humans were as expected halted by the rightist Judge Andrew S. Hanen on Feb. 16, who ordered a preliminary injunction on the orders.

Hanen has a history of targeting immigrant communities, (Hennessy-Fiske, LA Times).

Hanen's injunction and other litigation were affirmed by decisions written by Federalist Society U.S. District Judge, Jerry Edwin Smith, of the rightest Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in State of Texas et al v. United States of America et al (No. 15-40238) (November 2015) writing for a split three-judge panel earlier this month.

In dissent (pp. 71-124), Judge Carolyn Dineen King eviscerates the tortured logic and contrived justification used in State of Texas et al v. United States of America et al to be considered by the federal judiciary, noting the inescapable conclusion that the case's non-justiciability, (its wrongful hearing by the Court), is admitted by plaintiffs. See also Judge Stephen A. Higginson's powerful dissent (pp 43-68) in the Fifth Circuit panel's denial of the "motion to stay the preliminary injunction or narrow its scope pending appeal," (New York Times document, May, 2015).

Writes Judge King, "Plaintiffs concede that if the DAPA Memorandum is only an exercise in enforcement  discretion—without  granting  any  'additional  benefits'—it  is unreviewable under  5  U.S.C.  §  701(a), (p. 84)."

Obama is expected to appeal the case to the United States Supreme Court but he faces a tight deadline, (Worth Tow, Frontline).

The solution is simple: Comprehensive and total amnesty for 11.3 million undocumented humans in the face of the paralysis and corruption of Congress and its abdication of America at its best, protected by a corrupt judiciary.

Those white, low-information bigots who cannot stand a rainbow-colored America can leave if they like and establish a white homeland somewhere and worship Odin.

Scott Walker, GOP Demonize as Pres Obama's Finest Hour Arises

'Go back to where you came from.' Passengers aboard the St. Louis
in 1939. These refugees from Nazi Germany were forced to return
to Europe after both Cuba and the US denied them refuge.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Dr. Liane Reif-Lehrer

Scott Walker and Republican governors' demagogic appeals to the xenophobic swaths of America are predictable, stupid and reprehensible.

Legally, Republican governors have no standing to determine who resides in respective states, the ludicrous Republican position propagated after President Obama "announced a plan to resettle at least 10,000 Syrian refugees in the United States next year," (White House), per the law, with orderly safety and security procedures and out a sense of simple decency.

Factually, the refugees fleeing Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) are victims of the same aggregations of apocalyptic, mystical crazies created by U.S. military intervention, destabilization and murder of millions of Muslims, (Cole, Informed Comment) (Welton, CounterPunch) cheered on by Republicans calling for more war now while demonizing refugees.

Historically, the Republican governors' bleating 'we will not accept refugees," is reminiscent of the infamous American rejection of Jews fleeing NAZI Germany and being refused permission to emigrate to the Untied States in 1939.

Consider the voyage of German transatlantic liner St. Louis in 1939 loaded with over 900 Jewish passengers fleeing the Third Reich, seeking Cuba and the United States as destinations.

Many Cubans resented the relatively large number of refugees (including 2,500 Jews), whom the government had already admitted into the country, because they appeared to be competitors for scarce jobs.

Hostility toward immigrants fueled both antisemitism and xenophobia. Both agents of Nazi Germany and indigenous right-wing movements hyped the immigrant issue in their publications and demonstrations, claiming that incoming Jews were Communists. Two of the papers—Diario de la Marina, owned by the influential Rivero family, and Avance, owned by the Zayas family, had supported the Spanish fascist leader General Francisco Franco, who, after a three-year civil war, had just overthrown the Spanish Republic in the spring of 1939 with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. ...

