Heather Heyer
<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RIP</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">neglected?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">look at rhet of attacks?
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawsuit-over-charlottesville-unite-rally-080025307.html">https://www.yahoo.com/news/lawsuit-over-charlottesville-unite-rally-080025307.html</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix</font></div><div>
</div><div>lawsuit over Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' rally has crippled white supremacist groups, leaders</div><div>
</div><div>White nationalist Richard Spencer (center) and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police in Emancipation Park after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering Aug. 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" clashed with anti-fascist protesters and police as they attempted to hold a rally in Emancipation Park, where a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was slated to be removed.</div><div>
</div><div>A white supremacist with a Nazi tattoo leaves Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017.</div><div>Flowers and notes are left in memory of Heather Heyer, who died after she was struck when a car plowed into a crowd protesting the 'Unite the Right' rally on Aug. 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Va.]</div><div>
</div><div>Firefighters from northern Idaho and eastern Washington participate in fire training on July 11, 2001, climaxing with the destruction of the church structure at the former Aryan Nations compound in Hayden, Idaho. The only other structure then remaining at the compound was the former residence of Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler, which also was to be used for firefighter training.</div><div>
</div><div>Supporters of US President Donald Trump protest inside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. - Demonstrators breeched security and entered the Capitol as Congress debated the a 2020 presidential election Electoral Vote Certification. ]</div><div>
</div><div><b>Civil trial over deadly 'Unite the Right' extremist rally to begin in Charlottesville</b></div><div>White nationalist Richard Spencer (center) and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police in Emancipation Park after the "Unite the Right" rally was declared an unlawful gathering Aug. 12, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hundreds of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and members of the "alt-right" clashed with anti-fascist protesters and police as they attempted to hold a rally in Emancipation Park, where a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee was slated to be removed.</div><div>
</div><div>Will Carless</div><div><b>October 17, 2021</b></div><div>In this article:</div><div>
</div><div>Richard B. Spencer</div><div>American white supremacist, conspiracy theorist, and neo-Nazi</div><div>
</div><div>Donald Trump</div><div>45th President of the United States</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A federal lawsuit against the organizers of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which has rattled hate groups and white supremacist leaders, goes to trial this month.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The suit already has helped to dismantle some of America's most well-known white supremacist groups, and it has financially crippled one leader of the so-called "alt-right," the white supremacist and nationalist movement that came to prominence under President Donald Trump. </span></div><div>
</div><div><b>"It's very stressful, and very costly," said Richard Spencer, one of the defendants in the lawsuit and the former de facto leader of the "alt-right," in an interview. "This level of pressure is definitely scary." </b></div><div>
</div><div>Oath Keepers: Hack exposes law enforcement officers who signed up to join anti-government Oath Keepers</div><div>
</div><div>White supremacist recruiting: How podcasts have become the backbone for white supremacist recruiting</div><div>
</div><div>Video: 'White supremacy is terrorism': Biden condemns terrorism in address]</div><div>
</div><div><b>Lawsuits have long been used to dismantle or bankrupt the engines of hate in the U.S., including the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations and the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer. </b></div><div>
</div><div>"We know that civil lawsuits work in holding accountable extremists by going after their finances and their operations," said Amy Spitalnick, executive director of the nonprofit civil rights group Integrity First for America, which is backing the lawsuit. "That has been true for decades."</div><div>
</div><div><b>But even when those groups have been crippled, white supremacists have adapted, going underground and surfacing with new organizations and leaders. </b></div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>An alleged conspiracy to Unite the Right</div><div>
</div><div>The Unite the Right rally, held on Aug. 11 and 12, 2017, was a watershed moment for the white supremacist movement in the United States.</div><div>
</div><div>Coming the summer after the election of a president who kickstarted his political career by pushing a racist conspiracy theory, the event put American hatred on full display.</div><div>
