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Dallas Stars Are First Pro Franchise to Publicly Oppose Texas Bathroom Bill. Dallas welcomes all, and we welcome all, President Jim Lites said. Take notes, Jerry, though rumor is the bill is going down the toilet.

The Fight Over Dallas Confederate Statues Continues.During a small rally at Pioneer Park Cemetery yesterday, protestors calling for the removal of confederate monuments clashed with a group called Sons of Confederate Veterans (one of whom is named Festus Allcock, obviously).

Denton Assistant Principal: Alt-Right Nationalist or Idiot? An assistant principal at Rodgriguez Middle School, Eric Hauser, published a childrens book on August 1 in which Pepe the Frog and his friend Centipede overpower a bearded alligator named Alkah to restore law and order, and bring freedom back to Wishington Farm. Now, centipedes are a Trump thing, which Hauser doesnt deny, but he claims to have not known that Pepe is a meme appropriated by the alt-right. Thats a pretty tremendous feat of ignorance, because when I google Pepe the Frog, the first three things that come up are the memes listing on the Anti-Defamation League website, a Wikipedia page with a lengthy section about Pepes alt-right history, and an LA Times article titled How Pepe the Frog went from harmless to hate symbol.

Highland Park ISD Asks Residents If Teachers Can Park In Their Driveways. The middle schools underground parking lot is still under construction. But were talking about Highland Park, here. Why give up driveway space, when residents can just loan out their spare car lifts?

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Leading Off (8/11/17) - D Magazine

WASHINGTON (AFP) Silicon Valley is finding itself entrenched in battle with the far right over ground rules for the digital world, a conflict that mirrors the polarization of American politics in recent years.

The recent firing of a Google engineer for questioning the internet giants diversity efforts, which ignited a backlash from the alt-right and fueled charges of hypocrisy, is just one example.

Facebook has been accused of suppressing conservative voices and skewing information presented in its news feed. Twitter has banned accounts from far right activists for violating its terms on hate speech. Paypal refused to transmit donations to a group in Europe seeking to turn back refugees, claiming it does not support activities that promote hate or violence. And even Airbnb canceled accounts ahead of a white nationalist rally for promoting discrimination in violation of the terms of the home-sharing platform.

Activists on the extreme right have responded with an outcry against the tech giants and have begun migrating to alternatives for social networking and money transfers. The conflict has caught Silicon Valley off-guard, amid a political onslaught from critics as online platforms grow in importance.

A Donald Trump supporter holding a poster of Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right movement, at a campaign event in Bedford, New Hampshire, Sept. 29, 2016. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images/JTA)

In Silicon Valley, youve got a bunch of people who are interested in technology who would prefer to be apolitical, said Bob ODonnell, consultant for Technalysis Research. They are being dragged into these decisions and being put into a difficult spot.

ODonnell acknowledged that the big tech firms may allow bias to filter into their business operations because Silicon Valley and northern California are heavily Democratic and heavily focused on political correctness.

The flare-up of tensions come with the tech sector roiled by accusations of discrimination, sexual harassment and a lack of diversity despite the idealism espoused by its leaders.

Alan Rosenblatt, a digital strategist for left-leaning groups, said alt-right activists are frustrated because they have been unable to exploit online platforms as much as they would like.

It traces back to the whole fake news issue starting in the 2016 election campaign, Rosenblatt said.

Rosenblatt said social networks such as Facebook and Twitter were correctly working to crack down on disinformation, such as the erroneous report about a child sex ring in a Washington pizza restaurant in an effort to tarnish candidate Hillary Clinton.

It was appropriate, Rosenblatt argued, to suspend accounts pushing alt-right messaging that is either hateful or disinformation.

President Donald Trump, he argued, is the greatest enabler of the alt- right. He gives political coverage to their attacks on diversity and workplace fairness.

Tensions have flared at Google over the firing of engineer James Damore, who published a manifesto which claimed biological differences were a key factor in the low percentage of women in technology jobs.

