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Cross in Stone's threatening tweet is also a "white power" symbol

he white supremacist version of the Celtic Cross, which consists of a square cross interlocking with or surrounded by a circle, is one of the most important and commonly used white supremacist symbols. Although usually called a Celtic Cross by white supremacists, its origins date to the pre-Christian "sun cross" or "wheel cross" in ancient Europe. Norwegian Nazis used a version of the symbol in the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, a variety of white supremacist groups and movements adopted the symbol. Today, this verson of the Celtic Cross is used by neo-Nazis, racist skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and virtually every other type of white supremacist. It has also achieved notoriety as part of the logo of Stormfront, the oldest and largest white supremacist website in the world.



https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/celtic-cross

Roger Stone lashes out federal judge with threatening picture of her next to crosshairs

Trump’s longtime confidant Roger Stone on Monday attacked the federal judge presiding over his criminal case in the special counsel’s Russia probe.

In an Instagram post, Stone lashed out at U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.

“Through legal trickery Deep State hitman Robert Mueller has guaranteed that my upcoming show trial is before Judge Amy Berman Jackson , an Obama appointed Judge who dismissed the Benghazi charges again Hillary Clinton [sic] and incarcerated Paul Manafort prior to his conviction for any crime,” he wrote. Stone then asked for donations.

The Guardian’s Jon Swaine noted that the picture Stone posted on Instagram placed crosshairs next to Jackson’s head.

Last week, Jackson prohibited Stone from commenting on the case around the Washington, D.C., courthouse. But he remains otherwise free to discuss his situation. However, Jackson has warned that she could amend the limited gag order in the future if necessary.

“This is completely out of bounds. The cross hairs will likely lead prosecutors to ask for revocation of his pre-trial release. At best, this is a cheap stunt designed to get the judge to recuse, at worst, an outright threat,” former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance said.



https://www.rawstory.com/2019/02/roger-stone-lashes-federal-judge-threatening-picture-next-crosshairs/?utm_source=push_notifications

Tory minister and four Conservative backbench MPs poised to join new Labour splinter group

Tory minister and four Conservative backbenchers appear poised to defect to the new Independent Group set up by disgruntled Labour MPs, it has been claimed.

Describing the breakaway group as “remarkably sensible people”, the minister told the Telegraph he was prepared to join the new party if the Government presses ahead with a no-deal Brexit.

It came as Anna Soubry sparked speculation she is preparing to jump ship after removing a Conservative Party slogan from her social media profile.

The Tory Remainer removed all reference to her party from her Twitter biography, referring to herself simply as ‘MP for Broxtowe’ having previously described herself as a ‘lifelong One Nation Tory’.



https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/18/tory-minister-four-conservative-backbench-mps-poised-join-new/

Bonus Tweet of the Day

Neil Young - Cinnamon Girl

Patty Hearst: How the Outlaw Heiress Became a Chameleon

Almost 40 years after her release from prison, Patty Hearst finds herself -- and her confusing and compelling story -- under public scrutiny again, thanks to a CNN documentary series, The Radical Story of Patty Hearst, based on Jeffrey Toobin's 2016 book, American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst. Both capture the political chaos, social unrest, and taut social hierarchy that the Hearst heiress unwittingly found herself caught up in, when she was kidnapped from her Berkeley home in 1974.

Her reasons for joining her captors, the Symbionese Liberation Army, and carrying out a series of shocking crimes while on the run with them remain muddy, but in a 2016 Conan appearance, Toobin compared Hearst's year and a half-long rampage to an ISIS recruitment.

Toobin argues in his work that Hearst wasn't brainwashed, but that a solid period of isolation and indoctrination at the hands of her captors made her believe that changing the world by any means necessary was the right thing to do.

This is not an unreasonable assertion. During her 1975 arrest, after participating in two bank robberies (the second of which resulted in the death of Myrna Opsahl), a shoot-out (that she started while trying to rescue one of her captor-comrades), and a number of car thefts, Hearst told the arresting officer that her profession was "urban guerrilla." This was after she gave a clenched-fist salute to awaiting photographers from the back of a police car. Six out of eight of Hearst's kidnappers died in a fiery gun battle with the LAPD, but she remained on the run for a full 16 months after that, until her capture.

Hearst made for a convincing and passionate revolutionary, but quickly became a sympathetic kidnap victim too. She and her family managed to convince President Carter to commute her 7-year sentence and allow her to go free after just 22 months. Utterly convinced that Hearst was "a model citizen in every way," Carter also managed to convince President Clinton to give her a full pardon in 2001.




https://www.kqed.org/pop/101956/patty-hearst-how-the-outlaw-heiress-became-a-chameleon

Trump calls for retribution against television actors, writers

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Bernie Sanders Stumbled With Black Voters in 2016. Can He Do Better in 2020?

Shortly after Senator Bernie Sanders suffered a crushing loss in South Carolina’s Democratic primary in 2016, his campaign’s African-American outreach team sent a memo to top campaign leaders with an urgent warning.

“The margin by which we lost the African-American vote has got to be — at the very least — cut in half or there simply is no path to victory,” the team wrote in the memo, which was reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Sanders had won 14 percent of the black vote there compared with 86 percent for Hillary Clinton, according to exit polls.

Over seven pages, the team outlined a strategy for winning black voters that included using social media influencers and having Mr. Sanders give a major speech on discrimination in a city like St. Louis or Cincinnati.

Mr. Sanders’s inner circle did not respond.

In a campaign in which Mr. Sanders badly needed his message against inequality to catch fire with black voters, the senator from Vermont and his senior leaders struggled to prioritize and execute a winning plan to build their support. Top aides lost faith in their African-American outreach organizers, whose leadership was replaced and whose team members were scattered across the country. Initiatives like a tour of historically black colleges and universities fizzled; Mr. Sanders even missed its kickoff event.

As Mr. Sanders prepares to announce another run for the White House as early as this week, his weak track record with black voters — a vital base in the Democratic Party — could be a potential threat to his candidacy. And his campaign’s experience in 2016, as described in interviews with nearly two dozen current and former advisers and staff members, reveals a strikingly uneven commitment on the part of Mr. Sanders and his top advisers to organize and communicate effectively with black voters and leaders.



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-black-voters-outreach.html