Following the US government's refusal to permit the passengers to disembark, the St. Louis sailed back to Europe on June 6, 1939. The passengers did not return to Germany, however. Jewish organizations (particularly the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee) negotiated with four European governments to secure entry visas for the passengers: Great Britain took 288 passengers; the Netherlands admitted 181 passengers, Belgium took in 214 passengers; and 224 passengers found at least temporary refuge in France. Of the 288 passengers admitted by Great Britain, all survived World War II save one, who was killed during an air raid in 1940. Of the 620 passengers who returned to continent, 87 (14%) managed to emigrate before the German invasion of Western Europe in May 1940. 532 St. Louis passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278 survived the Holocaust. 254 died: 84 who had been in Belgium; 84 who had found refuge in Holland, and 86 who had been admitted to France. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Is Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) the NAZIs? No, but not for lack of trying.

Republicans conflate anyone convenient with Daesh, playing on ignorance and hate and hoping nobody notices what they're doing.

The Republican Party's demagoguery towards perceived dangerous and inferior classes of people ought to alarm and appall any decent American as Islamophobia is thriving, U.S. Mosques are threatened, and a Mosque in Canada is set ablaze by nativists, (Goodman, Democracy Now).

America under rightwing pressure turned the St. Louis back less than one year before Americans in streets across the country celebrated the fall of Paris to the NAZIs in 1940.

As Republicans preach hate today, their end game won't be political failure, it is a moral failure with tragic consequences to follow.

"To slam the door in their faces -- to decide not to help when we know that we can help -- would be a betrayal of our values. It would be un-American," said President Obama in a statement explaining the defense of Syrian refugees fleeing Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), (Pope, White House; November 17, 2015).

As the great journalist Ralph Mcgill wrote in 1958 following the dynamiting of a Jewish Temple in Atlanta:

Let us face the facts. This is a harvest. It is the crop of things sown. ...

It is not possible to preach lawlessness and restrict it.

To be sure, none said go bomb a Jewish temple or a school. But let it be understood that when leadership in high places in any degree fails to support constituted authority, it opens the gates to all those who wish to take law into their hands.

Thank you, President Obama for sticking up for decency in America.

"This embrace of humanity's deepest values is itself a rejection of the tortured ISIS worldview," notes Richard Fontaine in the Wall Street Journal.

We need this embrace not just because it's decent but also because the rightwing Republicans are playing with fire and dynamite.

State Journal Backs Scott Walker in News Columns

Scott Walker received some good news today: Frontpage coverage in the Wisconsin State Journal in a long piece by Matthew DeFour who decided to double as a press aide for the Walker campaign.

DeFour covered an event in Ames, Iowa sponsored by the evangelical The Family Leader, which is partnered with the virulently misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic Focus on the Family and Family Research Council, part of "an exclusionist religious movement in this country [that] has attempted to restore what it perceives as the ruins of a Christian nation by more closely seeking to unite its version of Christianity with state power." (Foxman, ADL (2005), citing The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance and Pluralism in America (1994)).

DeFour left out these facts in his reporting of the Family Leadership Summit, the proper biblical kind of "family."

DeFour writes this religious right Christianites' event was composed of "religious conservatives." Actually, a more apt explanation would include the word, Christian Dominionist.

And DeFour quotes Scott Walker speaking about his 'faith': "It defines not just who I am and what I believe in, but how I treat others. I hope people saw that even at the height of when 100,000 protesters occupied our Capitol and I had death threats and all sorts of vicious attacks against me, against my family, against my children, against my parents and others, that we didn’t respond in kind. That in part was driven by our faith."

No knockdown is offered.

Is DeFour prepared to state he could not find a source to knock down the religious right and the governor who compared these same Wisconsin families to ISIS, four years after Walker "dropped a bomb" on these families to use Walker's metaphor in 2011?

Or how about knocking down Walker's false narrative that he suffered "vicious attacks?" DeFour couldn't find a source to knock this nonsense down? Or at least note Walker's lies are unverified?

DeFour did note the response from the some 2,700 Christianites was more subdued than Walker's previous address at other Iowa evangelical events.

Coming into the Stephens Auditorium from the July heat perhaps makes people relaxed, even subdued in the late afternoon.

Unless Brett Favre is talking, most people tend to be subdued in mid-July.