This photo taken on December 28, 2016 in Vertou, western France, shows logos of US multinational technology company Google. (AFP PHOTO / LOIC VENANCE)

Google said Damores memo went too far in advancing harmful gender stereotypes but his dismissal fueled criticism that the tech giant was ignoring diverse viewpoints.

Damore said in an essay Friday that Google had become an echo chamber intolerant of open debate.

How did Google, the company that hires the smartest people in the world, become so ideologically driven and intolerant of scientific debate and reasoned argument? he wrote in the Wall Street Journal.

Elaine Ou, an engineer at a financial technology company, offered a similar comment in a column for Bloomberg: Silicon Valley wont solve its gender issues if political correctness shuts down every conversation.

In a sign of the fractious atmosphere, Google canceled a town hall meeting intended to air viewpoints on diversity, sexism and free speech, citing worker safety concerns.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said in a memo to staff that despite the cancellation he wants a frank, open discussion and that all of your voices and opinions matter.

Some analysts argue a small group of activists are trying to impose their will on the tech sector.

A small group of social terrorists have hijacked the rational discourse led by societys most accomplished, intelligent, and promising organizations, said a blog post by John Battelle, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and journalist.

Thomas Main, a political science professor at the City University of New Yorks Baruch College, said the latest developments reflect a realization that the internet may not be the utopia for political discourse that some had imagined.

In some ways the internet is an ideal speech situation, he said.

But extremist trolls, Main said, are polluting the environment and you need some gatekeeping function.

Main said the gatekeeping function is a big problem because we dont want government going in and its not clear if the digital companies are positioned to handle this.

Im searching for a better solution, he said.

ODonnell said social networks and other digital companies may end up splintering along political lines in the same manner as the media industry.

We may see over time an evolution where one social network is more left leaning and another is right leaning, he said. It has become so challenging to remain in the middle.

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Silicon Valley's accidental war with the far right - The Times of Israel

Director

Ben Safdie, Joshua Safdie

Cast

Jennifer Jason Leigh, Robert Pattinson, Barkhad Abdi

Like some of the best films about New York City, Good Time ably captures the constancy of movement at all hours of the night. Much of the films action takes place in half-empty hospitals and apartments and an amusement park after closing hours. Yet, in every case, somebody is still pulling a graveyard shift, getting high, looking out for their own, or just trying to get paid. That last bit is integral to Joshua and Ben Safdies harrowing single-night odyssey: were all hustling, in one way or another, all the time. Some are just a lot better at it than others.

Early on, it seems like Constantine Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) could be among the best. A straw-haired degenerate in an oversized hoodie, with wild eyes that exude canny survivalism and junkie panic in equal measures, Connie has bigger plans for himself and his brother, Nick (co-director Ben). An unnerving early sequence watches Nick, captured in the Safdies already-signature nauseating close-ups, as he attempts to work through a behavioral therapy session. Nick deals with some sort of neurological disability, but Connie refuses to allow his brother to be put through sessions that he finds both demeaning and upsetting to his brother. (For his part, Nicks difficulty with regard to even basic questions suggests that he absolutely should be getting more help than hes evidently had.) As Connie tells him, Its just you and me. Im your friend. Alright?

And then Connie and Nick don facial prosthetics and stage one of the more exhilarating bank robberies in recent cinematic history, made all the more so by the matter-of-fact staging with which its delivered. Good Time is a wandering film, and not all of its many digressions land. But the best ones, starting with the robbery and its screw-tightening aftermath, offer the kind of pure cinema capable of sending even the most jaded critics and audiences into fits of white-knuckle panic. Connie is simultaneously more shrewd than his wiry appearance would suggest and tragically over-convinced of his own genius. Soon an unexpected paint bag is triggered, Nick ends up in police custody and sent off to await trial on Rikers Island, and Connie is left to somehow obtain $10,000 for Nicks bail before things can get any worse.

