Christie and Macdonald Confronted During Court Appearance

First, we got to say Shawn, you aren't fooling anyone with that beard.

We're not claiming that he's looks like Saddam Hussein. We're just noting that in this picture, Shawn bares a striking similarity to the late Iraqi dictator.

Oh, we guess we are saying that he looks like Hussein. Just a little. Right?

Second, you're starting to show your age. Ever consider Just For Men?

Our friends in Vancouver published an article today and posted a video to YouTube.

You tell us. Does the guy being interviewed (not Christie, of course) look like an Atkey?

Vancouver Anti-Racists Confront Neo-Nazi at Court Appearance

by Zig Zag

Approximately 25 anti-racists attended the Friday, January 27, court appearance of Shawn MacDonald (39), a member of the neo-Nazi group Blood and Honour charged with three assaults against people of colour in the Vancouver area. 

Update on Macdonald Court Appearance

We were sent this a few moments ago:

Shawn MacDonald's court appearance delayed till 1:30 pm today (same courtroom 307 at 222 Main). He has plead not guilty to the hate crimes and they are setting trial dates (he elected for a judge and jury). His lawyer is infamous/notorious far-right libertarian Doug Christie who has a history of defending white supremacists and neo-Nazis (Keegstra, Zundel, Collins, Fromm etc).

In addition to this, the individual who originally posted this message also stated she received an email from someone trying to intimidate her into being silent.

From what we know about this woman, that ain't happening. For the benefit of our bonehead readers, does the term, "chew you up and spit youu out" mean anything to you?

No One Is Illegal Vancouver Statement: Blood & Honour Assaults

We were asked if we would be interested in posting the article below by No One Is Illegal.

We are and here it is. :)

No One Is Illegal on White Supremacist Hate Crimes

Posted by admin on Jan 26th, 2012 

This Friday January 27th Shawn MacDonald appears in Court at 222 Main Street (at Cordova) at 9am. NOII members are planning to attend court, but since it is a work-day we would like to ensure there are enough numbers. Please RSVP to noii-van@resist.ca if you can join us, we encourage white allies to be present and people of colour to break the fear, silence, and invisibility with us. 

No One Is Illegal Statement on Blood and Honour White Supremacist Hate Crimes 

No One is Illegal-Vancouver, Coast Salish Territories is a grassroots anti-colonial and anti racist migrant justice group. As a multiracial movement led by people of colour, we are outraged to hear of the rise of overt white supremacist groups in the Lower Mainland. In the past month, it has come to light that at least three men, Robertson de Chazal, Shawn Donald Finlay MacDonald, and Alastair Miller with known links to Blood and Honour are being charged in a number of violent assaults and hate crimes from 2008-2010 against a Filipino man who was set on fire, a Black man, a Latino man, and an Indigenous woman.

Oh, How We've Missed You Tom!

A relatively new poster on Stormfront going by the handle, "National Socialist Skin" caught our attention a while back. Oh, not because he seemed significant in and of himself, but he just reminded us of someone. He lives in Lethbridge. Has a tendency to name drop and brag about his status in, "the movement." Made fun of John Marleau. Talks about what he would do if he were in the same room with [fill in the blank] individual and it would not be pretty, he could sure tell you that.

We thought.... and then decided no. Couldn't be him. There was no evidence that "National Socialist Skin" has flown into a rage over some perceived slight and wasn't threatening people on Stormfront itself.

And then....

Now, we didn't catch all of this, but it enough to confirm that our favorite loose cannon Thomas Trenerry is back on Stormfront in what must be his third kick at the can:

Marc Lemire: Summary of Information

Over the past few years, we've taken a look at the claims made by Marc Lemire and his supporters regarding his ties to the Heritage Front. In the process we have done a pretty good job of proving that he was a member (and based on the evidence likely the leader for a time), worked closely with Ernst Zundel and held views that most of society would view as objectionable (though not necessarily illegal).

These articles can be used as a resource to truly examine Lemire's claims, though we would urge our readers not just to take our word for it and to do their own research. But the resource isn't useful if it isn't readily available and as it is one would have to actively search for these documents.

