#halle synagogue shooting

[ballietstephan]

stephan balliet, born on january 10, 1992, was known as a boy who spent the majority of his time on the internet and was dissatisfied with both the world and himself. while little is known about balliet's childhood, he did live with his mother after his parents divorced when he was 14 until the time of the crime in october 2019. at the age of 18, balliet served in the german military for six months in a panzergrenadier battalion. there, he learned how to use the HK G36 assault rifle and the HK P8 pistol. there were no findings of right-wing beliefs in balliet's military record. at the age of 22, balliet studied molecular and structural product design for one year, followed by one year of chemistry at halle university. balliet finished school but had to discontinue his chemistry studies at the university due to a serious stomach operation. following the shooting, balliet was diagnosed with complex personality disorder with autistic traits. he had an IQ of 105 and was considered to be of average intelligence. during the trial, balliet requested that he not be referred to as mentally ill under any circumstances, citing his diagnosis as "politically motivated."

[tccpilled]

is it too late to post this or no

[naturalhawktuah]

He is now stuck in gif form

[ironsuncicada]

hate this thing (those who know)

[mariacallous]

HANAU, Germany—On a fall day in 2022, Serpil Temiz Unvar was sitting in her kitchen when, through the window, she saw an older man and a German shepherd standing outside. Assuming the man was a neighbor, Unvar opened her window to greet him. She was bewildered when he began asking her increasingly strange and aggressive questions: Are you Kurdish? Why did you leave your homeland? How do you have enough money to live here and to go on so many vacations back in Turkey?

The experience left Unvar, 51, deeply unsettled. After the man left, she called several friends who confirmed what she already suspected: The man with the German shepherd wasn’t just a neighbor. He was also the father of her son’s killer.

Unvar’s son Ferhat, then 23, was one of nine people shot and killed in a violent rampage targeting immigrants on Feb. 19, 2020. The shooter, Tobias R., opened fire at a bar in Hanau’s center before driving across town, where he shot a man who had followed him from the first bar by car. Then, Tobias R.—identified by his first name and last initial in keeping with German privacy laws—walked into the Arena Bar & Cafe, showering patrons in a spray of bullets, Ferhat among them. The shooter then drove to his mother’s house, killed her, and turned the gun on himself.

The shootings shook Hanau, a city of just over 100,000 people 15 miles east of Frankfurt. The city is among Germany’s most diverse: Nearly 30 percent of Hanau’s population does not hold a German passport, according to recent city statistics, around twice the national average. German media reported that Tobias R. had posted a manifesto on his website shortly before the attack, which authorities described as demonstrating a “deeply racist attitude.”

The Hanau attack became a symbol of Germany’s struggle to extinguish far-right violence and anti-immigrant ideology. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the attack, warning, “Racism is a poison. Hate is a poison.” But soon, news crews departed. Politicians who had offered solemn condolences moved on to other matters, and the country went into lockdown as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.

Unvar felt a growing sense of rage at the government’s lack of response to the Hanau attack, she told me when I sat down with her in March. Later that year, she became an activist: She founded an educational initiative aimed at fighting racism in schools; testified on the Hanau killings in the state parliament of Hesse, where Hanau is located; and worked with the family members of other victims to pressure the government to take action to prevent future racist attacks.

But honoring Ferhat’s memory has made Unvar a target herself. The man’s 2022 visit to her home wasn’t an isolated event; Hans-Gerd R. came back that night and the next day. After Unvar filed a restraining order against him, he started sending her letters. “If you as a migrant hate the land of the German people, then please leave it, and quickly, and please go back to where you came from,” he wrote in one missive. The harassment and stalking are still going on, she told me.

Unvar’s fight against racist ideas about who belongs in Germany has laid bare how deeply ingrained this ideology remains in parts of the country—particularly as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party continues to creep up in the polls. “We want to trust this country, but this country also needs to protect us,” she said. “But how? I don’t know.”

