Trump would dial Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs into Oval Office meetings, report says

Alia Shoaib
Sun, January 9, 2022

The texts from Fox News host Sean Hannity, a prominent supporter of Trump, indicate he had direct knowledge of the former president's plans for January 6 and harbored concerns for them, the Jan 6 committee said.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Fox News's top hosts served as a "Cable Cabinet of unofficial advisers," said the Washington Post.


There was an intimate relationship between the network and the Trump administration, it said.


Former administration officials told the paper that Fox hosts were dialed into Oval Office meetings.

Several of Fox News's top hosts served as a "Cable Cabinet of unofficial advisers," according to the Washington Post.

In recent weeks, the House select committee investigating the January 6 Capitol attack released numerous text messages from various Fox News hosts to former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows on the day of the insurrection.

A former senior administration official, who spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity, said that the influence extended into the very heart of the president's administration, and Trump would sometimes dial Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Lou Dobbs into Oval Office staff meetings.

"A lot of it was PR — what he should be saying and how he should be saying it; he should be going harder against wearing masks or whatever," Stephanie Grisham, former press secretary to President Donald Trump, told The Post. "And they all have different opinions, too."

The January 6 committee revealed that Fox News Hosts Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Brian Kilmeade texted Meadows as the insurrection unfolded, showing the closeness between the cable news network and the White House.

The texts indicated that Hannity had direct knowledge about Trump's strategy for the day of the electoral vote count and had concerns about his plan, the committee said.

Fox News hosts had a direct number to reach Trump and administration officials often posed challenges for West Wing staffers, former administration officials told The Washington Post.

Grisham told The Post how highly the former president valued the opinions of Fox hosts.

"There were times the president would come down the next morning and say, 'Well, Sean [Hannity] thinks we should do this,' or, 'Judge Jeanine [Pirro] thinks we should do this,'" Grisham told the paper.

Grisham told the paper that Fox News hosts weighed in on everything from personnel to messaging strategy.

The Washington Post said that several of Fox News's top hosts served as a "Cable Cabinet of unofficial advisers."

Alyssa Farah, a former White House communications director, told the Post that staffers would "try to get ahead of what advice you thought he was going to be given by these people" because their opinions "could completely change his mind on something."

Farah told the paper that Trump particularly valued the opinions of Lou Dobbs, Hannity, Ingraham, and Pirro.

'It taught me the power of the young producers at Fox'

Lou Dobbs introducing "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on Fox Business, January 4 2020

Fox Business

The reality TV star turned president has long been known for his obsession with cable television and ratings.

One former top White House official told The Post that Fox hosts often had more influence over Trump based on what they said on air rather than what they said off-screen to him and his team.

The paper reported that former Trump chief of staff John F. Kelly told White House staffers that Trump's ideas and feelings about people often originated from Lou Dobbs's show on Fox. Watching it was critical to understanding the president.

Michael Pillsbury, an informal Trump adviser, told the paper that the former president embraced Sidney Powell, the lawyer known for her promotion of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, after watching her on Dobbs' show.

"It taught me the power of the young producers at Fox, and Fox Business especially," Pillsbury told the paper.

Jeff Cohen, the author of "Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media," told the Post that the text messages released by the January 6 committee represent a "smoking gun."

Cohen is the founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a media watchdog group.

He said that the texts were evidence of how "deeply intertwined" the channel's leadership was with the Trump administration.

Cohen told the paper that even though they are opinion journalists, the Fox News hosts violated the public trust by not disclosing the full extent of their relationship.

A spokesperson for Fox News did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

'This isn't Texas or Oklahoma ... this is Iowa': Farmers push back against proposed pipeline


Danielle Gehr

Ames Tribune
Sat, January 8, 2022

For two and a half hours Thursday, officials with Texas-based Navigator CO2 Ventures fielded questions and heard comments from Story County residents on the multi-billion dollar pipeline they plan to bury across the county.

Nearly 100 had gathered at the Gateway Hotel & Conference Center in Ames, although the room was half empty by the time the last question was asked.

At the same location in September, another company, Summit Carbon Solutions, held an informational meeting for their own carbon-capture pipeline.