</div><div>Clean-cut white men marched across the University of Virginia campus carrying tiki torches and chanting, "Jews will not replace us." Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, brandishing shields emblazoned with Nazi symbols, chanted racist and antisemitic slogans as they fought the removal of a Confederate monument.</div><div>
</div><div>Fights between white supremacists and counter-protesters broke out. Neo-Nazi James Fields drove his car into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer. <b>Fields was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.[19 hurt some badly?]</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Heather Heyer attack: Neo-Nazi James Fields gets life plus 419 years for murder in Charlottesville</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Integrity First'</b>s wide-ranging lawsuit alleges that the leaders of the white supremacist movement engaged in a conspiracy to commit racially motivated violence against nonwhite and Jewish people during the Unite The Right rally.</div><div>
</div><div>"The violence in Charlottesville was no accident," the lawsuit states. "Defendants spent months carefully coordinating their efforts, on the internet and in person. They exhorted each other: <b>'If you want to defend the South and Western Civilization from the Jew and his dark-skinned allies, be at Charlottesville on 12 August' and 'Next stop: Charlottesville, VA. Final stop: Auschwitz.'"</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The lawsuit seeks compensatory and punitive damages for the plaintiffs, with the amount to be decided by a jury. </span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The defendants are a "who's who" of the extremist right: Jason Kessler, a key organizer of the event; neo-Nazi podcaster Christopher Cantwell; Nathan Damigo, a white supremacist who founded the group Identity Evropa; Spencer; and a host of other extremist leaders and groups.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Richard Spencer: Suit has been 'crippling'</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Despite briefly rising to prominence at the outset of the Trump presidency, the last four years have proven brutal for the "alt-right," a political movement that mixes racism, white nationalism, antisemitism and populism. That's thanks in part to the pressure of the case, filed in October 2017. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Spencer has no illusions about the state of the movement he helped create. "<b>The 'alt-right' is dead," </b>he said in an interview last month.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Last week, Spencer acknowledged that the Integrity First lawsuit has taken a toll.</div><div>
</div><div>Along with the constant stress, the lawsuit has cost thousands of dollars to defend, Spencer said. In June 2020, he told the court that the case has been "financially crippling.<b>" Now he's representing himself in court.</b></div><div>
</div><div>White nationalist Richard Spencer (center) and his supporters clash with Virginia State Police in Emancipation Park after the </div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>The plaintiffs – a minister, students and other Charlottesville residents – have won default judgments against seven[1 did not show b/c dropped phone in toilet] of the 24 defendants, with the penalties to be decided by the jury</b>. The court has issued five-figure fines against three other defendants for failing to produce evidence or show up for court hearings or depositions, court files show. </div><div>
</div><div>Meanwhile, several of the groups named in the suit have fallen apart. </div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">Vanguard America, the neo-Nazi group that Fields marched with, fragmented after the rally. So did the Traditionalist Workers Party, a white supremacist group. Cantwell is in prison after being convicted of extortion. Identity Evropa rebranded, and in May 2020 defendants Matthew Heimbach and Elliott Kline each were ordered to pay fines of more than $12,000.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>At least two defendants are in hiding: Andrew Anglin,</b> who founded the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer and has another multi-million dollar judgment against him from another lawsuit, and his webmaster Robert Ray, who goes by "Azzmador" and disappeared from view last year after the suit was filed. </div><div>
</div><div>"This case is about ensuring that these folks are effectively bankrupted and dismantled," Spitalnick said. "The fact that so many of these defendants have already been marginalized in the movement is a testament to how accountability can work." </div><div>
</div><div>In that respect, the Charlottesville case follows a long history of using lawsuits to disrupt hate groups.</div><div>
</div><div>A compound razed and movements flattened</div><div>
</div><div>An extraordinary series of photographs from 2001 shows the demolition of the Aryan Nations compound outside Boise, Idaho. In one, a yellow digger chews into a massive swastika painted on a roof. In another, a guard tower is flattened by the same machine. </div><div>
