Hyped by organizers as events that would make “the whole world tremble,” the “White Lives Matter” rallies ran into a major problem: Hardly anyone showed up.
?The latest from ?@BrandyZadrozny? https://t.co/yh8iWtksmL
— Catherine Kim (@CatherineKimNY) April 12, 2021
… The “White Lives Matter” rallies, the first major real-world organizing efforts by white supremacists since 2018, were planned on the encrypted app Telegram after many aligned groups were alleged to have taken part in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S Capitol.
The poor showing underscores how the country’s unpopular and disorganized extremist movements have been driven underground by increased scrutiny from the media, law enforcement agencies and far-left activists who infiltrate their private online spaces and disrupt their attempts to communicate and organize…
In Raleigh, North Carolina, a small crowd of antifa and anti-racist protesters gathered at the park where the “White Lives Matter” march was planned. They marched around downtown behind a large white sign that read, “WE ACCEPT YOUR SURRENDER.”
In Philadelphia, activists tweeted photos of a counterprotest picnic with pizza and Tastykake snacks. In New York City, over a dozen counterprotesters stood seemingly unopposed across the street from Trump Tower, where a “White Lives Matter” rally was expected.
Police in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, formed a circle around a lone protester to separate him from a large crowd of counterprotesters. Three protesters assembled around a “White Lives Matter” banner outside City Hall in Fort Worth, Texas, where a police line separated them from a couple of dozen counterprotesters…
Sunday’s round of racist rallies seemed destined for failure, said Megan Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University in North Carolina who tracks online extremism.
The online organizers of the North Carolina rally were uninformed about state law governing protests, including laws that disallowed firearms, Squire said. The organizers were also generally inept at using Telegram, where the event was announced, and unable to identify “obvious trolls in their midst.”
The efforts behind Sunday’s rallies were “haphazard and ill-informed,” Squire said. “They’re not sending their best.”
The “White Lives Matter” rallies were disrupted in several cities after activists infiltrated their online groups and leaked internal chats to journalists. Those chats were reported to have indicated that the events were being planned by the extremist group the Proud Boys and by self-described fascists and Nazis who framed the rallies as peaceful events unaffiliated with known hate groups to recruit more mainstream members.
Organizers in several cities canceled events because of sabotage by antifa activists. Raleigh’s organizer called off a rally Friday, telling subscribers, “It turns out that the 11th is a disaster.”
From what I can see on social media, the Huntington Beach, CA rally seems to have drawn the biggest turnout. People reporting on the day’s events are, for some reason, not surprised…
At the purported “White Lives Matter” rally in Huntington Beach, counter-protesters have far, far outnumbered any “white lives matter” demonstrators. pic.twitter.com/RjifZMZMGI
— Tom Dreisbach (@TomDreisbach) April 11, 2021
Long thread from someone who has no pity:
White Lives Matter's terrible, awful, downright no good day ? pic.twitter.com/f7FqZAJbIa
— Gwen Snyder is uncivil (@gwensnyderPHL) April 11, 2021
Still just stubbornly refusing to take the L even after this Superfund site of a day, lol pic.twitter.com/ZcGIzNQdm5
— Gwen Snyder is uncivil (@gwensnyderPHL) April 11, 2021
germy
OMG Tucker Carlson is right… Whites are being replaced!
mrmoshpotato
LOL!
But we still need to be vigilant about this Trump-humping white trash.
grubert
Gotta love that NBC story framing anti-fascists as “far-left”
“extremist movements have been driven underground by increased scrutiny from the media, law enforcement agencies and far-left activists who infiltrate their private online spaces and disrupt their attempts to communicate and organize. “
cain
@grubert: Someone should ask what is so far-left about breaking up communication channels of extremists? Is the idea is that one extremist is being attacked by another extremist? Morons.
MattF
So… threats on social media turn out to be bullshit. Another case of limited behavioral repertoires failing. That’s happening a lot.
Baud
Quite a contrast to the Women’s March.
NotMax
Can’t muster up enough crazies as Westboro Baptist Church. SAD!!
//
JPL
@germy: Thank the lord!
p.a.
“It’s unpopular to be unpopular…” Allison Moorer
Beyond my paygrade but I know sociologists, political scientists, historians all have takes on the degree our native born fascists have always been here but previously too apathetic/scared to crawl out from under their rocks, or how much white evangelical religion/hate radio/Fox/the Republican Party/tRump have converted the apolitical to the cause rather than just rallying already existing groups.
Benw
Let’s replace racist white people with anti-racist people…
just like we did with the President and MVP!
Jeffery
We may have 74,000,000 certified Nazis in the country but they don’t want anyone to know who they are.