The Story County meeting was one of 36 the company plans to host across the state. The Iowa Utilities Board and Navigator hosted another hour of questions at the Boone DMACC campus a few hours later.

At both Navigator and Summit meetings, attendees predominantly expressed opposition to the plans and wariness over the proposals' safety, potential effects on the environment and long-term effect on farmland.

"This isn't Texas or Oklahoma. This is Iowa and things are different here," Hardin County farmer Greg Gilbert told company officials in Story County Thursday.

What are the projects?

If approved, the companies' pipelines would run through several states, including Iowa, gathering liquified emissions from more than 40 ethanol plants along the way.

Navigator's pipeline would cut across Iowa from the southeast corner to the northeast. In Story County, the pipeline would cross borders with Boone, Hardin and Polk counties, cutting between Ames and Nevada.

Navigator identified a half-mile corridor in which the route could be adjusted to accommodate landowners and any other issues. If the route needed to be adjusted beyond that corridor, Navigator would need to restart the process of notifying landowners.

The company touts the potential to capture 15 million metric tons of CO2 annually, equivalent to the emissions of 3.2 million vehicles. The capture would not only bring environmental benefits, but also make tax incentives available to ethanol plants, including the 460 Tax Credit, and aiding in their marketability in states with net-zero emissions policies.

More: 'My family's been through this 4 times': Story County residents push back against carbon sequestration pipeline

Navigator's vice president of government and public affairs, Elizabeth Burns-Thompson, an Iowa State grad who was raised on a family farm in Linn County and pursued a career in agriculture, started the presentation by emphasizing her roots in Iowa.

"When I speak to you, know the value of what this means for the agricultural community — I'm seeing that, really, firsthand," Burns-Thompson said.

She likened Navigator's Heartland Greenway pipeline to a bus system where the riders are the tons of CO2 emissions it would transfer. Plants would pay a flat rate for the company's transportation services and then own the economic benefits.

"All those incentives and benefits remain here at home," Burns-Thompson said.

More: 'It's gonna screw up everything': Boone County farmers decry proposed carbon capture pipeline

One farmer said the analogy makes landowners the interstate, arguing they should be fairly compensated for that service.

Like Summit, Navigator would offer impacted landowners 100% of potential crop yield loss upfront in the first year, 80% in the second and 60% in the third. But Navigator would be accountable beyond the first three years, for as long as the project is operational.

Another landowner asked why they wouldn't receive a yearly payment for Navigator using their land, to which Navigator COO David Giles said annual payments could be negotiated.

But compensation did not appear to appease the opposition to the project.
Safety, land value among reasons for opposition

The company faced pushback, particularly from those in the agricultural community who are still scarred by memories of the Dakota Access Pipeline, which they said left long-term damage to the area's farmland.

Former state Rep. Ed Fallon said he knows one farmer who was impacted by the Dakota Access Pipeline who was told by an agronomist his soil won't recover from the project work for nine years and another who's been told his soil won't recover for the rest of his lifetime.

Burns-Thompson told the Tribune Wednesday that Navigator is learning lessons from mistakes made by past pipeline developers.

Rita Douglass, of the Good Family Partnership, asked at the Boone County meeting if she should sell her farmland now. Burns-Thompson said studies show pipelines have no impact on land value.

Others worried about safety and environmental concerns. One attendee pointed out that Navigator has never operated a CO2 pipeline and asked how are Iowans supposed to trust them to run this one adequately.

A leak by a Mississippi pipeline that forced the evacuation of hundreds of people and even caused some to foam at the mouth was brought up again. The rupture occurred during record rainfall and a resulting mudslide.

Navigator Vice President of Engineering Steven Lee said the Mississippi pipeline contained naturally occurring carbon dioxide, which contained hydrogen sulfide. The combination became problematic for that community.

Lee said Navigator will transport the purest form of CO2 and would be required to maintain 98% CO2.

Fallon commended Navigator for committing to never using CO2 for enhanced oil extraction. Summit refused to make the same commitment at a Story County meeting in September.

Some took issue with the anonymity of landowners in the pipeline's path.

Story County Supervisor Linda Murken said even the county hasn't received the names of landowners in order to follow up on the work of the county-appointed inspector for the project.