Over the course of a night bathed in neon, pitch-darkness, and depravity, Connie encounters a number of fellow strays on his way to save Nick from the kind of hell that Connie himself has created for his brother. Good Time recalls the wearily hallucinatory qualities of other one-shot stories like Night on Earth and After Hours, but what the Safdies and co-screenwriter Ronald Bronstein accomplish here is a film of a distinctly filthy ilk. The Safdies exceptional 2015 feature Heaven Knows What displayed a similarly keen eye for the rituals of the day-at-a-time criminal, but where that film took a borderline anti-narrative approach to its travels alongside an unrepentant heroin addict, Good Time functions on more of a rail, albeit a ferocious one.

Good Time takes an episodic approach to Connies journey, and those episodes are consistently engaging, even as some of them occasionally threaten to leech away at the films breakneck momentum. One vignette involving a siege on a hospital leads to a remarkable gallows punchline. Connie finds a moment of respite with Crystal (Taliah Webster), an underage girl who recognizes Connies need for shelter as both suspicious and not worth causing too much trouble over. A security guard at that aforementioned theme park (Barkhad Abdi) finds himself with the severe misfortune of happening onto Connies barreling path. Some leave more of an impression than others; an encounter with a beaten parolee (Buddy Duress) leads to an onscreen digression so lengthy that it at once fits well within the films anything-goes rhythm and brings it to a near-complete halt. (Its nevertheless a damned funny few minutes of filmmaking, in a vacuum.) Connies frantic appeals to Corey (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a well-off but unreliable lover, feel equally at odds with the films central story, even if Leighs nervous performance serves as one of the films many deft methods of creating absolute unease.

The Safdies build a world of constant paranoia in every way, from the shaky handheld photography to the endless parade of strangers existing as possible would-be hazards. But the most exceptional method is the rattling, sumptuous score by Oneohtrix Point Never. That its easily the best compositional work to grace any 2017 film to date is secondary; this is one of those rare film scores that emerges as its own character, as integral to the success of Good Time as any of the films impressive performances. As the Safdies race from one stunning image to the next (a zoomed-out crane motif framing Connie as a constant rat in an overwhelming maze, a dark room lit solely by a grainy television), OPNs endless cycles of oppressive synths and dissonant electronic sounds conjure unease even in the most straightforward moments of respite. The score is a faithful mirror of Connies psyche, all panic and terror and fleeting instances of stoned, euphoric grandeur.

Good Time is a film of trembling anxiety, and while the score and the Safdies terrific direction both aid this, its Pattinsons outstanding performance that pins even the most outlandish occurrences to a deep sense of emotion. The actor, having long abandoned the days of stiff paycheck roles for increasingly ambitious fare, delivers a feral star turn that should more than silence any remaining skeptics. Like an animal, Connie simply reacts with an alarming lack of forethought, and Pattinson almost appears to be piecing each scene together as he goes along. But this is a meticulous performance; his slow crescendo of harrowing desperation builds to one lingering shot that builds a wealth of meaning out of the actors tightly framed visage, defining the entire film before it in a single image of Pattinsons face. In a world of near-anarchy, its Connie who holds it all together.

At one point in his journey, Connie asserts that something is happening to me tonight, and I feel like its deeply connected to my purpose. Its a purpose rife with drugs and exploitation and an inexplicable allusion to Pepe the Frog that will undoubtedly spur on many an addled debate in the coming weeks, but its a purpose that Connie pursues with alarming velocity. In its immersion in a world full of scrambling and sweat and constant alarm, Good Time observes something primal about the worlds that exist beneath the worlds in which so many other movies are made and viewed. Theres no time for thinking and even less for processing. You simply react until you cant any longer.

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Film Review: Good Time - Consequence of Sound (blog)

The highly decentralized alt-right movement has primarily been known as an online phenomenon. If the organizers behind this weekends Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia have it their way, that will soon begin to change.

Led byformer Daily Caller contributor Jason Kessler, a number of perpetually feuding far-right groups are rallying together to protest the citys decision to remove a monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Charlottesville is one of several cities across the American South that have chosen to relocate public memorials to the failed secessionist movement.

Among the right-wing groups and individuals that are coming together are the Traditionalist Worker Party, a neo-fascist political party that organizes within lower-income white communities; The Right Stuff, a podcast network for self-described fans of Adolf Hitler; Occidental Dissent, a neo-Confederate blog; AltRight.com, a website set up by white nationalist editor Richard Spencer; and Anthime Gionet, a former BuzzFeed writer who has since joined up with the alt-right.

