![\"Examiner\"](\"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/images_ExaminerRogersHillman.jpg\")
Yeah, yeah. They have their freedom of speech. But so do we, and if boneheads are going to use their statuses as contributors to Examiner.com to push their propaganda, we consider it our civic duty to let you know, especially if they really don’t want you to! <\/h3>\nThe Denver-based news website Examiner.com is best known for being a network of locally-oriented websites that invite professional and amateur contributors to write on their interests related to their local area. According to Wikipedia it operates in 238 markets in the US and Canada and has over 55,000 contributors known as \u201cExaminers\u201d. <\/p>\n
It is not hard to become an Examiner. All you need to do, according to the website, is contribute one or two articles per week, making sure your articles are timely and accurate, and be credible, knowledgeable and passionate. That lends itself to a lot of room for error, and indeed Examiner.com has been criticized for its lack of verification and fact-checking, as well as accused of plagiarism.<\/p>\n
And then there is another issue. The opportunity to write to a huge readership has been particularly inviting to some that come from the political fringe. That has ran the gamut across the left-right divide of the political spectrum, but that has meant some rather curious articles. Conspiracy theorists and islamophobes as well as writers from white supremacist circles have been contributing as Examiners, and With the lax policing on Examiner.com\u2019s part, they have been using the website to advance their positions on a number of issues, regardless of how outlandish their \u201creporting\u201d may be.<\/p>\n
One of his most recent articles was a response to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) latest issue noting him as one of 30 hatemongers to watch. \u201cThe SPLC says that I’m knowledgeable about Norse Mythology and that means I’m a \u2018white supremacist,\u2019” he wrote. \u201cI’m trying to get a hold of my Scandinavian Mythology 101 professor from OSU to explain to her that she is turning out legions of \u2018white supremacists.\u2019”<\/p>\n In the article<\/a>, that Rogers choose not to link to, the SPLC was referring in particular to his most infamous stunt. \u201cRogers, who like many white supremacists is much taken with ancient Norse gods, last year began pushing his \u2018Boycott Thor Campaign,\u2019\u201d the article notes, \u201cattacking Marvel Studios for casting a \u2018sub-Saharan black man\u2019 as the Norse god Heimdallr. Saying Marvel is known for \u2018leftwing ideologies,\u2019 Rogers complained that Heimdallr is actually the progenitor of Europeans and referred to as \u2018The Whitest of Gods.\u2019\u2019\u201d The article also notes that Rogers \u201cstill urges CCC members to remind the (Republican) party that it should be \u2018standing up for whites.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Given Yardbrough’s history, it is curious how among the comments on the Carothers story, one person named Ken Ward submits a suggestion regarding the officer that arrested him: “Someone should go after that cops family.”<\/p>\n![\"Kyle](\"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/images_KyleRogersExaminer.jpg\")
Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) board member Kyle Rogers<\/a> has been among the most prominent of the white supremacists. As often is the case with those from those circles in the mainstream. Rogers attempts to downplay that facet of his life. His bio<\/a> states that he is \u201ca Conservative activist in South Carolina\u201d that among other things \u201cco-organized the 2006 Greenville, SC rally against the Lindsey Graham\/Ted Kennedy sponsored amnesty bill\u201d that it says \u201chelped launch the (South Carolina) Tea Party movement.\u201d He started getting attention after he began writing for Examiner.com in June 2011, his first column being a report on a then-recent CCC conference. Most if not all of his subsequent articles have focused on racial matters, and has often pushed the same line Rogers has touted as webmaster of the CCC website.<\/p>\n![\"Susan](\"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/images_hillmansusan.jpg\")
Examiner Susan Hillman is not as obvious. Her Examiner.com bio <\/a>states she \u201cwas a state correctional officer for over 10 years and is currently married to a federal inmate\u201d. Indeed, much of her articles would focus on prison-related issues, often focused on calling on reform and relatively benign. On June 16 however, she published an article<\/a> where she defends National Alliance member Michael Carothers, who is near the end of a one-year prison sentence for attacking a black man with pepper spray in Columbia, GA \u2013 with an order that he is not allowed within the banished from the Chattahoochee Judicial District once released<\/a>. In the article, she champions the story that Carothers was simply defending himself, when In truth Carothers, in his guilty plea<\/a>, admitted to actually driving alongside the victim, pulling over and getting out of his vehicle to pepper spray him before going back in his car and driving off. \u201cBut one cannot help but see or believe that Mr. Carothers charges went from a misdemeanor to a felony because Columbus, Georgia did not like Mr. Carothers for his beliefs,\u201d Hillman wrote. \u201cThe last time I checked, a person still had the freedom to believe the way he or she wanted to and the freedom to express their opinions, but apparently the justice system does not see it this way!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Susan](\"https:\/\/archive.idavox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/images_YarbroughSusan-screenshot.jpg\")
\u201cSusan Hillman\u201d is better known however by a more notorious name, the one she uses on her Facebook profile<\/a> \u2013 Susan M. Yarbrough. Just as it is noted in \u201cSusan Hillman\u2019s\u201d bio on Examiner.com, she served as a corrections officer for ten years, and she is indeed married to a federal inmate. That inmate is Gary Yarbrough, who as a member of the neo-Nazi terrorist group the Order engaged in a crime spree in the 1980s that included robbery, bombings and the murder of Denver radio host Alan Berg. In 1985, Yarbrough was convicted sentenced to a 60 year term. After his conviction, Yarbrough said<\/a> that he \u201cplans to spend his years in federal prison telling his beliefs about the white race about the white race to anyone who will listen.\u201d Yardbrough has indeed maintained his white maintained his beliefs and activism while
\n in prison, and currently he and his wife are fighting a recent decision by the parole board to not approve his parole until 2025 when they determined he was still maintaining an affiliation with white supremacist advocates through websites like Stormfront. Yardbrough, who was originally approved for a parole date of 2014, has denied such affiliations, and Susan has set up a website and has appeared on internet radio programs to defend him. To date, \u201cSusan Hillman\u201d has not posted anything regarding the Yardbrough case on Examiner.com.<\/p>\n![\"Ken](\"images\/KenWard.jpg\")
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