Month: February 2022
Let’s talk about Ukraine warming up….
How Russia surpassed Germany to become the racist ideal for Trump-loving white supremacists
For America’s white nationalists, there is only one nation—and one leader—worth emulating. And it has nothing to do with lederhosen or Wagner.
Richard Spencer, the current face (and haircut) of US’s alt-right, believes Russia is the “sole white power in the world.” David Duke, meanwhile, believes Russia holds the “key to white survival.” And as Matthew Heimbach, head of the white nationalist Traditionalist Worker Party, recently said, Russian president Vladimir Putin is the “leader of the free world”—one who has helped morph Russia into an “axis for nationalists.”
For those Americans who are just now familiarizing themselves with Russia’s current political proclivities—due to the recent, high-profile Russian hacking allegations, say, or the brutal military campaign in Aleppo—Moscow’s transformation into a lodestar for America’s white supremacists is enough to cause whiplash. After all, just a few decades ago Moscow was a beacon for the far-left, and its influential Communist International provided material and organizational heft for those pushing Soviet-style autocracy around the world. Over the past few years, however, the Kremlin has cultivated those on the far-right end of the West’s political spectrum in the pursuit, as Heimbach told me, of reifying something approaching a “Traditionalist International.”
Moscow’s appeal to the American far-right is, in a sense, understandable, if no less worrying. The links between Russia and America’s white nationalists and domestic secessionists have both expanded and deepened over the past few years. And the Kremlin, as with its invasion and occupation of swaths of Ukraine, has gone to only minimal lengths to obscure such ties.
Following the chaos of the Soviet dissolution in the 1990s, Putin’s kleptocracy has restored the state to domestic primacy. Moreover, Putin has positioned Russia as a leader for those in the West attempting to roll back liberal policies, from abortion and LGBT rights to dissolving the distance between church and state. Meanwhile, Moscow has been busily cultivating relationships with far-right groups in Europe, from radical right-wingers in Hungary to Marine LePen, one of the front-runners for the upcoming French presidency.
But links between Moscow and America’s white supremacy movement are far deeper than approving rhetoric. Spencer, for instance, who has said that he “admire[s]” Putin and who has called to break up NATO, also helped organize a 2014 conference in Hungary that was slated to feature, of all people, Alexander Dugin. A political philosopher, Dugin is both an erstwhile Kremlin confidant and the progenitor of modern “Eurasianism,” which places, in part, Russia as the center of global anti-liberalism. Dugin, whose Foundations of Geopolitics continues to be assigned to every member of Russia’s General Staff Academy, was unable to attend the conclave in Hungary due to Western sanctions. But Spencer nonetheless remains married to one of Dugin’s English translators.
Traditionalist Worker Party leader Heimbach—who has led rallies featuring both Confederate and Russian imperial flags flying side-by-side—has yet to visit Russia, but was planning on attending a recent conference in St. Petersburg that would have gathered together heads of the assorted neo-Nazi and white supremacist contingents across the West. The conference, postponed until March, was organized by a group with ties to Russia’s deputy prime minister, and would have been the second iteration of the gathering. The 2015 conference featured both “race realist” Jared Taylor and former KKK lawyer Sam Dickson. All the while, Heimbach has continued expanding the reach of the TWP in the US. The party’s 2015 launch included, of all things, a Skyped-in speech from none other than Dugin.
David Duke, meanwhile, sees Russia as a country that “presents an opportunity to help protect the longevity of the white race,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. And a few years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center detailed Duke’s close personal ties with another American neo-Nazi, Preston Wiginton, who has made Moscow his adopted home.
Thus far, no smoking gun financial links have been uncovered between the Kremlin and those who would fracture the US in pursuit of a whites-only enclave. The same can’t be said, however, of ties between Moscow and those who would pursue more traditional means of secession. A few months ago, the Kremlin helped finance a secessionist conference in Moscow, bringing together contingents from Ireland, Spain, and Italy—as well as those from Texas, Puerto Rico, and California. Indeed, the head of the main group pushing California secession, Louis Marinelli, not only lives in Russia, but opened an “Embassy of the Independent Republic of California” in Moscow on Sunday. As Marinelli told a Russian interviewer last month, “In Russia, we have partners who are ready to support us in our aspiration.”
These secessionists, as the California movement indicates, aren’t solely of a far-right bent. But like the white nationalists undergirding Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, they all share the same goal: the fragmentation of the United States. And the Kremlin—alongside its hacking campaigns, and in tandem with its push to undercut Western alliance structures—has been only too happy to cultivate rhetorical, financial, and organizational support for these movements.
As 2017 dawns, there’s little likelihood these movements, and these ties, are going to fade during the Trump administration. If anything, the ranks of white nationalists emboldened by Trump’s success will almost certainly swell—as will those who would seek to crack the US under the auspices of secession. And, now, these individuals have found a common foreign backer, and in some cases, foreign financier.
