#the other side is just media lies to support their global regime .

[aideshou]

❤️❤️❤️❤️

theyre in love

[thehouseofjohndeaf]

How did this happen?

(photo cred)

The global pandemic has shed a light on some misconceptions regarding individualism and anti-authority.  The line between anti-authority and anti-science has been blurred during a major public health crisis putting health officials and medical experts in the driver’s seat.  This has led to major outcries against stay-at-home advisories, the closing of non-essential businesses, and mask mandates.  The groups of people who are against the public health regulations are primarily right-wing, and are viewing these precautions as government overreach, despite the fact that the republicans have current control of the federal government.  The current president has found ways to pawn off responsibility to the governors of individual states, and we see the outcry mostly coming from those living in blue states.  These are primarily Americans who are part of a spectrum of right leaning politics, and identify as conservative, libertarian, alt-right, and republican.  Despite all these identities and beliefs there is also a heavy anti-authoritarian and anti-government overtone to these outcries.  How is this?  How have right leaning individuals started believing they are the real anti-establishment counterculture, holding a firm belief that the left are the true authoritarians?

First, this starts with one of the biggest misconceptions in America; most people believe the liberals are the left.  This is not true.  Liberals are the center.  The US does not currently have a left-wing party.  Instead we have a centrist party that houses both the center and the left, this causes both and left and center to constantly lean further right.

The graph above, from Quartz Media, shows where the 2020 democratic candidates fall on the political spectrum as opposed to the incumbent republican president.  The DNC continues to be a right-wing organization while being only slightly left of the republican party.  The final two democratic candidates during the 2020 primaries were on opposite sides of the spectrum of the democratic party, a centrist and a leftist.  The same thing that happened in 2016.  The DNC ultimately gave the nomination to the centrist, because they are a centrist organization.

This next graph shows how the US major party candidates of 2020 compare to political parties in the UK.  As we can see, the conservative right-wing of the UK is in line with the sitting republican US president, the centrist liberal democrats of the UK align with the majority of the US democratic candidates, and the UK’s leftist labour party is even further left than the left leaning outliers of the US democrats.

This misconception that the left is liberal in the US has led us to believe that our current definitions of right and left have a chasm of differences between them, when they are in fact all in the same wheelhouse.  The republicans appear authoritarian yet successful because they are unapologetically right-wing and will stir the pot and make a lot of noise to get their way, whereas the democrats appear authoritarian yet incompetent because they are centrists who would more often rather keep the peace with a steady-as-she-goes approach than stir up actual progressive change.  Democrats will pretend to be leftist, inciting progressive change, all while bombing innocents overseas and allowing their own citizens’ water to be poisoned.  Republicans will explain to you why they all deserved it.  It’s the same song played on a different instrument.

Since the left are the outliers, they are viewed as radicals whose ideas would never work in the western world.  This has gone so far as to target anyone who identifies with politics left of center as the “alt-left”.  And yet, every other major western nation has some degree of socialism working for the people in the form of state funded healthcare programs, prison reform, welfare, child tax benefits, pension systems, social housing, and public education.  The US even embraces some of these things, we just refuse to call it socialism or fund it properly, we refuse to allow the right and center to be tainted by the left.

It seems a relatively simple explanation for certain groups of people to be outraged by public health officials making drastic changes to our daily lives; the effects on their income, social and mental health, as well as the economy.  The question is, how is this viewed as anti-authoritarian if the outcry is both in support of the current political party with the most government control and yet also against government overreach enacted by these same people?

For the older generations and those who consume media in a traditional sense, it appears a healthy diet of Fox News and an overall distrust of the “liberal” or “mainstream” media would lead to mass misinformation and a skewed sense of reality.  For the younger generations who grew up on the internet, a diet of reactionary propaganda and alt-right message boards will lead them down a rabbit hole of misinformation.  Both have a distrust for “liberal” media and have a skewed concept that the liberal media is a leftist organization with an agenda to dismantle their freedoms.  Ultimately, this is one way we may arrive at the concept that liberals, who are really centrists but we think they’re leftists, are trying to implement an authoritarian regime of socialist communism, when in reality the liberals have a more middle-of-the-road approach to reactionary thought, which causes conservatives and other right-wing theorists to distrust any form of organized press while they congregate online and adopt conspiracy theories to help them untie the mental knots they tied for themselves in the first place.  Really, the only way for new age conservatives to believe the lies they’re churning out is for there to be some conspiracy at the center, because their views cannot coexist with reality.

But still, how did we get here?  How did we brew a force of pro-conservative anti-establishment?

There was a lot of angst in the post-9/11 world for our youth, as a counterculture emerged against the Iraq War and government oversight including the patriot act and the NSA.  Anarchist thought gave birth to post-anarchism, as anarchism coexisted in a technologically advanced world.  How do we grapple with the concepts of individual freedom and collective living when we’re tethered to companies to provide products that keep us connected and informed?  Even prior to this, most anti-authority groups understood liberalism and conservatism to be of the same breed.  In 2002 Against Me! released the album Reinventing Axl Rose, Laura Jane Grace sings, “Baby, I’m an anarchist, you’re a spineless liberal…” a song referencing the 1999 WTO protests in Seattle.  If one had the misconception that liberalism is leftist, they may interpret this lyric incorrectly.  If liberal is left, then liberalism is more attune with socialism, meaning right-wing and libertarian thought would be opposite liberalism, and ultimately one might come to the conclusion that anarchism is more aligned with right leaning politics than left leaning politics.  This person would then continue on to believe that the conservatives, the alt-right, libertarians, and republicans were the faces of anti-authority as part of their fringe groups.

It appears that millennials who grew up in a post-punk era, were clinging to the anti-establishment messages of the early 2000s during a Bush presidency.  They were eventually thrust into an Obama presidency of “progressive change” as some were just entering high school and beginning to pay attention to the world around them, while others were out on their own for the first time in their lives attending college, and the oldest of the generation were first entering the workforce.  This “progressive change” led to a lot of real social changes, what reactionaries call “PC culture”, and what the rest of us just recognize as time moving forward at a steady pace.  Nonetheless, the Obama presidency was rather anticlimactic.  While the liberals patted themselves on the back and slept peacefully to the social changes, the working poor and minorities saw little-to-no benefit, and the conservatives stewed in their rage as a smug charismatic black man was in charge of their beloved homeland.  Eventually, in the height of the Obama years the housing market crash brought libertarians, socialists, and anarchists together in the national movement, Occupy Wall Street.

The problem that eventually erupted was a disdain for liberalism, critically noted as neoliberalism.  While the left has been critical of liberalism and conservatism alike, the right used their view of liberalism as a leftist ideology to create a division at a time when everyone was coming together to recognize the stark inequalities of our current capitalist system, famously uniting us all as the 99%.  This tactic allowed libertarianism to be recognized as the opposite of authoritarianism, however a right-wing libertarian will likely have complete faith that the free market and corporations will do the most good over the individual workers.  We then wind up back at square one, with the corporations as the voices of authority.  When we become dependent on their products, or they come to as close to a monopoly as possible, the working class begins to lose their freedoms.  During the pandemic we’re witnessing this happen as huge corporations like Walmart and Target are open for business and able to adhere to public health and safety guidelines, whereas small businesses cannot remain open because they don’t have the proper space for social distancing or the funds for the required PPE.  The outcries against this have not been against Walmart or Target for hoarding their wealth and becoming some of the only stores able to sell clothes, books, electronics, toys and other nonessentials.  The outcry has been against public health officials for putting safety guidelines into practice in response to the virus.

A socialist response to this issue would have been for the government to provide PPE to small businesses so that they may remain open.  What we have is a libertarian response of letting the bigger fish eat the smaller fish, and the working class are footing the bill.  The current administration has put the majority of the power for economic recovery into the hands of corporations and the wealthiest individuals.  This is what is hurting the working class.  Yet the outrage has been against the public health officials who have put forth social distancing guidelines, stay-at-home advisories, and mask mandates.  None of these things are the reason for the economic turmoil we are experiencing, it’s the current administration's hands-off approach and ignoring small businesses.

The funds for small business loans were given directly to the banks to distribute to their communities.  Problems with this tactic were immediately recognizable.  The banks were more likely to offer loans to the businesses who already had accounts with them, and were more likely to award loans to a business they felt would easily pay back this loan.  Franchises were also recognized as single entities and rather than the corporations bail out their own chains, individual franchise owners were dependent on government funded bank managed loans.  This is how the right and center handle social issues, they give money to the already wealthy and ask them to provide a service to those in need, allowing very little relief to reach those who need it most.

So no, being anti-science in the midst of a global pandemic is not rebellion, nor is it remotely anti-authority.  It is playing directly into the hands of the elite.  If you’re protesting government overreach and the sitting president encourages the protests with messages like “LIBERATE MICHIGAN”, it’s quite obvious the government approves of your actions.  If you’re protesting government overreach while wearing merchandise you purchased from the sitting president, and holding signs in support of him, that irony is so palpable, it’s concerning that so many people cannot see it.

[opedguy]

Europeans Don’t Get U.S. Democracy

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Nov. 5, 2020.--Products of a more genteel culture, on the surface, Europeans generally don’t get the ruff-and-tumble of U.S. democracy, where people pick the president, not a parliament or more authoritarian regimes where prime ministers or presidents have no term limits.  Every four years, at a cost of billions of dollars, voters pick a new president or stick with the old one but only for a maximum of eight years.  U.S. senators have more longevity with six-year terms with House members having two-year terms but without term limits.  Europe, of course, doesn’t like criticism, something 74-year-old President Donald Trump wasn’t shy about dishing out, especially when it came to NATO’s mutual defense treaty, where EU countries didn’t pony up to Trump’s liking.  Members of the British parliament weren’t too happy with Trump backing the Brexit movement, to vote to remove the U.K. from the European Union.     

        Trump’s been unlike any other U.S. president because he comes from the private business background, where things get done behind closed doors with colorful language, something appreciated by many of Trump’s loyal followers.  Trump’s fans like his brashness, something seen as a cherished American value, swashbuckling and bold, often viewed as obnoxious by Europeans.  No where on the planet was Trump reviled more than in the U.S. media, who felt humiliated when he was elected in 2016, after they all endorsed his challenger former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.  When Trump won in 2016, it started a ongoing war with the press, working in overdrive to see Trump removed from office.  U.S. mainstream press made a secret pact with Democrats to oust Trump from office.  Lying, cheating, distorting, fabricating anything possible to toss Trump from office.       

      Trump endured four years of FBI investigations all based on fake evidence, manufactured by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to help Hillary beat Trump in 2016.  Accused of being a Russian asset, the media, and House Democrats tried to hound Trump out of office.  Nowhere in the world other than the most corrupt regimes are politicians framed by their press with no evidence, just writing gossip, innuendo, flat out lies, the most vicious disinformation and propaganda in the world today.  No where except the most repressive regimes, where there is no Free Press, does the press censor compelling information about a presidential candidate.  U.S. press in the 2020 election censored compelling information about former Vice President Joe Biden and his family’s corrupt business deals in China, Russia and Ukraine.  Yet Biden stands almost victorious today unseating Trump.      

       Europeans have strong opinions about Trump because he doesn’t mince words, tells it like it is and calls out politicians for corruption and disastrous domestic and foreign policies.  Trump, at least for four years, broke the costly U.S. cycle of funding and participating in endless Mideast wars.  Biden, now minutes away from declaring victory, was responsible, together with his boss former President Barack Obama, for toppling Col Muammar Gaddafi and backing a nine-year-old Saudi-funded proxy war to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  Al-Assad is a president like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, a ruthless dictator responsible for genocide in their countries.  Yet Obama and Biden drove 15 million Syrians into refugees, killing 500,000, creating the worst humanitarian crisis since WW II.  Obama and Biden’s foreign policy pushed the U.K. into Brexit, practically breaking the EU.     

        German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas urged both sides in the U.S. to resolve the election peacefully.  “America is more than a none-man show.  Anyone who continues to pour oil on the fire in a situation like this sis acting irresponsibly,” Maas said, referring to Trump.  But Maas really doesn’t get U.S. politics, for better or worse, works out its problems one way or another.  Trump has a right to question whether voter fraud by the Democrat Party ousted him from office.  From Trump’s perspective, when he spoke to supporters at the White House early more Nov. 4, he was well ahead, looking like he was coasting to a second term.  Then, suddenly, his fortunes changed, with Biden making up ground and overtaking him in Wisconsin and Michigan, then making inroads in Pennsylvania where Trump held a commanding 14-point lead.  That lead is now under two percent, with more votes counted.      

       Foreigners, especially Europeans, don’t understand American democracy, including the rough-and-tumble of elections.  With Biden closing in on 270 Electoral Votes, all the chatter coming across the pond will start to fade, while today’s foreign press reports make it look like the U.S. is close to civil war.  “Now is the time to keep a cool head until an independently determined result is available,” Maas said, telling his European counterparts to trust the process.  EU officials would of course prefer to see Biden president, getting back to more traditional diplomacy, tossed out the window when Trump became president.  Biden, like his boss Obama, will get back to global diplomacy, with the U.S. taking more collective action, rather than Trump “America First” approach.  Trump’s legal battles should be of no concern to anyone, knowing that when Biden hits 270 Electoral votes, it’s a done deal. 

About the Author 

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.   Reply  Reply All  Forward

[sinrau]

Do you remember “ Trump Derangement Syndrome?”It was a cute phrase that likely first appeared in 2015, deployed by prominent voices across the political spectrum to demean, mock, reject, dismiss and deflect the warnings that Donald Trump was a fascist, an authoritarian and a white supremacist, not to mention a vile and dangerous human being with apparent mental pathologies who posed a massive threat to American democracy.