The Hanau murders came on the heels of a string of other deadly racist attacks in Germany. Less than six months earlier, in October 2019, another right-wing extremist showed up at a synagogue in the eastern city of Halle on Yom Kippur intent on murdering Jewish worshippers; he ultimately killed two people outside the synagogue. Earlier that year, a local politician in the Hessian town of Kassel, Walter Lübcke, was shot and killed by a right-wing extremist who was unhappy over the politician’s welcoming policy toward refugees.

Hanau commanded particular attention because it was a targeted assault on people with “immigration backgrounds,” the official term Germany’s Federal Statistical Office uses to describe those who were born to at least one parent who was not a German citizen. German authorities also faced intense scrutiny for their handling of the incident.

The killer had been allowed to purchase a gun despite past indications that he had a mental illness, which authorities did not adequately investigate before issuing him a weapons permit. The Hanau police were slow to respond to emergency calls about the shootings because they were chronically understaffed. An investigation by regional authorities also revealed that 13 of the officers who responded to the attack were part of a police unit that was later disbanded due to a scandal over membership in right-wing chat groups.

In the Arena Bar, where Ferhat was killed, an emergency door had been locked to keep patrons from fleeing during regular police raids on the venue to look for illegal drugs. A damning investigation by the U.K.-based group Forensic Architecture featured in an exhibition in Frankfurt two years ago found that all five of those killed in the bar could have survived had the door been unlocked.

Late last year, after years of testimony and hearings, a Hessian parliamentary committee investigating the authorities’ response to the attack issued its final report. In 642 pages, it details the various security failures that contributed to the loss of life that day. But without concrete consequences for those responsible for the security failures in Hanau, victims’ family members say it’s hard to believe anything will meaningfully change in how Germany handles right-wing and racist terrorism.

None of the officers or authorities involved in Hanau’s security failures were disciplined or removed from their posts explicitly due to their handling of the situation. Although the Hessian parliamentary committee’s report outlined areas where German law enforcement had fallen short, those who lost family members that day felt its recommendations—for more stringent checks before issuing weapons permits, to develop anti-racism programs in schools, and to better communicate with families of victims—offered little more than lip service.

Armin Kurtovic, whose son Hamza was killed in the attacks, described the report as a “slap in the face” to the victims’ families. “I was convinced something like this wasn’t possible in this country,” he told German broadcaster Hessenschau late last year. “But the more I get involved and the more I read, the more I see: This is continuity.”

Police officers’ handling of the investigation was infuriating to Serpil Temiz Unvar, but it was hardly surprising to her and others who have tracked the history of far-right attacks in Germany. The authorities’ seeming blind spot for this kind of violence—and a lack of concrete action to prevent it—extends back far beyond Hanau.

The most famous case of recent far-right violence in Germany was that of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a neo-Nazi terrorist cell that killed 10 people, mostly immigrants, across Germany over the course of 13 years, evading police notice. In their investigations of each murder, the police fell back on racist stereotypes of immigrants, assuming that those slain had been involved in the drug trade or victims of immigrant-on-immigrant crime; the German media dubbed them “kebab murders.”

“A nation that liked to think it had atoned for its racist past [was] forced to admit that violent prejudice was a thing of the present,” American journalist Jacob Kushner wrote in his recently published book on the NSU murders, Look Away, adding that “in an age of unparalleled mass migration, the targets of white terrorism are increasingly immigrants.”

When I arrived at the offices of Unvar’s organization, the Ferhat Unvar Educational Initiative, in March, the first thing I saw was a black-and-white mural of Ferhat. Wearing a cap and looking forward, his face appears next to the words “We are only dead when we are forgotten.” Ferhat had posted the phrase on social media before his death. It has now become his mother’s guiding principle as she builds an organization to honor his memory.