</div><div><b>The compound was razed after the Aryan Nations was bankrupted in 2000 by a lawsuit brought by an Idaho attorney and the Southern Poverty Law Center.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">That case was one of almost a dozen such lawsuits filed by the SPLC against various groups over the last 20 years.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Firefighters from northern Idaho and eastern Washington participate in fire training on July 11, 2001, climaxing with the destruction of the church structure at the former Aryan Nations compound in Hayden, Idaho. The only other structure then remaining at the compound was the former residence of Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler, which also was to be used for firefighter training.</div><div>]</div><div>More</div><div><b>"Every one of our cases led to the dissolution of a group," said Heidi Beirich, who once led the SPLC's Intelligence Project. Now she's co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. "It's a very effective tactic.</b>"</div><div>
</div><div>The land that once housed the group is now a public park.</div><div>
</div><div>In the 1980s and 90s, the SPLC filed lawsuits against several chapters of the KKK on behalf of plaintiffs who had been intimidated or threatened. The lawsuits caused those chapters to file for bankruptcy or shut down. </div><div>
</div><div>Beirich said she applauds Integrity First for bringing such a broad lawsuit against so many defendants. The SPLC cases typically tackled one organization or chapter at a time, she said.</div><div>
</div><div>Like the SPLC lawsuits, the Charlottesville case is based on more than the mere speech of hate groups, which is protected, Beirich said. It alleges the defendants engaged in illegal actions, including harassment and assault.</div><div>
</div><div>Ku Klux Klan Act invoked in lawsuit over insurrection</div><div>The suit against the Unite the Right organizers appears to have opened new legal fronts in the fight against extremism. </div><div>
</div><div><b>In late August, seven officers from the U.S. Capitol Police sued Trump, his longtime adviser Roger Stone and members of far-right extremist groups,</b> alleging they conspired to use violence on Jan. 6 to attempt to prevent Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That lawsuit relies on the same statute used in the Charlottesville case – the federal Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a Reconstruction-era statute that allows individuals to sue when they are injured by conspiracies. </span></div><div>
</div><div>"Unfortunately, the KKK Act is experiencing something of a renaissance," said Karen Dunn, co-lead counsel on the Charlottesville lawsuitwith Roberta Kaplan. "But we are glad it exists because this is exactly the kind of conduct it is meant to address."</div><div>
</div><div>This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Lawsuit over Charlottesville 'Unite the Right' rally goes to trial</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">blk female student thugswarmed when elected to student gov't? at ivy league now in boden admin? civil KKK suit ~ charlottesville indiv and groups 10 21 trms</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-10-25-21-n1282354">https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-10-25-21-n1282354</a></font></div></div></div><div>
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></font><p>
</p><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/neo-nazi-richard-spencer-went-into-a-racist-rage-after-the-death-of-heather-heyer-leaked-audio/">neo-Nazi Richard Spencer went into a racist rage after the death of Heather Heyer: Leaked audio</a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta"><span class="author-italic author vcard"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/jen-hayden/" title="Posts by Jen Hayden" class="author url fn" rel="author">Jen Hayden</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/daily-kos/" title="Posts by Daily Kos" class="author url fn" rel="author">Daily Kos</a></span></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content"><p>In
January 2017, Richard Spencer gained fame as a result of a number of
articles highlighting him as the new, “dapper” face of white
nationalism.</p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mma</font></div><div><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One day after a rally put on by the violent far-right group was met with protests by anti-fascist activists, Fox & Friends Sunday ran segments fearmongering about anti-fascist activists (“antifa”).</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In these two segments, Fox News correspondent Griff Jenkins <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac6335ad5c4b54b83fef4b2f6dc12028f4c716875d2bd6834c305f6225f9073dfe6d794b5731770cb4ba2fbc6fe0cc5b54dd9e" title="downplayed">downplayed</a> the death of Heather Heyer and claimed that Heyer was affiliated with antifa.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jenkins would go on to suggest that new laws were needed in order to prosecute such anti-fascist protesters in Oregon as domestic terrorists. Jenkins would go on to portray all 13 arrests yesterday in Portland as being related only to antifa, even though violent gang the Proud Boys and other far-right extremists demonstrated as well (reports are still unclear as to who was arrested for what).</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heyer, a civil rights activist and a legal assistant, was killed after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville by a white supremacist targeting a crowd of counter-protesters.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This comes as Fox's link to white supremacist violence is under the microscope. The manifesto left by the El Paso shooter closely mirrored white supremacist rhetoric often heard on Fox News.