A Story County farmer who asked not to be named said it doesn't seem fair to keep landowners' names anonymous, giving landowners little ability to pool resources during negotiations.

Summit is fighting to reverse an order by the Iowa Utilities Board to release the names of landowners and business entities impacted.
Get involved:

Before construction can begin, the project still needs to be approved by the Iowa Utilities Board. Information on filing comments to be considered by the board can be found at iub.iowa.gov/efs.

For those unable to attend Navigator's in-person meetings, a virtual meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 19. Find more information on Navigator's public meetings at bit.ly/3HJLplL.

Danielle Gehr is a politics and government reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached by email at dgehr@gannett.com, phone at (515) 663-6925 or on Twitter at @Dani_Gehr.

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Navigator pipeline gets pushback from farmers at Story County forum

GEORGIA

Kemp proposes $5,000 pay raise as employee turnover hits record high


Thomas Wheatley
Fri, January 7, 2022

Governor Brian Kemp wants to give full-time state agency employees a $5,000 pay bump, plus other perks, to boost a workforce experiencing a record-high turnover rate.

Why it matters: Well before the Great Resignation, state employees have been fleeing their jobs, hamstringing the ability of Georgia government to serve the public.

In fiscal year 2021, turnover reached 23%, the highest rate on record, according to a report from the state Department of Administrative Services. It’s the sixth year that turnover has charted higher than 20%.

Details: In a letter sent Friday to state agency heads, Kemp said he was offering their “full-time, eligible benefit” employees a $5,000 pay bump.

The governor, who’s facing a primary challenge from former U.S. Sen. David Perdue, wants to make permanent a $5,000 cost-of-living-adjustment — the first such hike in 14 years, he said, and increase the state’s maximum 401k match from 3% to 9%.

In addition, employees would be eligible to withdraw up to 40 hours as pay annually, which could also buffer agencies from unexpected personnel costs when employees retire.

By the numbers: Millennials (described in the DOAS report as workers born from 1981 to 1997) and GenZ (born after 1998) are leaving state employment “quickly and in significant numbers," according to the DOAS report. "The [fiscal year 2021] turnover rate was 25.7% for Millennials and 76.4% for GenZ,” it says.

Up until six years ago, the state was able to keep up filling jobs as people left, according to the report. (The data excludes Georgia World Congress Center, Board of Regents, and higher education.) Today Georgia has fewer state employees than roughly 14 years ago, Kemp's letter said.

The turnover causes "service delivery challenges due to unplanned lost productivity, increased burdens on staff, recruiting costs, training costs, and impacts to organizational morale."

Catch up quick: In the letter, Kemp praised the officials and their employees for their “leadership, dedication, and resilience” during the pandemic and efforts over the years to keep their agencies lean.

State revenues are now running roughly $1 billion more than state lawmakers projected, the AP reports, leaving Kemp and budget officials with cash to, and in an election year.

Earlier this week, Kemp proposed a $2,000 pay increase for teachers.

What they’re saying: At a pre-session briefing with reporters on Thursday, House Speaker David Ralston said prosecutors who have been left out of pay bumps given in recent years and judges also would like another pay raise.

“I’m trying to keep count of how many groups we’re promising pay raises to,” said Ralston, one of the state officials who will consider Kemp’s proposal. “The list gets longer every day. I know we’re at a fairly good budget situation but at some point we’re going to run out before we get to everybody.”

One group that Ralston is quick to defend for a raise: “the people who work in the trenches” of the state’s accountability courts.

Axios

Israel's national library sees Arabic site traffic boom


An early Quran, that is part of the collection of the National Library of Israel, is displayed at The Hebrew University campus in Jerusalem, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. The library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled over the course of 2021, thanks to the digitization of its Arabic manuscripts and archives and an extensive outreach program in recent years. 

(AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)More

ILAN BEN ZION
Sun, January 9, 2022

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's national library says the number of visitors to its Arabic website more than doubled last year, driven by a growing collection of digitized materials and an aggressive outreach campaign to the Arab world.

Around 650,000 users, predominantly from the Palestinian territories, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Algeria, visited the National Library of Israel's English and Arabic sites in 2021, said library spokesman Zack Rothbart.