Such truth-telling patriots were called “hysterical” and “alarmist,” or told they were “out of touch” and overly “bitter” about Hillary Clinton’s defeat thanks to the antiquated mechanism of the Electoral College and Russian interference. Those who first raised the alarm about Trumpism as a new version of fascism were also assured that “the institutions were strong” and fascism could never take hold in America — and most certainly not in the form of a proudly ignorant wrestling-heel wannabe and reality-TV huckster.

When Trump won the presidential election in 2016, there were some on the left eager to dance on Hillary Clinton’s grave. A few even gave Trump the totally unearned benefit of the doubt: He claimed to oppose globalization, neoliberalism and “ endless war,” and to speak for the “white working class”.

Centrist Democrats and the so-called mainstream American news media also rejected the existential threat to democracy that Trump represented. They convinced themselves, over and over, that the supposed power and gravity of the office would normalize and mature him. He was a “businessman” and a “pragmatist” eager to make deals, not an ideologue — so why worry? Trump was “brash” and “unconventional,” but America’s political institutions were strong.

The stenographers of current events and the other hope-peddlers, with their horse-race journalism, false equivalence “both-sides-ism” and obsession with meaningless controversies would not let themselves see the truth of Trump’s danger or that of his neo-fascist movement. To admit the truth about Trump would mean that the old habits of writing and thinking about American politics are obsolete. Moreover, such an admission would demand speaking truth to power in a way that many members of the mainstream news media, specifically, are too afraid to, for both professional and personal reasons.

Republicans and other members of the Trump movement used “ Trump Derangement Syndrome ” to bully their critics into silence. The American right celebrated drinking “liberal tears” and loved the way Trump’s victory had made Democrats and so-called progressives go “crazy.”

Trump Derangement Syndrome is weaponized language in the same vein as the myth of the “liberal media.” Both lies put Democrats and the mainstream news media on the defense. While the American right and the Republican Party (and now Trump’s neo-fascist movement) drag the issue-space further and further to the right — and have done so for decades — the “liberal media” tries to find an imaginary balance by presenting right-wing extremism as somehow a “reasonable” alternative point of view.

Trump Derangement Syndrome was also a smokescreen for Donald Trump’s wild success in advancing the agenda of the plutocrats, gangster capitalists, Christian nationalists and “Dominionists” — as well as overt white supremacists — in destroying the very idea of government itself as well as American multiracial democracy.

Of course, it was not Donald Trump’s most vocal critics who were “deranged” but his followers, enablers and allies. As I explained in January 2017, shortly before his inauguration:

It is not those who oppose Trump who are deranged, but rather those voters who convinced themselves that a plutocrat authoritarian reality TV star con man and professional wrestler wannabe with no experience in government at any level was qualified to be president of the United States.

This is America’s great national derangement. Those who stand against and oppose Donald Trump are patriots who are trying to return the country to sanity.

Now, some three months away from another Election Day, Donald Trump has finally arrived at the moment which those of us who were slurred as “hysterical” and “alarmist” have warned about for more than five years.

Last Thursday, Trump issued this now-infamous tweet:

With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???

That same afternoon, when questioned about Trump’s threats to interfere with the 2020 election, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told the U.S. Senate: “In the end, the Department of Justice and others will make that legal determination.” This is not true. The Department of Justice and the president possess no legitimate authority to delay or cancel a federal election.

Later in the day, Trump continued to work from the authoritarian’s playbook, attempting to pivot away from his earlier statements. During a White House press event, Trump said:

Do I want to see a date change? No. But I don’t want to see a crooked election.

What will happen in November – it’s a mess. I want a result much more than you… I don’t want to be waiting around for weeks and months.

This is a familiar strategy in which the authoritarian challenges norms and boundaries by floating trial balloons and then pretends to change his mind as a way to make the heretofore-unthinkable into something acceptable.

Trump’s most recent threats are but another crescendo in he and his servants’ efforts to subvert and eventually overturn secular multiracial democracy and the rule of law in America.

Only weeks ago Trump began deploying his own personal secret police force, hoping to enforce his will by suppressing dissent and free speech in Democratic-led cities all over the United States. The events in Portland, Oregon, are but a prelude to Trump’s national terrordome.

Trump’s own personal secret police force along with his civilian “watchdogs,” may well be used to intimidate Democratic voters on Election Day and beyond. Trump has repeatedly asked hostile foreign countries to interfere in the 2020 presidential election on his behalf. He was impeached for doing just that with his attempt to blackmail the government of Ukraine to launch a phony investigation of Joe Biden.

Trump continues to threaten senior Democratic leaders, including Biden, Barack Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others with treason charges, potential imprisonment and perhaps even execution. Former national security adviser John Bolton’s recent book includes details of Trump’s lurid fantasies about having journalists killed. According to Bolton, Trump supports imprisoning his “enemies” in concentration camps — something he is already doing with brown and Black migrants and refugees from Latin America, the Caribbean and other parts of the nonwhite world.

Donald Trump has repeated his threats, ever since the 2016 campaign, that he will not respect the will of the American people if he loses a presidential election.

In sum, Donald Trump is not pretending. None of this is a game. He is a neo-fascist. Such observations and warnings are not hysterical. They are plain observations based on a consensus of the available facts.

As historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained in a 2017 essay at The Washington Post:

The strongman knows that it starts with words. He uses them early on to test out his plans to expand and personalize executive power on political elites, the press and the public, watching their reactions as they arrange into the timeless categories of allies, enemies and those who help him by remaining silent. Some say the strongman is all bluster, but he takes words seriously, including the issue of which ones should be banned.

Now what to do?

In a perfect and just world, the hope peddlers, professional centrists, stenographers of current events and others who maintain the boundaries of approved public discourse in America would go to the public square, prostrate themselves before the world and then beg forgiveness for how they, for years and by various means, empowered Donald Trump.

That will not happen. Instead, such voices will proclaim that they were sounding the alarm about Donald Trump years ago and are the real vanguard defenders of American democracy. In reality, such voices were enablers, far behind the truth if not actively running away it. They are now trying to position themselves on the correct side of history because their shame and failure to protect America from Donald Trump and his neo-fascist movement are so great.

In the weeks remaining before Election Day — which will certainly not be “free and fair” and when Trump’s machinations will be at their most extreme — the mainstream news media and the American people must internalize the fact that the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution mean little for Trump and his regime.

Hopeful claims — or delusions — that the Constitution and state laws dictate the rules of Election Day must be viewed with extreme cynicism. Trump and his enforcers are not restrained by such arcane conventions.

If there is indeed an election on Nov. 3, Americans most vote against Trump in overwhelming numbers in order to force him to step down. Unless Donald Trump is convincingly vanquished at the polls, he will find some way to stay in office.

If Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr try to cancel the presidential election or interfere with it in any other way, Americans must take to the streets and engage in corporeal politics — including a national strike and other plans to disrupt day-to-day life and “business as usual” — on a scale so large that they make the George Floyd people’s uprising look like a PTA meeting.

Ultimately, those of us who warned the American people for years, sometimes on a daily basis, about this Mad King and would-be tyrant take no joy from saying, We told you so. There is no satisfaction in being correct about such a horrible thing.

On this point, Jared Yates Sexton, author of “American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World But Failed Its People,” wrote last Thursday on Twitter:

Those of us warning that Trump is an authoritarian capable of destroying democracy haven’t been doing it for profit or attention or out of unwarranted alarmism. None of this is hard to predict. They don’t hide it at all. Stop expecting everything to be fine because “America.”

To watch American democracy fall so ill so fast, and now to be on the verge of collapse — when such a thing could have been so easily prevented — is a world historical tragedy.

Those of us who warned America that fascism was coming were called hysterical — but we were right about Trump all along #web #website #copied #toread #highlight #link #news #read #blog #wordpresspost #posts #breaking news# #Sinrau #Nothiah #Sinrau29 #read #wordpress

[newstechreviews]

President Donald Trump is due to make the first ever visit by an American head of state to Ahmedabad, the biggest city in the western state of Gujarat. It is the state that Narendra Modi, now Prime Minister, ruled for 12 years. It’s also where where generations of my family have lived. A big reason that Trump chose Ahmedabad is that the largest number of Indians in the U.S. – and the most fervent supporters of Modi – are Gujaratis. Trump is hoping that, by showing up in Ahmedabad to declare his everlasting love for Modi, American Gujaratis like me will be persuaded to vote for him and donate to his campaign.

The leaders of the country of my birth, and the country of my citizenship (the U.S.), do seem to have this in common: they have both said and done hateful things towards Muslims. I first became aware of this when in 2015 Trump tweeted lies about Muslims cheering the fall of the Twin Towers. I was certain of it when, as President, I saw his retweets of a British far right hate group, itself retweeting three inflammatory (and untrue) videos titled “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death”; “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches”; and “Muslim destroys a statue of Virgin Mary.”

In 2002, Ahmedabad was the site of anti-Muslim pogroms in which some two thousand people were murdered. Children saw their fathers set on fire and their mothers raped. Modi, who was chief minister of the state at the time, held back security forces who could have stopped the rioting, and members of his government actively participated in the killings. It made me ashamed to be Gujarati.

As soon as he assumed office, Trump banned citizens of several Muslim countries from entering the U.S. Modi’s government recently passed a law granting expedited citizenship to refugees from neighboring countries who belong to any major religion — except Islam. This was the first time in independent India’s history that a religion has been specifically targeted in an act of Parliament. And it is to be followed by a registry with the likely eventual goal of a nationwide system of gulags for people who can’t prove their citizenship, also aimed at Muslims. These initiatives have been overseen by another Gujarati named Amit Shah, Modi’s home minister, who has referred to Bangladeshi migrants as “termites.”

I want to tell the world: please don’t judge all fifty million Gujaratis by their actions. These people do not represent me, or millions of other Gujaratis. We are kinder than them, we are more open to the rest of the world than them. Gujaratis are global citizens par excellence. One out of every three overseas Indians is Gujarati; we can be found in 129 of the 190 nations of the earth.

But it’s true that the home of my grandparents has had, in recent times, a bloody history. My grandfather’s house in Ahmedabad was right next to a Muslim neighborhood. In peaceful times the Muslims shopped in the Hindu-owned markets; the Hindus went to Muslim tailors. During riots, which happened every few years or so, the border suddenly became visible, tangible. You were not to step across this line; there were always the boys standing guard, armed with hockey sticks, knives, kerosene.

The Gujaratis who lead the country now want to turn India into Ahmedabad. All are welcome in their India, they say, except Muslims. And, one imagines, also Christians, once they’re done with the Muslims. And gays, once they’re done with the Christians. And women, once they’re done with the gays.

It is a family fight, among Gujaratis. Most of my relatives adore Modi, and think he has restored Hindu and Gujarati pride after centuries of Muslim rule. But many children of Gujarati immigrants in the U.S. and the U.K. want nothing to do with this politics of hate. They identify as South Asian, or desi, rather than Indian. They don’t understand how their parents could oppose Donald Trump – 87% of Indian-Americans voted Democratic in the 2016 election – and also support Modi. They don’t understand how we can demand tolerance for Indian immigrants abroad while being intolerant to Bangladeshi immigrants at home. India has done what Trump dreams about: it has built a 2,000 mile-long wall on the border with Bangladesh, to keep out immigrants.

In honor of the American president’s visit, the Gujarat government hastily constructed a brand-new wall along the route of Trump’s motorcade, to shield his sensitive eyes from the slum on the other side. He’s going directly from the airport to a rally in the world’s largest cricket stadium, then a quick visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram by this least Gandhian of Presidents, and then a dash back to the airport. The government is spending a reported $12 million for the three hours that Trump is to visit the city.

May I propose an alternative itinerary for the visit? Trump could take a look at some of the most exquisite medieval Islamic architecture in the world, such as the intricate carvings of Sidi Sayed’s mosque, or the ‘shaking minarets’ of Sidi Bashir. In 2017, Ahmedabad became India’s first city to acquire World Heritage status, for the 15th century Walled City built by Sultan Ahmad Shah. “The presence of institutions belonging to many religions (Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism) makes the historic urban structure of Ahmadabad an exceptional and unique example of multicultural coexistence,” reads the UNESCO citation.

Until recently, this coexistence was a feature of much of Gujarat’s history, which had to rely on an openness to other cultures, religions, if nothing else than for purely mercantile reasons. In order to be a good businessman, in order to have the widest possible market, you have to trade with many people who may be very different from you. You have to put aside your hatreds, and you have to be pragmatic.

Trump is also going to India to haggle with the government over trade; he has imposed punitive tariffs on Indian goods. Gujaratis are supposed to be famous for their business acumen, but Modi has failed in the first duty of a Gujarati businessman: to make a profit. India now has the slowest growth of all the emerging economies, at 4.8% and falling, and the unemployment rate is the highest in 45 years. Modi promised to build millions of toilets, but it’s the economy that he’s dragging into the toilet.

To divert attention from its failures, the government is encouraging its citizens to focus on Pakistan, hating Muslims, keeping an imaginary Bangladeshi horde out. It’s the politics of mass diversion. Trump does it with Mexicans; the Brexiteers do it with Eastern Europeans; Modi and Shah do it with Bangladeshis.

Any real Gujarati would be concerned about the incalculable harm these nativist, Islamophobic policies are having on the country’s international image, and its business prospects. Indian-born Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, recently took on on the citizenship act directly: “I think what is happening is sad… It’s just bad. I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next unicorn in India or becomes the next CEO of Infosys.”

Many countries and companies like to trade with India because it has a better reputation than, say, China. It is an open society; it does not have a state religion and the army stays largely out of politics. But if that image changes – if you suspend autonomy for a state like Kashmir and flood it with Hindus; if you yank someone’s overseas citizenship because of what he writes, like my friend Aatish Taseer; if you use the tax authorities to browbeat media houses into submission; if you use the machinery of the state to beat up students protesting anti-Muslim measures in their dorms – than it becomes just another dismal autocracy. Then Indian companies will be the targets of boycotts in the West, and foreign investment, already low, will continue to avoid India.

