Last Call For Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Nobody should be surprised to learn that in the Trump Era, we have active camps of neo-Nazi white supremacist terrorists preparing attacks on American citizens allowed to freely operate because our government is too busy screaming at scary brown and black people.

The California man accused of killing a 19-year-old University of Pennsylvania student earlier this month is an avowed neo-Nazi and a member of one of the most notorious extremist groups in the country, according to three people with knowledge of the man’s recent activities.

The man, Samuel Woodward, has been charged in Orange County, California, with murdering Blaze Bernstein, who went missing in early January while visiting his family over winter break. Prosecutors allege that Woodward stabbed Bernstein more than 20 times before burying his body in an Orange County park where it was eventually discovered. The two men had attended high school together.

Woodward, 20, is set to be arraigned on Feb. 2 and has not yet entered a plea. Orange County prosecutors say they are examining the possibility that the killing was a hate crime — Bernstein was Jewish and openly gay — and some recent news reports have suggested that the alleged killer might hold far-right or even white supremacist political beliefs.

Now, three people with detailed knowledge of Woodward’s recent past have been able to shed more light on the young man’s extremist activities. They said Woodward was a member of the Atomwaffen Division, an armed Fascist group with the ultimate aim of overthrowing the U.S. government through the use of terrorism and guerrilla warfare.

The organization, which celebrates Hitler and Charles Manson, has been tied to four other murders and an elaborate bomb plot over the past eight months. Experts who study right-wing extremist movements believe Atomwaffen’s commitment to violence has made it one of the more dangerous groups to emerge from the new wave of white supremacists.

Two of the three people who described Woodward’s affiliations are friends of his; the other is a former member of Atomwaffen Division.

ProPublica’s revelations about Woodward’s background add a new element to a murder case that has attracted considerable local and national news coverage. But they also raise fresh concerns about groups like Atomwaffen Division, shadowy outfits of uncertain size that appear capable of genuine harm.

Woodward joined the organization in early 2016 and later traveled to Texas to attend Atomwaffen meetings and a three-day training camp, which involved instruction in firearms, hand-to-hand combat, camping and survival skills, the former member said. ProPublica has obtained photographs of Woodward at an outdoor Atomwaffen meeting in the scrubby Texas countryside. One of the photos depicts Woodward and other members making straight-armed Nazi salutes while wearing skull masks. In other pictures, Woodward is unmasked and easily identifiable.

The young man is proficient with both handguns and assault rifles, according to one person who participated in the Texas training and watched him shoot. That person also said that Woodward helped organize a number of Atomwaffen members in California.

Social media posts and chat logs shared by Woodward’s friends show that he openly described himself as a “National Socialist” or Nazi. He “was as anti-Semitic as you can get,” according to one acquaintance.

ProPublica contacted Orange County prosecutors regarding Woodward’s alleged neo-Nazi activities. Michelle Van Der Linden, a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office, said she couldn’t comment directly on the case, but said the investigation is ongoing, with detectives exploring all possible leads.

If there was a radical Muslim training camp in Texas sending terrorists to kill and bomb people in the US, we already would have dropped bunker busters on everything within a mile of the damn place.

But they're neo-Nazis who just want to kill Jews and gay people and anyone darker than a paper bag, so apparently that's not worth the government worrying about.

It's Mueller Time, Con't

The open secret that Trump tried to fire special counsel Robert Mueller last June now a lot less secret, the actions taken following by the White House make a lot more sense.  Trump wanted the people who could damage him out of the picture, and it meant that if he couldn't fire Mueller, he'd use his power to destroy the witnesses he could go after, vital to Mueller's case against him.

President Donald Trump pressed senior aides last June to devise and carry out a campaign to discredit senior FBI officials after learning that those specific employees were likely to be witnesses against him as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, according to two people directly familiar with the matter.

In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, recently fired FBI Director James Comey disclosed that he spoke contemporaneously with other senior bureau officials about potentially improper efforts by the president to curtail the FBI’s investigation of alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Mueller is investigating whether Trump’s efforts constituted obstruction of justice.

Not long after Comey’s Senate testimony, Trump hired John Dowd, a veteran criminal defense attorney, to represent him in matters related to Mueller’s investigation. Dowd warned Trump that the potential corroborative testimony of the senior FBI officials in Comey’s account would likely play a central role in the special counsel’s final conclusion, according to people familiar with the matter.

