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Every Saturday, the Civic Center Park in downtown Berkeley is home to the Ecology Centers farmers market, where families, students, and organically inclined food shoppers mingle with growers and vendors. But this weekend, on April 15, the market is canceled because of an Alt-Right rally.

Instead of white-tents and free fruit samples, visitors may instead find themselves caught in the crossfire between two opposing protests that if anything like the violent MiloYiannopoulosclash earlier this year in Berkeley could end in violence.

A so-called Patriots Day rally is attracting far-right Trump supporters and white-nationalist activists from across California, who claim they are traveling to Berkeley to demonstrate in the name of free speech.

The unpermitted event is scheduled to feature a cadre of contentious speakers, including Pizzagate-believer and AltRight.com contributor Brittany Pettibone, Twitter personality Baked Alaska (whose racist and anti-Semitic tweets got him uninvited from the DeploraBall, an alt-right inauguration

In videos posted on the event page, organizers from the Liberty Revival Alliance emphasize that they are planning a peaceful rally, even though it comes on the heels of a pro-Trump demonstration in Berkeley this past March, which ended in bloodshed and arrests.

As a nod to the backlash from that event, and the widespread protests that broke out when former Breitbart editor Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak in Berkeley the month before, organizers stated that they are prepared to defend themselves.

The Oath Keepers (an organization classified by the Southern Poverty Law Centers "Extremist Files" as a radical anti-government group made up of thousands of law-enforcement officials and military veterans) and 2 Million Bikers (who have posted online they will Protect the 1st Amendment from Thuggery [sic]) have signed on for security and support.

In response, Berkeley's Antifa coalition is calling on its own supporters to occupy the park. We need MASS ACTION to DEFEAT THEM AS A COMMUNITY [sic] organizers posted on their dedicated event page. These fascists are coming to our backyard in an attempt to scare us off the streets and they hope to build on this success. What we do, or do not do, on the 15th will have ramifications across the country." Attendees have been instructed to bring their crew, a mask, and food to share.

Several hundred people have RSVP'd to both events and many more are expected throughout the afternoon.

Citing security concerns over the likely clash between the two groups, The Ecology Center canceled Saturday's farmers market, leaving approximately forty vendors without a spot to sell their wares.

In a prepared statement released to the Express today, Ecology Center executive director Martin Bourque expressed his disappointment and explained why he felt it essential to close down for the day:

Weve been working closely with the City of Berkeley. Theyve committed to additional support for the market, but the situation is unpredictable, and things may happen that are out of their control. We appreciate the police departments restraint and what a challenge it is to protect both free speech and public safety today.

The Ecology Center Farmers Markets are a safe, welcoming and healthy environment for the community. While this is a real financial blow to many farmers, we can not put a price on safety.

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Berkeley Farmers Market Canceled Due To Safety Fears Over Pro ... - East Bay Express

An alt-right group and a group of opponents faced off Saturday night in one of the most raucous White House demonstrations of the Trump presidency, prompted by the missile attack against Syria.

The alt-right group was led by Richard B. Spencer, a white nationalist, who said the Lafayette Square rally was to urge No more Neocon wars. He said the group would oppose further military intervention in Syria.

Meanwhile, another group, which organized under an antifascist heading, appeared and shouted such slogans as No Nazis, No KKK, No Fascist USA.

Officers from the U.S. Park Police and the Secret Service stood between the two groups, of about two dozen each.

At the end, police escorted Spencer to a taxi, but he said it was then surrounded.

He said in a Twitter message that the counterdemonstrators slammed the car until the driver abandoned the vehicle. I was able to escape. Im totally unharmed.

Read the rest here:
Alt-right, opposing group clash in Lafayette Square - Washington Post

President Trump's staff is scrambling to figure out the best way to present his first 100 days in office as the symbolic marker approaches with few major accomplishments to show for it, Politico reports. "One hundred days is the marker, and we've got essentially two-and-a-half weeks to turn everything around," one White House official said, calling the work ahead "monumental."

Thirty members of Trump's staff huddled last week to brainstorm how to approach the president's first 100 days, which will be complete on April 29. "Staffers, including counselor Kellyanne Conway, were broken into three groups, complete with whiteboards, markers, and giant butcher-block-type paper to brainstorm lists of early successes," Politico writes. One aide who attended said: "It made me feel like I was back in 5th grade."