Whether Indians like it or not, much of the world now thinks of India in the same league as other corrupt and repressive regimes such as Brazil – whose President, Jair Bolsonaro, was the chief guest at the India’s Republic Day parade – and Turkey. India has lost its good name as a liberal democracy. This is going to cost the country money.

Gujaratis are, above all, a pragmatic people. It is pragmatic to make accommodation with everyone, even those who you perceive as your enemies. Today, India is the world’s second largest Muslim country; by 2060 it will be the biggest. The Muslim population will go from 15% to 20% of the country, and nothing short of an outright genocide is going to change that. On the whole, Indian Muslims have not been radicalized, and the Muslim women of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi wave the tricolor even as they protest government policy. Muslims voted with their feet to stay in the country after Partition. But if Indian Muslims are constantly otherized, if they are told over and over again: you don’t belong here, you are not truly Indian, then some segment of them is sure to become radicalized. And that could lead to the mother of all civil wars, something that will make Partition look like a schoolyard brawl.

Indians can’t afford not to work together, or be diverted by fighting each other. Because the next few decades are going to be challenging, even apocalyptic. Take just one issue: water. By 2030, it is estimated 40% of Indians will have no drinking water, and demand for water will be twice the available supply. I saw this every time I went back to Gujarat as a child. My grand-aunt could recite the names of the five rivers that flowed through her part of Gujarat. All of them are dry now, or mere trickles in the monsoon. Dhoodiyu desh, they call it, “the dust country.” We have to fight all these problems together, Hindu, Muslim, and all the other religions. United, we survive; divided, we die of thirst.

The first thing you are offered when you enter a Gujarati home is a glass of water. Every Gujarati home I have gone to has been welcoming. A visitor will be given water, shade, rest, and an invitation: come eat with us. When you part from a Gujarati, he will not say, “Goodbye.” He will say, “Aavjo”: “Come again.” That is the true spirit of Gujarat. We do not erect doors, fences, walls, detention camps. We wander the earth, and welcome the wanderer.

[itsfinancethings]

President Donald Trump is due to make the first ever visit by an American head of state to Ahmedabad, the biggest city in the western state of Gujarat. It is the state that Narendra Modi, now Prime Minister, ruled for 12 years. It’s also where where generations of my family have lived. A big reason that Trump chose Ahmedabad is that the largest number of Indians in the U.S. – and the most fervent supporters of Modi – are Gujaratis. Trump is hoping that, by showing up in Ahmedabad to declare his everlasting love for Modi, American Gujaratis like me will be persuaded to vote for him and donate to his campaign.

The leaders of the country of my birth, and the country of my citizenship (the U.S.), do seem to have this in common: they have both said and done hateful things towards Muslims. I first became aware of this when in 2015 Trump tweeted lies about Muslims cheering the fall of the Twin Towers. I was certain of it when, as President, I saw his retweets of a British far right hate group, itself retweeting three inflammatory (and untrue) videos titled “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death”; “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches”; and “Muslim destroys a statue of Virgin Mary.”

In 2002, Ahmedabad was the site of anti-Muslim pogroms in which some two thousand people were murdered. Children saw their fathers set on fire and their mothers raped. Modi, who was chief minister of the state at the time, held back security forces who could have stopped the rioting, and members of his government actively participated in the killings. It made me ashamed to be Gujarati.

As soon as he assumed office, Trump banned citizens of several Muslim countries from entering the U.S. Modi’s government recently passed a law granting expedited citizenship to refugees from neighboring countries who belong to any major religion — except Islam. This was the first time in independent India’s history that a religion has been specifically targeted in an act of Parliament. And it is to be followed by a registry with the likely eventual goal of a nationwide system of gulags for people who can’t prove their citizenship, also aimed at Muslims. These initiatives have been overseen by another Gujarati named Amit Shah, Modi’s home minister, who has referred to Bangladeshi migrants as “termites.”

I want to tell the world: please don’t judge all fifty million Gujaratis by their actions. These people do not represent me, or millions of other Gujaratis. We are kinder than them, we are more open to the rest of the world than them. Gujaratis are global citizens par excellence. One out of every three overseas Indians is Gujarati; we can be found in 129 of the 190 nations of the earth.

But it’s true that the home of my grandparents has had, in recent times, a bloody history. My grandfather’s house in Ahmedabad was right next to a Muslim neighborhood. In peaceful times the Muslims shopped in the Hindu-owned markets; the Hindus went to Muslim tailors. During riots, which happened every few years or so, the border suddenly became visible, tangible. You were not to step across this line; there were always the boys standing guard, armed with hockey sticks, knives, kerosene.

The Gujaratis who lead the country now want to turn India into Ahmedabad. All are welcome in their India, they say, except Muslims. And, one imagines, also Christians, once they’re done with the Muslims. And gays, once they’re done with the Christians. And women, once they’re done with the gays.

It is a family fight, among Gujaratis. Most of my relatives adore Modi, and think he has restored Hindu and Gujarati pride after centuries of Muslim rule. But many children of Gujarati immigrants in the U.S. and the U.K. want nothing to do with this politics of hate. They identify as South Asian, or desi, rather than Indian. They don’t understand how their parents could oppose Donald Trump – 87% of Indian-Americans voted Democratic in the 2016 election – and also support Modi. They don’t understand how we can demand tolerance for Indian immigrants abroad while being intolerant to Bangladeshi immigrants at home. India has done what Trump dreams about: it has built a 2,000 mile-long wall on the border with Bangladesh, to keep out immigrants.

In honor of the American president’s visit, the Gujarat government hastily constructed a brand-new wall along the route of Trump’s motorcade, to shield his sensitive eyes from the slum on the other side. He’s going directly from the airport to a rally in the world’s largest cricket stadium, then a quick visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram by this least Gandhian of Presidents, and then a dash back to the airport. The government is spending a reported $12 million for the three hours that Trump is to visit the city.

May I propose an alternative itinerary for the visit? Trump could take a look at some of the most exquisite medieval Islamic architecture in the world, such as the intricate carvings of Sidi Sayed’s mosque, or the ‘shaking minarets’ of Sidi Bashir. In 2017, Ahmedabad became India’s first city to acquire World Heritage status, for the 15th century Walled City built by Sultan Ahmad Shah. “The presence of institutions belonging to many religions (Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism) makes the historic urban structure of Ahmadabad an exceptional and unique example of multicultural coexistence,” reads the UNESCO citation.

Until recently, this coexistence was a feature of much of Gujarat’s history, which had to rely on an openness to other cultures, religions, if nothing else than for purely mercantile reasons. In order to be a good businessman, in order to have the widest possible market, you have to trade with many people who may be very different from you. You have to put aside your hatreds, and you have to be pragmatic.

Trump is also going to India to haggle with the government over trade; he has imposed punitive tariffs on Indian goods. Gujaratis are supposed to be famous for their business acumen, but Modi has failed in the first duty of a Gujarati businessman: to make a profit. India now has the slowest growth of all the emerging economies, at 4.8% and falling, and the unemployment rate is the highest in 45 years. Modi promised to build millions of toilets, but it’s the economy that he’s dragging into the toilet.

To divert attention from its failures, the government is encouraging its citizens to focus on Pakistan, hating Muslims, keeping an imaginary Bangladeshi horde out. It’s the politics of mass diversion. Trump does it with Mexicans; the Brexiteers do it with Eastern Europeans; Modi and Shah do it with Bangladeshis.

Any real Gujarati would be concerned about the incalculable harm these nativist, Islamophobic policies are having on the country’s international image, and its business prospects. Indian-born Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, recently took on on the citizenship act directly: “I think what is happening is sad… It’s just bad. I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next unicorn in India or becomes the next CEO of Infosys.”

Many countries and companies like to trade with India because it has a better reputation than, say, China. It is an open society; it does not have a state religion and the army stays largely out of politics. But if that image changes – if you suspend autonomy for a state like Kashmir and flood it with Hindus; if you yank someone’s overseas citizenship because of what he writes, like my friend Aatish Taseer; if you use the tax authorities to browbeat media houses into submission; if you use the machinery of the state to beat up students protesting anti-Muslim measures in their dorms – than it becomes just another dismal autocracy. Then Indian companies will be the targets of boycotts in the West, and foreign investment, already low, will continue to avoid India.

Whether Indians like it or not, much of the world now thinks of India in the same league as other corrupt and repressive regimes such as Brazil – whose President, Jair Bolsonaro, was the chief guest at the India’s Republic Day parade – and Turkey. India has lost its good name as a liberal democracy. This is going to cost the country money.

Gujaratis are, above all, a pragmatic people. It is pragmatic to make accommodation with everyone, even those who you perceive as your enemies. Today, India is the world’s second largest Muslim country; by 2060 it will be the biggest. The Muslim population will go from 15% to 20% of the country, and nothing short of an outright genocide is going to change that. On the whole, Indian Muslims have not been radicalized, and the Muslim women of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi wave the tricolor even as they protest government policy. Muslims voted with their feet to stay in the country after Partition. But if Indian Muslims are constantly otherized, if they are told over and over again: you don’t belong here, you are not truly Indian, then some segment of them is sure to become radicalized. And that could lead to the mother of all civil wars, something that will make Partition look like a schoolyard brawl.

Indians can’t afford not to work together, or be diverted by fighting each other. Because the next few decades are going to be challenging, even apocalyptic. Take just one issue: water. By 2030, it is estimated 40% of Indians will have no drinking water, and demand for water will be twice the available supply. I saw this every time I went back to Gujarat as a child. My grand-aunt could recite the names of the five rivers that flowed through her part of Gujarat. All of them are dry now, or mere trickles in the monsoon. Dhoodiyu desh, they call it, “the dust country.” We have to fight all these problems together, Hindu, Muslim, and all the other religions. United, we survive; divided, we die of thirst.

The first thing you are offered when you enter a Gujarati home is a glass of water. Every Gujarati home I have gone to has been welcoming. A visitor will be given water, shade, rest, and an invitation: come eat with us. When you part from a Gujarati, he will not say, “Goodbye.” He will say, “Aavjo”: “Come again.” That is the true spirit of Gujarat. We do not erect doors, fences, walls, detention camps. We wander the earth, and welcome the wanderer.

[englishchinesetranslations]

A photo of US freelance journalist Carl Goette-Luciak with a Nicaraguan Sandinista that Max Blumenthal misrepresented on his blog Grayzone to grave consequences (Photo: Twitter)

The first in a three part series on the toxic influence of psuedo-journalists in the digital age and the danger they represent to the self-determination of peoples across the globe.

Professional liars, conspiracy theorists and old-fashioned fanatics have existed since the dawn of civilization, but in a digital age where clicks are driven by outrage and sensational headlines, these bad actors find themselves in possession of a megaphone with global reach that has never before been seen in human history. But not all grifters and yellow journalists are created equal. That is to say, in media platforms prone to consolidation and driven by outrage, the most extreme voices have a tendency to dominate the field.

The game of exaggerations, baseless accusations and dictator apologia for cash and clout is becoming increasingly dominated by a small and particularly unhinged group of smear-merchants who boast a cultish group of very-online and very-aggressive followers. These electronic minions of misinformation spread the exaggerations, denials and half-truths they receive from their grifter masters with evangelical zeal, and an apparent imperviousness to facts or reality ¹.

Enter Grayzone, a supposedly leftist crew of “journalists” with opaque financing and Russian support.

This all-caps charge against responsible journalism is led by son of a wealthy Clinton advisor, Max Blumenthal and his zany “never met a Human Rights violation we didn’t like” cohorts at Grayzone ². They receive helping hands from a number of shady media organizations and fringe voices that include Russian disinformation network RT, TeleSur in South America, reknown racists Richard Spencer, Tucker Carlson, a nazi school shooter and even ex-KKK wizard David Duke.

Though they claim to write from the left, their digital fog-machine defies political boundaries, incorporating anti-semetic smears about Soros that have white-supremacist origins, genocide denial tricks pioneered by European fascist parties and the “always discredit or insult rather than respond to fact” tactics of sociopaths like Alex Jones.

Every social movement in the world they dislike is the fault of the CIA, and every government they support, which are unfailingly disturbingly authoritarian, can do no wrong.

These fearless champions of state-violence cheer police forces brutalizing protesters, deny well-documented death squads and rationalize oppression at every turn.

Despite Blumenthal’s attacks on journalists who work for publications funded by Soros, he has had no problem accepting money from that source in the past, such as when he worked for the Nation, whose parent company, TYPE Media Center is funded in part by grants from the man he so often demonizes, nor from his time at “Media Matters” which has also enjoyed Soros funding. Oh, and also AlterNet, who helped him develop Grayzone until 2018, when they fired him, presumably because his conspiracy theory mongering was damaging their reputation.

Nor has he been above accepting gifts from the regimes he writes so flatteringly about. Blumenthal and other writers at Grayzone have also been exposed accepting “journalism prizes” from pro-Assad lobby groups.

What are their motives? That varies from personality to personality, but they all share two traits: an inability to realize the world does not in fact revolve around the United States and the certainty that they know what should happen in countries they don’t live in infinitely better than people who do.

As David Smilde, senior fellow at human rights group WOLA and Professor at Tulane aptly stated, they “instrumentalize the realities of the global South for their own purposes — whether that be personal identity work or political battles they consider important — and it’s a form of colonialism”

It’s American exceptionalism turned on its head — an inability to imagine that people in other countries have the agency to form their own social movements and revolutions without help from the U.S. This worldview leads them to de-legitimize and dismiss protesters in Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran, Nicaragua, Lebanon and Venezuela as illegitimate, and to deny horrific human rights abuses in a score of countries across the globe from Russia to Bolivia.

