Category Archives: Fascism

Trump’s Aide Really Did Throw “White Power” Sign | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Take a look at the guy in the picture. That’s Steve Miller, senior advisor to Donald Trump. He’s also an avowed racist. Don’t take my word for it—that’s what his friends and family say. He hasnR…

Source: Trump’s Aide Really Did Throw “White Power” Sign | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Alternative facts: Trump’s mad cows | In English | EL PAÍS

America’s political world has been russified. Half of the population now feels it is irrelevant whether the statements coming out of the executive are a lie or not. They have abandoned reason to embrace faith, and like cattle on their way to the slaughterhouse, they are happy to let themselves be fooled by the president and his buddies. Masha Gessen, a journalist who was born in Russia, wrote in The New York Review of Books: “Lying is the message. It’s not just that both Putin and Trump lie, it is that they lie in the same way and for the same purpose: blatantly, to assert power over truth itself.”Combat lineWhat to do? Unlike Russia, the US fortunately does have institutional antibodies, among which are Congress, judges and the press, which is already smelling a new Watergate. France and Germany have similar defense mechanisms, and they have taken pre-electoral care to set up systems to neutralize Russia’s already visible misinformation cyber campaign.But Trump has already won in the US; half the country has been infected by the virus of “alternative facts,” to use the curiously candid definition provided by the counselor and ex-campaign manager for Trump, Kellyanne Conway. The time has come to fight, to prevent the disease that has already corroded so many brains from migrating to the marrow of the political system.America’s so-called traditional press is on the front line of the battle. That is why, in one of his infamous tweets, the nation’s commander, troller-in-chief and serial liar identified The New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and others as “the enemies of the American people.” The battle is on. What’s at stake is the democracy of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, both of whom were real presidents. Donald Trump is not. He’s not even a rabbit. He’s a mad cow.

Source: Alternative facts: Trump’s mad cows | In English | EL PAÍS

Tuesday Open Thread | Kremlin paid $40,000 to Michael Flynn for 2015 Moscow visit | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Here’s the sequence of confirmed events as we now know them. In April of 2014, Michael Flynn was forced out of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency for erratic behavior, ending his career in the United States military and government. In June of 2015, Donald Trump entered the presidential race. In December of 2015, the Kremlin paid Michael Flynn the sum of $40,000 to travel to Moscow and sit at the same dinner table as Vladimir Putin during a Russia Today event. In February of 2016, Michael Flynn became a campaign adviser for Donald Trump, during which time he routinely colluded with Russian agents.Flynn’s attendance with Putin at the dinner in Moscow has long been documented, and there’s even a now infamous photo of the two of them sitting together at the same table. But until today, it wasn’t known that Flynn had been paid to be there. New York Daily News now reports that Flynn was paid $40,000 just to attend the dinner, and that Flynn failed to ask for the necessary Pentagon approval for such a payment.

Source: Tuesday Open Thread | Kremlin paid $40,000 to Michael Flynn for 2015 Moscow visit | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Inoreader – Alt-Right News Website Breitbart Thinks Christians In Lebanon Are Persecuted

You see, if you had any inkling about Lebanon or about the Middle East in general apart from it being one big blur in your eyes, you’d know that the political system in Lebanon allocates political power to Christians and Muslims equally. You’d have known that the president Marine Le Pen met has to be Maronite by law and that to be elected that persecuted Christian man held the entire country hostage for almost two years. But please, by all means, tell me more about how I’m persecuted.

Source: Inoreader – Alt-Right News Website Breitbart Thinks Christians In Lebanon Are Persecuted

Agenzia Fides – ASIA/LEBANON – Marine Le Pen visits Lebanon. Meeting with the Maronite Patriarch on the agenda

If she becomes the President of France, Marine Le Pen will reconnect official diplomatic relations with Assad’s Syria and will reopen the French embassy in Damascus. On the occasion of her 48-hour visit in the Country of Cedars, the candidate for the Elysee, National Front leader has confirmed her programmatic intentions regarding the Syrian dossier in interviews to the Lebanese press. During her brief trip to Lebanon, Marine Le Pen has already been received by President Michel Aoun in the Presidential Palace in Babda. The agenda of the short trip also includes meetings with Maronite Patriarch Boutros Bechara Rai, with Lebanese Premier Saad Hariri and politician Samir Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Forces.