Unvar grew up in a Kurdish city in southern Turkey, near the border with Syria. Her father moved to Paris, and she eventually joined him. She moved to Hanau when she married a Kurdish man there, with whom she had four children, including Ferhat, before later separating.

In the months after her son’s killing, Unvar said she agonized over what she could have done to make his life better while he was still alive. She thought about the discrimination he faced in school as a student with an immigration background and found herself wracked with guilt that she hadn’t fought harder for him: pushing school officials harder to allow him on a more ambitious track of study, for example, or urging them to stop the discrimination he faced from teachers and other students.

Ferhat was gone, but many other children with similar backgrounds faced those same tough odds at school—and there was still a way to help them, Unvar remembered thinking. Nearly nine months after the attack, on Ferhat’s birthday in November 2020, Unvar officially founded her organization, which seeks to combat racism and discrimination in the German education system, giving talks and holding trainings and workshops to empower young people struggling against systemic racism and to educate teachers about the challenges that students from immigrant communities face.

Her first donation was from a group of Ferhat’s friends, who handed her an envelope with 125 euros they had raised together. She was touched and buoyed by the gesture. “I said, OK, I couldn’t help Ferhat, but I can help them through Ferhat,” she said.

The organization has since scaled up significantly. Donations and grants helped Unvar hire staff and spread the word about their anti-discrimination workshops. Some are for school-age children and youth, giving them a safe space to talk about their experiences of discrimination or racism; others are for teachers and educators, training them to root out racism in their classrooms; yet more are for adults in other professions, including airport staff at Frankfurt Airport. Along with Initiative 19 February Hanau, an organization run by the family members of several of the Hanau victims, Unvar’s initiative won the Aachen Peace Prize in 2021.

“I never had it in my head to do something like this,” said Unvar, reflecting on how her life changed after the attack. Sitting on a black couch in one corner of the organization’s big event space, with posters depicting the organization’s logo and events on the walls and brochures for her training programs on tables across the room, Unvar was animated as she described how she and others have built the initiative into what it is today. At the same time, she said, so “many people instrumentalize [the attack], not just politicians but also others. That hurt me deeply.”

Unvar told me that she hopes to create a cross-border support network for families of victims of terrorism. In Greece, she met Magda Fyssa, the mother of Pavlos Fyssas, a young anti-fascist musician murdered by members of the neo-Nazi organization Golden Dawn. She has also traveled to Norway, Spain, and France to meet with other families of terrorist victims and with organizations that combat terrorism. Unvar spoke with local activists and experts about ways to collaborate in their fight against violent extremism and learn from one another’s experiences.

“Regardless of which country I was in, I never felt alone,” she said. “I saw how many other people are also fighting in this direction against terror, for humanity, for human rights—that gave me strength.”

But Unvar admitted that it can be difficult to press forward with her activism while feeling that no matter how hard she works, or how hard others work, her efforts are unlikely to change a country unwilling to address its shortcomings when it comes to welcoming and safeguarding immigrant communities.

In January, the German investigative news outfit Correctiv released a report about a secret meeting between right-wing extremist leaders near Berlin, including members of the far-right AfD. Those present discussed a “remigration” plan to deport millions of people with immigrant backgrounds, including those with German passports.

Unvar said the national outrage over the Correctiv report—and the millions of people who turned out to protest across the country in the weeks that followed—gave her hope that the German population at large finally understood the scale of its problem with right-wing extremism. “It’s good that [the story] came out because then people like us can see how big and important a problem it is,” she said. “The racists—they’re not letting up. We’ve seen the danger is there. … We need to really hold together against the right wing and against terror.”

Still, the AfD continues to gain ground. Riding a wave of support for far-right parties across Europe, the party gained 5 percentage points in June’s European Parliament elections, coming in second—ahead of all three of Germany’s governing parties—with 16 percent of the vote. The AfD then won its first state-level victory in the eastern German state of Thuringia on Sept. 1, taking 32.8 percent of the vote; in neighboring Saxony, it came in a close second to the center-right Christian Democrats, with 30.6 percent of the vote. A third eastern state, Brandenburg, votes on Sept. 22; the AfD is leading the polls there.

