State of emergency declared in Charlottesville

[seemslikeadream]

State of emergency declared in Charlottesville ahead of anniversary


PHOTO: Members of white nationalists rally around a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 12, 2017. Joshua Roberts/Reuters/FILE
WATCH A timeline of the 2017 protests in Charlottesville and political fallout

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and the city of Charlottesville have declared a state of emergency ahead of the anniversary of the violent Unite the Right rally.

The first iteration of the group's rally took place in the sleepy Virginia town last August. On the anniversary on Sunday, large protests and parades are planned in Washington, D.C., as well as smaller memorial events in Charlottesville.

On Aug. 12, 2017, Heather Heyer, 32, was killed when she was struck by a car that had plowed into a crowd of counter-protesters. Two Virginia State troopers were also killed that weekend when their helicopter crashed into woods nearby.

PHOTO: Peter Cvjetanovic marches with white nationalists and far right extremists as they encircle the base of a Thomas Jefferson statue after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 11, 2017.Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Peter Cvjetanovic marches with white nationalists and far right extremists as they encircle the base of a Thomas Jefferson statue after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 11, 2017.more +
Several events are planned in the Charlottesville area beginning Friday through Sunday to mark the anniversary of the rally, Northam's office said.

(MORE: How Richmond is addressing the debate over Confederate monuments 1 year after Charlottesville)
Northam asked residents to "make alternative plans to engaging with planned demonstrations of hate."

"Virginia continues to mourn the three Virginians who lost their lives in the course of the demonstrations a year ago," Northam said. "We hope the anniversary of those events passes peacefully."

PHOTO: White nationalists, neo-Nazis, the KKK and members of the alt-right attack each other as a counter protester (R) intervenes during the melee outside Emancipation Park during the Unite the Right rally, Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Va.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, FILE
White nationalists, neo-Nazis, the KKK and members of the "alt-right" attack each other as a counter protester (R) intervenes during the melee outside Emancipation Park during the Unite the Right rally, Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Va.more +
Resources from the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, Virginia State Police, Virginia Department of Health and Virginia National Guard will be present in Charlottesville over the weekend. The declaration, which was issued Wednesday, will also allocate $2 million to pay for the response, according to the governor's office.

(MORE: Driver accused of killing 1 in Charlottesville rally to appear in court)
The 2017 event in Charlottesville stemmed from a gathering of white nationalists and alt-right supporters who formed the "Unite the Right" rally. The outward purpose of the rally was to protest the city's plans to remove a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee, who led the Confederate army during the Civil War, from a local park.

Hundreds of counter-protesters clashed with the rally attendees, causing violent brawls to break out in the street, prompting then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe to declare a state of emergency.

PHOTO: A vehicle plows into a group of protesters marching along 4th Street NE at the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Va., on the day of the Unite the Right rally, Aug. 12, 2017.Ryan M. Kelly/Daily Progress via Pulitzer.org, FILE
A vehicle plows into a group of protesters marching along 4th Street NE at the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Va., on the day of the Unite the Right rally, Aug. 12, 2017.more +
Heyer, a counter-protester, was killed and several others were injured when a driver plowed through a crowd of people.

(MORE: $3 million lawsuit filed against organizers of Charlottesville rally)
What is expected to happen this weekend?

In addition to the events in Charlottesville, much attention will be paid to the "Unite the Right" parade and rally, which is slated to take place in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.

Permits for protests have been granted in different parts of the nation's capital with the organizers of the original "Unite the Right" rally planning to march from a nearby Metro station to a demonstration in Lafayette Square Park, directly opposite the White House.

Counter-demonstrations have also received permits, including groups like Black Lives Matter and an individual who plans to burn a Confederate flag in Lafayette Park.

More details about the demonstrations are expected to be released in the coming days.

ABC News' MEGHAN KENEALLY contributed to this report.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/virginia-gove ... d=57114699

[Cordelia]

Charlottesville In Panic Over Nazis Who Might Not Even Show Up

https://epeak.in/2018/08/11/charlottesv ... n-show-up/

But a good opportunity to show us what an occupied city looks like.

[Cordelia]

Nobody from the KKK or Unite-The-Right showed up and, by looking at this WaPo video, antsy ‘demonstrators’ had only the enormous number of police to aim their aggression at.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc5X9jK7FPA

Pretty calm, considering so much advance NPR coverage and massive police presence. A friend of mine who walks to the downtown mall every day said today all is back-to-normal business-as-usual. (Wonder how much all this cost.)

