The lead item in my Bird column this week, titled "SS IGNORANT," is about 2006 Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Harris and his flirtation with white supremacy. Read the article for all the gritty details. I didn't have room in the column for the photos of Harris, screenshots of his NewSaxon profile, and other visual evidence of his crossover to the dark side. So I'm posting some here for your perusal.
For the record, Harris denied he's a neo-Nazi. He also denied knowing that NewSaxon, "an online community for whites by whites," is sponsored by the National Socialist Movement. He took down his NewSaxon account shortly after I confronted him with it. But I have the screensave shown above.
As detailed in the column, Harris is an associate of Mesa neo-Nazi J.T. Ready. He told me they've known each other since he met the Ernst Roehm of the East Valley at an anti-immigration event in 2005. He also appeared with Ready in a video from an anti-Obama rally earlier this year. And he got a ride from J.T. Ready to a National Socialist Movement protest in Riverside, California that occurred in October.
Prof. Levin's footage of the Riverside rally: Harris is in the back, with white flex-cuffs dangling
Harris can be seen in video shot by Prof. Brian Levin of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal-State Bernadino. He's wearing white plastic flex-cuffs on his black combat gear. Later he attended a post-demonstration NSM barbecue and appears in a group shot of some 20 sieg heil-ing Nazis with swastika banners. Harris can be seen in the back, to the right of a blonde woman. He's smiling and seems to be wearing a black cap.
The photo is up on the front page of the NSM's Web site. For now, at least.
In my piece on him, Harris cops to being at the rally and to the NewSaxon account. His explanations are quoted there.