Grayzone: Defenders of Authoritarians the World Over

I first heard of Max Blumenthal during Grayzone’s 2018–2019 “Latin American Human Rights Violation Denial Tour”. Someone sent me a video of Max Blumenthal in a rich neighborhood of Caracas as “proof” that the thousands of Venezuelan immigrants I saw daily did not, in fact, exist.

“You don’t know what it’s like to work all day only be to able to afford a few tomatoes and some lettuce, to make a little salad. And to wake up to your daughter telling you ‘I’m hungry’, but you have nothing to give her. You can’t imagine the feeling of powerless,” — a Venezuelan immigrant near Cucuta, Colombia in 2018

A couple catches a nap as we hitched a ride in a truck transporting scrap metal while travelling with the thousands fleeing VZ. Last year, I walked to Bogota from the Venezuelan border with the “caminantes”. Mini-doc of the trip here. (Photo: Joshua Collins)

The issue? The health crisis he was denying wasn’t happening in the luxury neighborhoods he prefers to frequent on his junket-journalism tourist trips, but rather in the barrios and the countryside where the majority of the country works for less money per month than minimum wage workers in the United States make in an hour.

As he crowed sarcastically to the camera, I dismissed him as a confused tourist and kept documenting the 5 million Venezuelans who have fled their collapsed country in the biggest mass-migration in South American history.

I talked daily with people suffering from years of healthcare neglect and insecurity while Max stayed in the capital, assuring everyone that the unfolding humanitarian crisis was nothing more than U.S State Department propaganda (reportedly never leaving the safety of rich Caracas neighborhoods).

“You don’t know what it’s like to work all day only be to able to afford a few tomatoes and some lettuce, to make a little salad. And to wake up to your daughter telling you ‘I’m hungry’, but you have nothing to give her. You can’t imagine the feeling of powerless,” one immigrant told me a few days after Blumenthal’s Potemkin Village video variety show, which included mocking employees at a mall in terrible Spanish — employees who at the time most likely worked for $7 a month. (The monthly minimum wage has since slipped to $3).

But that was just the beginning. I would hear much from the Grayzone crew over the next year, and learn a lot more about their checkered past, a record that has left a chain of victims around the globe for years.

Flipping Sides After a Trip to Russia

An interview in which Blumenthal laments leftists who would supports Bashar Al-Assad in Syria

Max Blumenthal got his start writing about Syria in 2011, where he was staunchly on the side of rebels against Assad. He spoke passionately of atrocities committed by the Assad regime, even resigning from a Beirut paper in 2012 because he claimed they were “Assad apologists”, who “paid me pathetically, barely enough to pay rent in my New York apartment.”

He even goes so far as to say that some of his colleagues in Syria were so caught up in “Anti-Imperialism” that they found themselves in the warped position of defending Assad, whom he viewed as a murderer.

He was accompanied in this endeavor by his mustachioed Brooklyn hipster side-kick Ben Norton, who, unlike Max, dispensed his Syria expertise via internet from New York.

It’s unclear what qualifications Norton possessed at the time however, other than a willingness to follow Max’s every editorial lead, a bitchin’ one-man noise band, and the sweetest chinstrap in Williamsburg, but he was on board, and he was vehemently anti-Assad.

Suddenly, in 2015 Max and his pet mustachio flipped sides. It just so happens that they became pro-Assad after attending a Moscow luxury Gala; the same event that got Jill Stein and Trump appointment Michael Flynn (who was paid $40,000 for attending) in hot water. They were new true-believers in the Assad regime, and enthusiastic apologists for the murderous actions they had previously railed against.

Was it a Russian buy-out that changed their views? That’s hard to say. Despite Grayzone’s constant evidence-free attacks on other journalists’ supposed connections to the pentagon and the NED (National Endowment of Democracy, which he claims is an instrument of “regime change”), the funding for Grayzone is completely opaque.

It is unclear how they fly a dozen employees around the world and still manage to rent expensive apartments in New York and Washington D.C.

But suddenly Max had a new girlfriend, Anya Parampil (who joined RT in 2014). He also had a new media sponsor and an “Anti-Imperial” axe to grind. Grayzone coverage immediately became pro-Assad. Parampil would soon be fired from RT and go to work full-time for their shadily financed project as they expanded markets and found new countries to exploit outside of the Middle East.

I’m sure it is completely coincidental that everything Grayzone has published since then has towed exactly with the official propaganda coming from the Kremlin, that he suddenly became obsessed with “Russia hysteria” and that his work is now amplified by RT.

But Syria isn’t my area of expertise. Much has been written on Grayzone’s disaster junket-journalism coverage of the Middle East that includes selfies next to torture sites, promoting conspiracy theories about aid group the White Helmets and denying atrocities committed by Assad. My experience lies more in how they have misrepresented Latin America — which they have done with vigor.

On Nicaragua, Grayzone and Death Squads

When I first heard of their antics as I worked on the Venezuelan border, Grayzone were recently returned from a trip to Nicaragua. One in which they framed a fiercely violent government oppression of protests that killed hundreds, and injured thousands , as a justified response.

Human rights investigators invited to the country by Nicaraguan president Ortega however, did not agree with those claims. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights stated that the regime had “used lethal weapons against children and students” and had arbitrarily detained hundreds of peaceful protesters who had been subsequently exposed to treatment that amounted to torture, including mass-beatings, death-threats, sexual assault and psychological abuse that included “threats of rape”, witholding food and water, “threatening to kill their relatives” and even threats of “burning them alive”.

Whether the protests were “valid” or not, would become a moot point; Ortega outlawed public protests shortly after crushing them violently.

As these events were occurring, Max Blumenthal and the Grayzone crew were portraying Daniel Ortega as a hero, hyping his baseless assertions that the students weren’t a legitimate protest movement, but rather a CIA front in a series of articles claiming international conspiracy. These claims were as without evidence as those of the government. Their effort culminated in an absolutely exhausting and fawning hour-long interview with the Nicaraguan president, in which Ortega blamed the hundreds of student deaths on everything from “crime” to “car accidents”.

Before Grayzone left Nicaragua, they would attack a number of journalists and protesters who presented accounts that didn’t fit their pre-conceived narrative. They misrepresented a young protester who released a video of police killing her fellow students that went viral. She was later captured by police and forced to record a “confession” obtained under state torture.

Grayzone ran a story on the event, stating the killings at the University were a hoax, a claim Max would repeat in various interviews while in Nicaragua.

The story Max published however, was penned by an author who doesn’t even exist, as exposed in a 2018 report by Charles Davis at the Daily Beast.

It was a breath-taking display of a lack of journalistic ethics on the part of Blumenthal.

Also while in Nicaragua, Max penned a lengthy piece in Mintpress heavily implying, if not stating directly, that Carl David Goette-Luciak, an independent reporter who wrote for NPR and the Guardian, was actually a regime-change plant. In the same piece, he represents a journalist who was killed by government snipers while livestreaming, as being killed by protesters.

His claims were accompanied with a photo of Luciak beside an armed soldier whom Max claimed was opposition. He wasn’t. Luciak was actually posing with a Sandinista — a leftist. The picture was taken as part of a pro-bono project with Azucena Castillo, a Nicaraguan journalist currently in exile for her work at independent media organization Radio de la Ciudadania. It’s unclear if Max was simply making up the accusation or fooled by government claims. Either way it’s a lie that led to grave consequences.

An image that circulated on social media following Max’s lie. The photo is accompanied with a caption that falsely claims Luciak was posing with a “A leader of the MRS party”. He wasn’t

These false claims led to thousands of people publishing Goette-Luciak’s address as well as death threats that forced him into hiding. Eventually Luciak was captured by State forces, threatened with torture and charged with disseminating “fake news” by the Nicaraguan government before being deported from the country.

Defending the use of live ammunition against Nicaraguan citizens, mass-detainment and State-sponsored torture wasn’t enough however, they had to shift the onus of blame onto the people being massacred. You see, in the bizarro Grayzone worldview, oppressive and murderous police forces are actually champions of the people. When they kill hundreds of protesters, it is always justified.

The Grayzone tactics of cheer-leading state violence, smearing and attacking critics with distortions that put their lives in danger, misrepresenting protesters as hapless, violent pawns of foreign powers and obfuscating facts on the ground have become the trademarked tactics of this crew as they tour the world in search of social media “likes”.

These breaches of journalism ethics, white-washing human rights violations and editorializing breaking news against protesters have very dangerous real-world effects.

And as they champion these attacks on the liberty of people in countries they don’t live in, they damage the credibility of brave protesters and journalists putting their lives on the line who do.

Max Blumenthal said something back when he opposed war crimes in 2013 that resonated with me.

“People have a right to rise up against oppression”

I agree. It’s a shame he seems to now stand for the opposite.

Joshua Collins is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Colombia. He has worked for Al Jazeera, the New Humanitarian and various other organizations in Latin America. For more stories you can follow him on twitter or at his website Muros Invisibles.

[thisdaynews]

TikTok emerges as Silicon Valley's scapegoat in Washington

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/tiktok-emerges-as-silicon-valleys-scapegoat-in-washington/

TikTok emerges as Silicon Valley's scapegoat in Washington

The newfound focus on TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance most notably includes a national security review being conducted by the Trump administration. And, though TikTok declined to appear, scrutiny of the company proved the main theme of a highly critical, if sparsely attended, hearing before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Tuesday.

Here are some of the tech policy debates where the rise ofTikTok is proving timely:

Stifling speech

Critics accuse Facebook, Google and Twitter of failing to appropriatelymoderate content on their platforms, particularly controversial political speech. Democrats say they’re too permissive of lies, hate speech and harassment, especially from President Donald Trump and his supporters, while Trump and other Republicans say they’re too eager to censor conservatives.

Now the companies can point to TikTok as an example of how not to handle online speech, as lawmakers like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — who chairs the panel that held Tuesday’s hearing — raise fears the company is bowing to censorship pressure from Beijing.

“I would bet that Facebook is having a field day with this,” said Samm Sacks, a cybersecurity policy and China digital economy fellow at New America. “At the very moment when Mark Zuckerberg and the company has been under immense scrutiny here at home, we now have a perfect foil. You don’t trust Facebook? Well, just look at TikTok. It’s brilliant.”

Zuckerberg has already spent weeks warning that free speech is in danger if China sets the terms of online expression.

“China is building its own internet focused on very different values, and is now exporting their vision of the internet to other countries,” he said during a speech at Georgetown University last month, throwing a red flag to critics clamoring for U.S. regulators to hobble Facebook’s power and influence. “Until recently, the internet in almost every country outside China has been defined by American platforms with strong free expression values. There’s no guarantee these values will win out.”

While dissidents around the globe use Facebook’s messaging service WhatsApp to communicate, TikTok has faced accusations that it censors mentions of the anti-government protests roiling Hong Kong, Zuckerberg noted. “Is that the internet we want?” he asked.

TikTok disputes such accusations. Before Wednesday’s hearing, its U.S. general manager, Vanessa Pappas, sent a letter to committee members asserting the platform’s independence from the Chinese government, writing that the company does not “remove content based on sensitivities related to China (or other countries).”

“We [have] never been asked by the Chinese government to remove any content, and we would not do so if asked,” she wrote.

A TikTok spokesperson added: “The more Mark Zuckerberg has come under scrutiny, the more TikTok has shown up in his speeches, interviews and op-eds. You would have to ask him if this is pure coincidence.”

At Tuesday’s hearing, Hawley proved skeptical of that claim, calling on TikTok to “now appear under oath to tell the truth about their company.”

Still, the lawmaker told reporters after the hearing that he’s not inclined to give Facebook and other tech heavyweights a pass in the face of Chinese competitors.

“Thankfully, they’re not the Communist Chinese government, but I don’t know that they’re exactly good actors, either,” Hawley said of U.S. tech platforms.

Mishandling sensitive user data

TikTok’s Washington woes are not limited to Capitol Hill. The Trump administration is reported to be probing potential national security risks stemming from ByteDance’s 2017 acquisition of the app Musical.ly, a deal that helped create TikTok in its current form and precipitated its surge of popularity in the U.S.

It’s part of broader criticism of Chinese technology behemoths that has festered in Washington for years and is now exploding amid Trump’s trade war with Beijing. Citing national security concerns, the Trump administration has slapped Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei with trade sanctions.

The anxiety around TikTok centers in part on fears that the data it collects on its U.S. user base could make its way to the Chinese government. “When aggregated, the data could be useful in improving Chinese machine learning tools to help China better understand, predict and manipulate the behavior of Americans,” said Jim Baker, a former FBI general counsel who is now director of national security and cybersecurity at the R Street Institute.

Facebook and other tech giants havefaced criticism for obscuring their own uses of consumer data and failing to handle it securely. The leak of Facebook data to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica before the 2016 election yielded a record $5 billion Federal Trade Commission fine and helped inspire national calls for data privacy legislation.

Nevertheless, Silicon Valley may now find itself positioned as the transparent alternative to China.

“Instead of importing the values of censorship and control to the U.S., we should be exporting our values of openness and transparency to them,” Kara Frederick, a fellow at the Center for New American Security who previously worked at Facebook, said at the hearing.

TikTok says it stores data from its American users only in the U.S. and Singapore and doesn’t even have data centers in China. But that doesn’t satisfy critics like Hawley, who maintain it would be a trivial matter for Beijing to demand the company hand over data anyway.

All the same, questions about TikTok’s data privacy practices are a reminder that China does not adhere to existing global privacy standards and that its own data governance rules are “very much a work in progress,” said Paul Triolo, who heads the geo-technology practice at political consulting firm Eurasia Group.