[Cordelia]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S07ldoiKRg

Despite criticisms of heavy police presence in Charlottesville, officials say the public safety response to Unite the Right anniversary was a success

An estimation of the local, regional and state costs for the public safety operation has yet to be determined

By Geremia Di Maro | 08/13/2018



Local, state and regional officials are saying the public safety and security response to the one-year anniversary of last summer’s violent Unite the Right rally was largely a success, despite facing sharp criticisms from some community members of the heavy law enforcement presence in the region and heightened security measures in downtown over the weekend.

“Our job as public safety professionals is to prepare for worst case scenarios,” Charlottesville Fire Chief Andrew Baxter said during a press conference with officials Monday afternoon. “I believe deeply that our commitment to that understanding and the planning process that flowed from that is the basis for our success as a unified team this past weekend.”

MORE....
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/20 ... -a-success

As a training/intimidation exercise, no doubt it was a success.

[Cordelia]

I haven't kept up with Second Amendment sanctuary cities, but a State-of-Emergency has been declared in Richmond ahead of a rally to be held tomorrow (State & Federal MLK Holiday). Articles in mainstream media and yesterday’s WaPo are warning (promoting; fanning the flames; selling tomorrow’s papers?) of its potential as being another 'Charlottesville'. So far, the new year has brought impeachment hearings, an impending World War, now a potential 'Civil War' (marked in the first sentence below) and we're just past midway in the first month of 2020....media hype is business-as-usual so who can really be sure how this--or anything being reported in the media--pans out.

Richmond braces for GIANT gun rights rally on Monday

By Gregory S. Schneider and Laura Vozzella
Jan. 18, 2020 at 11:20 a.m. EST

RICHMOND — The convoys and militias are coming, if social media posts are to be believed, headed to Virginia's capital to take a stand for gun rights — or, in the words of some, to fan the flames of a civil war.

“I’ll be rolling into town early. I can’t give you my exact time for security reasons,” said Christian Yingling, head of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia and a leader at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017.

“I organized a convoy, places we can meet up and drive up together. I’ll be leading it,” said Tammy Lee, a militia activist in Oklahoma.

Both Lee and Yingling were members of groups that signed consent decrees never to return to Charlottesville while armed, part of a lawsuit settlement over the violence there. But there is no restriction against coming to Richmond.

Thousands will join them, they say, for a rally Monday on Capitol Square to protest plans by the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly to pass gun-control laws. State and federal officials were preparing for a volatile mix of weapons, passions and anti-government fervor. Central Richmond was braced for road closures and extensive police presence.

That was before President Trump decided to weigh in Friday afternoon on Twitter.

“Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia,” Trump tweeted. “That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!”

Gov. Ralph Northam (D) last week declared a state of emergency and issued a ban on firearms or other weapons on Capitol grounds. The state Supreme Court upheld the ban after a challenge by two gun rights groups. The Federal Aviation Administration has issued temporary flight restrictions for Richmond airspace, making it illegal to fly planes or drones above the city on Monday. Northam has said officials are concerned about threats from weaponized drones.

The Virginia Citizens Defense League, a pro-gun advocacy group, sponsors what has always been a peaceful rally every year on Lobby Day, which coincides with the state’s Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. With children out of school and state offices closed, it is a time for citizens to come to the Capitol and lobby lawmakers on a variety of issues.

The pro-gun rally is always the most visible event, but this year it has virtually wiped out everything else. The Virginia Citizens Defense League has appealed for 10,000 supporters to show up unarmed to fill Capitol Square and asked several times that many stand outside with weapons.

MORE...https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vi ... story.html

[JackRiddler]

I don't believe in minimizing police states but I don't believe in minimizing Nazis. By whatever name, the organized political armed and violent right-wing extremists are the genuine non-state domestic terrorism threat. More than this, they are a credible threat to one day take power or merge with the state in this country, and murder millions. You saw what happened in Charlottesville, you should know to include what happened in Pittsburgh as part of the pattern. The motherfuckers have said they will storm the legislature and one of the legislators is receiving credible death threats. If there's a justified police state deployment, it's this. If the motherfuckers end up not showing up because they realize their numbers in this case will be weak, too bad. I'm sorry to see you participating in the dismaying, groundless tendency to advance equivalence narratives in which the justified anti-fascist movements and counter-protests to Nazi threats are somehow supposed to be bad, or even just as bad - or "fine people" on both sides!

[Cordelia]

No, I'm questioning how mainstream media slants their reporting on this and other events before, during and after they happen. Especially in this election year. I do think there have been aggressively bad behaviors acted out within some Antifa groups and I doubt there are any fine people acting out their peaceful or multicultural behaviors within Neo-Nazi groups. I hope for the sake of all the participants and their families in today's rally that there are no violent eruptions, but I doubt there will be an open and balanced analysis for the public to read in newspapers (since I don't watch television or view social media outlets).