In discussions with at least two senior White House officials, Trump repeated what Dowd had told him to emphasize why he and his supporters had to “fight back harder,” in the words of one of these officials.

In fact this campaign has now turned into a massive Republican pogrom to "purge the FBI of Deep State Obama elements" or something horrific like that.

The FBI officials Trump has targeted are Andrew McCabe, the current deputy FBI director and who was briefly acting FBI director after Comey’s firing; Jim Rybicki, Comey’s chief of staff and senior counselor; and James Baker, formerly the FBI’s general counsel. Those same three officials were first identified as possible corroborating witnesses for Comey in a June 7 article in Vox. Comey confirmed in congressional testimony the following day that he confided in the three men.

In the past, presidents have attacked special counsels and prosecutors who have investigated them, calling them partisan and unfair. But no previous president has attacked a long-standing American institution such as the FBI — or specific FBI agents and law enforcement officials.

Mueller has asked senior members of the administration questions in recent months indicating that prosecutors might consider Trump’s actions also to be an effort to intimidate government officials — in this case FBI officials — from testifying against him.

So yeah, the cover-up, or in this case the obstruction of justice, is worse than the crime.  And Mueller's on the case.

The House Doesn't Always Win

When Brad Pitt asked George Clooney why he just has to pull the heist job on casino kingpin Andy Garcia in Ocean's Eleven, he replied:

Because the house always wins. Play long enough, you never change the stakes, the house takes you. Unless, when that perfect hand comes along, you bet big, and then you take the house.

Good advice for the Democrats in "taking the House" in November.  Also, turns out Andy Garcia's character in that series of films, Terry Benedict, is modeled after real-life casino magnate Steve Wynn.  Steve is a close friend of Donald Trump (himself the inspiration for evil casino boss Biff Tannen in Back to the Future II) as well as a major Republican donor and in fact the RNC's current finance chairman thanks to his buddy Donny.

It also turns out that Steve is, like his friend Donny, a lifetime serial abuser of women.

Doug Heye, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee (RNC), is calling for Casino mogul Steve Wynn to be ousted as the RNC's finance chairman after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against him Friday.

In a tweet, Heye said the allegations against Wynn, the CEO of Wynn Resorts, appeared to be "a lot worse" than past scandals that roiled the RNC and led to a number of ousters.

Heye's comments came on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report detailing allegations against Wynn that span decades. Wynn has denied the allegations, which he said were instigated by his ex-wife.

The fallout for Wynn mounted throughout the day Friday, with stock prices for Wynn Resorts plummeting.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) sharply condemned Wynn in an emailed statement.

“In the exact words of RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, ‘If you stand for treating women well and you stand for the respect of women, you shouldn't take money from somebody who treated women with the absolute highest level of disrespect,’ ” DNC deputy communications director Sabrina Singh said. “Instead, the RNC and Ronna McDaniel have helped fund the campaign of an alleged child molester, blindly supported the GOP’s attacks on women’s health, supported a President who has been accused of sexual misconduct by over a dozen women — and now they remain silent amid sexual assault allegations involving Steve Wynn, one of their party’s most senior officials.”

And Fox News said that it would no longer book Wynn on any potential future installments of its special, "The Wise Guys," according to a statement obtained by The Daily Beast.

Wynn is a complete slimeball, surprise!

For the women who worked for casino mogul Steve Wynn, it was a roll of the dice whether they would be sexually harassed when they were summoned to his private office, according to a new report Friday.

For decades, the legendary Las Vegas businessman used his power over their livelihoods to pressure the manicurists and massage therapists for sex, The Wall Street Journal reported.

“Former employees said their awareness of Mr. Wynn’s power in Las Vegas, combined with the knowledge that the jobs they held were among the best-paying available there, added up to a feeling of dependence and intimidation when Mr. Wynn made requests of them,” the newspaper reported. “Some said that feeling was heightened at times by the presence in a confined office space of one or more of his German shepherds, trained to respond to commands in German.” 

The dog thing is one of Putin's old tricks, by the way.  He liked to use it on German chancellor Angela Merkel, who is apparently afraid of large dogs.

We'll see if Wynn stays on.  Stock in his casino holding company has already fallen 10% and even he has a board to report to. As far as the RNC job, well, we know they're perfectly fine with serial abusers, so.