“If China remains outside of these regimes, Chinese firms, not just ByteDance/TikTok, but bigger players like Alibaba, will indeed be used increasingly as foils around D.C. debates on data privacy,” Triolo said.

Upending big tech’s market dominance

When Facebook was called to testify in July before a House antitrust subcommittee on the state of internet competition, then-public policy director Matt Perault identified TikTok among the rivals nipping at its heels. The fast-growing social network is already proving to be a primary exhibit as Facebook makes a case for why it doesn’t have a monopoly on social media.

“It plays on their side politically because it does show, again, competition is real,” said Atkinson at ITIF. “It can happen very quickly and it can certainly be Chinese competition, which we’re going to have to grapple with.”

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg made similar points in media interviews earlier this year, arguing that dismantling Facebook, as some Democrats want to do, could leave a vacuum for Chinese counterparts to enter. Already, Chinese firms like Alibaba, JD.com, Tencent and Baidu rank among the world’s largest internet companies.

Since then, federal and state antitrust enforcers have nevertheless launched investigations into both Facebook and Google.

“On the one hand, I think it’s absolutely a legitimate concern that if you don’t have U.S. companies playing a big role, if you were to break them up, et cetera, you could have voids which could well be filled by Chinese companies, which could create serious problems,” said Ed Black, president and CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Google, Facebook and Amazon.

“Having said that, it shouldn’t be a basis to excuse legitimate inquiry and scrutiny of companies,” he added.

Silicon Valley’s own China ambitions

The debate around TikTok may also renew gripes about American internet firms largely being excluded from the lucrative Chinese market, even as Chinese rivals gain a foothold in the United States.American firms have been eager to expand into China but have stayed out — or been kept out — due to censorship concerns and other barriers to entry.

“This is a very salient issue and will become even more so as other Chinese social media and e-commerce platforms expand outside of China, even as …. most regulators assume the Chinese government will have some access to data collected by Chinese companies,” Triolo said.

Heritage Foundation tech policy lead Klon Kitchen noted at Tuesday’s hearing that under a Chinese law that takes effect in the new year, foreign firms doing business in the country will also have to comply with government data demands.

Google already sustained sharp criticism from lawmakers this year after reports surfaced that it had worked to build a censored search engine, dubbed Dragonfly, to comply with the Chinese government’s demands. Google’s vice president of public policy, Karan Bhatia, told a Senate Judiciary panel in July that project had been terminated.

The rise of TikTok and the reported national security investigation are bound to draw more attention to what it takes to do business as a tech company in China. And on that front, Silicon Valley may struggle to use the upstart social media firm as a scapegoat.

“The TikTok investigation will undoubtedly spark new debate about how and whether Google could reenter the China market,” Triolo said.

Cristiano Lima contributed to this report.

Read More

[courtneytincher]

ISIS vs. Al Qaeda: What Lies in the Future of Global Jihadism?

The IS – Al-Qaeda Dispute (excerpt from Chapter 4 of After the Caliphate, Polity Press, 2019)Colin P. ClarkeThe fall-out from the split between IS and al-Qaeda has led to a competition viewed by both sides as zero sum in nature, where progress by one of these groups signaled a loss for the other. One of the primary drivers of such a heated competition is that, in many ways, the ideology and objectives of the group are so similar. The Islamic State reverted to extreme levels of violence as one method of differentiating itself from its rivals, including al-Qaeda. Both groups are attempting to recruit from the same milieus and influence similar constituencies. The main differences are that IS sought to create a caliphate on a timeline considered premature by al-Qaeda, and IS pursued a far more sectarian agenda in attempting to achieve this objective. Whether and how these differences are ever resolved will have a major impact on the future of the movement writ large.The split itself occurred at the leadership levels of these groups, so one of the most interesting questions is: to what extent do foot soldiers and mid-level commanders really care, in actuality, about the previous infighting and strategic disputes? For some of the fighters at these levels, there is an obvious parallel to conflicts between street gangs, where members like the Bloods and Crips “fly their colors” – or represent their gangs by wearing their distinctive colors – and continuously disparage their adversaries by posting “dis videos” online, mocking and threatening rivals.63 The bitterness and divisiveness of the feud has played out on social media, with leaders on each side hurling vituperation and casting opprobrium on the other as “bad Muslims.” The initial castigation came from al-Qaeda’s leader Zawahiri himself, who fulminated against IS for being deviant from the al-Qaeda methodology.The truth is, as outlined in chapter 1’s discussion of al-Qaeda in Iraq, that the relationship was doomed from the start. The group that would eventually become IS has always been something of a rogue element, formed and led by Zarqawi, who fought hard to preserve the independence of his affiliate. Even after pledging his loyalty to bin Laden and assuming the al-Qaeda moniker, Zarqawi still ignored directions from al-Qaeda’s core leadership and narrowly pursued his own sectarian agenda in hopes of igniting a Sunni–Shia civil war, first within Iraq, and then throughout the wider Islamic world. One of al-Qaeda’s first steps to present itself as more evenhanded was denouncing blatant sectarianism and working to convince AQI to jettison sectarianism as a guiding principle. When, in July 2005, Zawahiri penned a letter to the leader of AQI chastising him for his group’s wanton slaughter of Shiites, the former stressed the overall negative impact these actions were having on the al-Qaeda brand and urged him to eschew targeting other Muslims. When Zarqawi disregarded Zawahiri’s advice, he cemented AQI’s reputation as a ruthless organization where violence was almost an end in and of itself.So while the initial rift began deepening in Iraq in the mid-2000s, it developed into an internecine struggle during the early years of the Syrian civil war. Following the fall-out, al-Qaeda has worked assiduously to reestablish itself as a major factor in the Levant; to accomplish this, it has been forced to overcome several significant setbacks related to its organizational unity and coherence. Al-Qaeda’s initial presence in Syria was through an affiliation with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State in Iraq’s erstwhile Syria branch. In mid-2016, Nusra rebranded itself as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and later merged with other terrorist splinter groups to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist umbrella organization, which put even more distance between itself and al-Qaeda. As of mid-2018, al-Qaeda had no formal affiliate in Syria but still commanded the loyalty of several high-profile militants. Some al-Qaeda loyalists announced the formation of yet another new group, Tanzim Hurras al-Din, or the Religious Guardians’ Organization, in 2018. While HTS remains focused on events in Syria, Tanzim Hurras al-Din is headed by al-Qaeda veterans who may seek to use Syria as a base to launch high-profile terrorist attacks against the West. This posture is a departure from al-Qaeda’s recent focus on grassroots appeal in Syria and, if it comes to fruition, it will probably have significant ramifications for the group’s return to its former glory. Another important angle is that there are several Jordanian jihadi veterans among Tanzim Hurras al-Din’s leadership cadre who were close to Zarqawi and, as such, there is both historical and ideological affinity with IS, which increases the probability that Hurras might successfully poach IS members and bring them into the al-Qaeda fold.The rebranding process for al-Qaeda in Syria was undertaken partly out of necessity, but it was also strategic in nature. From a pragmatic standpoint, the rebrandings have served to put some distance between al-Qaeda and a host of imitators and rivals. This could be an effort by the group to learn from past mistakes, when the leadership’s reluctance to publicly disavow Zarqawi traded short-term gains for long-term losses and eventually contributed to the split, an event that seemed like an existential threat to al-Qaeda throughout 2014. The strategic part of the rebranding is no different from a company’s use of public relations and marketing to refashion its image – al-Qaeda now seeks to present itself as the “moderate alternative” to the Islamic State. The IS brand was represented by the caliphate and the group’s reliance on anomic violence, while al-Qaeda sought to position itself as an organization more adept at strategic planning and with more attractive prospects for enduing success in the future.Although the rebranding is considered a feint by many counterterrorism scholars, it just might have worked to recast al-Qaeda’s image within Syria. And so, even while the emergence of IS at one point threatened the existence of al-Qaeda, it also presented the latter with an opportunity. Al-Qaeda’s calculated decision to distance itself from its former satellite organization was an effort to portray itself as a legitimate, capable, and independent force in the ongoing Syrian civil war. Another objective was to prove that the militants were dedicated to helping Syrians prevail in their struggle. Finally, it would give core al-Qaeda a modicum of plausible deniability as it paves the way for its erstwhile allies to gain eligibility for military aid from a collection of external nations.Now that the Islamic State has lost its caliphate, al-Qaeda may be the only group viewed as militarily capable of challenging the Assad regime’s grip on power, although, as of mid-2018, that seems like a long shot. Al-Qaeda could certainly prove to be the longer-term threat to stability in Syria, primarily due to its grassroots support and local appeal. Unlike the Islamic State, al-Qaeda is perceived as an entity willing to work with the population and possessing the resources necessary to provide at least some of the trappings of governance. In the long term, al-Qaeda could resemble Lebanese Hezbollah – a violent non-state actor that has solidified political legitimacy while still retaining its ability to wage large-scale acts of terrorism and political violence.Depending on where it operates, al-Qaeda has shifted between protector, predator, and parasite, labels which are not mutually exclusive. In both Yemen and Mali, its members demonstrate a remarkable knack for pragmatism when operating in the midst of brutal civil wars. After infiltrating local rebel groups, al-Qaeda fighters parrot their grievances and champion parochial objectives. After ingratiating its fighters, al-Qaeda then ramps up proselytization efforts and introduces a narrative defined by a mixture of local and global themes. Unlike the Islamic State, al-Qaeda is willing to work with other groups, as it has been doing in Syria, where it typically puts locals in charge of units, battalions, and other military formations, lending a sense of local legitimacy to its face in the country. Moreover, al-Qaeda has displayed a penchant for cooperation beyond immediate conflict zones, as evidenced by on-again, off-again tactical cooperation with Iran.One of the most debated issues within the global jihadist movement is the so-called “near versus far debate” about which enemies the militants should concentrate the bulk of their efforts fighting – local apostate regimes or Western countries, especially the United States, but increasingly also the United Kingdom, France, and Australia. Al-Qaeda in Syria has managed to boost its brand through the provision of local services, including water and electricity, while also working to support local bakeries and control market prices of basic foodstuffs. Its leadership publicly announced that it will refrain from attacking the West, at least temporarily, in order to avoid Western counterterrorism reprisals, while simultaneously conserving its resources to concentrate on overthrowing the Assad regime, by far the top priority of Syrian Sunnis.Al-Qaeda’s Syrian leadership also recognizes that it is infinitely more successful when it focuses on local issues instead of a more amorphous and contested struggle with the West. These tensions seem to be at least partly to blame for the continued fracturing and splintering of al-Qaeda in Syria and its multiple iterations and offshoots. The debate over whether to focus locally or to revert back to a relentless quest to conduct spectacular attacks in the West could lead to a long-term and enduring fissure within the global jihadist movement. With the movement already divided by the al-Qaeda – IS split, this issue, similar to the decision on when to attempt to establish the caliphate, is a core ideological debate that is unlikely to be settled anytime soon.For all of al-Qaeda’s attempts at moderation, IS has behaved in an entirely opposite manner, as it pursued an uncompromising strategy of sectarianism, barbarity, and conquest. IS fully embraced sectarianism, seemingly making the killing of Shiites its raison d’être. And while al-Qaeda’s propaganda might still be peppered with derogatory references to Shiites, in general it favors a much more measured approach than IS. The groups are different in many ways, some subtle and others not. For example, rather than working with local groups, IS consistently acted as a conquering army, routing local militant leaders rather than working alongside them. In addition, locals were taxed, extorted, and closely policed by IS religious patrols to ensure strict adherence to sharia law.IS’s approach to warfare was reflected in its fighting style, whereby the group relied on conventional means of warfare, including artillery and tanks, in combination with some asymmetric tactics. When IS assumed control of a certain swath of territory, it often installed foreigners (Chechens, Tunisians, and Uzbeks) in command of the area. But its success came with a price. The more territory IS took over and the more brazen its displays of military might, the more likely the Coalition could no longer ignore its actions. The result was that, compared to other Salafi-jihadist groups operating in Syria, IS bore the brunt of Wester counterterrorism operations, a development that suited al-Qaeda just fine. The relentless stream of IS propaganda directed at the West – particularly the gruesome videos of beheadings, burnings, and crucifixions – left the Coalition with little choice but to set its sights on the caliphate. The success IS experienced in building its proto-state elevated it to the top priority for the Coalition. Accordingly, al-Qaeda in Syria was given breathing room to patiently rebuild its credibility and political legitimacy among locals. Gartenstein-Ross has described this as a “strategy of deliberate yet low-key growth.”The future of al-Qaeda and IS will be largely defined by the competition between the two. There is little debate that, beginning around 2014, IS could successfully lay claim to be the undisputed leader of the global jihadist movement. Once its caliphate collapsed, that began to change, and its current decline may be accompanied by al-Qaeda’s rise back to preeminence. There are clear signs that al-Qaeda has modified its tactics to take advantage of what it sees as a unique opportunity. In Syria’s Idlib province, al-Qaeda successfully cultivated grassroots support and by mid-2017 was beginning to accept former IS fighters into its ranks, a development most would have thought unthinkable just a year or two earlier. Al-Qaeda’s leadership realizes that its response to the Arab Spring was sclerotic and is now making amends, focusing its resources and energy on the concerns most salient to Sunnis, a strategy that has helped the group spread its roots throughout northwestern Syria. It has also used this strategy successfully throughout parts of Yemen, where it operates under various front organizations, branches of Ansar Sharia, and other Salafi groups.Al-Qaeda’s more balanced and predictable approach to governing is geared toward winning the popular support of civilian populations. Life under the Islamic State, even for its own loyal subjects, was enforced by draconian religious interpretations and subsequent enforcement of punishments for those who were not fastidious and completely obedient. Al-Qaeda was far less stringent and could be indifferent to perceived offenses that would draw harsh rebuke from the Islamic State. The year 2018 marks the 30-year anniversary of al-Qaeda’s founding and it is clear that the group has evolved, adapted, and learned over time. Its ability to establish widespread political legitimacy through a refurbished image could propel the group through well into its fourth decade.This shift over time by al-Qaeda to a more tolerant organization was in part a result of Zawahiri’s leadership. For all of the criticism he endures for lacking charisma, a critique most jihadist scholars find unassailable, Zawahiri does give al-Qaeda the benefit of continuity and a historical appreciation for what has traditionally worked and what has failed in the jihadists’ ongoing struggle against their adversaries. With his direction, the group has made course corrections based on trial and error and actively sought to amend previous errors in doctrine and strategy.Al-Qaeda in Syria has gone to great lengths to protect its image by rebranding its affiliate several times already. Bilaad al-Shaam, or the Land of the Levantine People, is highly coveted by multiple groups within the global jihadist movement for religious and geographical reasons. Zawahiri sees Syria as an opportunity to demonstrate relevance, juxtapose al-Qaeda to the Islamic State, and position his group as the more capable and pragmatic entity and, thus, the group worth siding with as the competition continues.Perhaps the most interesting change in al-Qaeda’s behavior since the death of bin Laden is that the group no longer seems obsessed with striking the West and, indeed, according to Bruce Hoffman, in 2015 Zawahiri issued strict orders to Mohammed al-Jolani not to use Syria as a launching pad to attack the West. There are several possible reasons for this decision, including that al-Qaeda’s infrastructure in Europe was not nearly as robust as that of the Islamic State, and thus any attack was probably going to pale in comparison to what IS had already achieved.Another, more nefarious possibility is that Zawahiri is merely playing the “long game” while strategically concealing its Khorasan Group assets as IS is further attenuated. Again, this might be changing with the continued splintering of groups in Syria and the emergence of Tanzim Hurras al-Din. At least in terms of capability, if not intent, discerning a group’s organizational structure could provide clues to its reach and ability to conduct external attacks. Do groups adopt a more decentralized structure to conduct external attacks, or are attacks outside of the group’s main territory a byproduct of a flatter structure? Relatedly, it is possible that too much structure is assigned to jihadist groups by those attempting to analyze them. Al-Qaeda and IS, in addition to their respective affiliates, may in reality be far less monolithic than scholars and analysts believe.Colin P. Clarke is a Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center and a senior adjunct political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Image: Reuters

