26 August, 2017
Americans agree with President Donald Trump's defense of Confederate monuments, and few think getting rid of the statues will lessen racial tensions, a new poll shows.
At the Phoenix rally, he read from his three responses to the racially charged violence, becoming more animated with each one.
Trump opened his political rally in Phoenix with a call for unity, saying, "What happened in Charlottesville strikes at the core of America and tonight, this entire arena stands united in forceful condemnation of the thugs that perpetrated hatred and violence".
But when Trump read the statement again in Arizona, he left out "many sides". Following the violence in Charlottesville, a number of media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post and Huffington Post, reported that of 31 counter-extremism grants awarded by the Obama administration, the grant to Life After Hate was the only one focused exclusively on neo-Nazis and other white supremacist groups. The president was slated to give remarks about veterans' reforms but instead began by speaking about the clash. Phillips, or admit that your professed support for Long Island's Jewish community is nothing more than political theater.
When Medal of Honor recipient Donald Ballard joined the president onstage and offered praise for Trump, the president smiled and praised Ballard's declaration that Trump was "the right leader to lead us out to drain the swamp". It has no place in America.
The organization, which is known as one of the few groups in the USA dedicated to helping people leave white supremacist groups, was created by former far-right extremists, including former neo-Nazi Christian Picciolini, who appeared Monday on Chicago Tonight to discuss the violence in Charlottesville and his eight-year history as part of a hate group.
Christian Picciolini, a former white supremacist, helped lead neo-Nazi group the Chicago Area Skin Heads 30 years ago, at the age of 16. If a conflict involves Muslims, Black Lives Matter or anti-Trump protesters, he's quick to condemn one side and excuse the other. The next day, during a news conference in NY, he reverted to his original stance, declaring that "there's blame on both sides". "And I think until we apply the right resources to it, or call it what it is when there is a violent act - that it is an act of terrorism based on an ideological premise". The same pollsters found that voters in general want Trump impeached by a 48 percent to 41 percent margin, and 53 percent wishes President Obama were still in the White House.
But he quickly trained his ire on the media, shouting that he "openly called for healing unity and love" in the immediate aftermath of Charlottesville and claiming the media had misrepresented him. Still angry about how his initial statement was covered, he told the crowd that he wanted to "show you how damned dishonest these people are".
Asked if the group planned to counter Islamist extremists despite not receiving the DHS grant, Picciolini said: "Moonshot CVE and Muflehun are trusted partners of Life After Hate and we will continue to work with them in various capacities, though I can not speak specifically [on] if or when we may work on the project that was attached to the grant".
The crowd cheered the president and then booed the media.
And he wasn't done. Members of the Humanities Council had already resigned in protest to Trump's policies and lack of moral courage in denouncing the haters.
Life After Hate had been considered an exception by civil rights advocates and others who are critical of US anti-extremism programs, which they say cast unwarranted suspicion on certain groups, particularly Muslims.
"I said everything. I hit him with neo-Nazi".
He explained that these dog whistles or ways of spinning white supremacy into a "movement of love" so that in front of cameras they're able to say that it isn't about racism or hate.
To them, I would ask why Phillips would be so vocal on those matters now, when she said little or nothing about them in the past. KKK, we have KKK.