The far-right party is also a growing threat in Unvar’s home state: In the years since the attack, Hesse’s political landscape has shifted to the right. The AfD won 18.4 percent to become the second-largest party in last fall’s state elections, an increase of 5.3 percentage points from the previous election in 2018.

In February, around the anniversary of the Hanau attack, Hans-Gerd R. sent Unvar another letter. Another one followed this spring.

Hans-Gerd R. has been cited dozens of times for harassing Unvar and other victims’ family members and for repeatedly violating a restraining order against Unvar. He was taken into custody when he defied the restraining order and showed up outside her house again in 2023. He was also briefly sent to jail that year for failing to pay his fines for the various citations he had received related to that harassment.

But despite the restraining order, the police told Unvar that they can’t do anything about the letters that keep arriving at her house: There are no laws in Germany against sending missives to someone via the postal system, regardless of the intolerance they contain.

Hanau Mayor Claus Kaminsky described Hans-Gerd. R’s harassment of Unvar and other victims’ family members as “subtle, almost diabolical” terrorism in a 2023 interview with the German broadcaster ARD, saying he wished the man would leave Hanau. But he reiterated that there is little the authorities can do beyond the penalties they have already put into place. “Of course, it would be best if the father left the city, if he changed his place of residence,” Kaminsky said. “That might even be better for him. But there is no legal way to force this.”

Toward the end of our time together, I asked Unvar whether she was afraid that Hans-Gerd R. would escalate from letters and leering outside her kitchen window to something worse. Unvar’s youngest son, Mirza, who is 11, had just come into the office and sat down next to her on the black leather sofa. She wrapped her arms around him as he looked up shyly.

“I’m not afraid, no. I really have zero fear—what should I be afraid of? What can happen? I’ve already lost my dearest son,” she said.

Ultimately, as she told me repeatedly throughout the course of our conversation, her fight isn’t about her. The educational initiative, the connections abroad, the advocacy, the long hours of volunteer work—it’s about children like Ferhat who struggle to get ahead in school because of the color of their skin; it’s about Mirza, sitting on the couch next to her, being able to grow up feeling safe.

“The killer’s father is still a danger to my family,” she said. “I don’t fear for myself, but I have children.”

[org4n-failur3]

Just found out about the Halle Synagogue attack.

October 9th 2019, Stephan Balliet (28) TRIED to shoot up a synagogue in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany but after being stopped by the doors being locked he instead shot and killed 2 people.

He did this attack using HOMEMADE guns and explosives that would jam and malfunction often.

The whole event was caught on a livestream.

After being arrested he was then sentenced to life in prison.

What a loser.

[morbidology]

On the day before his father Jeff Hall was murdered, 10-year-old Joseph Hall showed a visitor a leather belt with an SS emblem and proudly said, "Look what my dad got me." Little did anyone know, the following day, Joseph would be the one to kill his father.

Jeff dedicated his life to the National Socialist Movement, the country's largest neo-Nazi party, and led a chapter in his hometown of Riverside, California. He held hate-fueled rallies outside synagogues, filled with members of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis. Due to the economic downturn in the construction industry, Jeff struggled to find a job and blamed Jews and people of color for his inability to work.

Growing up in such a hateful and abusive environment, it's no surprise that Joseph was a troubled child. He was expelled from several schools for attacking his teachers and was homeschooled by his racist father, who held monthly meetings that were a mix of Nazi propaganda and party games. Jeff frequently bragged about teaching Joseph how to shoot a gun.

On May 1, 2011, Joseph grabbed a .357 revolver from the closet shelf and shot his sleeping father in the head. He told investigators that he did it because his father had threatened to remove the fire alarms from their home and set it on fire while they slept. During the trial, Joseph's defense lawyer argued that he was a victim of his father's racism and violent upbringing.