Organizers of this weekends event are hoping to draw thousands of demonstrators, a much larger crowd than the small number of people who typically attend far-right political rallies and conferences, even ones that arenot sponsored by explicitly racist groups. In July, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Charlottesville thatattracted fewer than 50 participants,along with several hundred counter-protesters.

The difference this time may be the assistance of several old-school racist groups such asthe National Socialist Movement, an American Nazi political party as well asthe neo-ConfederateLeague of the South.

The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi blog that attracts a far larger audience than any of the organizations and individuals mentioned above is also getting involved. Typically, the sites owner, Andrew Anglin, has refrained from encouraging his readers to attend conferences and rallies. The Stormer has made an obvious exception in the case of Unite the Right, featuring manyposts urging fans to attend. Due to the sites infamous reputation, however, Kessler and other rally organizers are not publicizing the Stormers involvement.

Pepe [the Frog] memes are all fine and good, but if we really want to turn the heads of the idealist youth and win them over to our side, we need to get out in the streets, and we need to do it bigly,Benjamin Garland, one of the blogs authors, wrote last week, referring to the cartoon characterwhich has been adopted by far right online activists.

Next stop: Charlottesville, VA. Final stop: Auschwitz, Garland added.

Its unclear how many people will actually show up for the event. Charlottesville officials appear to be expecting a larger number of protesters and counter-protesters than the 400 people specified in the permit the city had originally authorized. On Monday, the city told Kessler, the principal organizer of Unite the Right, that he would have to move his rally from Emancipation Park formerly called Lee Park, and the site of the disputed statue to McIntire Park, a larger facility.

Kessler has refused the citys order on the grounds that his event is about protesting the removal of the Lee statue and therefore must not be relocated. He has vowed to hold the rally at its original time and place. On Wednesday, the ACLU of Virginia announced that it and the Rutherford Institute would represent Kessler in a legal challenge to the citys ruling.

At the very least, the city must explain in more than just generalities its reasons for concluding that the demonstration cannot safely be held in Emancipation Park,Claire Guthrie Gastaaga, executive director of ACLU Foundation of Virginia and John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, wrote ina joint letterto Charlottesville officials.

Otherwise, it appears that the citys revocation of the permit is based only upon public opposition to the message of the demonstration, which would constitute a violation of the organizers fundamental First Amendment rights.

Some left-wing groups have criticized the ACLU for its position. In an email to Salon, an anonymous activist associated with the anti-fascist website Its Going Down condemned the civil liberties group.

Liberals mobilizing to defend fascists on free speech grounds increases interest in their views by conferring legitimacy on them, the representative wrote. This plays directly into fascist organizing goals, allowing them to drive a wedge between their opponents using free speech as a smokescreen. By tolerating racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, so-called free speech advocates are complicit in the acts of terror fascist organizing makes possible.

Critics of the event will hosttheir own gatheringson Friday and Saturday, including local religious organizations, the University of Virginia, and the Charlottesville chapter of Black Lives Matter. With several rally speakers encouraging their followers to bring concealed carry firearms, city officials are warning residents that the event may turn violent.

With large crowds of individuals with strongly held and potentially opposing beliefs, there is also the potential for conflict, the citys communications director, Miriam Dickler, said. Those who live and work in the area of these events should exercise their best judgment on the day of the rally and should avoid the area if they have concerns.

In a statement to students and staff, University of Virginia president Teresa A. Sullivan urged opponents of the neo-fascist rallyto stay away:

I urge students and all UVA community members to avoid the August 12 rally and avoid physical confrontation generally. There is a credible risk of violence at this event, and your safety is my foremost concern.

Moreover, to approach the rally and confront the activists would only satisfy their craving for spectacle. They believe that your counter-protest helps their cause. One advocate of the rally said, We should aim to draw the SJWs [social justice warriors] out in Charlottesville and create a massive polarizing spectacle in order to draw as huge a contrast as possible. They will reveal themselves to be violent, intolerant, opposed to free speech, the insane enforcers of political correctness, etc. The organizers of the rally want confrontation; do not gratify their desire.