</font></p><p style="margin: 1em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, while Fox focuses on antifa, <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac6335fa0ed70896419ceafb75acd85518fd5385dd151cfebe53d9d0d71ca111537e48aaf299b2ba6e1f942153de278052ae33" title="multiple">multiple</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac6335323d7fa7f18a08ffa52655b5617d878e9d4e63535a29728b7a8613aa226e419e67d44c5d0d950572dbbffeb98d2c2b10" title="far-right">far-right</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac63358d6dfb475845e68c17e015bc9aad43ec42fdfb068f8d68a072acb968782d7cd7c258a0e06c4b2b725e5fe4b3b4be2415" title="extremists">extremists</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac6335c9f8b25429be087ff36abd8f07f5acf00836a1b9d47785ec2f18868054f007bb0c2df58b6b36be392949b0c09969955a" title="have been">have been</a> <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click.e.mediamatters.org/?qs=d6da311b15ac633506cd23174be9cd84702cc792d26c19a35e8dc8dc6a1aabd8af81af8e3c693950d6e87a9b57a7a2773e1f058a209b95cd" title="arrested">arrested</a> recently for threatening violence.</font></p></div><div><p style="padding: 5px 0px; margin: 5px 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wapo no lx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>Neo-Nazi sympathizer pleads guilty to federal hate crimes for plowing car into protesters at Charlottesville rally [BUT NOT TERROR</b></div><div> </div><div>On Aug. 12, 2017, James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into protesters demonstrating against the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. (Ryan M. Kelly/Daily Progress/AP)</div><div>By Paul Duggan and</div><div>Justin Jouvenal March 27 at 6:38 PM</div><div>
</div><div>CHARLOTTESVILLE — An avowed neo-Nazi who killed one woman and injured 35 other people when he plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters at an infamous white-supremacist rally here pleaded guilty to hate crimes in federal court Wednesday.</div><div>
</div><div>James Alex Fields Jr., 21, of Ohio admitted guilt to 29 of 30 counts in a federal indictment as part of a deal with prosecutors, who agreed they would not seek the death penalty in a case that has come to symbolize the violent resurgence of white supremacism in the United States. Fields is set to be sentenced July 3.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Late last year, Fields was convicted in state court of first-degree murder and other charges for killing Heather D. Heyer, 32, and injuring dozens at the chaotic Unite the Right rally on Aug. 12, 2017. The jury in that case recommended a life sentence, and a state judge is scheduled to formally impose it in mid-July.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Admitting guilt to hate crimes marks a dramatic shift for Fields, whose attorneys argued during his trial in state court that he sped toward the crowd out of fear for his safety and confusion. They said he immediately regretted his actions.</b></div><div>
</div><div>On Wednesday, Fields, who has grown a bushy beard in the months since his state trial, entered a federal courtroom here in a gray-and-white-striped prisoner’s jumpsuit and handcuffs. He spoke only to answer a judge’s questions and displayed no emotion during the hour-long hearing.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Susan Bro, Heyer’s mother</b>, said after the hearing she was satisfied with the result.</div><div>
</div><div>'He needs to be kept away from society': Charlottesville car attacker sentenced to life in prison</div><div>A jury sentenced James Alex Fields Jr., an avowed neo-Nazi who rammed his car into a group of counterprotesters at a white-supremacist rally, to life in prison. (Reuters)</div><div>
</div><div>“There’s no point in killing him. It would not bring back Heather,” Bro said.</div><div>
</div><div>“It’s a relief to think we don’t have to go through another trial. It was exhausting the first time. I can get on with my life, and the other victims can, too.”</div><div>
</div><div>Thomas T. Cullen, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia, said he was <b>gratified that Fields finally admitted he was motivated by hate</b>, calling the crime “an indelible mark on the city of Charlottesville, our state and our country.”</div><div>
</div><div>Fields pleaded guilty to one count of a hate crime that resulted in the death of Heyer and 28 counts of hate crimes that caused injuries and involved attempts to kill other people in the crowd. Each of the 29 counts carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Attorney General William P. Barr approved the deal.</div><div>
</div><div>[Fields sentenced to life in prison in fatal Charlottesville car attack]</div><div>
</div><div> </div><div>U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen speaks to the media Wednesday after a plea agreement with Fields, who was charged with 30 counts stemming from the car attack in Charlottesville. (Steve Helber/AP)</div><div>The violence in 2017 and President Trump’s assertion afterward that there were “very fine people” on both sides of the Charlottesville rally sparked intense criticism and a fresh focus on the renewed forces of ethno-nationalism.</div><div>
</div><div>The events began on Aug. 11 when far-right groups mounted a torchlight march through the University of Virginia campus shouting racist and anti-Semitic slogans, including, “Jews will not replace us!”</div><div>