So, as we have done with our timelines, we are going to compile the list of articles we have written here and then add the link to our permanent links below the blog header. We hope that this will be more useful to our readers and other researchers who wish to test the veracity of both Lemire's and our claims.

Rob De Chazal and Alastair Miller Made Court Appearance Today

De Chazal and Miller will next appear in court on February 13, but in the meantime a little more information about the attack on the Filipino man has been released.

It's alleged that De Chazal and Miller were having a party on a rooftop terrace overlooking the street where the incident took place. When the Filipino man lay down on the discarded sofa, De Chazal and Miller are believed to have gone outside and set the man on fire. When a good Samaritan (who was black) tried to help, he was assaulted and called at least one racial epithet.

This is what we've been told, however we will know more when the details are covered in the media.

UPDATE: Story carried covered on the CBC.

Man set on fire in spontaneous attack, witnesses said

CBC News    Posted: Jan 23, 2012 5:13 PM PT

Witnesses claim two alleged members of a white supremacist group charged with a racially motivated assault spontaneously targeted a Filipino man they saw sleeping on a discarded couch, CBC News has learned.

An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part IX (Are We Done With This Finally?)

We had decided to continue our examination of Marc Lemire's links to the Heritage Front not long after we viewed his August interview on Ezra Levant's "Sun News" program (we didn't see the show itself when it originally aired, but watched it online later). When interviewed by Levant, Lemire made the following statement, repeated almost verbatim on the follow-up interview that took place this past December, regarding his involvement in the Heritage Front:

Uh, the Heritage Front uh, was active back in, uh, the the 90s and I was a young kid at the time. I had some, uh, interest in some of the things that they were doing in particularly thing like uh opposition to employment equity, things like reducing immigration. So I uh, listened to some of what they were about, and uh, I went away from it. I mean I was involved with them peripherally in my teenage years.

Our previous articles (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here... phew!) on the subject have all called into question Lemire's claim that he was only, "peripherally" involved with the Heritage Front in his teen years but instead support the conclusion that he was in a leadership position as early as the late 1990s and was the functional head of the the group by 2001. In a sense then this article is overkill, but there is one issue left that we do want to address, that being the belief by our detractors that there was nothing written by Lemire himself that links him to the Heritage Front.

Mythologizing the Past and the Future

Our regular readers will know that we have often been puzzled by Paulie's odd desire to be associated with horses. We are no longer all that puzzled:

Aside from the fact that the face here has been photoshopped very poorly (though Paulie doesn't seem to realize this), it's clear that Paulie has a thing for the Marlboro Man. Or, rather, the myth of the Marlboro man.

Boneheads in Trouble: Reitmeier and Erstikaitis

Not much of a story to start out, but we thought our readers would like to see a recent photo of Robert Reitmeier who, along with Tyler Sturrup, is accused of murdering a disabled man (Reitmeier is also dealing with forcible confinement and sexual assault charges as well):

Hey, that's a good look for you Robert!

Anyways.... in unrelated, though still criminal justice related, news....

It's been about 10 months or so since we last wrote about Michelle Erstikaitis, the troubled young woman who Paulie inexplicably went to bat for by claiming she was in trouble because of her, "White Nationalist" views. And we certainly were not the only one's scratching our collective heads on this one, as his fellow travellers also frequently asked, "wtf?!?"

Because it will affect Canada too

Ugh. So Here We Go Again.

After two years of public humiliation, it looks like McKee is taking another kick at the can based upon the image that was sent to us by a reader:

We did a bit of editing; we're sure that boneheads who want to
will find the contact information themselves, but we don't plan
on giving them any help to do so.

So, they plan on making this thing happen in several places across Canada, do they? Seems last year they claimed that the Calgary event would draw boneheads from across Canada and the United States and, well, we all remember how that went, right?

Webcast of Richard Warman Sec 13 debate today (January 10, 2012)

4pm pacific time, 7 pm Toronto time

http://www.cija.ca/resources/webcast/

January 2012 Bites and Bites

First, some kudos are due. Our friend Dr. Dawg managed to scoop up on our own turf.

Neo-nazi to assist at Calgary gun show

According to John Marleau’s Facebook profile: “I am working a gun show the 14th. Lol. Who is heading over?”