Ruckus
@Jeffery:
Maybe some of them are slightly smarter than a box of rocks.
I said slightly……. and maybe…….
raven
CNN)Multiple officers have been shot in Georgia during a police chase early Monday that ended in Carroll County, according to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office.
The chase was initiated by the Georgia State Patrol, and “multiple agencies joined the pursuit,” said Ashley Hulsey, a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office.
“There were multiple officers shot resulting in multiple injuries,” Hulsey told CNN Monday.
Baud
@raven:
Damn.
Redshift
I heartily approve of anti-fascist infiltrators disrupting their organizing efforts and making them suspicious of each other. I had a brief moment of concern about whether tactics like that could be turned against us, and then I realized that that wouldn’t work because we don’t try to hide what we’re doing and we don’t have the need to conceal being awful, because we’re not.
Spanky
@Redshift: The FBI has been doing that since J.E. Hoover’s day.
rikyrah
rikyrah
Will Smith moves production of his new slavery movie Emancipation out of Georgia in protest over new voting laws which he claims suppress black voters
By JENNIFER SMITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 10:15 EDT, 12 April 2021 | UPDATED: 11:50 EDT, 12 April 2021
Jeffro
Yes we do.
Lapassionara
@rikyrah: I wish the word “reform” was not used when talking about this law. Also, the most egregious aspects of the law are usually omitted in any discussion of it. To me, the “unlimited challenges” provision is a nightmare, as is the “legislature can void the election” part.
ETA, good for Will Smith
different-church-lady
Yeah, well even with that you’re still gonna need to scrape together the usual buck forty nine for your regular with two creams.
artem1s
@p.a.:
The xtain taliban has been preaching about the apocalypse for decades. then their orange messiah showed up and gave them all permission to not only root for end times, but to actively engage in starting it up. They must have been pretty disappointed by the COVID plague and the lack of heathen bodies lining the streets. why didn’t their god emperor smite down the Hilldebeast and flay John Podesta on the WH lawn? the January 6 rally must have sounded like a sure fire chance to get raptured straight to heaven and waiting arms of Supply-side Jeebus.
This last weekend is what is left over once the unrepentant evangelical sinners have slunk away knowing they were not worthy for the second coming. maybe in 4 years the REAL Messiah will come and lead them all to the pearly gates!
Jeebus, what assholes your followers are!
Brachiator
I presume that some of these vermin don’t attend these crap rallies because they don’t want to be known or identified. Social media is often good at outing these rats.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Cripes. I assumed this had already happened.
WhatsMyNym
@artem1s:
I grew up with a bunch a racists in the suburbs of Chicago, main reason I left (I’m a WASP from the UK).
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There might not have been a briefing yet under Biden.
Mike in NC
Just dropping a reminder that tomorrow night the PBS documentary Frontline will be airing “American Insurrection” about the January 6th attack on the Capitol building by Trump’s most fascist fanatics. Should be an eye opener, I hope.
Nicole
@artem1s: 2016-2020 was such a lesson for me that so many of the very white, very self-proclamatory Christian people I grew up with were just white supremacists using religion to tell themselves that they were still good people.
I still have plenty of religious friends and family members whom I adore and their faith is part of what makes them lovely human beings, but boy oh boy, it felt really good to cut out the ones I knew who would say terrible things and then if I called them out on it, go hide behind the Bible.
Hypocrites. As I read somewhere, they worship Jesus but they sure don’t follow him.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The date on the NYT article is:
Published Feb. 5, 2021 – Updated Feb. 10, 2021
This is not something new, someone just tweeted and now others are tweeting as if it’s a new thing.
As I recall, after Biden made that statement in one of his TV interviews – maybe 60 minutes? – he halfway walked it back and said of course that was up to (i forget which position or organization he mentioned).
WaterGirl
@Mike in NC: Thanks, I just set it to record on Tivo.
Mary G
These people are primarily chickenshit cowards. The lefties got there first and none of the proud white men were willing to take a chance being outnumbered.
They’ve been hanging KKK fliers in plastic all over Huntington Beach for a couple of weeks and people were not having it. The city council put out a statement and the cops were told that acting as an auxiliary of the Proud Boys was right out. Hordes of people had cameras running and all the local TV stations sent crews, who not being able to find the Nazis, were reduced to talking to the counter protestors, who mostly acquitted themselves well getting anti-racist and Democrats ideas onto the airwaves, so it was a good day.
Mike in NC
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Another setback for Vladimir Putin. Sad!