</div><div>Fields was already on his way to Charlottesville, arriving the next day for a white-supremacist rally that was nominally held to protest the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The event, involving hundreds of marchers, generated national media attention after rallygoers carrying Nazi flags and shouting racial epithets clashed violently with throngs of counterprotesters. Police eventually dispersed the groups.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A short time later, Fields was seen driving his gray Dodge Charger up to a group of counterprotesters on a narrow street. <b>He slowly backed up and then accelerated down a hill directly into the group.</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Harrowing video, which was played at Fields’s state trial, shows protesters tumbling and screaming as the car slams into them. Fields then reversed at a high speed, hitting and dragging others. Someone repeatedly yelled: “Oh, God! Oh, God!”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Heyer was killed, while others were seriously wounded. One woman who limped to the witness stand at Fields’s state trial testified she had five surgeries and was about to undergo a sixth. Another described a broken pelvis and a third how he pushed his fiancee out of the way before he was hit by the Dodge.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">At the state trial, a mental health expert detailed Fields’s <b>psychiatric disorders dating to early childhood.</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He did not deny running into the crowd, but his attorneys argued that he acted to protect himself. Prosecutors forcefully countered that argument, and the jury at the six-day trial rejected the defense.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Jurors were shown a deleted Instagram post by Fields shared three months before that crash that featured a car running into a group of people. A caption read: “You Have the Right to Protest, But I’m Late for Work.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>A state prosecutor also showed a blown-up image of Fields in his car to counter the idea that he was frightened when he acted.</div><div>
</div><div>“This is not the face of someone who is scared,” a state prosecutor said at the time. “This is the face of anger, of hatred. It’s the face of malice.”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As part of the plea agreement in federal court, prosecutors said Fields admitted that before the rally, he had used social media to “express and promote white supremacist views” including admiration for the racial-purity doctrine of Adolf Hitler. They said he used those accounts to “espouse violence against African Americans, Jewish people, and members of other racial, ethnic and religious groups he perceived to be non-white.”</span></div><div>
</div><div>[From wary observer to justice warrior: How Heather Heyer’s death gave her mom a voice]</div><div>
</div><div>After Wednesday’s federal court hearing, <b>Bro </b>was asked whether Heyer’s killing had raised the community’s consciousness about racial disparities.</div><div>
</div><div>“Sadly, it took a white girl dying before anyone paid attention to civil rights around here,” she told reporters. “I wish we had woken up sooner.’</div><div>
</div><div>But Bro did describe one moment of healing. When asked whether she had ever come in contact with Fields’s mother, Bro said she had seen her just once, at the state trial.</div><div>
</div><div>“She looked at me, and I looked at her,” Bro said. “I said, ‘I’m sorry.’ She said, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”</div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">mom activist</font></div><div>
</div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">anniv charlottesville pbs nsnbc; one msnbc showed interview w/ kessler, called him the happy face on nazi hate; suit coat at podium</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">called heyer fat commie pig? spread lie that she died of heart attack, med report blunt force trauma to abdomen</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/can-lawsuits-slow-tide-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-seth-richs-family-wants-find-out">https://www.alternet.org/can-lawsuits-slow-tide-right-wing-conspiracy-theory-seth-richs-family-wants-find-out</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">amanda m</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the era of Donald Trump, conspiracy theories aren't just getting more prominent and more numerous. They're also becoming more personal. One of the hallmarks of the modern era of social media-fueled, right-wing paranoia is the increasing tendency of conspiracy theorists to target not just politicians and celebrities for their lurid myth-making. Now such concoctions may affect the lives of ordinary people who, in the past, would likely have not had a high enough profile to attract this kind of obsessive rumor-mongering.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now the targets are turning to the courts to fight back.<b> The parents of the Sandy Hook massacre victims <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/business/media/alex-jones-sandy-hook.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">are suing Infowars founder Alex Jones</a> for spreading conspiracy theories alleging that they faked their children's deaths</b>. (Perhaps in an effort to shield himself, Jones has backed away from such theories and now says he believes the killings actually happened.)