[JackRiddler]

.

This is just wrong. When the state goes on maneuvers in response to some supposed advance threat from anti-fascists, Muslims, brown people or leftists, nine times out of ten it's fabricated and the one time it's exaggerated. When members of an extreme right-wing movement (by whatever name: white supremacist, KKK, Nazi, "unite the Right," Christianist, neo-Confederate, nice gun-loving militia, etc.) want to show up at a state capitol carrying their machine guns (oh, sorry, have I violated the NRA's speech code?), their war-weapons, their rapid-fire kill sticks, on MLK day, and issue threats to storm the legislature and murder lawmakers, then the state has no choice but to prepare. What did you expect? Such threats are believable, they come independently from people whose ideology advocates violence and genocide in its content (and not just in the supposed means attributed to them by their detractors, as is the case with the right-wing lies about anti-fascist movements that you sadly are echoing, Cordelia). This tendency has a proven, undeniable record of actual terrorist attacks against civilians in the U.S., and has been the leading source of such attacks for years. Those among the ranks have committed multiple mass murders on ideological grounds in recent years, including the first-ever mass murders of people in the United States just for being Jewish.

.

[DrEvil]

No, I'm questioning how mainstream media slants their reporting on this and other events before, during and after they happen. Especially in this election year. I do think there have been aggressively bad behaviors acted out within some Antifa groups and I doubt there are any fine people acting out their peaceful or multicultural behaviors within Neo-Nazi groups. I hope for the sake of all the participants and their families in today's rally that there are no violent eruptions, but I doubt there will be an open and balanced analysis for the public to read in newspapers (since I don't watch television or view social media outlets).

Any examples of "aggressively bad behaviors" from antifa? All I've seen is far-right smear campaigns. I've also seen the far right murder people left and right. Any open and balanced analysis for the public should read something like: "Far-right fuckwits want to start civil war and are a danger to the nation. Decent people try to stop them."

[Cordelia]

...aggressively bad behaviors acted out within some Antifa groups...

No, I'm questioning how mainstream media slants their reporting on this and other events before, during and after they happen. Especially in this election year. I do think there have been aggressively bad behaviors acted out within some Antifa groups and I doubt there are any fine people acting out their peaceful or multicultural behaviors within Neo-Nazi groups. I hope for the sake of all the participants and their families in today's rally that there are no violent eruptions, but I doubt there will be an open and balanced analysis for the public to read in newspapers (since I don't watch television or view social media outlets).

Any examples of "aggressively bad behaviors" from antifa? All I've seen is far-right smear campaigns. I've also seen the far right murder people left and right. Any open and balanced analysis for the public should read something like: "Far-right fuckwits want to start civil war and are a danger to the nation. Decent people try to stop them."

Berkeley 2017, as smeared by 'far-right' newspaper Washington Post?

Black-clad antifa members attack peaceful right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley

By Kyle Swenson
August 28, 2017 at 3:47 a.m. EDT

Their faces hidden behind black bandannas and hoodies, about 100 anarchists and antifa— “anti-fascist” — members barreled into a protest Sunday afternoon in Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park.

Jumping over plastic and concrete barriers, the group melted into a larger crowd of around 2,000 that had marched peacefully throughout the sunny afternoon for a “Rally Against Hate” gathering.

Shortly after, violence began to flare. A pepper-spray-wielding Trump supporter was smacked to the ground with homemade shields. Another was attacked by five black-clad antifa members, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself. A conservative group leader retreated for safety behind a line of riot police as marchers chucked water bottles, shot off pepper spray and screamed, “Fascist go home!”

MORE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... -berkeley/

But again, WaPo is mainstream and under control, so biased. And imo, (far) right-wing, left-wing, wtf with labels.

[DrEvil]

^^One of the people they attacked was Joey Gibson, founder of Patriot Prayer, who often demonstrates along with such lovely people as the Proud Boys. He was recently charged with taking part in a riot where a woman was beaten unconscious and had her vertebrae broken, so my sympathy is extremely limited, and he's one of the moderate ones.

And the usual reminder: in 2018, every single domestic terrorist attack in the US was done by the far right. Antifa is not the problem. When the far right chooses to demonstrate in places like Berkeley they know damn well what the reaction will be. That's part of the plan. They go places where they know there will be lots of pissed off people hoping something will happen so they can use it as a propaganda tool. "Look at those meanies attacking peaceful fascists!"

[norton ash]

They interviewed a series of bearded, survivalist-looking 2nd Amendment dudes on FOX last night, and Laura Ingraham said 'Hey, I'd like to hang out with those guys!" Cause they're just plain masculine no-nonsense truck drivin' Americans who show up armed.