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

The IS – Al-Qaeda Dispute (excerpt from Chapter 4 of After the Caliphate, Polity Press, 2019)Colin P. ClarkeThe fall-out from the split between IS and al-Qaeda has led to a competition viewed by both sides as zero sum in nature, where progress by one of these groups signaled a loss for the other. One of the primary drivers of such a heated competition is that, in many ways, the ideology and objectives of the group are so similar. The Islamic State reverted to extreme levels of violence as one method of differentiating itself from its rivals, including al-Qaeda. Both groups are attempting to recruit from the same milieus and influence similar constituencies. The main differences are that IS sought to create a caliphate on a timeline considered premature by al-Qaeda, and IS pursued a far more sectarian agenda in attempting to achieve this objective. Whether and how these differences are ever resolved will have a major impact on the future of the movement writ large.The split itself occurred at the leadership levels of these groups, so one of the most interesting questions is: to what extent do foot soldiers and mid-level commanders really care, in actuality, about the previous infighting and strategic disputes? For some of the fighters at these levels, there is an obvious parallel to conflicts between street gangs, where members like the Bloods and Crips “fly their colors” – or represent their gangs by wearing their distinctive colors – and continuously disparage their adversaries by posting “dis videos” online, mocking and threatening rivals.63 The bitterness and divisiveness of the feud has played out on social media, with leaders on each side hurling vituperation and casting opprobrium on the other as “bad Muslims.” The initial castigation came from al-Qaeda’s leader Zawahiri himself, who fulminated against IS for being deviant from the al-Qaeda methodology.The truth is, as outlined in chapter 1’s discussion of al-Qaeda in Iraq, that the relationship was doomed from the start. The group that would eventually become IS has always been something of a rogue element, formed and led by Zarqawi, who fought hard to preserve the independence of his affiliate. Even after pledging his loyalty to bin Laden and assuming the al-Qaeda moniker, Zarqawi still ignored directions from al-Qaeda’s core leadership and narrowly pursued his own sectarian agenda in hopes of igniting a Sunni–Shia civil war, first within Iraq, and then throughout the wider Islamic world. One of al-Qaeda’s first steps to present itself as more evenhanded was denouncing blatant sectarianism and working to convince AQI to jettison sectarianism as a guiding principle. When, in July 2005, Zawahiri penned a letter to the leader of AQI chastising him for his group’s wanton slaughter of Shiites, the former stressed the overall negative impact these actions were having on the al-Qaeda brand and urged him to eschew targeting other Muslims. When Zarqawi disregarded Zawahiri’s advice, he cemented AQI’s reputation as a ruthless organization where violence was almost an end in and of itself.So while the initial rift began deepening in Iraq in the mid-2000s, it developed into an internecine struggle during the early years of the Syrian civil war. Following the fall-out, al-Qaeda has worked assiduously to reestablish itself as a major factor in the Levant; to accomplish this, it has been forced to overcome several significant setbacks related to its organizational unity and coherence. Al-Qaeda’s initial presence in Syria was through an affiliation with Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State in Iraq’s erstwhile Syria branch. In mid-2016, Nusra rebranded itself as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and later merged with other terrorist splinter groups to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist umbrella organization, which put even more distance between itself and al-Qaeda. As of mid-2018, al-Qaeda had no formal affiliate in Syria but still commanded the loyalty of several high-profile militants. Some al-Qaeda loyalists announced the formation of yet another new group, Tanzim Hurras al-Din, or the Religious Guardians’ Organization, in 2018. While HTS remains focused on events in Syria, Tanzim Hurras al-Din is headed by al-Qaeda veterans who may seek to use Syria as a base to launch high-profile terrorist attacks against the West. This posture is a departure from al-Qaeda’s recent focus on grassroots appeal in Syria and, if it comes to fruition, it will probably have significant ramifications for the group’s return to its former glory. Another important angle is that there are several Jordanian jihadi veterans among Tanzim Hurras al-Din’s leadership cadre who were close to Zarqawi and, as such, there is both historical and ideological affinity with IS, which increases the probability that Hurras might successfully poach IS members and bring them into the al-Qaeda fold.The rebranding process for al-Qaeda in Syria was undertaken partly out of necessity, but it was also strategic in nature. From a pragmatic standpoint, the rebrandings have served to put some distance between al-Qaeda and a host of imitators and rivals. This could be an effort by the group to learn from past mistakes, when the leadership’s reluctance to publicly disavow Zarqawi traded short-term gains for long-term losses and eventually contributed to the split, an event that seemed like an existential threat to al-Qaeda throughout 2014. The strategic part of the rebranding is no different from a company’s use of public relations and marketing to refashion its image – al-Qaeda now seeks to present itself as the “moderate alternative” to the Islamic State. The IS brand was represented by the caliphate and the group’s reliance on anomic violence, while al-Qaeda sought to position itself as an organization more adept at strategic planning and with more attractive prospects for enduing success in the future.Although the rebranding is considered a feint by many counterterrorism scholars, it just might have worked to recast al-Qaeda’s image within Syria. And so, even while the emergence of IS at one point threatened the existence of al-Qaeda, it also presented the latter with an opportunity. Al-Qaeda’s calculated decision to distance itself from its former satellite organization was an effort to portray itself as a legitimate, capable, and independent force in the ongoing Syrian civil war. Another objective was to prove that the militants were dedicated to helping Syrians prevail in their struggle. Finally, it would give core al-Qaeda a modicum of plausible deniability as it paves the way for its erstwhile allies to gain eligibility for military aid from a collection of external nations.Now that the Islamic State has lost its caliphate, al-Qaeda may be the only group viewed as militarily capable of challenging the Assad regime’s grip on power, although, as of mid-2018, that seems like a long shot. Al-Qaeda could certainly prove to be the longer-term threat to stability in Syria, primarily due to its grassroots support and local appeal. Unlike the Islamic State, al-Qaeda is perceived as an entity willing to work with the population and possessing the resources necessary to provide at least some of the trappings of governance. In the long term, al-Qaeda could resemble Lebanese Hezbollah – a violent non-state actor that has solidified political legitimacy while still retaining its ability to wage large-scale acts of terrorism and political violence.Depending on where it operates, al-Qaeda has shifted between protector, predator, and parasite, labels which are not mutually exclusive. In both Yemen and Mali, its members demonstrate a remarkable knack for pragmatism when operating in the midst of brutal civil wars. After infiltrating local rebel groups, al-Qaeda fighters parrot their grievances and champion parochial objectives. After ingratiating its fighters, al-Qaeda then ramps up proselytization efforts and introduces a narrative defined by a mixture of local and global themes. Unlike the Islamic State, al-Qaeda is willing to work with other groups, as it has been doing in Syria, where it typically puts locals in charge of units, battalions, and other military formations, lending a sense of local legitimacy to its face in the country. Moreover, al-Qaeda has displayed a penchant for cooperation beyond immediate conflict zones, as evidenced by on-again, off-again tactical cooperation with Iran.One of the most debated issues within the global jihadist movement is the so-called “near versus far debate” about which enemies the militants should concentrate the bulk of their efforts fighting – local apostate regimes or Western countries, especially the United States, but increasingly also the United Kingdom, France, and Australia. Al-Qaeda in Syria has managed to boost its brand through the provision of local services, including water and electricity, while also working to support local bakeries and control market prices of basic foodstuffs. Its leadership publicly announced that it will refrain from attacking the West, at least temporarily, in order to avoid Western counterterrorism reprisals, while simultaneously conserving its resources to concentrate on overthrowing the Assad regime, by far the top priority of Syrian Sunnis.Al-Qaeda’s Syrian leadership also recognizes that it is infinitely more successful when it focuses on local issues instead of a more amorphous and contested struggle with the West. These tensions seem to be at least partly to blame for the continued fracturing and splintering of al-Qaeda in Syria and its multiple iterations and offshoots. The debate over whether to focus locally or to revert back to a relentless quest to conduct spectacular attacks in the West could lead to a long-term and enduring fissure within the global jihadist movement. With the movement already divided by the al-Qaeda – IS split, this issue, similar to the decision on when to attempt to establish the caliphate, is a core ideological debate that is unlikely to be settled anytime soon.For all of al-Qaeda’s attempts at moderation, IS has behaved in an entirely opposite manner, as it pursued an uncompromising strategy of sectarianism, barbarity, and conquest. IS fully embraced sectarianism, seemingly making the killing of Shiites its raison d’être. And while al-Qaeda’s propaganda might still be peppered with derogatory references to Shiites, in general it favors a much more measured approach than IS. The groups are different in many ways, some subtle and others not. For example, rather than working with local groups, IS consistently acted as a conquering army, routing local militant leaders rather than working alongside them. In addition, locals were taxed, extorted, and closely policed by IS religious patrols to ensure strict adherence to sharia law.IS’s approach to warfare was reflected in its fighting style, whereby the group relied on conventional means of warfare, including artillery and tanks, in combination with some asymmetric tactics. When IS assumed control of a certain swath of territory, it often installed foreigners (Chechens, Tunisians, and Uzbeks) in command of the area. But its success came with a price. The more territory IS took over and the more brazen its displays of military might, the more likely the Coalition could no longer ignore its actions. The result was that, compared to other Salafi-jihadist groups operating in Syria, IS bore the brunt of Wester counterterrorism operations, a development that suited al-Qaeda just fine. The relentless stream of IS propaganda directed at the West – particularly the gruesome videos of beheadings, burnings, and crucifixions – left the Coalition with little choice but to set its sights on the caliphate. The success IS experienced in building its proto-state elevated it to the top priority for the Coalition. Accordingly, al-Qaeda in Syria was given breathing room to patiently rebuild its credibility and political legitimacy among locals. Gartenstein-Ross has described this as a “strategy of deliberate yet low-key growth.”The future of al-Qaeda and IS will be largely defined by the competition between the two. There is little debate that, beginning around 2014, IS could successfully lay claim to be the undisputed leader of the global jihadist movement. Once its caliphate collapsed, that began to change, and its current decline may be accompanied by al-Qaeda’s rise back to preeminence. There are clear signs that al-Qaeda has modified its tactics to take advantage of what it sees as a unique opportunity. In Syria’s Idlib province, al-Qaeda successfully cultivated grassroots support and by mid-2017 was beginning to accept former IS fighters into its ranks, a development most would have thought unthinkable just a year or two earlier. Al-Qaeda’s leadership realizes that its response to the Arab Spring was sclerotic and is now making amends, focusing its resources and energy on the concerns most salient to Sunnis, a strategy that has helped the group spread its roots throughout northwestern Syria. It has also used this strategy successfully throughout parts of Yemen, where it operates under various front organizations, branches of Ansar Sharia, and other Salafi groups.Al-Qaeda’s more balanced and predictable approach to governing is geared toward winning the popular support of civilian populations. Life under the Islamic State, even for its own loyal subjects, was enforced by draconian religious interpretations and subsequent enforcement of punishments for those who were not fastidious and completely obedient. Al-Qaeda was far less stringent and could be indifferent to perceived offenses that would draw harsh rebuke from the Islamic State. The year 2018 marks the 30-year anniversary of al-Qaeda’s founding and it is clear that the group has evolved, adapted, and learned over time. Its ability to establish widespread political legitimacy through a refurbished image could propel the group through well into its fourth decade.This shift over time by al-Qaeda to a more tolerant organization was in part a result of Zawahiri’s leadership. For all of the criticism he endures for lacking charisma, a critique most jihadist scholars find unassailable, Zawahiri does give al-Qaeda the benefit of continuity and a historical appreciation for what has traditionally worked and what has failed in the jihadists’ ongoing struggle against their adversaries. With his direction, the group has made course corrections based on trial and error and actively sought to amend previous errors in doctrine and strategy.Al-Qaeda in Syria has gone to great lengths to protect its image by rebranding its affiliate several times already. Bilaad al-Shaam, or the Land of the Levantine People, is highly coveted by multiple groups within the global jihadist movement for religious and geographical reasons. Zawahiri sees Syria as an opportunity to demonstrate relevance, juxtapose al-Qaeda to the Islamic State, and position his group as the more capable and pragmatic entity and, thus, the group worth siding with as the competition continues.Perhaps the most interesting change in al-Qaeda’s behavior since the death of bin Laden is that the group no longer seems obsessed with striking the West and, indeed, according to Bruce Hoffman, in 2015 Zawahiri issued strict orders to Mohammed al-Jolani not to use Syria as a launching pad to attack the West. There are several possible reasons for this decision, including that al-Qaeda’s infrastructure in Europe was not nearly as robust as that of the Islamic State, and thus any attack was probably going to pale in comparison to what IS had already achieved.Another, more nefarious possibility is that Zawahiri is merely playing the “long game” while strategically concealing its Khorasan Group assets as IS is further attenuated. Again, this might be changing with the continued splintering of groups in Syria and the emergence of Tanzim Hurras al-Din. At least in terms of capability, if not intent, discerning a group’s organizational structure could provide clues to its reach and ability to conduct external attacks. Do groups adopt a more decentralized structure to conduct external attacks, or are attacks outside of the group’s main territory a byproduct of a flatter structure? Relatedly, it is possible that too much structure is assigned to jihadist groups by those attempting to analyze them. Al-Qaeda and IS, in addition to their respective affiliates, may in reality be far less monolithic than scholars and analysts believe.Colin P. Clarke is a Senior Research Fellow at The Soufan Center and a senior adjunct political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Image: Reuters