Another attendee described the session as an attempted "rebranding" for the president, who has been plagued by shakeups, legal blockades, and legislative setbacks, including the high-profile collapse of a repeal and replacement of ObamaCare. The communications team reportedly settled on promoting accomplishments such as "prosperity," including backing out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, "accountability," including restrictions on lobbying, and "safety/security," such as the mostly approved-of strike on Syria.

On Monday, Reuters additionally described the successful appointment of Judge Neil Gorsuch as "the biggest triumph so far for the new administration" while Politico points out the victory still "required the Senate rewriting its own rules to overcome Democratic opposition." Read more about how President Trump's team is considering painting his first 100 days in office at Politico. Jeva Lange

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The alt-right's views of Trump are getting kind of complicated after ... - The Week Magazine

President Trumps Thursday airstrike against Syria may strip him of the support and adoration of his alt-right and white nationalist fans some of whom are describe the move as part of a Jewish coup of Trumps White House.

I am ready to condemn Donald Trump, white nationalist Richard Spencer who popularized the term alt-right, said in a YouTube video to his followers. I certainly condemn these actions just taken in Syria.

The video, posted Friday morning, was titled The Trump Betrayal.

The #AltRight is against a war in Syria. Period, Spencer tweeted Thursday night. He later added an emoji of the Syrian flag to his Twitter profile. For the these far-right Trump fans, this military strike against Syria signaled a disappointing departure from his non-interventionist America First campaign rhetoric.

Others emphasized how the ouster of Steve Bannon from Trumps National Security Council appeared to be a power play by Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner Kushner being someone they see as exerting unwelcome Jewish influence on the White House.

Spencer suggested that Kushner had his own motives for pushing Trump into war while other white nationalists were more explicit.

Theyre making war against him and theyre making war against the American people, said David Duke, former Ku Klux Klan leader and elder figure in white nationalists circles. Theyre making war against [Syrian President Bashar] Assad in Syria and the Christians of Syria for the purposes of Jewish extremism.

Trumps Jewish son-in-law wants to take over his empire, Duke said. Were having a coup in the White House right now.

Duke has long been a supporter of Assad, even touring Syria in a sort of tour of support for Assad. In 2005, for example, Duke spoke to a Syrian crowd where he compared the Israeli occupation of Syrian and Palestinian land as akin to Zionist occupation of New York City and Washington D.C.

On Friday, some of Trumps anti-Semitic fans sought to make sense of what they saw as Trumps betrayal, putting forward different theories as to why he had changed course on Syria.

Some dismissed the idea that Kushner was exerting control - seeing Kushner as not powerful enough. Instead, they suggested Trump had fallen under the control of the Jews more broadly.

Andrew Anglin, editor of the Neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer concluded that the most likely reason for Trump to take the move against Syria was that he was being manipulated by Jews and the deep state intelligence community in a devious manner. If [this] is true, we have a very, very serious problem on our hands, as it means Trump is now under the control of the Jews, Anglin wrote in a Friday post.

Anglins website has been dubbed the top hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center and is a hub for white nationalists and the extreme factions of the alt-right.

Mike Cernovich, the rightwing blogger who moves in the alt-right orbit but contests the affiliation with the more white nationalist elements suggested that the sarin attack that led to the airstrike could be a hoax.

The Syria gas attack was done by deep state agents, he wrote on Twitter Wednesday night. The fake news media (which works for them) wants you to ignore basic logic and 101 level game theory and strategic thinking to reach an illogical conclusion. Stay vigilant!

Meanwhile, Infowars, the right-wing conspiracy site, claimed the Syrian attack was in fact faked by groups funded by billionaire George Soros, whose name is also often evoked by the more anti-Semitic factions of the alt-right.

Im officially OFF the Trump train, tweeted Paul Joseph Watson, an editor at Infowars.

Jared Taylor, editor of the white nationalist American Renaissance, wrote bluntly on Twitter: @realDonaldTrump has suddenly become stupid.

Notorious hacker Andrew Auernheimer, better known as Weev, posted a slightly more charitable video the Daily Stormer. Auernheimer said while many of his associates are calling Trump some sort of Hebrew shill, this is potentially unwarranted.

Auernheimer was frustrated with how quickly some of his peers were giving up on Trump.

After all Trump as done for us, he said, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt for fifteen f*cking minutes.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

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The 'Alt-Right' Is Blaming The Jews For Trump's Syria Airstrike - Forward

Imagine for a moment the outrage that would (rightfully) erupt if a mainstream publication wrote an indictment of an entire sect of Islam, while getting basic facts like the name of the sect wrong, and hit publish the night before Ramadan began. Or the outrage that would (rightfully) erupt if Breitbart or an alt-right site published the same about Jews. The latter did happen over the weekend, only it wasnt Breitbart writing a diatribe against a secret web of shadowy Jews, but instead, Politico Magazine.