One of the most heavily trafficked resources on the Arabic website is a newspaper archive with more than 200,000 pages of Arabic publications from Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine, said Raquel Ukeles, head of the library’s collections.

“We have been working on outreach to the Arab world, into the Arabic speaking public here in Israel for over a decade, and we have slowly built up a rich set of resources on our websites," she said. They include the digital newspaper archives, manuscripts, posters, electronic books and music, she said. They are open access, allowing scholars and curious web browsers to visit.

The Jerusalem library is home to an extensive collection of Islamic and Arabic texts, including thousands of rare books and manuscripts in Arabic, Persian and Turkish ranging from the 9th to the 20th centuries.

“We’re in the midst of a project to digitize our entire collection, to scan all of our Arabic, Persian and Turkish manuscripts,” said Samuel Thrope, curator of the library’s Islam and Middle East Collection. “Ninety-five percent of it has already been completed.”

Among the jewels in the crown of the collection are a 9th-century Quran from modern-day Iran with the earliest known example of Persian written in the Arabic script; an illuminated manuscript from 17th century India with illustrations of the life of Alexander the Great; and a 16th century Ottoman Turkish text on ophthalmology.

Jerusalem church leader says Israeli extremists threaten Christian presence in city

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III in Bethlehem

Sun, January 9, 2022
By Stephen Farrell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem has accused radical Israeli groups of threatening the presence of Christians in the holy city, in remarks that Israeli officials rejected as baseless.

In a column in the Times of London on Saturday, His Beatitude, Theophilos III, said he believed the aim was to drive the Christian community from Jerusalem's Old City, which has sites sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City, along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a 1967 war. It annexed East Jerusalem after the war in a move that has not won international recognition.

"Our presence in Jerusalem is under threat," the patriarch wrote in the article, published a day after the Greek Orthodox celebration of Christmas.

"Our churches are threatened by Israeli radical fringe groups. At the hands of these Zionist extremists the Christian community in Jerusalem is suffering greatly, he said.

"Our brothers and sisters are the victims of hate crimes. Our churches are regularly desecrated and vandalised. Our clergy are subject to frequent intimidation."

By singling out extremists as Israeli, Theophilos's criticism was more personal and trenchant than that of a collective statement issued by the heads of other churches in Jerusalem before Christmas.

Their statement spoke of "frequent and sustained attacks by fringe radical groups" but stopped short of identifying them as Israeli.

A U.S. State Department report published last year on religious freedom around the world said Christian clergy and pilgrims continued to report instances of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem harassing or spitting on them.

Church groups have for some time reported attacks of vandalism at religious sites in the city. Theophilos did not accuse any radical groups by name or cite specific incidents. He did not provide evidence that they were Israeli, or that their goal was to drive Christians from the city.

On Sunday, an Israeli official said the reality on the ground for Christians was completely different from that described by the patriarch, citing a Foreign Ministry statement on Dec 22 that rebutted the earlier church leaders' claims.

"Since the day it was established, the State of Israel has been committed to freedom of religion and worship for all religions, as well to ensuring the freedom of access to holy sites," the ministry statement said.

"The statement by Church leaders in Jerusalem is particularly infuriating given their silence on the plight of many Christian communities in the Middle East suffering from discrimination and persecution."

In his column, Theophilos said the radicals that he criticised "are not representative of the state of Israel or the Jewish people," and called on Jerusalem to remain a diverse "mosaic community" of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

(Reporting by Stephen Farrell; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

Indiana Senator Walks Back Instruction To Teacher Not To Condemn Nazism To Students

Mary Papenfuss
Sun, January 9, 2022

A right-wing Indiana state senator has backtracked on his shocking instructions to a history teacher during a legislative hearing this week not to criticize Nazism or fascism to his students.

During the hearing Wednesday, teacher Matt Bockenfeld noted that his class was “learning about the rise of fascism and the rise of Nazism right now,” adding: “I’m just not neutral on the political ideology of fascism. We condemn it, and we condemn it in full.”

The purpose, he said, is to help students “recognize it and combat it. That is why we learn: To use history to make a better world.”

Republican Sen. Scott Baldwin responded: “We need to be impartial.” He also said he wasn’t “discrediting” Nazism.