Joseph was found responsible for his father's murder and sent to a juvenile detention center. He has attended classes and therapy and reportedly made significant progress. 

However, the conviction has been controversial, with advocates arguing that a 10-year-old child couldn't fully comprehend the seriousness of his actions. Nonetheless, Joseph is eligible for parole when he turns 20. The prosecutor who convicted him even grew attached to Joseph, saying that he knew the rules and was treated with dignity.

[beardedmrbean]

Cornell University has canceled classes on Friday after a student was charged with making online antisemitic threats against Jewish people on campus.

Instead of classes, students and staff will enjoy a "community day," November 3.

A spokesperson at the Ivy League school said that decision to close on Friday was made "in recognition of the extraordinary stress of the past few weeks." 

CORNELL STUDENT ACCUSED OF THREATENING TO BEHEAD JEWISH BABIES TO REMAIN IN JAIL

The cancellation comes after Cornell University junior Patrick Dai was arrested Tuesday for writing antisemitic posts on a Greek life message board.

CORNELL STUDENTS REACT TO SUSPECTED ‘HAMAS FIGHTER’ ARREST BY DOJ: ‘TERRIFYING TO BE ON CAMPUS RIGHT NOW’

"Watch out pig Jews. Jihad is coming. Nowhere is safe. Your synagogue will become graveyards. Your women will be raped, and your children will be beheaded. Glory to Allah," Dai allegedly wrote Oct. 28, according to a criminal complaint.

The posts were made in the Cornell University discussion forum under various usernames including "kill jews, "hamas soldier" and "sieg heil."

Dai allegedly threatened to "shoot up 104 west," a campus dining hall that serves kosher food. The cafeteria is next door to the Cornell Center for Jewish Living, which provides housing for Jewish students.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY JEWISH COMMUNITY THREATENED IN ONLINE POSTS; POLICE, FBI INVESTIGATE

In another post on Oct. 29, Dai threatened to "bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews," whom he described as "rats" that need to be eliminated.

In that same post, Dai allegedly threatened to slit the throats of any Jewish males he sees on campus, to rape and throw off a cliff any Jewish females, and to behead any Jewish babies in front of their parents, court papers say. 

In a press release Tuesday, Vice President for University Relations Joel Malina condemned Dai's action and thanked law enforcement that acted "so swiftyly."

"Cornell University is grateful to the FBI for working so swiftly to identify and apprehend the suspect in this case, a Cornell student, who remains in custody…" Malina said.

"We remain shocked by and condemn these horrific, antisemitic threats and believe they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," Malina said. "We know that our campus community will continue to support one another in the days ahead."

The engineering student faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 for charges of posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications.

[wiredawake]

All this after allowing thousands of hate crimes to be openly planned and committed by Germans for years, many of which were of antisemitic nature, by the way. Countless Facebook sites filled with agitators who plan to attack refugee camps and immigrants in general, inciting such incidents as the Hanau shootings, the Halle Synagogue shooting, and even the assassination of a politician who was in favor of immigration.

And now liking a "from the river to the sea" post is a crime punishable by deportation, which in many cases is a death sentence. Germany never changed. Still racist as ever.

They like to twist the facts and say that the number of antisemitic crimes rose due to Muslim immigrants and pro-Palestinian protests, when in reality the far right COVID-denying anti-lockdock movement is responsible for the spike in antisemitic crimes and conspiracy theories.

[warningsine]

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/shooting-blast-reported-concert-hall-near-moscow-agencies-2024-03-22/

MOSCOW, March 22 (Reuters) - At least 40 people were killed and over 100 hurt when gunmen in camouflage clothing opened fire with automatic weapons on people at a concert in the Crocus City Hall near Moscow on Friday, Russia's FSB security service said.

