Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
justdrew wrote:….time to declare them terrorist organizations and kill them all. please. ASAP
ShinShinKid wrote:Listening to Democracy now, it seems that all these criminal race gangs and prison gangs often coordinate and work together.
It's all about the money and control. Mid-level personalities enjoy wielding psychological and ideological power (let alone violent power) over underlings, the high level people enjoy the income generated by mindless zombies peddling all sorts of vice for profit piggybacked to right wing buffalo sauce.
COLUMBIA, SC—Faced with mounting pressure from critics who say it sends the wrong message about the state, residents of South Carolina have mounted a vociferous defense of their right to fly the Hardee’s flag from the top of their capitol building, reports confirmed Thursday.
According to many South Carolinians, the flag, which prominently features a single smiling star and the phrase “Hardee’s Charbroiled Thickburgers,” signifies an important part of their cultural legacy, and many have expressed anger over demands that legislators remove it from public display.
“That flag represents a cherished tradition and the very spirit of our state,” said Charleston native Ruth Moore, 54, noting that she has regularly flown the flag on her own front lawn for more than 30 years. “Whether you like it or not, Hardee’s is a huge part of our history, and I’ll be damned if we’re going to let a bunch of outsiders come in here and tell us we’re not allowed to fly it anymore.”
“It’s not just a flag—it’s a way of life,” Moore continued. “It’s who we are.”
During a spirited rally at the State House early Thursday morning, an estimated 40,000 residents gathered to show their support for the flag, with many flying the fast food chain’s colors from the backs of pickup trucks or motorcycles. A few older South Carolinians could even be seen decked out in authentic uniforms once worn by actual Hardee’s servers.
Though the flag remains a polarizing issue among the nation as a whole, experts have said that in the Palmetto State—where it adorns bumper stickers, ball caps, and trinkets available in every truck stop—it remains an almost universally beloved symbol.
“I’ll salute that flag till the day I die,” said 47-year-old Jason Ramsey, who, like many South Carolina residents, has a large tattoo of the Hardee’s flag on his upper arm. “To take that away would dishonor the generations of my family who have worn the uniform, including my grandfather, who was only 16 when he first served at Hardee’s.”
“Maybe it’s a little hard for people from other places to understand, but down here we bleed red, white, and yellow,” Ramsey added.
South Carolina is currently the only state still flying the Hardee’s colors from the dome of its capitol, as Alabama, Kentucky, and Missouri all opted to remove Hardee’s flags from their own capitol buildings following significant public pressure to do so in the past five years. Even Georgia recently opted to move the giant Waffle House flag that had adorned the top of its capitol building for decades to a less prominent location on the front lawn of the State House.
Thus far, South Carolina has been reluctant to do the same, a move that has furthered angered critics who argue that the flag is a “national disgrace” and has no place at all on government property.
“I want to make one thing perfectly clear: The Hardee’s flag does not represent everyone who lives in this country,” said Daniel Pfenning, a professor of U.S. history at Johns Hopkins University. “It gives a bad name to all Americans, and it’s time for us to say once and for all that our nation disavows all the awful and truly disgusting things that flag stands for.”
Regardless of pressure from opposition groups, leaders in South Carolina have said they are adamant that the Hardee’s flag remain beside the Stars and Stripes in front of the State House. Many have stressed that it is not a question of conflicting loyalties, but of heritage.
“When I was growing up, my dad always flew the American flag with a Hardee’s flag right alongside it, and I do the same thing,” U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) said. “It’s part of my heritage, and I have to honor that. When I see those Hardee’s colors flapping in the wind, I know it’s a testament to the very freedom America stands for.”
Reached for comment, Gov. Nikki Haley said South Carolina has bigger issues facing it than a squabble over a flag, such as what to do about the broader cultural problem of the state’s deep-rooted, persistent, and firmly held racism.
Suspicion in DA Murder Shifts to Aryan Brotherhood
JUAN A. LOZANO AND NOMAAN MERCHANT APRIL 1, 2013, 6:19 PM 8746
KAUFMAN, Texas (AP) — Two days after a Texas district attorney and his wife were found shot to death in their home, authorities have said little about their investigation or any potential suspects.
But suspicion in the slayings shifted to a white supremacist gang with a long history of violence and retribution that was also the focus of a December law enforcement bulletin warning that its members might try to attack police or prosecutors.
Four top leaders of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas were indicted in October for crimes ranging from murder to drug trafficking. Two months later, authorities issued the bulletin warning that the gang might try to retaliate against law enforcement for the investigation that led to the arrests of 34 of its members on federal charges.
Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife were found dead Saturday in their East Texas home. The killings were especially jarring because they happened just a couple of months after one of the county’s assistant district attorneys, Mark Hasse, was killed in a parking lot near his courthouse office.
McLelland was part of a multi-agency task force that took part in the investigation of the Aryan Brotherhood. The task force also included the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration as well as police departments in Houston and Fort Worth.
Investigators have declined to say if the group is the focus of their efforts, but the state Department of Public Safety bulletin warned that the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas is “involved in issuing orders to inflict ‘mass casualties or death’ to law enforcement officials involved in the recent case.”
Terry Pelz, a former Texas prison warden and expert on the Aryan Brotherhood said killing law enforcement representatives would be uncharacteristic of the group.