That would be this event. Move along. Nothing to see here. 

Good on ya Dawg! Of course now we're going to have to do something to reclaim our preeminence (tongue firmly planted in cheek) in the field of covering street-level boneheads. 

Stay tuned.

In less happy news:

Vigil at Jewish Cemetery in Victoria, BC

We had posted this story earlier.

Today a vigil at the cemetery was held. Harry Abrams sent us a number of photographs indicating that this event was very well attended, something which is obviously very positive:

Here is some documentation for today's historic event. A special thank you to Rabbi Harry Brechner and everyone involved including the nice people who restored the vandalized grave stones to a pristine condition. The event began at 1 pm, lasted perhaps an hour or so. Was attended by a crowd estimated at being at least 1000 people, which is an unprecedented number to have ever had in our cemetery within living memory. 

I have posted the videos and photos from the event here, and you can download them for viewing and consideration. Please send them around to others who might be concerned or interested in this matter. 

Harry Abrams

An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part VIII

NOTE: First, because of its relevance, we would suggest our readers take a look at the latest post on BCL's blog.

The folks at Free Dominion really aren't fans of BCL's "Daily Nazi" series. There are two recent posts specifically that our faithful reader "Maikeru" particularly takes umbrage with which have relevance to our project:

BCLSB author Michael J. Murphy's online repition [sic] (likely repeated to MP Chisu) of a 'Wikipedia' comment that "Lemire was the last president of the often violent Heritage Front organization", is calumny. 

The two posts that Maikeru is referring to are here and here. To sum up, Maikeru states that:

Under-handed methods to diminish Mr. Lemire's public reputation include a concerted effort to paint him as 'Heritage Front Fuhrer', as illustrated by the 'BigCityLib Strikes Back' posting referenced above, and a series of ongoing articles mounted on 'Anti-Racist Canada', and disseminated to associated online websites, entitled 'Examinations of Marc Lemire'.

The effectiveness of the methods employed to blackball Mr. Lemire are amply illustrated in the immediate reply from MP Corneliu Chisu on the same day Michael J. Murphy contacted his office to share, presumably, similar tainted information to that which he earlier posted online.

The crux of Maikeru's complaint is that Lemire is there is no evidence that Marc Lemire was ever the leader of the Heritage Front. Concerning BCL's use of Wikipedia:

An Examination of Marc Lemire: Part VII

This extension of the Lemire articles is in direct response to the statement made by Lemire in August (repeated in December) when asked by Ezra Levant about his involvement in the Heritage Front:

Uh, the Heritage Front uh, was active back in, uh, the the 90s and I was a young kid at the time. I had some, uh, interest in some of the things that they were doing in particularly thing like uh opposition to employment equity, things like reducing immigration. So I uh, listened to some of what they were about, and uh, I went away from it. I mean I was involved with them peripherally in my teenage years.

Now, for someone who claims to have only been peripherally involved with the Heritage Front in his teenage years, it is interesting that he has surrounded himself with people who were members of the Heritage Front.

In the last post on the subject, we included a newpaper article from July 21, 1998 which provides information concerning Heritage Front activities in Kingston, ON.  At this point the Heritage Front was still active, but it is pretty clear that the Bristow affair had resulted in a precipitous decline in the fortunes of hate group (there would be a brief resurgence in 2001, though this too would be short lived), but it is clear that Droege and the remaining chapters across Canada were still trying to make conversions.

When we looked at the article again, one name (other than Droege) jumped out at us:

Alleged Racial Assault Caught on Video; Macdonald Suspect

First, we're going to play Devil's advocate for a moment because some of our readers have noted the last sentence of the article:

MacDonald has not been convicted of any of the charges. He also has no proven association with the Blood and Honour organization.

Seems patently ridiculous when, well, we look at this:

But we think that we all need to consider that any allegation needs to be proven when the case goes to trial, even something as seemingly self-evident as Macdonald's group affiliation. So we're going to cut the CBC some slack here.