As Heimbach recently said, “Russia’s our most powerful ally. Imagine what could happen to our party when Russia takes interest.” It’s clear, by now, that Russia has taken interest—and with the Trump administration approaching, we may not longer have the luxury of simply imagining just what the fallout of such relationships will be.
‘He’s just a bad guy’: Judge destroys lawyer claiming Trump is part of ‘protected class’
https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-protected-class/
Attorney Alina Habba was scolded by a judge on Thursday after she claimed that her client, former President Donald Trump, is part of a “protected class” because of his Republican ideology.
During a court hearing in New York, Trump attorneys tried to convince state Supreme Court Judge Arthur F. Engoron that members of the Trump family could not be subpoenaed in connection with allegations that their company illegally manipulated property valuations.
Habba told Engoron that Attorney General Letitia James is conducting an improper investigation into Trump because she does not like him.
“She has such disdain for this person because he was president, because he is Donald Trump and he could probably win again in ’24,” Habba said. “He has First Amendment rights. He’s allowed to be a Republican.”
The Trump attorney demanded to know if James is going to “go after” Hillary Clinton, citing claims that the former president was “spied” on.
“There’s no viewpoint discrimination,” Engoron said. “I’m just saying there is none.”
“He’s a protected class,” Habba insisted.
“Ah!” the judge reacted. “What protected class is he a member of?”
“His political speech,” Habba replied. “If he was not sitting as a Republican and was not a former president who might run again, this would not be happening. So she is discriminating against him for that.”
The judge’s clerk stopped Habba to point out that the term “protected class” is usually reserved for race, religion and sex discrimination.
“The traditional protected classes are race, religion, etc.,” Engoron agreed. “Donald Trump doesn’t fit that model. He’s not being discriminated against based on race, is he? Or religion, is he? He’s not a protected class. If Ms. James has a thing against him, OK, that’s not in my understanding unlawful discrimination. He’s just a bad guy she should go after as the chief law enforcement officer of the state.”
IN RELATED NEWS: Trumpworld in full meltdown following breakup with Mazars
Daily cartoon / meme roundup: Why do other developed country have higher happiness / satisfaction ratings and they have all the things the Republicans claim we can not afford. Imagine what we could have if corporations did not own the government.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Scottie’s world today
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Capitalism would rather create a trillionaire than pay labor thriving wages.
Shareholder economics is destroying everything in its way. People and the planet.
https://twitter.com/BreeNewsome/status/1492175329904971776?s=20&t=R2FYvqwu_c2pyQpuv5jS8Q
Trump properties/real estate, writ large.
Utah
Media is using Nextdoor app as source.
The US government should be able to do more than one thing at a time. So the government can address gun violence at home and address Russian aggression abroad. The fact is every time the Democrats try to do common sense gun regulations the Republican party at the request of the NRA has stopped them. Not even closing gun show loop holes for back ground checks could get past the Republicans that were blocking it. Now that the NRA has self destructed I wonder if there can be sensible gun rules / regulations enacted.
Republicans want to break education in order to protect white supremacy. They can’t defend their position[s], so they look to cancel the conversation/debate/dialog.
‘Enslaved people’ in America is a white construct.
Breaks her heart? What heart?
She is upset that kids, in theory, could be taught that different colors of skin have different experiences, and she clearly identifies with the racists in history and feels the shame.
This shows that it is not what is in your heart or how you live that their god cares about, but it is the rituals that are important to that deity. Being a good person not needed, the correct words for a a man made ritual ceremony is necessary.
Not sure where this one is going?
Make no mistake. If Germany follows through with shutting down the gas pipeline, that is 40% of the Russian economy. I think that would hurt Putin.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
Again very few police departments have had funding decreases and almost all police departments have gotten increases or demanded them. Police are organized gangs now shaking down the public for money.
The right wing media is going crazy to push back on something that not only is collaborated but that is something tRump has done all his life in his businesses. One right wing guy keeps telling me to prove it, when I mention eye witnesses he claims that is not proof.
Biden doesn’t set the price of gasoline. The US is a net oil exporter. Biden has pushed energy independence from the beginning but the GOP stands in his way. Coal is dead.
Every time the Republicans need to hide some bad news story about them, they trot out Hillary. The right has been demonizing her for 30 years. Okay, now that all conserve cartoonist have played the same false accusations, we await the next ranting points from Fox Spews.
The Durham report doesn’t say that. The right needs to shift the focus away from Trump’s many scandals. Trump is in trouble for tax fraud, tried to get people to overthrow the government, he tried to replace real electors with phony electors, he wants Hillary Clinton killed, and has connections to Russia. Smart people know the right is just generating a smoke screen and are ignoring the phony scandals involving Hillary Clinton. President Biden will be running for re-election in 2024 so Hillary Clinton won’t be running.