This is, unfortunately, becoming a bit of a tradition at the publication. On the eve of another major Jewish holiday, Rosh Hashanah, Politico published a piece accusing politically conservative Jews of remaining silent on Donald Trumps ascension. Because of the rules regarding work and technology on major Jewish holidays, many Jewish writers and publications were unable to respond to the smear in a timely manner, although Tablet Magazines Yair Rosenberg took the time to do so, pointing out for both the writer and editor of the publication just how Jew-y the anti-Trump camp of the conservative movement was and is.

Now Politico is accusing Jews of the opposite: working in a secretive, highly-funded conspiracy to put Trump and Russias Vladimir Putin in power, and keep them there. Or something. Truthfully, I didnt really understand the crux of the piece, despite reading it several times.

Politico took great pains to tie the Chabad movement to Putin, and in so doing, omits a few fairly crucial points that could have been fleshed out by actually speaking with a representative of the movement (this guy might have been a good person to start with). While there are outposts of the movement in Russia, there also exist outposts everywhere else in the world. Their emissaries, called schulchim, are technically titled messengers because they talk to anyone, anywhere, in an attempt to spread Judaism to Jews in far-flung corners of the Earth.

Chabads history in the former USSR is filled with persecution, arrest, and exile. To survive anywhere, but especially in a land as hostile to Jews as Russia is, its no wonder the group has worked hard to remain in the governments good graces.

Blind to the blatant anti-Semitic tropes it trotted out, Politico then paints the movement as a large, rich, tightly woven organization, a depiction straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In reality, individual Chabad houses, which start with seed money from headquarters, are soon expected to be self-sufficient through fundraising and operate as franchises, not as branches of the Brooklyn headquarters. (Disclosure: This is why I am a nominal monthly donor to the Chabad of Cambodia, which provides essential services to Jewish residents and visitors to the country, from free holiday and Sabbath meals to burials to weddings.)

Like many other Modern Orthodox Jews, the Kushner family are involved in the movement because of its inclusive nature and contagious positivity regarding doing mitzvahs (good deeds) and serving God in a Jewish context. The connections it forms between Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared and the movement are basically that they, like most other religious Jews, have donated to those involved in the movement and have friends within it.

The Kushners now attend the Chabad synagogue in their new home of Washington DC. This could be seen as part of a giant conspiracy, or it could be that they reject the other two other Orthodox options downtown: Kesher Israel, which was between rabbis at the time of the Kushners move and still recovering from a major scandal; and Ohev Shalom, whose rabbi publicly denounced Ivankas father both by screaming at him from the crowd at AIPAC in 2016 and after in the pages of the Washington Post, calling the current president wicked. With those pieces of information, the Kushners decision to attend the local Chabad synagogue upon moving to Washington becomes a bit less salacious.

To their credit, even on the eve of what is the biggest and most labor-intensive holiday on the Jewish calendar, the social media team at Chabads headquarters in Brooklyn are taking the hit job in stride, tweeting missives like:

Several hours after the piece was published, the attached text header and photo were quietly edited to seem just a tad less anti-Semitic, replacing a photo of Jews in the shadows with that of Putin. Considering the hypersensitivity of the media to anti-Semitism in the age of Trump, its remarkable just how much they are willing to dabble in it themselves to form a connection, no matter how tenuous, between Trump and Putin. Simple fact-checking like the name of the movement itself was omitted, with tweets and the first published drafts of the piece referring to the group as The Chabad (which would be as ridiculous as saying The Catholic or The Protestant).

Weve spent the better part of the last year being warned about the dangers of the rise of the alt-right. Even I doubted the power the alt-right apparently wields, which apparently includes the ability to convince a mainstream American publication to publish 4,000 words of anti-Semitic garbage on the eve of a major Jewish holiday. Can they silence the rest of the mainstream media, which reports breathlessly on every headline related to Jews at Breitbart?

With most American Jews signing offline for the next few days in celebration of our freedom from bondage in Egypt, its up to the non-Jews working in media to pick up the slack on renouncing this article for what it is. (Before you ask, Politico: Yes, The Jews let a few of The Catholic and The Secular work in media too.)

Bethany Mandel is a Senior Contributor at The Federalist and a freelance writer on politics and culture.

Continued here:
Who Needs Alt-Right Theories About Jews When You Have Politico? - The Federalist