August 22, 2019 at 05:06PM via IFTTT

[dwestfieldblog]

IT SEEMS TO BE NOW OR FOREVER/ A NEW DISORDER OF THE AGES

(Or is it only ancient and unjustified?) Hail Eris...I escaped England on the day Boris Johnson became the newest puppet of masters, vested interests, donors and manipulators. The evil of of two lessers. 23rd of July, Sirius day (The sun behind the sun). British people prefer characters these days more than actual character. Put it down to the Reality TV facebook twitter lifestyle. A loveable eccentric eh? Blonde and bumbling, good for a laugh huh? Despite the fact that he is a serial barefaced liar, was a very dubious lord mayor of London with highly expensive/ridiculous ideas and utter bollocks at being Foreign Secretary. Boris wrote in 1999 'I am a raving Euro federalist...a pro European of the most violent, dyspeptic and incurable disposition'. (That was until he saw 52 percent of Brits wanted to leave the EU and thought AHA! I smell a way to power.) We all forgive a rogue with boyish charm don't we? Let's see how long the United Kingdom survives. On the day I flew back The New York Times front page had a column: 'Is Johnson how Britain will end?' 

Depressing advert seen on the side of of red London bus...'Bucket Life (KFC) delivered'. Buckets of antibiotic pumped peculiar half 'chicken' type chemicals straight to your door. Good to have the empty bucket handy after one has consumed a feast fit for vomiting straight out again. Obesity well on the rise over there, he says, wolfing an entire packet of chocolate waffles with half a litre of cold milk.

Religion/politics...Nice quoted headline from a Taliban spokesman last month: 'We will not bomb schools or hospitals'. How very decent and noble of them after all these years, perhaps there aren't enough left to bother with. Today on the BBC news their spokesman said they 'never targeted civilians'. Well quite a lot seem to have been accidentally blown up by roadside and suicide bombs...Hard to imagine a decent future for the non fanatical people of Afghanistan, especially the females and shameful that the west is withdrawing because 'peace' is so near. Fnord. Perhaps they will get a cut in the opium profits/prophets. 'Mission accomplished'. Really? Saudi Arabia will now allow women to go out without permission or a guardian. In '2019'? Surely they will microchip them under the veil and have them followed by drones. How long did it take the sheiks just to accept female drivers? Nice folk who agreed to release a woman's rights activist only IF she said she hadn't been tortured. Swine.

'Can Christians in the US survive without bibles? The answer is probably not'. Thus spake the Global Times newspaper, run by the allegedly communist party of China. This, in response to hearing of new US tariffs on Chinese goods...guess where their bibles are made? That's right. 'The spiritual world of most American people is based on China's industrial capability'. Fascinating sentence on many levels. Take five seconds and think on the implications of that, if you will...

I watched several Trump debacles on CNN this summer. As usual, the 'fake news/liberal media' (etc etc) doesn't actually need to make any stories up, he provides a limitless supply of verbatim goodies with which to play. And then tries to deny he ever said them by using outright lies and obfustication (exactly the same as Boris's 'dead cat on the table' idea.) The four congresswomen of colour Trump ranted about...the chanting crowd 'Send her back'....'I didn't like that they did that and I started speaking very quickly'....Live TV coverage showed it took him 13 seconds before he spoke over them, while he turned left and right...and just for a second got that look of shiny eyed pride. His sentence that he had been 'down there' with the first responders on Nine Eleven. Surely his supporters (apart from QAnon who is either a moron, brilliant comedian or Kremlin sock puppet) must know he is lying in their faces..perhaps they really don't care. Like Melania's coat.

One of the congresswomen (Born in Somalia and a naturalised citizen) had made a non racist comment that some congressmen appear to have received money from Israeli businesses to promote their interests. Well..seems likely and fair enough, that is how it usually works everywhere. Those with money pay politicians to dance and the dosh is gleefully accepted. Not just Israel. It looks as if Trump seized on this as a useful way of stirring up manure. Criticising the state of Israel and her government is not racist just because they are Jewish. Corruption is corruption, whatever the colour or creed. And a prostitute is a prostitute. How many of Trump's KKK followers and Republican Christian haters of abortion actually support Israel? Take a calm guess on the percentages of probability. How many 'acting' people has he around him now? (One way of keeping them on their toes...) 'Fat tangerine racist with the brains of a McNugget' indeed. Hopefully he will continue to take no unhealthy exercise and maintain his cheeseburger diet.  

And Yet Another mass slaughter by a man/boy with a gun. In protest at the 'Hispanic invasion'. In Texas. That's right Texas, which used to belong to the Mexicans before the old land grab in the name of oil. Trump rambling that bigotry, racism and white supremacy have no place in America. Well apparently they do and are not diminished by your former and continuing outright lack of total condemnation over the last few years. Although they have been strengthened by your petulant little blonde boy Hitler youth type attitudes towards blacks, Moslems, Native Americans and Mexicans. Germophobia because of colour? (unless the showers are golden) Does darker skin seem dirty to you? You approach black sportsmen and musicians with a type of benevolent fascination rather than actual friendship.  

Extinction Rebellion...Hmm..'And yes, some of us may die in the process', as one of the English leaders of the movement said. Unlikely the 52 year old with a PhD meant himself. However, a placard I saw held aloft by a young protester read; 'WHY AM I BEING EDUCATED IF YOU DON'T LISTEN TO THE EDUCATED' was a highly salient point (albeit without a question mark at the end.) Scientists amass careful evidence of global warming and the politicians, being paid regular large sums by oil, gas, precious metal companies etc, ignore long term survival for the sake of all following generations. Leave it for the kids to inherit a wasteland. However, in the XR handbook, it mentions the protests causing the 'necessary material disruption and economic cost'. Costs which will be mostly paid by those on average to minimum incomes...doesn't really square with XR also seeking the 'redistribution of wealth'. Marxist twats masturbating their egos. Personally, I am far more on the side of the rebellious, always have been and will be, just seems a shame XR seem so full of smugness, radical unbalanced vegans and hatred. (and I would like to know exactly where their funding comes from) Not possible to be a quiet, determined but peaceful fanatic. I have always liked Jaz Coleman's old quote that 'Fanaticism is the only way of dealing with a situation of overwhelming odds.' At last reason makes perfect sense! And speaking of those who love Mother Earth...

Who didn't love Putin's wonderful speech to a manufacturing and industrial forum in Yekaterinburg?....Hilarious stand up comedy as he asked 'How many birds are dying?' (By flying into wind farm turbines.) And followed that heartfelt classic up with 'This is no joke, the worms crawl right out of the ground' (due to the shaking...) 'This is the consequence of these modern forms of energy production'. In other words, keep buying oil and gas and sod clean solar and wind power because some worms and birds have a problem with it. How does the universe not laugh him into a Siberian gulag? Trump had said that wind turbines 'are killing all the eagles'. He didn't mention the worms. Don't mention the worms! It is lovely to know Mr Putin cares so much about our feathered and slimy friends. (Good to see Russia welcomed back into the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe after 5 years out in the howling wilderness for its invasion of Crimea. Well, the PCE were running very low on funding and Russia owed them a lot of well needed roubles. These assemblies cost money...and souls for Yog Sothoth)

Many hundreds of protesters have been arrested in Moscow over the last couple of weeks. They had been asking a fair question of where all the opposition parties and leaders had gone for the local elections. And the main opposition leader was moved from prison to hospital (and then back again) due to having had 'an allergic reaction'. Well, poison can do that to a man. Especially when he thwarts the Kremlin in any way. Whoever described Russia as a democracy? Not Solzhenitsyn. 11th August, one week after it told America that it is watching its missile programme VERY closely and will 'match every step with one of our own', Russia tells Google to stop advertising 'illegal demonstrations' or it will take action against it. Lovely news.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong...How long before the veritable Mrs Lam 'invites' the tanks in to help? Good luck with freedom people, be careful. At least Li Pcheng is dead. (one of the minds behind the June 1989 massacre of students in Peking) As one newspaper over here said 'One butcher is gone, others remain.' Detention Centres/'Vocational Schools' have been set up in Tibet where lucky students 10-20 years old can 'learn law (!) language and employable skills' and renounce the Dalai Lama. The latter is non optional. And the former. China has said the camps are 'all expenses paid humane boarding schools'. Humane is not a word for semantic realists to associate with their regime. One more time, Tibet is NOT China in any way whatsoever and certainly not spiritually. A fair number of Huawei workers were educated at and worked with and for China's varied military agencies. Enough to be worrying that Britain has yet to refuse them contracts involved in building the 5G mobile network. Smart phones for foolish people. Are these really the folk to have linked up to a telecommunications network in a democratic country?

Speaking of which...Seems that most folk in Britain have not got the smallest idea how much they have been manipulated. Direct links between Boris, (still in close touch with Steve Bannon) Farage and Trump. The well interwoven threads of populists pandering to the lowest common denominator in the name of self gain. The democracies of the western world are being turned against themselves in the name of foul hearted demagogues. Lack of balanced education has made a deep mass unawareness of actual facts. Human emotions are being weaponised to make choices based on wrong information.  It has always been so but it is far easier now due to false twitter accounts/facebook et al. Trump's entire vision is based exactly on genuine false news and what he and the other similar familiars are promoting is a virus of illusion and outright lies.  

Psyops..(psychological operations) have been used for centuries. There is much wrong with the EU, but they are way closer to us (Britain) in spirit and democratic culture than Russia and China. Those voting for more control of borders will eventually be gifted with less and less freedom but at least it will have been their democratic choice. Arf. The majority of Britons believe they are making patriotic choices. They are not. They are assisting in the break up and destabilising of friendships based on level headed, pragmatical agreements. And into this weakness will move those whose only interest is mass control. We are serving our enemies.

But that said, it is good to be aware that 'Opinions result from perceptions and perceptions reinforce opinions which then further control perceptions, in a repeating loop that logic can never penetrate.' Stasis and decay result unless a little shock of the new is introduced one way or the other to 'startle the brain enough to re-frame its experiences'. So there you have it. Or as Buddha said, 'We are the result of everything we have thought.' Makes you think, doesn't it? Ha. How do you know you are thinking? So...You knew that would happen but you did it anyway...

Back to normality....

While in London, I played with my band and after we had played a fast song called Natural Chaos, (a classic) the bass player told me I had shape shifted and looked like a reptile. No drugs involved. Very disturbing to be told this as I have various theories about those who look reptilian. Oh well, perhaps cold rage and evil are still within. Shame. I spent three and a half hours one afternoon freeing a bumble bee from a large black spider's web in the garden. Got it out, gave it a couple of flowers to suck from and get energy, some rain drops of water to help clean itself, tiny tiny bits of hedge twig to gently attempt to get the web off like a careful brain surgeon. Got two legs free, very gently helped clean one half of the head (it didn't fight or try to sting me) Put it in sunshine for some seconds to power it up, then back into cooler shade and back to work. Absolute focus of three hours. Web is VERY difficult to get off. I left it alone with some more rain drops from a flower tray to drink from. Went back, tried again until darkness fell. Had to leave it by side of flower bed, still half covered by binding web. In the morning found the bee was dead but had managed to remove the rest of the web itself and die clean. The energy it must have spent would have been massive. Wondered about attempting to mess with nature and whether it is justified but I could not have left it wrapped up and trapped. So, I am a hippy reptile. And according to someone in my family I am also a Socialist and cynical. Cynical I can live with (having checked the exact meaning and origin) but bollocks to Socialism. Labels are truly ridiculous...Libertarian anarchist is closer to a useful definition. Or failed mystic. Arf arf arf. The wizard without any whizz. Maybe.