Military Civil Rights Group Slandered by Vatican-Affiliated Journal

Bonnie Weinstein's new book on
Rightwing Christian Hatred

One thing about rightwing religionists, they are devoted in their hatred of Mikey Weinstein, that "little Jewish radical who is scaring the pants off of you," as Pat Robertson put it.

Not sure how Mikey Weinstein manages to inflame rightwingers as Mikey's mission is simply to fight for the rights of U.S. service members to worship or not worship as they see fit, a mission that is a cornerstone of the United States Constitution guaranteeing ". . . no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

The U.S. Constitution, by the way, is featured in the oath that U.S. service members swear to support and defend.

Yet, religious rightwingers are devoted to their own ideology first, and Mikey Weinstein, the founder and voice of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) is now being slandered by the Vatican-affiliated Aleteia journal for fundamentalists.

Aleteia typically features pieces about the dangers of the "Devil's Lies," and so forth and of course Mikey Weinstein and MRFF's alleged lies about who Mikey is (TEK Journalism UK).

"To The Far Right Christian Hater… You Can be a Good
Speller or a Hater, But You Can’t Be Both" - Bonnie Weinstein

Slander is SOP from the fundies. And so are death threats.

Mikey and Bonnie Weinstein, co-founders of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, began the MRFF when their son heard one too many kike 'jokes' from the religious Dominionists at the U.S. Air Force Academy he was attending as rampant evangelical proselytization accelerated in the U.S. military (Sharlet, Harper's Magazine).

Since then, their email inbox is laden daily with the most repulsive, anti-Semitic, hate mail one could write. Sick stuff.

After years of receiving virtual hate and crazed rants, Bonnie Weinstein chronicles these vile texts in her new book To the Far Right Christian Hater . . . You Can Be a Good Speller or a Hater, but You Can't Be Both, most of which is argument-free from the proposition that only one official Christian God must be worshiped in the U.S. military, and of course the assertion Mikey and his family are demons destined to hell fire, and a 200-mile river of blood (see also Hardy, Columbus Dispatch).

The Weinsteins and the MRFF work for the rights of individuals serving in the armed forces.

But as documented, the U.S. military is fraught with rightwing lunatics just below general and flag-officer class, such as the now-retired William 'Jerry' Boykin, a goon who called Mikey Weinstein a "demon" while still actively serving.

As Republican candidates for president line up with several declaring a warrant from God [Scott Walker and Mike Huckabee, for example], Bonnie Weinstein's book should be read with a view to what the next U.S. commander-in-chief has in mind and whether, like President Obama, he [the GOP nominates men)] believes in defending the Constitution for all, including American civilians.

Scott Walker Took Money from "Kristallnacht" Billionaire

Scott Walker took money to fund his campaign from the vile Tom Perkins who compared taxing billionaires to the beginning of the NAZI genocide on European Jewry.

Root River Siren has the repulsive story, that the GOP has for now blocked from Facebook.

The question is:  Will Scott Walker give this money back?

NRA: Scary Black Man and Jew Gonna Take Your Guns

Concerned? You should be.

Racist NRA Appeal Meets Heavy Criticism

The National Rifle Association is targeting Sen Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) for daring to vote to consider the most minimal of expanded background checks for guns with a new ad that is a naked racist, anti-Semitic appeal to rightwingers across the nation.

Manchin remains defiant of the NRA, daring the NRA to bring it on.

This morning Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, both obviously appalled at the new NRA ad, showed the spot which features a darkened depiction of President Obama next to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with the voiceover of the ad's narrator warning, "Manchin is working with President Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Concerned? You should be. Tell Sen. Manchin to honor his commitment to the Second Amendment and reject the Obama-Bloomberg gun control agenda."

Scarborough and Brzezinski then showed the darkened Obama-Bloomberg-Manchin ad image for a full 12 seconds (reader says more like some 45 seconds) as a static screen shot this morning after their segment, before cutting away to a commercial.

Manchin is not up for reelection until 2018, having been elected to a full term in 2012 with over 60 percent of the vote. The ad is a warning to GOP senators saying in effect: Look what we're doing to Manchin, you're next if you go against the NRA.

