Monthly Archives: August 2017

Of the harrowing images televised nationwide from Saturdays white nationalist demonstration in Charlottesville, one of the more chilling sights, amid hours of raging hatred and mayhem, was of camo-clad militiamen on the streets, girded for combat in tactical vests and toting military-style semiautomatic rifles.

Photos and video of the heavily armed cadre a relatively small force commanded by a 45-year-old machinist and long-ago Navy veteran from western Pennsylvania spread rapidly on social media, raising fears the clash of hundreds of neo-Nazis and counterprotesters might end in a bloodbath.

The show of strength was about allegiance ... to the Constitution, particularly the First Amendment, said Christian Yingling, leader of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia. He said he and his troops convoyed in to Charlottesville early Saturday to defend free speech by maintaining civic order so everyone present could voice an opinion, regardless of their views.

The fact that no shots were fired, Yingling said, was a testament to the discipline of the 32 brave souls serving under me during this particular operation. In a telephone interview Sunday, he sought to dispel the absurd idea in the publics mind that his group of patriots was allied with or sympathetic to the white nationalists.

Many militia units in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast have mutual defense agreements, Yingling said. Because he has overseen several militia responses at contentious gatherings in recent months helping keep the peace at right-wing public events in Boston; in Gettysburg and Harrisburg, Pa.; and at an April 29 rally in Harrisburg for President Trump Yingling said the commander of a Virginia militia asked him to organize and take tactical command of the Charlottesville operation.

(Zoeann Murphy/The Washington Post)

He had never handled anything like this, Yingling said. And given the volatility of the event, it was not a good place to start.

When his group arrived in Charlottesville, we put our own beliefs off to the side, Yingling said. Not one of my people said a word. They were given specific orders to remain quiet the entire time we were there.... Our mission was to help people exercise their First Amendment rights without being physically assaulted.

He added: It was a resounding success until we were just so drastically outnumbered that we couldnt stop the craziness. It was nothing short of horrifying.

In the interview and in a Facebook Live monologue Sunday, Yingling detailed why the militia members participated, how he went about organizing their appearance, and how his group was received which he said was not with much welcome.

Jacka---s, was how he described both sides, meaning the white nationalists, who billed the gathering as Unite the Right, and the counterprotesters, many marching under the banner of Antifa, for anti-fascist. Yingling also criticized police, saying that officers were poorly prepared for the violence and not assertive enough in combating it and that they should have enlisted the militiamen to help prevent the mayhem.

Instead, about five hours after Yingling and his platoon arrived at 7:30a.m., they were ordered by police to leave the area, he said. By 1:42p.m. when a man reputed to be a neo-Nazi adherent allegedly drove his car intentionally through a crowded pedestrian mall and into a sedan, killing a 32-year-old woman and injuring 19 others the militiamen were far from Charlottesville, headed back to their encampment 50 miles northeast of the city, Yingling said.

He said several of his troops were battered and bloodied, having been attacked by people on both sides of the demonstration, yet they did not retaliate.

He said he does not know the suspect in the car killing, James Alex Fields, 20, of Ohio, or any of the white nationalists involved in Saturdays demonstration.

Virginias secretary of public safety, Brian Moran, rejected the assertion that police were ill-equipped to handle Saturdays unrest. To say we were unprepared or inexperienced is absolutely wrong, Moran declared Sunday, adding, We unequivocally acted at the right time and with the appropriate response.

He said: The fighting in the street was sporadic. But soon after it started, we began to have conversations about when to go in. The concern was that the fighting was in the middle of the crowd and that if we went in there, we would lose formation, lose contact. We would be putting the public and law enforcement in jeopardy.

Saturday marked the first time in 28 years the Virginia National Guard was used to help quell a civil disturbance. The militia showed up with long rifles, and we were concerned about that in the mix, Moran said. They seemed like they werent there to cause trouble, but it was a concern to have rifles of that kind in that environment.

Authorities also were worried that Yingling who was carrying a Sig Sauer AR-556 semiautomatic weapon and his troops would be mistaken for National Guard members by the public, Moran said.

Yingling called the weapons one hell of a visual deterrent to would-be attackers from either side. Although the weapons magazines were fully loaded, he said, the days standard procedure was that anyone who was carrying a long gun was not to have a round in the chamber. Now, our sidearms are generally chambered and ready to go.

The Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia is one of several Light Foot Militia outfits in states nationwide. In addition to having overall command of units in Pennsylvania, Yingling said, he is the leader of his home unit, the Light Foot Militia Laurel Highlands Ghost Company, based near his home in New Derry, Pa., about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh. The Ghost Company has about a dozen members, he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit watchdog group that monitors extremist organizations, classifies 276 militias in the country as antigovernment groups, meaning they generally define themselves as opposed to the New World Order, engage in groundless conspiracy theorizing, or advocate or adhere to extreme antigovernment doctrines.

The Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia is on the list, as are Light Foot Militia units in South Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon. But the SPLC points out that inclusion on its list does not imply that the groups themselves advocate or engage in violence or other criminal activity, or are racist.

Yingling said he abhors racism and that his company, which usually trains in the woods once or twice a month, is open to prospective members of all races and creeds, although its active roster is entirely white.

A Navy veteran of Operation Desert Storm, Yingling said he was an aviation machinists mate for three years before leaving the service in 1993 as a petty officer third class, meaning he was four rungs up the enlisted ranks.

I joined the military to avoid the addictive lifestyle of my parents, he wrote in a Facebook post. I was raised in a VERY dysfunctional, abusive home. The military gave me the structure I needed. After his discharge, however, I quickly fell right into the lifestyle I had known all my life with my parents. I quit going to church, I started using drugs and alcohol, heavily becoming addicted to both. It started a... downward spiral which led to an eventual suicide attempt.

Then, in 2008, President Barack Obama was elected. Yingling said he was drawn then to right-wing, anti-government extremism.

I left my old addictive lifestyle behind and traded it for the lifestyle of a patriot, he wrote. I had found my calling as a militiaman. I founded The Westmoreland County Militia, Regulators 1st Battalion with two fellow patriots. He later left the unit and formed the Laurel Highlands Ghost Company.

No, I dont think the government, as a whole, is out to get us, he said in the interview, but a lot of people in society are self-absorbed. They dont get involved with the Constitution and defending the freedoms that it gives us. We need to defend those freedoms for everyone, on all sides of the political debate or eventually well lose them.

About a month ago, when he learned the Unite the Right event was being planned, Yingling said, I, like most militia commanders, did not want to touch it with a 10-foot pole for fear of being wrongly perceived as an ally of white supremacists. But after talking it over with a fellow Light Foot commander, in Upstate New York, he decided he had a duty to defend the right of free speech on the streets of Charlottesville.

Through Facebook and various militia chat rooms, he said, he recruited militia members from various East Coast units and organized a rendezvous Friday night at a farm in Unionville, Va. He said he was angered and embarrassed that only 32people showed up. Many others, he said, were afraid of being publicly branded as racists.

We knew what we were walking into, he said on Facebook Live. We knew what the results were going to be. And yet we walked in anyway. We werent afraid. And we didnt give a good damn about our image or about what anybody thought about us. And I still dont.

Originally posted here:
Militiamen came to Charlottesville as neutral First Amendment protectors, commander says - Washington Post

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Several Republican governors have joined President Trump in an exclusive but growing club: They are being sued by left-wing organizations for removing persistent critics from their Facebook or Twitter pages.

In many cases, were talking about trolls, the people who post inflammatory, irrelevant or offensive comments. The latest to face the trolls wrath is Maine Gov. Paul LePage, who the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sued last Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Maine on behalf of two clients who say they were unconstitutionally blocked from Mr. LePages Facebook page.

Mr. LePage responded immediately on his Facebook page: This page was started by volunteers in the governors first campaign to support his candidacy. After that time it became his official political page. This page has never been managed by taxpayer-funded state employees. Under the about section of this Facebook page it states that is Paul LePages official politician page not a government page.

Well, so what, the ACLU suit says, in effect. Youre a public figure and must open yourself to any and all criticism.

On Aug. 1, the ACLU sued Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on behalf of four disappointed commenters. The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, includes a request for an injunction to block any more removals and to force the reinstatement of several hundred blockheads, er, Mr. Hogans spokespeople call the suit frivolous and note that his site reserves the right to block any comment that is profane, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, defaming, threatening or amounts to spam or repetitiveness. In February, his office reported that they had blocked 450 people for abusive language or spamming.

The ACLU managed to find some clients whose posts they say were none of the above, but the complaints enforcement would effectively stop any blocking.