There are two videos in the following article. The first is a 24 second clip of the assault itself and a bit of the aftermath. The second part of the video provides the background of the story and includes more photos taken from the ARC blog:

Alleged neo-Nazi attack in B.C. caught on video

Warning: violent content

CBC News Posted: Jan 5, 2012 5:25 PM PT

CBC News has released a video showing a black Vancouver man being beaten by an alleged white supremacist who has since been charged in connection with a string of apparently racially motivated attacks.

A CBC News videographer happened upon an apparent road-rage incident while on duty on Vancouver’s West Side in December 2008.

Gatineau Mosque Hit Again

Again, we would ask our readers to help us out on this one.

Gatineau mosque again hit by vandals

WARNING: This article contains images with offensive language

CBC News
Posted: Jan 5, 2012 2:44 PM ET   Last Updated: Jan 5, 2012 7:10 PM ET  

A mosque in Gatineau, Que., that has been a target of vandalism was spray-painted with graffiti overnight.

Workers at the Outaouais Islamic Centre awoke Thursday to discover swear words and derogatory references to Arabs and Allah spray-painted in white.

The vandals painted messages on the front doors, across the building's side and on two other entrances to the building.

The mosque had earlier been vandalized Monday morning when windows were damaged and someone attempted to set fire to two cars in the parking lot.

An Examination of Marc Lemire VI

We're just going to cut to the chase on the extension of this series examining Marc Lemire's connection to extremism and specifically to the Heritage Front.

This past August, Lemire appeared on Ezra Levant's "Sun News" program where, when asked about a connection to the Heritage Front, said this (you can skip to 2:20 of the video if you wish):


Uh, the Heritage Front uh, was active back in, uh, the the 90s and I was a young kid at the time. I had some, uh, interest in some of the things that they were doing in particularly thing like uh opposition to employment equity, things like reducing immigration. So I uh, listened to some of what they were about, and uh, I went away from it. I mean I was involved with them peripherally in my teenage years.

He repeated this claim when he appeared on Levant's program again in December.

We are going to prove, yet again, that Lemire is being less than forthcoming and that he was actively involved with the Heritage Front until it finally went defunct sometime in 2005.

Jewish Graveyard in Victoria Vandalized

We've been given a lot of good tips regarding old and recent examples of vandalism and harassment. We're hoping our readers can step up and help us with this one as well.

Jewish community reeling after five gravestones desecrated

By Erin McCracken - Victoria News
Published: January 04, 2012 3:00 PM
Updated: January 04, 2012 3:50 PM

Wounded, hurt, angry. 

Those feelings channeled through Rabbi Harry Brechner after learning that five historic gravestones in Emanu-El Jewish Cemetery in Victoria – all belonging to Holocaust survivors – had been desecrated. 

Victoria police say the large stones were spray-painted with black swastikas and other images sometime between 8 p.m. on Dec. 30 and the early morning hours of Dec. 31.

Vandalism of Mosque in Gatineau

Gatineau mosque attack called hate crime

Incident follows recent vandalism at mosque
CBC News
Posted: Jan 4, 2012 8:48 AM ET  Last Updated: Jan 4, 2012 9:59 AM ET 

An unsolved attack on a Gatineau, Que., mosque is being called a hate crime by a national Muslim organization, after cars were smashed earlier this week.

Reflecting on the Right-Wing Response to Violence Against Women

When Montreal Massacre memorials were about to take place in early December, Big City Lib had reported on plans by the Jewish Defense League and Canadian Hindu Advocacy to demonstrate at a vigil at the University of Toronto. Despite a request by the University to not attend, they did anyway. At the time, we didn’t want to help JDL and CHA in their efforts to co-opt the day of remembrance, so we kept the focus on the victims. But we feel this deserves commentary, and more than enough time has passed to respectfully do so.

Tomasz Winnicki is a Creep

Not that it needed to be said, but here’s more proof: 

Mariani Murder Update

Just a very short article in the "Calgary Sun" discussing the investigation:

Time not our enemy say cops

By Nadia Moharib ,Calgary Sun

First posted: Friday, December 30, 2011 08:58 PM MST 

It began with a photograph of the murder victim on the detective’s desk.

As the days and weeks went by without an arrest, the investigator transformed an empty office into a situation room to try to find whoever killed Mark Mariani in October 2010.