The right wing has become energized and are trying to take over the school boards all across the country. Then they will remove anything they dislike, stop the kids from learning crititcal thinking, and install indoctrination propaganda.
In an election marked by unusually high turnout among Asian-American voters, where the most heavily rejected candidate was called out for her history of offensive anti-Asian tweets, where a principal issue was the Vincent’s efforts to reduce Asian-American representation in elite programs, where the incumbents were criticized for disproportionately appointing white women to boards and commissions, where white mothers make up an unusually low share of the electorate, Lisa Benson declares the victory belongs to . . . white women like herself.
All this shows is that people want to get things done. The principle sin of the Board Members who were kicked out was that instead of making sure the children of SF were back in school during a pandemic, they were more interested in changing the names of schools. Republicans should take note. If your only policy is to make liberals cry, sooner or later your voters are going to wonder when you’re going to get things taken care of.
That was the seed of the recall in San Francisco, where two parents launched the effort in January 2021 after the school board kept schools closed. San Francisco public schools took longer to reopen than most in the country, and almost all of the district’s 50,000 students stayed in distance learning until the fall.
Meanwhile, the school board spent its time on what many critics called misplaced priorities, including a months-long effort to rename 44 schools instead of focusing on reopening them.
Parents and other residents of San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities in America, do not dispute the need to reexamine the historical figures schools are named for, but the effort was criticized for poor research, historical inaccuracies and bad timing. It became one of several examples critics cited of the board putting progressive politics over the needs of children.
The political tracking website Ballotpedia identified 96 school districts in more than a dozen states where race in education and masks were part of the debate in 2021.
Many see that as a prelude for this November’s midterm elections, pointing to the example of San Francisco, a famously tolerant city that lost its patience when progressive politics took priority over pandemic needs.
Carter managed to get things on the right track. He got derailed by the hostage crisis and got outdone by an b movie actor, the same way Hillary was outdone by a third rate tv personality. It would be a big help if more members of Congress would put on their big girl/boy pants and stand up for the country and Constitution.
-
HskrPhan Premium Member
-
Daffer
@HskrPhanBut the study is not definitive. The research represents a non-peer-reviewed “working paper” by three economists affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. The institution did not endorse the study.“The university hasn’t taken a position on this and typically wouldn’t in such a situation,” university spokesperson Jill Rosen wrote in an email.
“The working paper is not a peer-reviewed scientific study, and its authors are not medical or public health researchers,” Joshua Sharfstein, vice dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told PolitiFact in an emailed statement. “To reach their conclusion that ‘lockdowns’ had a small effect on mortality, the authors redefined the term ‘lockdown’ and disregarded many peer-reviewed studies. The working paper did not include new data, and serious questions have already been raised about its methodology.”
And one of the authors is a fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, known to be critical of all things governmental.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And now some for fun
Why the US doesn’t have universal child care (anymore)
Lies and the Lying Racists: The GOP on Critical Race Theory (Feb. 17, 2022)
Schmuck Amuck
It’s weird how Republicans claim they love the United States Constitution, refer to themselves as “constitutionalists,” yet hate press freedom and do everything in their power to destroy it. The Supreme Court has affirmed the right to a free press time and time again, yet Republicans like Donald Trump have argued to limit press freedom, if not outright destroy it.
Donald Trump once said “It’s frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever they want to write. People should look into it.” Trump believes a free press is disgusting. The man who told more than 25,000 lies as president has often referred to legitimate news outlets as “fake news” and has called journalists the “enemies of the American people.” Fascists hate a free press and they’re the ones “looking into it.”
If you want to know what press coverage is like in a nation that doesn’t have a free…
View original post 970 more words
THE HILL: Judge rules Trump, children must comply with NY AG’s subpoena for testimony
Judge rules Trump, children must comply with NY AG’s subpoena for testimony
Former President Trump and his two eldest children must comply with the New York attorney general’s subpoenas for their testimony in an investigation into the family’s business practices, a New York state judge ruled on T
Read in The Hill: https://apple.news/A0-yITqjGTtSDMW7OrAOXPg
Shared from Apple News
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC: Do masks really harm kids? Here’s what the science says.
Do masks really harm kids? Here’s what the science says.
As more states drop mask mandates, experts explain why keeping them on in schools is still a smart move for families and teachers.
Read in National Geographic: https://apple.news/AbXDIW8GZShGX8BAsX5Me2A
Shared from Apple News
Scottie's Playtime 
A new Johns Hopkins University study finds lockdowns only prevented 0.2% of Covid-19 deaths and were “not an effective way of reducing mortality rates during a pandemic.” I can only wonder about the reason for lockdowns and those people who advocate for these measures. Especially because of the negative impact on the young.