Idaho

White supremacist group sends recorded phone message to Idaho residents

An out-of-state group blanketed the state with a recorded phone message Saturday espousing its defiantly racist, whites-only agenda.

The American Freedom Party’s 48-second call ends with an invitation to support the party’s 2016 presidential candidate, visit the party’s website or call them. A lot of Idahoans did call, but mostly to complain, the party’s chairman said Monday.

“Some people don’t like it, well that’s too bad,” said chairman William Johnson, a corporate lawyer in Los Angeles. “We don’t like the direction this country’s taken. They can sit through a 45-second harangue by our party telling them why the white race is dying out.”

The “robocall” says that Idaho is “in the national news” over Muslim refugee resettlement and Hispanic immigration, and for Boise Mayor Dave Bieter’s “laying out the welcome mat” for immigrants — a reference to a July 25 column the mayor wrote that appeared in the Idaho Statesman. Coinciding with Jaialdi, last week’s festival of Basque culture and heritage, Bieter’s column praised ethnic diversity and the contributions of immigrants.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/08/03/3922860_white-supremacist-group-sends.html?rh=1