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When President Obamas record-breaking Tweet came out I did what most people did: liked, retweeted and took some sadistic pleasure in the knowledge that the record-breaking news was going to drive Trump up the wall.

I have since giving it some more thought, and in truth and with all due respect to President Obama and Nelson Mandela, is not that simple, and I believe the response takes more than 140 characters.

In all fairness, people are taught a lot of things, and as any parent or teacher will tell you, they choose to learn some and not others.

The seventeen-year-old kid in Barcelona is a good example, he was born in the most tolerant Muslim country in the world, went to the University of Barcelona, one of the most, liberal and tolerant cities in the world, and whoever thought him to hate, assuming someone did, was prioritized by him.

There is nature, theres nurture, but theres also free will and all it takes is a little bit of imagination and some courage to exercise it. Without free will, without exercising it to select the input we allow in our brains, we are perennial victims, easy prey to hateful influences eager to give us someone to blame for our failures.

This is patently true in white supremacists, you really have to choose to believe nonsense, to feel like a victim when youre a white male in America, yes, youre not born a racist, that might be true, but youre born a coward because you choose to believe someone is to blame for all your failures at every turn. That is a choice. Otherwise we have to believe there were just leaves floating in the wind with no control of our own choosing, pliable victims of bad influences. I dont believe thats true.

And I dont believe that ignorance is to blame, even though it is the usual liberal explanation of evil, the Germans were hardly an ignorant nation and the neo-nazis marching in the United States today went to the same school as their neighbors.

I believe that in the end it comes down to courage, the courage of conceptual thinking, the courage to take responsibility for your own failures, the courage not to be a victim or use others as you excuse, the courage of intellectual honesty as you absorb the influence around you. Racists are not ignorant or misinformed, they are cowards.

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My Response To President Obama's Record-Breaking Tweet - HuffPost

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Sunday, August 20, 2017, 9:38 PM

An ex-skinhead who co-founded an organization that focuses on battling far-right extremism says President Trump revoked a federal grant issued by the Obama administration supporting the groups mission.

Under President Obama, my organization, Life After Hate, was awarded a $400,000 grant to help combat far-right extremism, co-founder Christian Picciolini told CBS News John Dickerson Sunday. And when President Trump took office, immediately that grant was rescinded."

We were the only organization of the pool of grantees that was focused on white supremacist, extremists and disengaging people from that movement," Picciolini said.

He told the New York Times that he believes Trump took away his organizations grant because hes critical of the President on social media.

Every day that passes w/ @realDonaldTrump in office will take America 100 yrs to repair, Picciolini tweeted in May.

Homeland Security spokesman David Lapan told the Daily News that Picciolinis claim that Life After Hates grant was immediately" revoked was inaccurate.

The grants initially announced in January were reviewed upon directionand with new guidancefrom then-Secretary (John) Kelly and awardees were announced in late June, Lapan said.

The department had issued grants to 26 law enforcement and community organizations worth $10 million.

Life After Hate was founded in 2011 by former members of the American violent far-right extremist movement, the nonprofits website says. Organizers work with people who want to leave their hate groups and to educate others about racism.

Picciolini, who is of Italian descent, joined the white supremacist movement at 14 years old in 1987. He was then recruited into Americas first neo-Nazi skinhead group.

Everybody at Life After Hate is a former extremist, so we understand the (motivations) of why people join," Picciolini said. But, more importantly, we understand what it takes to get out of these groups.

Originally posted here:
Ex-neo Nazi says Trump revoked federal grant Obama gave his organization to fight hate - New York Daily News

ELKINS A Randolph County resident was ecstatic to receive a response letter from former President of the United States Barack Obama earlier this summer.

Kevin Watson said he sent a letter to Obama in January, when the president was still in office.

Watson sent the letter of appreciation with a thank-you card directly to the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C.

I thanked him and his wife for their service to the country and the world, Watson stated.

He said he didnt expect a reply, but at the end of June, Watson received a letter dated June 23.

In the reply, Obama thanked Watson for his kind message and his words of support.

I am proud of the progress weve made together, Obama wrote in his letter to Watson.

Thanks to the participation and resolve of everyday Americans like you, our country is a better and stronger place today than it was before I took office, Obama said in the letter.

None of our accomplishments were inevitable they were the result of people from every background and station in life stepping forward and embracing the important responsibilities of citizenship.

As long as we continue working in common effort and presuming the inherent goodness in one another, Im confident our brightest days will always lie ahead, the former president wrote.

The letter then went on to thank Watson for taking the time to write a positive and encouraging note.

It closed with the following: It was the honor of my life to serve as your president, and while there are many milestone moments we will always remember, it was my conversations with people like you that kept me going every single day. Theyve stayed with me and they always will. Thanks for everything I wish you the very best.

Obama was elected Nov. 4, 2008, taking office as the 44th president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2009. He was elected to a second term and served until Jan. 20, 2017.

ELKINS Elkins City Council has approved, on the first of two necessary readings, a proposed ordinance that ...

BUCKHANNON As the nation prepares for Mondays Great American Solar Eclipse, eye care professionals are ...

ELKINS Randolph County Superintendent of Schools Gabriel J. Devono announced Friday that all Randolph County ...

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Resident receives correspondence from Obama - The Inter-Mountain

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Read more here:
Obama didn't create problems - Tribune-Review

While retired federal judge Nancy Gertner made some excellent points in her op-ed regarding the admittedly invaluable contributions of whistle-blowers (Leaker or whistle-blower? Aug. 10), she seems to suggest inaccurately that the current administration is solely responsible for stifling whistle-blowers. Gertner overlooks that the ironic imbalance between whistle-blower protection in the private vs. public sector actually began in earnest during the Obama administration.

There is no question that in corporate America, whistle-blower protection has skyrocketed during the last 10 years, fueled by new laws such as Dodd-Frank, enhanced and stepped-up regulatory initiatives at the Department of Labor and the Securities and Exchange Commission, and court rulings expanding rights and remedies for whistle-blowers. Companies have responded, as evidenced by a recent survey by leading compliance solutions provider NAVEX Global that shows that average closure times for whistle-blower cases dropped nearly 10 percent from 2015 to 2016.

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By contrast, those who blow the whistle in the public sector are branded as leakers (Edward Snowden) or, worse, thrown in jail (Chelsea Manning, Reality Winner). Indeed, during the Obama administration, the government criminally prosecuted nine people on charges related to whistle-blowing or leaks, compared with three such prosecutions in all the prior administrations combined.

While the current president may indeed be obsessed with leaks and intent on stifling would-be whistleblowers, the reality is that the seeds of such stifling took root before he took office.

Gregory Keating

Boston

The writer is an attorney and is co-author of Whistleblowing & Retaliation.

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Harsh response to whistle-blowers took root under Obama - The Boston Globe