In one of the worst such attacks in Russia in years, at least five gunmen were shown in unverified videos firing repeatedly at screaming civilians cowering in the concert hall as Soviet-era rock group "Picnic" was about to perform.

The 6,200-seat concert hall in a suburb west of Moscow, which is near a shopping mall also called Crocus City, was sold out for the performance.

Other video footage showed the men shooting people below what looked like an entrance sign to Crocus City Hall. People lying motionless in pools of blood outside the hall were also visible.

"Suddenly there were bangs behind us - shots. A burst of firing - I do not know what," one witness, who asked not to be identified by name, told Reuters.

"A stampede began. Everyone ran to the escalator," the witness said. "Everyone was screaming; everyone was running."

Flames leapt into the sky, and plumes of black smoke rose above the venue as hundreds of blue lights from emergency vehicles flashed in the night, Reuters pictures and video showed.

Helicopters sought to douse the flames and evacuated around 100 people from the basement, Russian media reported. The roof of the venue was collapsing, state news agency RIA said.

Russian media reported a second blast at the venue, and there were reports that some of the gunmen had barricaded themselves in the building.

It was not immediately clear who the attackers were. No group had yet claimed responsibility. Russia's foreign ministry said it was a "bloody terrorist attack".

ATTACK WARNING

Two weeks ago, the U.S. embassy in Russia warned that "extremists" had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow.

The embassy issued its warning several hours after the FSB said it had foiled an attack on a Moscow synagogue by a cell of the militant Sunni Muslim group Islamic State.

President Vladimir Putin, who was on Sunday re-elected for a new six-year term, sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 and has repeatedly warned that various powers - including countries in the West - are seeking to sow chaos inside Russia.

Putin is receiving regular updates about the incident, the Kremlin said.

"Vladimir Putin was informed about the beginning of the shooting in the first minutes of what happened in Crocus City Hall," the Kremlin said.

"The president constantly receives information about what is happening and about the measures being taken through all relevant services. The head of state gave all the necessary instructions," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

SECURITY TIGHTENED

After the attack, Russia tightened security at airports, transportation stations and across the capital - a vast urban area of over 21 million people.

"A terrible tragedy occurred in the shopping centre Crocus City today," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. "I am sorry for the loved ones of the victims."

The White House said that images of the shooting were hard to watch while Germany's foreign ministry called the images "horrific."

"...Our thoughts obviously are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack," White House spokesman John Kirby said.

Germany foreign ministry said on X, "The background must be clarified quickly. Our deepest condolences go out to the families of the victims."

"The entire world community is obliged to condemn this monstrous crime," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. "All efforts are being thrown at saving people."

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said that Kyiv "had absolutely nothing to do with these events" in a video message posted on Telegram while Kirby said there was "no indication at this time that Ukraine, or Ukrainians were involved in the shooting."

Zakharova questioned how the U.S. knew this and said Washington should immediately pass any information it had to Moscow, or stop making such statements.

"On what basis do officials in Washington draw any conclusions in the midst of a tragedy about someone's innocence?" Zakharova said.

[sa7abnews]

Cornell student accused of threatening to behead Jewish babies sentenced to prison

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/13/cornell-student-accused-of-threatening-to-behead-jewish-babies-sentenced-to-prison/

Cornell student accused of threatening to behead Jewish babies sentenced to prison