Baldwin emphasized that it’s fine to discuss the existence of the “isms,” like fascism and Nazism. But “we’ve gone too far when we take a position on those ‘isms,’” he told Bockenfeld. “We need to be the purveyor of reason. We just provide the facts.”

After a furious backlash, however, Baldwin amended his comments on Thursday to the Indy Star.

“Nazism, Marxism and fascism are a stain on our world history and should be regarded as such, and I failed to adequately articulate that in my comments,” he said.

Baldwin uttered his jaw-dropping instruction at a legislative hearing on state Senate Bill 167, which would require schools to form committees including parents to review all curricula. It would also prohibit schools from teaching a variety of concepts related to sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color and national origin as part of an assault on critical race theory.

The direction is similar to what has happened in Texas, where the state legislature last year dropped a requirement that students be taught that the white supremacist terror campaign of assault and murder by the Ku Klux Klan was “morally wrong.”

Bockenfeld tweeted that he was concerned the Indiana bill would mean a teacher could be reprimanded for “encouraging students to be mortified by ideologies like white supremacy.”

He added after posting Baldwin’s remarks: “My worst fears were confirmed.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

WHITE ORTHODOX FASCISTS MARCH
Amid tensions, Bosnian Serbs celebrate outlawed holiday

Members of the police forces of Republic of Srpska march during a parade marking the 30th anniversary of the Republic of Srpska in Banja Luka, northern Bosnia, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022. This week Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik was slapped with new U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption. Dodik maintains the West is punishing him for championing the rights of ethnic Serbs in Bosnia — a dysfunctional country of 3.3 million that's never truly recovered from a fratricidal war in the 1990s that became a byname for ethnic cleansing and genocide. 

(AP Photo/Radivoje Pavicic)

by RADUL RADOVANOVIC
Sun, January 9, 2022

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Amid Bosnia’s greatest political crisis since the end of its 1992-95 interethnic war, the country’s Serbs celebrated an outlawed holiday Sunday with a provocative parade showcasing armored vehicles, police helicopters and law enforcement officers with rifles, marching in lockstep and singing a nationalist song.

Addressing several thousand spectators gathered in Banja Luka, the de-facto capital of the Serb-run part of the country, Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik disparaged sanctions Washington slapped on him last week over his alleged corrupt activities and threats to tear the country apart.

“This gathering is the best response to those who deny us our rights, … who keep imposing sanctions on us,” Dodik said.

“It proves to me that I must listen to you, that you did not elect me to fulfil Americans’ wishes but to fulfil the wishes of Serb people,” he added.

The Jan. 9 holiday commemorates the date in 1992 when Bosnian Serbs declared the creation of their own state in Bosnia, igniting the multi-ethnic country’s devastating, nearly 4-year-long war that became a byname for ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The holiday was banned in 2015 by Bosnia’s top court which ruled that the date, which falls on a Serb Christian Orthodox religious holiday, discriminates against the country’s other ethnic groups — Muslim Bosniaks and Catholic Croats.

During the war that killed 100,000 people and turned half of the country’s population into refugees, Bosniaks and Croats were persecuted and almost completely expelled from the now Serb-administered half of Bosnia.

After the war, under the terms of the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace agreement, Bosnia was divided into two semi-autonomous governing entities — Republika Srpska and one dominated by Bosniaks and Croats.

Each part has its own government, parliament and police, but the two are linked by shared, state-wide institutions, including the judiciary, army, security agencies and tax administration. All actions at a national level require consensus from all three ethnic groups.

Bosnian Serb political leader Milorad Dodik, second left, holds a cake marking St. Stevan's day, the patron-saint of Republic of Srpska, and the 30th anniversary with Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Porfirije, fourth left, Prime Minister of Republika Srpska Zeljka Cvijanovic, third right, and Banja Luka mayor Drasko Stanivukovic, second right, in Banja Luka, northern Bosnia, Sunday, Jan. 9, 2022. Dodik was slapped with new U.S. sanctions for alleged corruption. Dodik maintains the West is punishing him for championing the rights of ethnic Serbs in Bosnia — a dysfunctional country of 3.3 million that's never truly recovered from a fratricidal war in the 1990s that became a byname for ethnic cleansing and genocide. (AP Photo/Radivoje Pavicic)

Dodik has for years been advocating the separation of the Bosnian Serb mini-state from the rest of the country and making it part of neighboring Serbia.