The NRA's appeal to the most vile political forces in America is made right as the families of victims in the Newtown school massacre returned to the Capitol yesterday, and some nine GOP senators are said to be unable to offer "an explanation on the merits of why they couldn't vote for the background check," Vice President Joe Biden told Democratic donors Tuesday. (Michael A. Memoli. LA Times)

The Scarborough and Brzezinski segment is below:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Hadas Gold reports this morning:

In a statement to POLITICO, Manchin defends the bill and said he is still ”the same proud gun owner and NRA member that I have always been.”

“The Washington NRA could spend one hundred million dollars on ads against me; it still won’t make what they say true. If they were honest with their members they would see that my bill not only protects 2nd Amendment rights, it enhances and strengthens them. Unfortunately, the NRA leadership in Washington has lost its way and is more concerned about political power than gun rights and gun safety,” Manchin continued. “I believe that criminal and mental background checks are a commonsense approach to protect our neighbors and children without infringing on our 2nd Amendment rights. I think most NRA members agree with me.”

Manchin has become a champion for gun control legislation, co-sponsoring a failed gun control bill that aimed to expand background checks for gun purchases.

Oklahoma GOP Majority Leader Says Customers "Jew Down the Price" of Products

Rep Dennis Johnson (R-Oklahoma City)
Just Another Republican Bigot

Oklahoma Rep Dennis Johnson (R-Oklahoma City) is just another Republican—bigoted and repulsive.

Jonathan Turley has the story:

Oklahoma State and Republican Majority Leader Dennis Johnson took to the floor this week to share his experience as a small business man and discussed how some people will try to 'Jew down the price' of goods. In the background, legislators are seen laughing but there are clearly some who object because Johnson then adds 'I apologize to the Jews. Their (sic) good small businessmen as well.'

Johnson's biographical information is absent from his website.

Wonder if Johnson's bio info has been scrubbed.

Check out the other Oklahoma House members and their websites are full of biographical info, as most any elected official has on their webpages.

Turley notes in Johnson's campaign "Johnson proclaims that 'as a successful husband, father, businessman, civic leader and church leader, Dennis (Johnson) has brought and will continue to bring integrity and common sense to the House of Representatives.'

Wonder what church that is.

His religion is listed as "Baptist" by the religious group, Kentucky Council of Churches.

Johnson "serves as the Music Director at Unity Missionary Baptist Church in Duncan (OK) [Facebook] and as a member of the local gospel singing group, Unity," according to the Vote OK's bio of Johnson.

Johnson endorsed Rick Santorum in the 2012 race for GOP nominee for the presidency.

National Review Defends Nazism - NOT Hyperbole

Have a four-hour gig tommorow morning and then I was going to go into Super Bowl mode.

But I just came across Chris Liebenthal's Why Does the National Review Defend Nazism?

Please read and follow-up with a phone call.

Ron Paul in Shot with KKK Grand Wizard, NAZI, Stormfront Goes Viral

Ron Paul with former American Nazi, Current KKK Grand Wizard
and Stormfront.org webmaster - Shot at the at the Values Voter Presidential debate
in Fort Lauderdale on September 17, 2007.

As "Ron Paul tries to scare the crap out of Iowans about the UN takeover and riots in the streets over the emerging dictatorship in America" (TPM), comes this charming shot (to the right) from the Values Voter Presidential debate in Fort Lauderdale on September 17, 2007.

The keynote speaker to the 50th anniversary of the Appleton-based John Birch Society? (Steven Walters in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) Nice.

Publisher of the racist, and pathetically bigoted newsletters in which Ron Paul made $millions and tried to defend, and later attested he never read or approved, first reported by James Kirchick almost four years ago. Really nice.

Now, comes a shot (above) of Ron Paul pictured with former American Nazi Party member and the current KKK Grand Wizard and Stormfront.org webmaster, Don Black that is going viral.

Just maybe our neighbors to the Southwest have the wrong idea about Ron Paul. So Iowa, wise up.

And hey Paul, to win the GOP nomination or even the Iowa caucuses, you need to be subtly racist, not overtly racist.