A former junior at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, was sentenced to 21 months in prison after threatening to murder Jewish students and behead their babies.The Department of Justice said in a press release that 22-year-old Patrick Dai of Pittsford, New York, was sentenced on Monday to 21 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release and a special assessment in the amount of $100.”Every student has the right to pursue their education without fear of violence based on who they are, how they look, where they are from or how they worship,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said. “Antisemitic threats of violence, like the defendant’s vicious and graphic threats here, violate that right. Today’s sentencing reaffirms that we will hold accountable those who violently threaten and intimidate others based on their religious practice or background.”CORNELL STUDENT ACCUSED OF THREATENING TO BEHEAD JEWISH BABIES TO REMAIN IN JAILDai pleaded guilty and admitted to posting threatening messages to the Cornell University section of an online discussion forum on Oct. 28 and Oct. 29, 2023. He was ultimately arrested on Oct. 31.”Watch out pig jews. jihad is coming. nowhere is safe. your synagogue will become graveyards. your women will be raped and your children will be beheaded. glory to Allah,” Dai wrote on the message board Oct. 28, a criminal complaint states.WHO IS CORNELL STUDENT PATRICK DAI ACCUSED OF VIOLENT THREATS AGAINST JEWSDai made the posts under several usernames, including “kill jews,” “hamas soldier” and “sieg heil.”The Cornell student also threatened to “shoot up 104 west,” a campus dining hall that serves kosher food. Dai also allegedly threatened in another post dated Oct. 29 that he would “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig Jews,” which he described as “rats” who need to be eliminated.”Today, former Cornell University student Patrick Dai was sentenced to serve 21 months in prison for posting anonymous threats to kill Jewish students,” U.S. Attorney Carla B. Freedman for the Northern District of New York said. “Before imposing a sentence, the court found that this was a hate crime under the federal Sentencing Guidelines because Dai targeted Jewish students and substantially disrupted the university’s core function of educating its students.””The defendant’s threats terrorized the Cornell campus community for days and shattered the community’s sense of safety,” she added.

[ballietstephan]

Jank Boteko ❤️ Stephan Balliet Didi

[tccpilled]

potato🥔

[vamptastic]

It's just hard to feel like anything is ever gonna change. My dumbass town bought a 250,000 tank a few years ago. And we never fucking used it! A man in my town has been standing outside city hall passing out car stickers about the death of his girlfriend at the hands of the police for months. My friend's fucking elderly grandmother was killed in a mugging and despite video evidence the perpetrator was never arrested because they don't give a shit about poor black grandmas and the young white men that shoot them and then flee the state. The billboard with a picture of perpetrator and a tip line is still up. A black kid was tased by our school's cop (what a nightmare phrase) my freshman year and the cop got away scot free by lying and saying he had a knife (he did not). When I was in high school one of the school cops made it his personal quest to interrogate me every time he saw me about the declining patriotism in our youth and why I was wearing platform boots and a spiky belt, while calling me "sweetheart" and "young girl". I still get conspicuously followed by a cop every time I'm downtown because god forbid some trannies in black clothing patronize the goddamn ice cream shop, heaven forbid some of them may even be of color.

There's very low crime here. The crimes that do happen tend to be gun violence and a lot of them are motivated by white supremacy. Sometimes meth. Very few armed robberies, just every few years somebody gets shot, usually for drug related reasons, and the media goes crazy. Also there's constant school shooting threats and my old synagogue got several credible threats a year and also the KKK is still active. But everybody here is convinced that there's these rampant gangs recruiting the black youth and crime is skyrocketing and all the kids are doing crack and somebody's going to steal their lifted truck.

Our previous sheriff literally got fired for cheating on his wife on the job using squad cars and I still feeling like I'm shouting a brick wall every time I try to point out that maybe we don't need to drastically expand the police force in our low-crime small town and maybe with the extra money we could like, have a bus. A trolley even. Maybe just expand our 'equality committee' to have more than one city employee, or figure out who keeps drawing swastikas on the black history mural instead of having the community college kids repaint it every three years. The most radical idea I float to most people is "our city budget should maybe not be 60% police" and they act like I just told them I'm personally going to be sending my army of superpredators to their home in the name of Joe Biden. Just kind of exhausting.

[mariacallous]

Lansing — Democratic lawmakers are condemning a social media post from Republican state Rep. Josh Schriver of Oxford that promoted "the great replacement" theory, a racist ideological belief that there's a coordinated global effort to diminish the influence of White people.