This winter, he intensified his secessionist campaign, pledging to form an exclusively Serb army, judiciary and tax system. He described Bosniaks as “second-rate people” and “treacherous converts” who sold their “original (Orthodox Christian) faith for dinner.”

Earlier Sunday, as part of holiday celebrations, Bosnian Serb officials participated in Serb Christian Orthodox ceremonies, broadcast live on local television, in the city’s main church, while a special police unit sang, while marching in the parade, a song about defending the Orthodox Christian cross and “the shiny new Serb Republic.”

The celebrations of the divisive holiday continue each year despite it being outlawed by the top court, and have been consistently criticized by the U.S. and the European Union.

However, the parade and other ceremonies on Sunday, were attended by the top officials of neighboring Serbia, including prime minister Ana Brnabic and parliament speaker Ivica Dacic; Russian and Chinese diplomats in Bosnia; and several officials of France's far-right National Rally party.

In recent months, the staunchly pro-Moscow Dodik has repeatedly voiced hope that the Serbs’ “true friends” — Russia, China and the champions of illiberal democracy within the European Union — will serve as his bulwark against the “tyranny” of Western democracies

Sen. Rubio Slammed For Anti-Semitic Dog Whistle In Bashing 'Upscale Liberal' Media

Mary Papenfuss
Sun, January 9, 2022

Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio was called out for coded anti-Semitism after he bashed “upscale liberals who control the media” for the continued coverage of last year’s historic Jan. 6 insurrection.

Critics erupted after Rubio’s tweet on Friday clearly evoked the anti-Semitic trope that Jews control the media as he griped that the insurrection wasn’t like “Pearl Harbor or 9/11.”

It might not be the best time to antagonize voters. Democratic Florida Rep. Val Demings is running this year to unseat Rubio.

“Upscale Liberals = Jews,” tweeted Rachel Vindman, wife to Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who testified at Donald Trump’s impeachment trial about his strong-arming Ukraine’s president in a bid to trigger an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

“Come on, lil’ Marco,” Rachel Vindman added, using Trump’s nickname for the Florida senator, “fly that race flag high! I hear your people are into that these days. Be LOUD and PROUD in your racism,” she urged sarcastically.

Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter, Jaime, in the 2018 mass shooting at Florida’s Parkland High School, echoed Vindman. “Don’t hide behind your anti-Semitism, Marco,” he tweeted.

“As for 9/11, my brother died because of it. The main difference is January 6th was a terror attack by Americans, invited by people like you,” Guttenberg added.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) didn’t bash Rubio for anti-Semitism, but did disparage his comment about Pearl Harbor. “What happened to you, man?” he asked Rubio.

Some critics wondered why Rubio dramatically changed his perspective to be so dismissive of the Jan. 6 insurrection when he once blasted it as unpatriotic “anti-American anarchy.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

Far-right Patriot Front heckled and branded
an 'embarrassment' by demonstrators at an anti-abortion march in Chicago

Alia Shoaib

Sun, January 9, 2022

The white nationalist group Patriot Front attends the March For Life on January 8, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois.Kamil Krzaczynski/Getty Images

• Far-right group Patriot Front clashed with anti-abortion demonstrators at a rally in Chicago.

• Videos show demonstrators calling the group an "embarassment" who are "hijacking a pro-life movement."

• Patriot Front is a "white supremacist group" who espouse "racism, anti-Semitism, and intolerance," the ADL said.

Anti-abortion demonstrators confronted the far-right group Patriot Front members who wanted to attend a March for Life rally in Chicago on Saturday.

In videos posted on social media, the white supremacist group members can be seen at the march in their signature khaki pants, navy blue jackets, baseball caps, and face coverings.

Many also wore shin pads and carried shields.

"What are you carrying shields for? This is a peaceful demonstration," one March for Life demonstrator shouted at the group.

"You guys are an embarrassment," the demonstrator said.

Patriot Front members stood silently during the exchange while holding flags and a large banner that read, "strong families make strong nations."

Another demonstrator can be seen shouting at the group for "hijacking a pro-life movement."