Baud
Via reddit, funny Gaetz tweet.
https://i.redd.it/1hmawhacbqs61.jpg
rikyrah
BREAKING NEWS: Whistler ski resort is forced to shut down after officials confirm at least 877 cases of the Brazil COVID variant in British Columbia – the largest cluster outside Brazil
By VALERIE EDWARDS FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 12:54 EDT, 12 April 2021 | UPDATED: 13:02 EDT, 12 April 2021
A Canadian ski resort was forced to shut down after officials confirmed more than 800 cases of the highly contagious Brazil COVID-19 variant in British Columbia.
The Whistler Blackcomb resort was shut down by officials in the province of British Columbia on March 29.
‘We were just informed today by the Province of British Columbia that Whistler Blackcomb has been ordered to close as of midnight tonight,’ the resort tweeted last month.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
hehehe
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Winston Churchill was a member of the Labor Party, for a while…
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Ok. This shutdown happened around March 29, and the story doesn’t provide any information about whether guests or workers had been vaccinated, or subsequent efforts to track and trace this strain of the virus.
Instead it jumps to talking about failed efforts in Brazil to contain the virus, which is useful context, but just part of a larger story.
We also don’t learn much about Canadian efforts to deal with the pandemic or even why the ski resort was allowed to keep operating.
JPL
@rikyrah: They are moving to a red state. Georgia voted for Biden and elected two democratic Senators. I’m not sure trying to tank the economy is such a good idea. We could lose Warnock’s seat as well as a democratic house representative.
HinTN
@artem1s:
I had to go back and confirm this wasn’t a Betty Cracker comment.
Well done.
Wyatt Salamanca
John Cornyn is making a valiant effort to win the title of dumbest Texas politician:
h/t https://www.mediaite.com/biden/sen-john-cornyn-asks-if-biden-is-really-in-charge-because-he-isnt-tweeting-or-appearing-on-cable-news-enough/
Is Cornyn really this big of a moron or is he just desperate for Trump to say something nice about him?
sdhays
@WaterGirl: I wonder if they considered continuing to give him a briefing, but forcing him to get the standard briefing which didn’t have pictures and DJT sprinkled throughout and with his name every other sentence.
That way they could say that he’s getting the briefing but US intelligence would be safe because he wouldn’t have the attention span to absorb any of it.
Spanky
@sdhays: Lard his briefing up with easter eggs and see how many of them show up in Russian intercepts.
Brachiator
@Wyatt Salamanca:
The GOP is sticking to the script. Biden is being held hostage by Kamala Harris and AOC, and will be forced to turn America into a socialist hell hole.
MattF
@Wyatt Salamanca:
Both.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Even progressive liberal Glenn Greenwald opposes corporations telling Georgia to get rid of their voter suppression law….
https://mobile.twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1381641202949361668
germy
Ed O’Keefe, dogged pursuer of all Democrats, demanded to know how often Biden speaks with Obama.
sdhays
@Spanky: That too, although, once again, you’d have to make the briefing a series of cartoons (featuring himself) for him to be able to pick up information he’d want to sell/give to his buddy in Moscow.
Brachiator
@sdhays:
Giving a former president briefings is a courtesy. Besides, I am sure that Trump still gets briefed by Putin.
debbie
@Mike in NC:
Thank you for this reminder.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JPL:
Any economic effects of these boycotts are the fault of the Georgia elected officials (GOP) who enacted that anti-democratic bill. It will be up to the voters of Georgia to get rid of them. Whether or not Smith decided to pull out of Georgia, it would likely have little difference by itself. Especially when the GA leg can just void the results of an election it doesn’t like or takeover County Boards of Election
sdhays
@Brachiator: Don’t you mean “debriefed by Putin”?
Jeffro
@Wyatt Salamanca: equally dumb, Ted Nugent has been asking today “why we didn’t shut down for Covids 1-18, huh?”
Yes, really.
These people are just so, soooo fucking stupid.
Elizabelle
@JPL: I am OK with Will Smith’s moving his company to Louisiana, which has a Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards.
I share your concern about blowback hurting Senator Warnock, but I think this action is more likely to be a wakeup call to the Georgia business community, and maybe to Kemp, etc. — assuming the GA politicos can be awakened. Which might be dubious. The business community (hopefully) can count, though and will miss those dollars.
Hitting some of these morons in the pocketbook is the only way you get through to them.
Also, Smith can be “carrot and stick.” Georgia drops the lunatic voting restriction/overturn elections legislation, he and his company can find some shooting locations in the Peach State.
I think filmmakers should avoid Georgia for the time being.
JPL
@Elizabelle: The governor would have to call back the legislators in order to change the law. That won’t happen because he’s afraid of being primaried from the right.
Steve in the ATL
@Brachiator: friend’s son at McGill in Montreal is having to go home to New Jersey to get vaccinated. Same friend’s in laws reveled from Quebec to Florida to get vaccinated. Apparently it’s quite le clusterfuck au nord.