The Unite the Right rally may not see large-scale violence, however, since Virginia law prohibits the wearing of masks in public. Oftentimes, when provisions of this nature are enforced by police in conjunction with controversial political rallies, opposing sides do not engage in violent activities. The states National Guard said it will be monitoring the situation and rapidly respond if requested by local law enforcement.

The eventhas not exactly achieved its objective of unifying all of the far rights disparate elements. Michael Madden, the owner of a popular Facebook page calledConfederate Keepers charged Kessler with obsessing about race instead of history:

The Confederate Keepers will not be at the rally on Aug. 12th. We do not agree with Jason using our heritage to spread his hate. We are about love and spreading education on the war for southern independence. He is using Gen Robert E Lees monument at LEE PARK because he knows he will get media attention. Yes he has the right to free speech, but that doesnt mean our southern heritage groups need to stand next to a known hate group. I highly condemn this rally as should everyone else. Ive watched Jason for some time now and he talks about the statues maybe two mins then bashes other races. People of all races fought for the south. That statue and the Confederate battle flag is not just white heritage but black, Indian, Spanish, etc. Ive had a few debates on this subject. I agree move it out of Lee Park because hate has no room in our heritage. My ancestors fought beside blacks, Spanish, Indians, etc. They fought for a free south, smaller government and states rights. To the ones showing up, I wonder what youre gonna do when he turns his subject to hate on your race? This rally shouldnt happen!

The web forum /pol/ hosted on 4chan (which is even more popular than the Daily Stormer) has been divided on the event, with many posters criticizing it as a trick by law enforcement officials into getting anonymous extremists to reveal their identities. Others have argued that local police will allow left-wing activists to engage in acts of assault without repercussions.

Let me guess, the Cops will be disarmed too or given meme weapons just so the lefties can cause damage with out fear of retaliation, one 4chan poster wrote.

Posters on the /pol/ spin-off hosted on 8chan have generally dismissed the rally as a phony effort to make money from gullible right-wingers. Others on the board have argued that taking white nationalist activism public before it has become more popular would attract dangerousattention from federal law enforcement and from liberals.

The whole premise behind the Unite the Right rally is fucking idiotic. You know what happens when you Unite the Right? You give the left a clear enemy to rally themselves with, an 8chan /pol/ poster wrote on Tuesday.

Since much of the pro-white memes have come from /pol/, be it [4chan] or this /pol/, leftists have not been able to fight back since we are anonymous. There was no clear enemy for them.

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Alt-right shindig: Neo-fascists plan giant rally to support Confederate flag what could go wrong? - Salon

Like many moderate conservatives throughout the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Id shrug off claims from the left of hate, racism, xenophobia, etc., that were supposedly being perpetrated by conservatives and the rising Trump campaign. Sure, I thought, media figures like Sean Hannity stirred the culturally sensitive melting pot of American culture with their provocative headlines, but they were just the classic incendiary talk show hosts who you see on both sides of the aisle.

While those claims were shrugged off by the GOP base as the usual political rhetoric, few noticed a shadowy group of far-right outsiders that were muddying the conservative waters by blurring establishment conservatism with their own radical views. And when the source of the hate became evident, conservatives and liberals alike scratched their heads in bewilderment as far-right nationalism surfaced from the depths of the internet.

For years, members of the alt-right were culminating into a coalition of radical far-right nationalists who were flirting with ideas of pro-white nationalism, anti-semitism and a general opposition to any form of political correctness. In 2016, these individuals broke out onto the main political scene. While their ability to hold the attention of major news sites may be dwindling if not gone, the alt-rights influence on mainstream conservatism is a subtle yet concerning one.

A lot of alt-right activity is internet-based, so it would be quite difficult to easily point out a member of the alt-right unless they were supporters of people like Richard Spencer: head of the National Policy Institute and the self-proclaimed leader of the alt-right. Participants of this movement populate internet forums such as 4chan and Reddit with messages that promote white nationalism, anti-semitism and basically anything anti-politically correct.