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Brennan Gilmore, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/03/14/alex-jones-is-a-menace-to-society-im-suing-him/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.979537d89213" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">a Virginia activist who happened to film the attack that killed Heather Heyer</a> at the Charlottesville protests last summer, is also suing Jones and a blogger behind <b>Gateway Pundit</b> for conspiracy theories meant to discredit him</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. And the family members of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer murdered in July 2016, in what police say was a botched robbery, </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/business/fox-news-seth-rich-lawsuit.html" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">are suing Fox News and others for stoking conspiracy theories that Rich</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, rather than Russian agents, may have been behind the hack of Democratic emails given to WikiLeaks -- and was murdered in retaliation.</span></font></p><div class="proper-ad-unit" style="margin: auto; padding-bottom: 25px; position: relative; min-width: 100px; text-align: center; box-sizing: border-box !important;"><div id="proper-ad-alternet_side_4" style="text-align: left; position: relative; margin: auto; min-width: 300px; min-height: 250px; box-sizing: border-box !important;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now the circle of litigants has opened up further, as Brad Bauman, a public relations expert who has volunteered as the Rich family's spokesperson, is also <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/21/media/seth-rich-brad-bauman-lawsuit/index.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">suing a series of conservative figures for defamation</a>, alleging that they have spread conspiracy theories accusing him of covering up for a nefarious Democratic Party plot.</font></div><div id="proper-ad-alternet_side_4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-align: left; position: relative; margin: auto; min-width: 300px; min-height: 250px; box-sizing: border-box !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bauman's case is of particular interest to me, because it illustrates the way Trump-era conspiracy theories metastasize, growing ever more complicated and strange as conspiracy theorists attempt to integrate conflicting evidence into their overarching theory — and how, in the process, the number of people who become targets for harassment and abuse can grow.</font></div></div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Having watched what Brad went through," <a href="https://melissaryan.net/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Melissa Ryan</a>, a progressive activist and friend of Bauman's, said to Salon, "it gave me a new understanding for the kind of hell that conspiracy theories can wreak on a person’s life that I wouldn’t have understood otherwise.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bauman was unable, for legal reasons, to speak to Salon. But his legal complaint lays out a (relatively) simple story: As the conspiracy theories around Rich's murder started to grow louder, friends and colleagues of Rich asked Bauman to help the family, which he says he did on a volunteer basis for no payment. Soon, the right-wing rumor mill began to focus on Bauman, and accusations began to fly that he was an agent working for the DNC to help cover up Rich's murder. Bauman's suit says he was then doxxed by internet trolls (meaning that his home address and other private information was revealed) and that articles on right wing websites and social media accusing him of engaging in a cover-up have caused him emotional distress and damaged his business.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I reached out to <b>Ed Butowsky, </b>a financial adviser who lives in Texas and is one of the defendants in Bauman's lawsuit. Butowsky has been active on right wing sites like Gateway Pundit and WorldNetDaily in <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/03/ed-butowsky-sits-first-interview-gateway-pundit-sued-family-seth-rich-murder-mystery/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">pushing the idea that Bauman</a> was somehow "assigned" by the DNC to the Rich family. (Bauman denies this and says, in his suit, that he has never worked for the DNC.)</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a nuisance lawsuit. There’s absolutely nothing behind it," Butowsky insisted, having called me back at 7:38 a.m. after a day of phone tag. "I still don’t understand this, nor many of these other lawsuits against me.”The conversation was a maddening glimpse into the rhetorical spiderwebs that form around conspiracy theories.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Butowsky is being sued not just by Bauman, but by <a href="https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000162-24ae-d21f-abe7-feffdc510001" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the Rich family for allegedly ingratiating himself</a> with them under false pretenses, in order to promote his conspiracy theory about their son.</b> Butowsky hired a private detective, claiming he was acting on the family's behalf, but allegedly used that detective instead to push insinuations, on Fox News and other outlets, that Rich was murdered as part of a Democratic conspiracy.