On July 11, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a federal suit against President Trump and two aides (former press secretary Sean Spicer and social media director Dan Scavino) in the Southern District of New York for blocking users critical of him from his private Twitter account. The key word here is private. Mr. Trump had the account before becoming president, and the First Amendment does not apply to non-governmental entities. It doesnt matter how big the audience is.

Mr. Trump has in excess of 33 million followers on his @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed and has tweeted more than 35,000 times since first starting the account in 2009, according to USA Today.

One of the plaintiffs, Rebecca Buckwalter of Washington, D.C., is a fellow at the Center for American Progress, a George Soros-funded left-wing think tank. She complained that her response to a June 6 Trump tweet was removed.

Trump: Sorry folks, but if I would have relied on the Fake News of CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS washpost or nytimes, I would have had ZERO chance winning WH.

Buckwalter: To be fair you didnt win the WH: Russia won it for you.

Should Mr. Trump be forced to keep her conspiracy theory tweet on his non-governmental site?

On July 31, the ACLU of Kentucky sued Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky for removing trolls from his Facebook page. Two blocked users are demanding that they and 600 other blockees be reinstated.

Bevin spokesman Woody Maglinger responded that blocking these people in no way violates their right to free speech under the U.S. or Kentucky Constitutions, nor does it prohibit them from expressing their opinion in an open forum.

Not all cases involve Republicans. A federal judge ruled on July 25 that Loudoun County, Virginia county board Chairwoman Phyllis J. Randall, a Democrat, committed a cardinal sin under the First Amendment when she blocked a constituents criticism for half a day from her official Facebook page.

But in his ruling, U.S. District Judge James Cacheris also said public officials are allowed to moderate comments to defend against harassment and against those who take over an online forum in such a way that violates the free speech rights of others.

Given the prevalence of online trolls, this is no mere hypothetical risk, the judge said.

The issue of public officials social media management will eventually wind up at the Supreme Court, where perhaps a clear distinction will be made between public and private communications.

Until the courts definitively rule, troll-beset lawmakers might want to have different social media accounts for different purposes, like Maines Gov. LePage:

This FB page has always noted it is for those who support the governor. This page is not a tool for organized, nationally-connected political protests against the governor. Those organizations wishing to attack and protest Gov. Paul LePage can create their own pages.

Robert Knight is a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union.

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Beyond the First Amendment - Washington Times

The hateful signs and speech of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church have become synonymous with soldiers funerals.

As deplorable as their message is, it is protected under the First Amendment and must remain so.

In that vein, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals struck an appropriate balance in upholding Nebraskas funeral picketing law as constitutional in a ruling released Friday morning. The 500-foot buffer allows funeral-goers space to grieve while not infringing upon protesters right to free speech.

Even the churchs despicable rhetoric merits protection. The First Amendment makes no distinction between popular speech productive to society and speech that is abhorrent. Celebrating the deaths of soldiers as some twisted sign that God is punishing the United States for tolerating homosexuality is certainly the latter.

The case that came before the court centered on the 2011 funeral of Navy SEAL Caleb Nelson in Omaha. There, Westboro members were still allowed to picket and share signs that read God Hates Fags with passersby. Nelsons family and friends, meanwhile, could grieve without being forced to consume Westboros venom as should be the case.

As Judge Bobby Shepherd wrote in the opinion: The First Amendment guarantees free speech, not forced listeners.

"This law strikes the appropriate balance between First Amendment free speech rights and the rights of grieving families to bury their loved ones in peace," Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said in a release after the ruling.

Though first written more than 230 years ago, the First Amendment remains under a microscope for interpretation in the present era. The boundaries of speech and expression are always being pushed by a new group, aiming to win over hearts and minds, regardless of the content of that message even if its one we wish could be silenced.

Part of the irony of Westboros ongoing crusade to parlay the deaths of soldiers into a megaphone for the churchs message of hate is that the freedoms for which these men and women fought and died still protect Westboros right to spread its vile opinions.

Judges and attorneys constantly have to take into consideration speech and dissemination the Founding Fathers never would have dreamed of seeing and few entities are more responsible for that evolution than Westboro. After all, the churchs success in a previous court case invalidated Nebraskas previous 300-foot buffer, which was replaced by the 500-foot limit upheld this week by the courts.

The outcome of Fridays ruling was the best of both worlds preserving families chance to grieve in peace without restricting Westboros ability to deliver its appalling message.

Read more:
Editorial, 8/13: Court strikes right balance on Westboro ruling - Lincoln Journal Star