On Tuesday, Schriver shared a post of a graphic that depicted black figurines covering most of a map of the world, with white figures occupying smaller sections of Australia, Canada, northern Europe and the northern United States. The bottom of the graphic read "The great replacement!"

The graphic, initially posted by right-wing pundit Jack Posobiec, was reposted by Schriver with an emoji of a chart showing a downward trend on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

In a statement Wednesday to The Detroit News, Schriver said he loved "all of God's offspring" and believed "everyone's immense value is rooted in the price Christ paid on the Cross when he died for our sins.

"I'm opposed to racists, race baiters, and victim politics," Schriver said in the statement. "What I find strange is the agenda to demoralize and reduce the white portion of our population. That's not inclusive and Christ is inclusive! I'm glad Tucker Carlson and Jack Posobiec are sharing links so I can continue my research on these issues."

The "great replacement" conspiracy theory asserts there is a coordinated effort to dilute the influence of White people through immigration and through low birth rates among White individuals, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The theory has been linked to anti-Semitism, with some versions alleging it is Jews coordinating the so-called replacement.

The shooter in a 2022 Buffalo, New York supermarket shooting that killed 10, most of whom were Black, raised the theory in a manifesto as a motive for the killings, the Associated Press reported. The killer in the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburg blamed Jews for bringing non-white immigrants to the U.S.; a 2019 Poway, California synagogue shooter claimed Jews were responsible for the killing of White Europeans; and a shooter who killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart in 2019 talked about a "Hispanic invasion" in his manifesto, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

At least a half-dozen Republican U.S. Senate candidates promoted the "great replacement" conspiracy theory in the 2022 elections, the AP reported.

House Speaker Joe Tate, a Detroit Democrat and Michigan's first Black speaker, said Schriver's "blatantly racist social media post" and later statement on the issue do not align with the chamber's values and are "deeply and personally" offensive.

Schriver's insistence that the issue was worthy of consideration "puts his ignorance on full display," Tate said in a statement, but is not an excuse for "proliferating obvious hate."

“Perhaps most disturbing is that his post uplifts a dangerous and tortured narrative that fosters violence and instability," Tate said. "His callous and reckless act is not within the spirit of what Michigan is, and it contributes to a hostile environment."

Rep. Jason Hoskins, a Black Democratic lawmaker from Southfield, also criticized the post Wednesday night.

"Michigan House Republican celebrates Black History Month by promoting racist and dangerous conspiracies that there are too many people of color," Hoskins wrote on X.

House Republican Leader Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, did not respond to a request Wednesday night for comment about Schriver's post.

Rep. Kelly Breen, D-Novi, condemned the post as "blatantly racist" and "dangerous rhetoric" that has no place in society or in the state Legislature.

"It saddens & infuriates me that a colleague shared this," Breen wrote on X. "For someone who claims to love God - Rep. Schriver is blind to the fact this would make Him weep."

Elected in 2022, Schriver represents the 66th District in the Michigan House of Representatives, which includes Addison, Brandon, Oxford townships and most of Oakland Township in Oakland County and Bruce and Washington townships in Macomb County. The Warren native is a graduate of De La Salle Collegiate High School.

Schriver serves on the House Natural Resources, Environment, Tourism, and Outdoor Recreation Committee.

Condemnation of Schriver's post extended beyond Michigan political circles.

The Northern Guard Supporters, a fan group supporting the Detroit City Football Club, also condemned the post and said the first term lawmaker was not welcome among the fan group. Schriver's wife plays for the Detroit City Football Club women's team, which plays in the Premier Arena Soccer League.

Nick Finn, who helps run communications for the group, said fans "won't tolerate that in our stands." On X, Northern Guard Supporters noted that the league included "players from all ethnic backgrounds in a high minority population city."

"It’s very upsetting to see something like that, one, from any representative in Michigan, let alone one directly connected to a member our team,” Finn told The News on Wednesday.