POKER FACE: THE FALLOUT

DLJ has been on local radio and has discussed to newspapers the stench that is Poker Face. For those just coming into this, Poker Face is a band that first got noticed as a de facto house band for Freak Republic, playing their rallies and getting their mugs on C-SPAN. It turned out that Poker Face has some rather questionable stances on Jews, and has made some curious alliances with neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. Last weekend, they were supposed to play the Libertarian Party conference at Rutgers University, but we tipped some folks off there as to what they were about and students raised hell, resulting in the band getting bounced off the conference schedule. A few interesting developments were worth noting. For one, Poker Face did a makeup gig. They performed at the King of Prussia, Pa. meeting of the Minuteklan Project, giving that group yet ANOTHER tie to hatemongers! Hal Turner did his thing with the death threats, so there is not much to say about that. The most curious thing, however, is the response – or rather lack of – coming from Freak Republic. Now you can’t say we weren’t fair. We tried to reach both Cathy “Angelwood” Wood and Kristinn Taylor, but they never got back to us. So we figured since they wouldn’t talk to us, they might talk to you, and we have their info in this piece. We most certainly can’t wait to hear what they have to say!

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One People’s Project

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ–The squashed performance of an anti-Semitic band at a Libertarian Party conference resulted in a few reactions by those that have been associated with the band. After outrage by students of Rutgers University where the conference was held Feb. 25 led to University officials to drum the band out, opinions have varied from defenses of free speech, to shock that a band like this was performing at the University, to death threats and in the case of one prominent conservative activist group, dead silence on the issue.

Poker Face was scheduled to perform at the New Jersey Libertarian Party Convention at the University Inn and Conference Center, but the band was barred from performing by the University. University officials maintain the band was cancelled so as to not disrupt other groups meeting at the inn on the same day, but they also acknowledged receiving numerous emails and phone calls regarding the anti-Semitic stances the band has taken over the years. Lead singer Paul Topete has been the most vocal in this regard. On the band website forum, he has posted articles defending jailed Holocaust deniers like Ernst Zündel and David Irving, as well as articles written by known white supremacists like National Vanguard’s Edgar Steele. He has also praised Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s December 14 speech that described the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

In an interview with the Daily Targum, Rutgers University’s main student newspaper, Topete, who is part Mexican, denies he is a racist or anti-Semite. “If you look up anti-Semite in the dictionary, it will say ‘one who hates Jews.’ I have lots of Jew friends,” said Topete, noting his good friend Barry Weinstein who joined him at an interview for the Home News Tribune newspaper a few days earlier. “It doesn’t get more Jewish than him.” Ironically, on the day that this article was published, Feb. 27, Topete appeared on the radio program of Holocaust denier and anti-Semitic extremist Michael Collins Piper, who among other things is known for his bizarre conspiracy theories, such as the theory that Israel and the Mossad were behind President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the Watergate scandal.

Meanwhile the Libertarians have distanced themselves from the band. Topete hoped to address the conference even if the band was not going to perform. This did not happen, and Poker Face ended up performing at the Minuteman Project’s recruiting drive at the Crowne Plaza hotel in King of Prussia PA, where Minuteman co-founder Chris Simcox also spoke. Although they deny this, since its inception, the Minuteman Project has been making close associations with open white supremacists and anti-Semites, and this performance gives further evidence of the organization far right leanings.

At the Libertarian Party conference, there were two different opinions on the band. Some of the members of the party, including a former president of the chapter were surprised to find “wacky anti-Semite conspiracy theories” being associated with a band they were led to believe was just singing about freedom. They said that Topete decided himself he’d come down to speak to the Party, but they did not seem terribly interested to hear about Paul’s nonsense.

Meanwhile, Richard Edgar, Vice Chair of the Party, considers Paul a close friend of his, and seemed a little disappointed the band wasn’t coming. He said it was his fault the band was cancelled – he didn’t check with Rutgers if it was okay to have the band come down. He said that Paul was a good guy but has a tendency to lock onto these crazy conspiracy theories.

Poker Face generated recent interest when Topete started to post on the discussion board of Hal Turner’s website, and Turner was none too pleased about the band he tried to hype up getting canned at Rutgers. In typical Turner behavior, the internet radio host threw one of his seemingly obligatory threats at not only One People’s Project’s Daryle Lamont Jenkins, but also the Rutgers community as well. “Rutgers morons fold like cheap cameras when militant negro riles useful idiot students,” he wrote on his website. “Once again, Rutgers proves to be a hotbed of politically-correct tyranny. It brings to mind the old saying offered by Thomas Jefferson: The Tree of Liberty must sometimes be watered with the blood of tyrants. In my opinion, a number of folks at Rutgers need to bleed.” Turner later repeated this on his radio show, but he also added that he would not be at the conference to see anyone “bleed” as he was going to the American Renaissance conference in Herndon, Va. that weekend. Ironically, Daryle Lamont Jenkins was there as well, albeit briefly. Turner was not seen in that time.

One group however is trying their best to avoid the issue of their association with the band. In the past, the neo-conservative forum Free Republic has featured Poker Face at their rallies, notably the Oct. 31, 1998 rally calling for the impeachment of then-president Bill Clinton. Poker Face’s anti-Semitic leanings were open even then, yet this was of no concern to the rally organizers. When the recent controversy at Rutgers unfolded, a thread featuring an article on the issue was posted on the Free Republic website, but within a few days, it was pulled. In addition, although Poker Face had appeared prominently over the years on the Free Republic website, these days it seems that any thread or photographs of the band have been removed. The D.C. chapter of Free Republic, which was responsible for the rallies that Poker Face appeared in was contacted by One People’s Project, but neither representatives Cathy Wood, a/k/a Angelwood, nor Kristinn Taylor would respond, and to date Free Republic refuses to discuss the band’s relationship with the group.

Topete has accused the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center of sending One People’s Project after them to get them banned at Rutgers University.

ASK CATHY WOOD AND KRISTINN TAYLOR WHY FREAK REPUBLIC WOULD WORK WITH ANTI-SEMITES

Cathy Wood
[email protected]
(703)850-7646

Kristin Taylor
[email protected]
202)309-1589