Members of the alt-right spend their time on these message boards reinforcing their white nationalist identity among themselves as a reaction to increasing multiculturalism in American society and fear of a white minority in the coming years. They are a wildly scattered group consisting of pro-Western nationalists, pro-white nationalists, neo-Nazis and many other far-right offshoots. They are united in their many controversial beliefs including racial superiority, misogyny, anti-semitism, anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism.

Their activities have been gaining momentum since 2008, but recent populist uprisings across the globe including those at home have propelled the alt-right into the mainstream. They generated millions of memes that supported nationalist icons like Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and most importantly, Donald Trump. The most notable was Pepe the Frog, a disheveled-looking frog who would often be displayed to resemble Trump. They referred to their efforts as meme magic, believing that plastering the frog anywhere possible would carry Trump and other nationalist leaders to victory.

When it started to spill into the social media feeds of everyday Americans, the media naturally condemned the alt-rights provocative online activity while simultaneously bringing attention to the groups endeavors: ultimately, and unknowingly, fulfilling the alt-rights initial goal of generating media interest. Their newfound infamy unfortunately started to blur the lines between conservatives and their far-right counterparts.

But when Trump won the election, the commotion died down and all of the political radicals, including the alt-right, were once again overshadowed by the usual Washington noise that comes with a new president. Yet circumstances were different for the alt-right. Similar to their unnoticed leap into mainstream conservatism, they quietly stuck around and continued to spread their influence online: this time on platforms that hosted thousands more viewers than the murkier internet forums of 4chan and Reddit.

Scrolling through my Instagram Explore page, months after the rise and fall of the alt-rights popularity, I noticed a few strange posts from different conservative accounts that generally posted jokes I thought of as sensible. One account had posted 80s retro aesthetic pictures containing phrases like not all men are equal, power and a generation of revenge, with pictures depicting the moon landing, a gladiator and a skeleton in Nazi fatigues, respectively. There was a final picture titled Right Wing Death Squad, a reference to death squads being a result of an increasingly leftist state, according to an alt-right 4chan forum. It turns out I was looking at posters promoting fashwave, a nostalgic form of dubstep in a retro style reminiscent of the neo-Nazi music wave of the 80s.

That same day I noticed the familiar account had posted questionable statistics listing the IQs of different races, claiming that certain negative personality traits of the listed racial groups stemmed from those numbers. Unsurprisingly, they were from the National Policy Institute, which is essentially the main think tank of the alt-right. To my confusion, I noticed similar comments on both posts congratulating the account for finally becoming red-pilled, which is alt-right slang for opening ones eyes to see their pro-white nationalist version of reality.

To see mainstream conservatives sharing pictures advocating neo-Nazism or white nationalism was quite unsettling; things were dramatically different from the times the alt-right were spreading a cartoon frog around the internet. Conservative hotspots that used to host topics like health care or tax policy were now debating news articles and related content that read: Illegal Aliens and Violent Crime: Some Amazing Facts, African Who Attacked Church Deported from Italy: Im a Muslim, Its My Duty to Destroy Christian Symbols and Hillary, Soros and the political genocide of Christianity.

Sources from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and any media outlet with journalistic standards have been branded as fake news and replaced with sites like Breitbart and The Daily Stormer, who push these inflammatory headlines for the sake of angering and energizing their alt-right followers. It is clear that the alt-right hasnt left mainstream conservatism; they have used the conservative base to latch on like parasites benefitting from an audience of millions.

The continued online presence of the alt-right should alarm conservatives. This far-right fringe group is slowly influencing a generation of budding conservatives by introducing subtle humor that has the potential to turn them on to the idea of a pro-white nationalist America. If their influence continues to spread even further across the mainstream they will eventually replace known conservative principles like limited government and individual liberty with principles that promote white nationalism. Conservatives should make a preemptive effort to clearly separate themselves from the alt-right so they may never fully spread their radical views into the mainstream and promote a false image of modern conservatism.

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The alt-right parasite: How fringe groups latched on to mainstream ... - Virginia Tech Collegiate Times