According to leaked audio from a Patriot Front meeting in December, obtained by The Daily Dot, the group's founder Thomas Rousseau told followers they had the support of people who attend events by the anti-abortion rights group March for Life.

Members of the group have attended several anti-abortion rallies in Chicago over the past three years, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

After the clash with demonstrators on Saturday, videos show Patriot Front members leaving in vehicles with taped-over license plates.

Patriot Front is a "white supremacist group whose members maintain that their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed it solely to them," according to The Anti-Defamation League.

The group espouses "racism, anti-Semitism, and intolerance under the guise of preserving the ethnic and cultural origins of their European ancestors," the organization said.

The group broke off from the white nationalist group Vanguard America after a man linked to the latter killed a woman at the notorious "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.

Cassie Miller with the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, told 6abc that Patriot Front is arguably "the leading white supremacist group in the country," with 42 chapters across the United States.

The group is known for staging "flash" protests and torch demonstrations.

In December, more than a hundred members of Patriot Front marched in downtown Washington, DC, chanting "reclaim America."

Dealership told worker to stop taking her ADHD medication — then fired her, lawsuit says



Hayley Fowler
Fri, January 7, 2022

A former sales representative at a car dealership in Louisiana will get $100,000 from her one-time employer accused of firing her after roughly two months on the job.

The woman had ADHD and was prescribed Adderall, which she said played a role in her firing.

Honda of Covington agreed to pay the former employee back pay and damages after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency tasked with enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace, filed a lawsuit on her behalf.

The suit accused the dealership of discriminating against her in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a civil rights law that bars discrimination based on disability in all facets of public life, including employment.

A lawyer for Honda of Covington and a representative with the dealership did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Jan. 7.

The EEOC first sued Honda of Covington in September 2020. Covington is in eastern Louisiana, across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans and about 85 miles west of Biloxi.

According to the lawsuit, the woman was hired as a sales consultant in August 2016. She reportedly told the dealership on her hiring form that she has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD, which the Mayo Clinic says can cause “difficulty paying attention, hyperactivity and impulsive behavior.”

The woman also disclosed that she is prescribed Adderall as treatment.

Honda of Covington required the woman to take a drug test as a condition of her employment, which showed amphetamines in her system, the EEOC said. But a medical review officer confirmed they were the result of her Adderall prescription and she was cleared to start work.

About two months later, the woman’s husband got in a motorcycle accident and had to be hospitalized, according to the lawsuit. Her boss subsequently said she looked “emotional” at work and told her to stop taking her medication, the EEOC said.

“Understanding from these statements that (he) disapproved of her medication and fearing the loss of her job if she failed to comply, (the woman) decided not to take her medication on days she was scheduled to work a full day,” the complaint states.

The woman arrived for her next full-day shift without taking Adderall, the EEOC said.

According to the lawsuit, her boss pulled her aside that day and said she was “acting weird, off, and unfocused.” He asked her if she was taking her medication and then told her to take a drug test.

The woman went to a clinic the same day and got tested. Just as before, the EEOC said, the results came back positive for amphetamines.

A medical review officer asked for proof of her prescriptions a few days later on Oct. 14, 2016, which she provided, attorneys said.

But it was too late.

According to the complaint, Honda of Covington fired the woman before the review officer could confirm the amphetamines were a match for her Adderall prescription. Her termination was attributed to a positive drug test.

The woman said she told her boss the final results would show it was her medication for ADHD and questioned how the dealership would justify her firing.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” her boss reportedly said in response, the lawsuit states. “We’ll cross that bridge if we get there.”

The final results did, in fact, come back negative, the EEOC said. Still, the woman’s termination paperwork attributed the decision to drug use.

The woman filed a charge of discrimination shortly after she was fired and, in June 2019, the EEOC determined there was reason to believe Honda of Covington had discriminated against her based on her disability. The agency attempted to resolve the matter out of court before filing suit last year.

The dealership denied many of the allegations outlined in the complaint before reaching a settlement in December, court documents show.

In addition to the $100,000 payment, Honda of Covington agreed to conduct training and revise its policies to comply with the ADA and provide regular updates to the EEOC. A federal judge approved the agreement on Jan. 4.