NotMax
@Jeffery
If Communists beget pinkos, do Fascists beget brownies?
//
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
The GOP is sticking to the script. Biden is being held hostage by Kamala Harris and AOC, and will be forced to turn America into a socialist hell hole.
I thought last week’s questions: “How often does he talk to Obama? What do they discuss?” was intended to form the basis of a claim that “The Kenyan is running the country again!”
Steve in the ATL
@Elizabelle: historically, Georgia has been pro-business. The Bible thumpers got a lot of lip service, but at the end of the day the businessmen won out (Contra: Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, et al). That changed during the Obama years when David Perdue got his senate seat over the corporate candidate.
Now we have a Jew and a negro for senators, so who knows where things are going!
M31
@germy: I almost want Psaki to quote GWB who was asked what he and his dad talked about, and he said “pussy”
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
RE: The GOP is sticking to the script. Biden is being held hostage by Kamala Harris and AOC, and will be forced to turn America into a socialist hell hole.
Variation on a theme.
Biden is being held hostage by un-American people of color.
Elizabelle
@JPL: Well, that’s Kemp’s fucking problem. Honestly, he should not even BE governor. He’s pretty much sitting in a stolen glass throne.
I like Will Smith’s thinking on this. The film industry is big business; a lot of related costs and prestige. We in Virginia have an incredible state film office. Lot of excellent shows and movies shot here. Occasional calls for zombie extras, because The Walking Dead and its spinoff shows like us. We’re also a blue state now.
If Louisiana’s film office and industry, under a Democratic administration, can benefit from Smith’s film projects, bring it on.
JPL
@Steve in the ATL: Ossoff was instrumental in saving the plant in Commerce. It promises 2600 jobs. The AJC has a really nice write up about his efforts.
Just One More Canuck
@Steve in the ATL: yup – part of the problem is the vaccine supply (federal responsibility) but the bigger problem is how the provinces are rolling things out (health is under provincial jurisdiction, but with federal funding). Here in Ontario, Doug Ford’s strategy has been to open things up, then do a half-assed lockdown, then re-open, cross his fingers and hope that things get better. At least the vaccines are coming – I am registered for my first shot next week
Miss Bianca
Ha ha, I just read this article – all I gotta say is: SAD!!
ETA: For some reason, tweets don’t seem to be embedding for me anymore on Safari. All I seem to see are blank squares, even after refreshings and rebootings.
Geminid
@JPL: I wonder what Tyler Perry is up to.
Jay
@rikyrah:
@Brachiator:
@Steve in the ATL:
Most Covid responses are the responsibility of the Provincial Health Authorities, with the Federal Government responsible for border and travel issues.
So you have the good, the Atlantic Bubble, Yukon, NWT, Nunavut, the bad, BC, and the ugly, Quebec, Ontario,….
In BC we were only shut down for 2 months, since then it has gradually gone week by week back to “normal”, with “shutdowns” happening in response to local, regional outbreaks, and I am being cynical about the term “shutdown”.
Whistler hasn’t been a “ski resort” in about 3 decades. It’s a small town, centred on 4 season tourism. So it relies on a young workforce, and as a destination resort town, accommodations that cater to that workforce are few and far between. So you end up with 8 people sharing a room, 40 people sharing a 3 bedroom condo, working multiple jobs, and partying hard and illegally.
Because it’s a destination resort, and the Federal Government hasn’t shut down travel, people still come from all over Canada and the World to party, and carry in the new strains.
While there were earlier outbreaks, targeted local closures and shutdowns, kept them small, but this one “slipped by” and of course, has exploded exponentially. So the town is in a new lock down ,( that isn’t) and the Provincial Health Authority has accelerated a mass vaccination program for the town.
My peeps tell me that either today or tomorrow, new Provincial wide “lockdowns that arn’t”, will be put in place to deal with our “Third Wave”, dominated by all the new variants.
On Sunday, we had 8,960 “customers”, ( people who actually bought stuff, not counting all the looki loos). That’s 1250 people more than out “best” pre-Covid day ever. That’s what the “shutdowns” look like now in BC, a year and a bit into the 2nd year of Covid.
Brachiator
@Jay:
In other words, “please hand me some of that virus. Oh, yeah, spread it.”
Thanks for the background info.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: phone, iPad or computer? Have you updated Safari lately? I wonder if they changed a default setting. I assume you are giving it plenty of time to load?
Jay
@WaterGirl:
on an Iphone and Safari, I am only getting the text part ( hypertext included) of FP’ers text embeds, not the photo’s or video,
Which is actually okay, because Ann Laurie’s Covid Posts, essential reading, no longer take 5-10 minutes to load.