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Our brief conversation — under 15 minutes — was whiplash-inducing. At one point, Butowsky told me, “Fly down to Dallas. I’ll give you your Ph.D. in the Seth Rich story."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But when I followed up by asking him why he's so interested in Rich's death, he got miffed: “I don’t have a huge interest in this story.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I noted that all these lawsuits came <em>after</em> Butowsky -- <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/03/ed-butowsky-sits-first-interview-gateway-pundit-sued-family-seth-rich-murder-mystery/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">as he admitted in a 45-minute interview published on Gateway Pundit</a> -- reached out to the Rich family and hired a detective to look into the case. All of which, I suggested, constituted a reasonable definition of someone "interested" in this story. Then how could he claim, I asked, to give someone a Ph.D. on a topic he claimed to have little interest in? "Because I’ve been sued by everybody," Butowsky said.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At that point, Butowsky became agitated, and insisted that instead of asking him any further questions myself, I watch the 45-minute interview at Gateway Pundit. Then he got off the phone.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That interview at Gateway Pundit is a confusing mess of digressions, self-pity and elaborate, complex insinuations that are largely impenetrable to outsiders to the Seth Rich conspiracy-theory crowd. The crux of it, as someone who had to watch it for professional reasons, is that Butowsky would like viewers to believe he was a disinterested party who, for somewhat mysterious but totally innocent reasons, ended up spending huge amounts of time ingratiating himself to this family and thousands of dollars on a private detective to look into an internet conspiracy theory.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This itself provides a major insight into how these conspiracy theories work in the age of the internet. The dense complexity, the crushing amount of content that no human being has the time to thoroughly consume, the use of insinuations to push noxious ideas while retaining plausible deniability: All this serves to disorient people such that they give up even trying to understand the truth of the situation.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“They’re undermining the ability of the average American to discern what is true, what is false, what to believe and what not to believe," Bauman said on a press call in September, regarding what he's learned from being caught up in this. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Even if you’re not actively sharing conspiracy theories, you’re sort of exposed to it," Ryan argued, saying this leads to "the dehumanization" of the figures involved, even for right-wing audiences who don't necessarily follow or believe all the ins and outs of whatever conspiracy theory is burning up conservative media at the moment. </font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For instance, Ryan continued, many right-wing figures at first "weren’t comfortable sharing conspiracies about the Parkland students, calling them crisis actors." But after a month of such content swirling around the internet, the students started to seem less human, and ordinary people who consumed right-wing media became "very comfortable sharing doctored images of the students that weren’t true.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">During September's press call, Bauman attested to the power of humanization, noting that after trolls had made his phone number public, he decided to just start taking the calls when conspiracy theorists rang him. He said that most of them, after a person-to-person conversation, had dialed down their outrage and paranoia, which made him feel it's possible to "bring people back to a place where they’re thinking much more clearly about things."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unfortunately, however, getting every conspiracy theorist on the phone to hammer it out is a task more onerous than watching every conspiracy theorist's lengthy YouTube video. Which is why these theories are now being brought to court, not just to correct false or damaging assertions, but to exact real-life consequences on people who spread them. In their suit against Fox News and Butowsky, the Riches explicitly state that they "seek to help prevent similar malicious and reckless conduct to protect future innocent victims from similarly becoming political fodder."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether that will work remains to be seen. In the meantime, the ecosystem supporting all these conspiracy theories, which all too often target ordinary private citizens, continues to expand through social media, blogs and internet forums. Far more must be done to protect people who, often through no fault of their own, become enmeshed in major news stories that make them into leading targets of conspiracy theorists.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/legal-scholar-explains-how-sandy-hook-parents-can-achieve-justice-against-conspiracy-theorist-alex">https://www.alternet.org/legal-scholar-explains-how-sandy-hook-parents-can-achieve-justice-against-conspiracy-theorist-alex</a></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></div>