Source: Agenzia Fides – ASIA/LEBANON – Marine Le Pen visits Lebanon. Meeting with the Maronite Patriarch on the agenda

US defense chief plays down Trump comments on seizing Iraq oil | News | DW.COM | 20.02.2017

Trump brought up the issue during the campaign and told CIA staff in January: “We should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance.” Trump did not elaborate on what he meant by “another chance.”But Mattis, a retired Marine who had commanded troops during the invasion of Iraq, distanced himself from Trump’s statement.”All of us in America have generally paid for gas and oil all along, and I am sure that we will continue to do so in the future,” Mattis told reporters. “We are not in Iraq to seize anybody’s oil,” he said.On Sunday, Iraq reported proven oil reserves of 153 billion barrels, the fifth largest in the world behind Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Iran.Differing positionsMattis was also expected to face questions from Iraqi leaders about Trump’s stalled executive order temporarily barring Iraqi citizens, as well as people from six other Muslim-majority countries, from entering the US.He has sought an exemption from the ban for Iraqis who had served with US troops, but had not yet seen a new executive order which the administration was considering. “I right now am assured that we will take steps to allow those who have fought alongside us, for example, to be allowed into the United States,” Mattis said.Mattis has stuck closer to established US foreign policy than Trump, including emphasizing support for the NATO alliance and having a less favorable view of Russia and President Vladimir Putin.Mattis also said he had no problems with the press, after Trump labeled the media “the enemy of the American people.”

Source: US defense chief plays down Trump comments on seizing Iraq oil | News | DW.COM | 20.02.2017

Head of the AfD Frauke Petry meets with Russian officials in Moscow | Germany | DW.COM | 20.02.2017

Frauke Petry, the prominent co-chair of Germany’s nationalist AfD party, met with senior Russian politicians in Moscow at the weekend.In a statement issued on Monday, the office of the populist politician said she traveled to Moscow to discuss cooperation between German and Russian regional assemblies. She also met “on the sidelines” with Duma speaker and Putin confidant Vyacheslav Volodin as well as deputy speaker Pyotr Tolstoy.

Source: Head of the AfD Frauke Petry meets with Russian officials in Moscow | Germany | DW.COM | 20.02.2017

Fake News by Fox and Trump – Swedish Fox News cops hit out at filmmaker: ‘He is a madman’ – The Local

“I don’t understand why we are part of the segment. The interview was about something completely different to what Fox News and Horowitz were talking about,” one of the police officers, Anders Göranzon, told the Dagens Nyheter newspaper on Monday. “It was supposed to be about crime in high risk areas. Areas with high crime rates. There wasn’t any focus on migration or immigration.”He said neither he nor his colleague Jacob Ekström recognized the image painted of Sweden in the report, which has been criticized in Sweden for being riddled with inaccuracies and false claims.”We don’t stand behind it. It shocked us. He has edited the answers. We were answering completely different questions in the interview. This is bad journalism,” Göranzon told Dagens Nyheter, which said it had attempted to contact Horowitz for a comment.

Source: Swedish Fox News cops hit out at filmmaker: ‘He is a madman’ – The Local

Why Is the GOP Still Supporting Trump? | Dame Magazine

Since Obama took office in 2008, this unholy trinity has worked overtime to undermine liberal democracy and shift the Republican Party further rightward. Wealthy oligarchs such as the Kochs and Mercers funded training and campaigns for hand-selected far right candidates, and utilized fake grassroots movements to unseat less extreme GOP candidates. They orchestrated the Citizens United case to eliminate soft money restrictions so they could further expand their influence. Far right GOP operatives undertook a coordinated effort to suppress Democratic votes through gerrymandering and aggressive voter ID laws, and gutted the Voting Rights Act by bringing carefully planned challenges to a sympathetic Supreme Court. At the same time, corporate and religious right wing media stoked a non-stop propaganda machine to gain support of the white working and middle class by appealing to racism and economic insecurity.Which brings us back to 2016. Putin saw in Trump’s candidacy a perfect opportunity to sow discord and doubt in America’s electorate and weaken the U.S. whether or not he won the election. When he defied expectations and started winning primaries, some on the far right realized that he had enough charisma and name recognition to carry the GOP nomination, and that with no clear ideology of his own (other than “what’s in it for me”) he could serve as an ideal Trojan Horse for their extremist agenda. The fact that many on the right already had a strange admiration for Putin, and that both white supremacist and fundamentalist Christian supporters had close ties to Russia probably served to lessen concern among GOP electeds that their candidate might be compromised by a foreign nation.So the next time Congress declines to investigate Russian influence or ethics breaches by the Trump administration, just remember: they’re getting exactly what they want out of this arrangement, and will continue to enact their far-right agenda as long as they have the votes. Congress, Trump, and Putin all back the same vision of a Christian, white nationalist, authoritarian world order that will protect the wealth of oligarchs while suppressing women, people of color, LGBTQ people, and anyone else they perceive as a threat to their control.

Source: Why Is the GOP Still Supporting Trump? | Dame Magazine

Trump as ‘Leader of Free World’ attacks free press: Darcy cartoon | cleveland.com

Trump and his staff have been prolific in propagating fake news, starting with Trump adopting the racist Obama ‘birther’ story eight years ago

Source: Trump as ‘Leader of Free World’ attacks free press: Darcy cartoon | cleveland.com