“They don’t go around killing officials,” he said. “They don’t draw heat upon themselves.”
But Pelz, who worked in the Texas prison system for 21 years, added that the gang has a history of threatening officials and of killing its own member or rivals. He suggested if the Aryan Brotherhood was behind the slayings in Kaufman County, some sort of disruption in the gang’s operations might have prompted their retaliation.
That disruption might have come last year, when federal prosecutors in Houston in November announced indictments against 34 alleged members of the gang, including four of its top leaders in Texas. At the time, prosecutors called the indictment “a devastating blow to the leadership” of the gang.
Meanwhile, deputies escorted some Kaufman County employees into the courthouse Monday after the slayings stirred fears that other public employees could be targeted. Law enforcement officers were seen patrolling outside the courthouse, one holding a semi-automatic weapon, while others walked around inside.
Deputies were called to the McLelland home by relatives and friends who had been unable to reach the pair, according to a search warrant affidavit.
When they arrived, investigators found the two had been shot multiple times. Cartridge casings were scattered near their bodies, the affidavit said.
Authorities have not discussed a motive.
“I don’t want to walk around in fear every day … but on the other hand, two months ago, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” County Judge Bruce Wood, the county’s top administrator, said Monday at a news conference.
The killings also came less than two weeks after Colorado’s prison chief was shot to death at his front door, apparently by an ex-convict.
Law enforcement agencies throughout Texas were on high alert, and steps were being taken to better protect other DAs and their staffs.
In Harris County, which includes Houston, District Attorney Mike Anderson said he accepted the sheriff’s offer of 24-hour security for him and his family. Anderson said he also would take precautions at his office, the largest of its kind in Texas, with more than 270 prosecutors.
“I think district attorneys across Texas are still in a state of shock,” Anderson said Sunday.
McLelland, 63, was the 13th prosecutor killed in the U.S. since the National Association of District Attorneys began keeping count in the 1960s.
Kaufman County Sheriff David Byrnes would not give details Sunday of how the killings unfolded and said there was nothing to indicate for certain whether the DA’s slaying was connected to Hasse’s.
El Paso County, Colo., sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Joe Roybal said investigators had so far found no evidence connecting the Texas killings to the Colorado case, but added: “We’re examining all possibilities.”
Colorado’s corrections director, Tom Clements, was killed March 19 when he answered the doorbell at his home outside Colorado Springs. Evan Spencer Ebel, a white supremacist and former Colorado inmate suspected of shooting Clements, died in a shootout with Texas deputies two days later about 100 miles from Kaufman.
In an Associated Press interview shortly after the Colorado slaying, McLelland himself raised the possibility that Hasse was gunned down by a white supremacist gang.
McLelland, elected in 2010, said his office had prosecuted several cases against such gangs, particularly one known as the Aryan Brotherhood. The groups have a strong presence around Kaufman County, a mostly rural area dotted with subdivisions, with a population of about 104,000.
No arrests have been made in Hasse’s Jan. 31 slaying. After that attack, McLelland said, he carried a gun everywhere around town, even when walking his dog. He figured assassins were more likely to try to attack him outside. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert.
8bitagent wrote:Sooo...question. If the Aryans are involved in drug dealing...doesnt that mean they have to be buddies with "darkie" Mexicans?
Unless, the Aryans are just slingin' meth?
An assistant U.S. attorney in Houston sent an email on Tuesday explaining that he’s backing out of a racketeering case against members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas due to concerns about his security, The Dallas Morning News reported.
The revelation was contained in a short email sent by assistant U.S. attorney Jay Hileman to criminal defense lawyer Richard O. Ely II, the News noted. Houston attorney Katherine Scardino told Talking Points Memo that the decision was made for “security reasons.”
The Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, known for employing extreme violence against enemies and even fellow members who refuse orders, has it out for a key witness in the case: a former Brotherhood leader named Terry Sillers, who has been in police custody since June 2011.
Investigators looking for clues in the recent slayings of two Kaufman County prosecutors are looking into a possible connection to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, which vowed in November to kill members of the law enforcement community that were involved in obtaining a massive set of federal indictments against 34 individuals, brought about in part by Sillers.
Hileman’s withdrawal also comes just a day after Kaufman County named prosecutor Brandi Fernandez the new district attorney to replace her murdered predecessor, virtually guaranteeing that tensions will remain high in Kaufman County for the foreseeable future.
Members charged in the indictments stand accused of three murders, numerous assaults and attempted murders, drug charges and even kidnappings. Details from the indictments are chilling, The Daily Beast’s Christine Pelisek noted. In one allegation, gang members are said to have killed an initiate to send a message to other new recruits, returning with a severed finger as a trophy. They’re also accused of numerous acts of brutal violence, including using blowtorches to fry gang tattoos off a member who refused an order.
However, it’s still unclear if there is a Kaufman County connection, despite the county’s involvement in a task force that issued indictments against the gang. Investigators also spoke to another person of interest in the case this week, a former Kaufman County judge who was arrested for theft and disbarred. “I’ve cooperated with law enforcement,” former judge Eric Williams told the NBC affiliate in Dallas. “I certainly wish them the best in bringing justice to this incredibly egregious act.”
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