'Whatever is done for love is beyond good and evil.' Hmmm...First, try define Love.  What do you seek? Happiness and learning, Freedom and magick...Balance?   Between the I and the AM, there sparks the relay of Will and vision and so, creation. 'Not until the male become female and the female becomes male shall ye enter the kingdom of Heaven, Jesus (Yeshua ben Yosif) in the Gospel of Thomas....So, All together now..Yod-He-Vau-He...(To couples too withdrawn to truly open their hearts, fearing pain or too guilty to express their inner nature to their partner or themselves.) Sex without true passion leads to orgasm but without connection by those who have been taught or who have learned to be afraid of love. Chasing orgasms is a fraction of the colossal energy and brain change possible. When Earth blends with Heaven, the astral is born and all take on aspects of the other, empowering all. Merge the fields, unify the forces and don't rush before the fields are charged. Open and focus.

I read in the New York Times today about various problems with tumblr...would be a pity if it vanished. All I have seen in the years I have been on, has been of far more heart and good spirited humour and care than other sources of individual expression on line for free.  All the best back to school...All Hail Discordia and see you with Love at Halloween. Keep expanding your reality labyrinths until now or forever....

[wetrumpfeed]

Afternoon MAGAthread: YOUR WEEKLY PRESIDENTIAL RECAP!

HAPPPPPPY SATURDAY PATRIOTS!

u/Ivaginaryfriend here with your weekly recap of all things spicy! For those that missed any past recaps you can check those out here!

Sunday, February 17th:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Important meetings and calls on China Trade Deal, and more, today with my staff. Big progress being made on soooo many different fronts! Our Country has such fantastic potential for future growth and greatness on an even higher level!

Democrats in the Senate are still slow walking hundreds of highly qualified people wanting to come into government. Never been such an abuse in our country’s history. Mitch should not let Senate go home until all are approved. We need our Ambassadors and all others NOW!

52% Approval Rating, 93% in Republican Party ( a record )! Pretty amazing considering that 93% (also) of my press is REALLY BAD. The “people” are SMART!

Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!

THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

(Tweeting The White House)

(Tweeting The White House)

“These guys, the investigators, ought to be in jail. What they have done, working with the Obama intelligence agencies, is simply unprecedented. This is one of the greatest political hoaxes ever perpetrated on the people of this Country, and Mueller is a coverup.” Rush Limbaugh

The Mueller investigation is totally conflicted, illegal and rigged! Should never have been allowed to begin, except for the Collusion and many crimes committed by the Democrats. Witch Hunt!

Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won.... ... ....Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

William Barr is arriving at a Justice Department that desperately needs an infusion of credibility, writes @KimStrassel https://www.wsj.com/articles/bill-barrs-hot-mess-11550188935 … via @WSJ

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Actual hate crime

SNL went to the dark side last night!

Bahaha, Ted Cruz just drop-kicked CNN’s tweet back across the border 💯🔥

Someone at the Air Force Academy wrote, "go home n*****," on a dorm wall in 2017. This made national news. The school president gave a speech condemning it and racism at the school. The video went viral. Turned out the student that wrote it was the same black student that reported it.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

so many people of color have fallen for the democrats lies.

Hold my bleach!!!

You are fake noose

This is what happens when you let the kids sit at the grown-ups' table

How do people not see this???

Monday, February 18th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Trump Delivers Remarks to the Venezuelan American Community

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

“After two years and interviewing more than two hundred witnesses, the Senate Intelligence Committee has NOT discovered any direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russia.” Ken Dilanian @NBCNews

Wow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught..... ... ....There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous “insurance policy” in full action!

Great analysis by @foxandfriends!

“This was an illegal coup attempt on the President of the United States.” Dan Bongino on @foxandfriends True!

Hope you are enjoying your President’s Day, our Country is making unprecedented progress!

(Retweeting FLOTUS) A beautiful ceremony at @Nicklaus4kids hospital today to celebrate their new changes! I hope the garden nurtures & heals all the young patients who visit. Thank you to the generous donors & to @Nicklaus4kids for all the important work you are doing. #BeBest

We are here to proclaim that a new day is coming in Latin America. In Venezuela and across the Western Hemisphere, Socialism is DYING - and liberty, prosperity, and democracy are being REBORN...

The people of Venezuela are standing for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY – and the United States of America is standing right by their side!

I ask every member of the Maduro regime: End this nightmare of poverty, hunger and death. LET YOUR PEOPLE GO. Set your country free! Now is the time for all Venezuelan Patriots to act together, as one united people. Nothing could be better for the future of Venezuela!

Today more than 50 countries around the world now recognize the rightful government of Venezuela. The Venezuelan people have spoken and the world has heard their voice. They are turning the page on Socialism and Dictatorship; and there will be NO GOING BACK!

“The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying & leaking.” @seanhannity @FoxNews Treason!

Amazing!

Thank you JT!

Thank you Andrew - We all miss beautiful Meadow!

(Retweeting real_defender) Our country is making unprecedented progress thanks to the fact that we finally have a president who is keeping his promises and putting America first.

Remember this, Andrew McCabe didn’t go to the bathroom without the approval of Leakin’ James Comey!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Hahaha!!! John Oliver BTFO with an NPC billboard similar to the Bill Maher one!!!

Easiest way to diagnose TDS; wear a hat.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on her tweet saying the Jussie Smollett case was an “attempted modern-day lynching”: “Which tweet? What tweet? … [laughs] Um, ah, ah, uh, okay, so I will say this about that case, I think the facts are still unfolding and um, I’m very, um, concerned”

As His HATE HOAX Unravels, Jussie Smollett Refuses To Meet Chicago Police, Hires Crisis Management Firm...Never Forget: This Race-Baiting, Self-Loathing POS Was Apparently Going To ACCUSE TWO INNOCENT PEOPLE OF HIS CRIME! LOCK HIM UP!

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Just about sums it up

Socialism (Communism) is Evil

Happy Presidents Day pedes!

The Boy Who Cried "TRUMP!"

Happy Presidents Day!

Tuesday, February 19th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

Text of Space Policy Directive-4: Establishment of the United States Space Force

President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration Post

President Trump: “Socialism Is Dying, and Liberty, Prosperity, and Democracy Are Being Reborn."

Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence Visit Auschwitz and Birkenau

V.P. Pence in Poland and Germany: "We will deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be."

President Trump Participates in a Signing Ceremony for Space Policy Directive 4

President Trump and the First Lady Welcome the President and First Lady of Colombia

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

“....(The Witch Hunt) in time likely will become recognized as the greatest scandal in American political history, marking the first occasion in which the U.S. government bureaucrats sought to overturn an election (presidential)!” Victor Davis Hanson And got caught! @FoxNews

Had the opposition party (no, not the Media) won the election, the Stock Market would be down at least 10,000 points by now. We are heading up, up, up!

As I predicted, 16 states, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed a lawsuit in, of course, the 9th Circuit! California, the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion, seems in charge!

The failed Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world record setting, is hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!

The Washington Post is a Fact Checker only for the Democrats. For the Republicans, and for your all time favorite President, it is a Fake Fact Checker!

I never said anything bad about Andrew McCabe’s wife other than she (they) should not have taken large amounts of campaign money from a Crooked Hillary source when Clinton was under investigation by the FBI. I never called his wife a loser to him (another McCabe made up lie)!

(Video)

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

COVINGTON STUDENT SUES WASHINGTON POST FOR 250M

Team Trump statement on crazy Bernie

Here we go again - Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders enters crowded 2020 presidential race

The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gay

Democrats Hate ICE So Much, They're Protecting Illegals Caught Trying To Buy Guns

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

MFW I get to reuse all my Bernie memes from 2016

Trump Supporters in 2019

IT BEGINS dems going to eat each other alive in 2020

Bernie announces he is running for President ONE DAY after President Trump talks about how bad socialism is. HOW FITTING!

About that white privilege...

Wednesday, February 20th:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Trump Meets with the Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

(Retweeting Geraldo Rivera) This is crazy scary. A cabal of unelected bureaucrats-angered & upset that @realDonaldTrump fired their boss-whispered about overthrowing him. Has this ever happened? Why isn’t the mainstream seeing this for what it is. This is malignant arrogance from a man fired for lying.

“Andrew McCabe gave absolutely no evidence of any threat to substantiate his ABSURD claim.” @LouDobbs

Crazy Bernie has just entered the race. I wish him well!

The Press has never been more dishonest than it is today. Stories are written that have absolutely no basis in fact. The writers don’t even call asking for verification. They are totally out of control. Sadly, I kept many of them in business. In six years, they all go BUST!

“The Washington Post ignored basic journalistic standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump.” Covington student suing WAPO. Go get them Nick. Fake News!

“If thinking that James Comey is not a good FBI Director is tantamount to being an agent of Russia, than just list all the people that are agents of Russia - Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Rod Rosenstein who wrote the memo to get rid of Comey, the Inspector General....” Trey Gowdy

The New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!

California now wants to scale back their already failed “fast train” project by substantially shortening the distance so that it no longer goes from L.A. to San Francisco. A different deal and record cost overruns. Send the Federal Government back the Billions of Dollars WASTED!

We have just built this powerful Wall in New Mexico. Completed on January 30, 2019 – 47 days ahead of schedule! Many miles more now under construction! #FinishTheWall

I have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Jussie Smollett has been indicted by a grand jury

CNN claims that "Trump doesn't have a sense of humor." very fucking ironic considering this is the same network that got so butthurt over a meme that they doxxed the creator.

BREAKING: Alabama woman who joined ISIS will not be allowed to return to US - Pompeo

FITTON: MASSIVE Voter Fraud: How many aliens illegally voting is too many? 30,000? 10,000? 1,000? 100? Even one may be too many if it is YOUR vote canceled out by an alien illegally voting! Voter id and citizenship verification needed to secure our elections...

Attorney general may announce completion of Mueller investigation next week

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Perfect

Beat way to picture it

When fake news backfires (Washington Post BTFO)

US/India relations have never been better... Thanks to Malhari Trump!

HOLDUP Muthana

Thursday, February 21st:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Donald J. Trump Appoints Individuals to Key Administration Posts

President Trump Participates in a Reception for National African American History Month

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on......... ... ....something that is so obviously the future. I want the United States to win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies. We must always be the leader in everything we do, especially when it comes to the very exciting world of technology!

THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!

.@JussieSmollett - what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!? #MAGA

Senator John Cornyn has done an outstanding job for the people of Texas. He is strong on Crime, the Border, the Second Amendment and loves our Military and Vets. John has my complete and total endorsement. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

We are here to honor the extraordinary contributions of African-Americans to every aspect of American Life, History and Culture. From the earliest days of this Nation, African-American Leaders, Pioneers, & Visionaries have uplifted & inspired our Country...

(Retweeting FLOTUS) Wonderful evening at @WhiteHouse celebrating #AfricanAmericanHistoryMonth!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

The 404 page on Trump’s website leads to this. LOL

The rest of Reddit hides things that go against the narrative. That's why they have to hide The_Donald from /all. Ridiculous!

There goes her campaign.

More Leftist Violence - Caught on Video - University of California Police Seek Public's Help Identifying Attacker who Assaulted Conservative at UC-Berkeley Campus During Recruitment Drive

Unfrigging Real. Back on the set of Empire after arrest.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Washington Post needs to think of a better strategy.

5/7 doctors agree that The_Donald is better than antidepressants (aka fake news). Ask your pede if Covefe is right for you.

Aged like cheap red hair dye

Make Communist An Insult Again.

Friday, February 22nd:

TODAY'S ACTION:

President Trump Meets with the Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Highly respected Senator Richard Burr, head of Senate Intelligence, said, after interviewing over 200 witnesses and studying over 2 million pages of documents, “WE HAVE FOUND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA.” The Witch Hunt, so bad for our Country, must end!

Fake News is so bad for our Country!

A must read by @KimStrassel!

(Retweeting Secretary Sonny)BREAKING: In Oval Office meeting today, the Chinese committed to buy an additional 10 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans. Hats off to @POTUS for bringing China to the table. Strategy is working. Show of good faith by the Chinese. Also indications of more good news to come.

I am pleased to announce that Kelly Knight Craft, our current Ambassador to Canada, is being nominated to be United States Ambassador to the United Nations.... ... ....Kelly has done an outstanding job representing our Nation and I have no doubt that, under her leadership, our Country will be represented at the highest level. Congratulations to Kelly and her entire family!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

ISIS bride who called for the DEATH of both American veterans and patriots, falsely claims to be a U.S. citizen

President Trump to Use 'Nuclear Option' to Recover $2.5 Bn More from California's Failed High-Speed Rail Project

DON’T PICK A FIGHT WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS MORE MONEY THAN GOD, HORSEFACE 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Of Course: CAIR is Defending ISIS Bride Who Called For the Murder of U.S. Troops, Innocent Americans

Justin Trudeau's Top Adviser Resigns amid Corruption Scandal. This needs more coverage in the media, don't let it die please. Canada needs a new PM

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

The current state of the political side of reddit.

Ralph Northam, Baby Killer, is still governor of Virginia because the blackface sideshow worked.

I was trying to take a picture with VP and I got photobombed by POTUS

Take a lap, Bern

Spot the difference? Fake AF News

Saturday, February 23rd:

🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:

Great new book: “The Case For Trump” by Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Senior Fellow.

God Bless the people of Venezuela!

There is far more ENERGY on the Right than there is on the Left. That’s why we just won the Senate and why we will win big in 2020. The Fake News just doesn’t want to report the facts. Border Security is a big factor. The under construction Wall will stop Gangs, Drugs and Crime!

SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:

Alleged? We have the Video.

Uh oh, the mask fell off, pssst your dictatorship is showing.

5 House Democrats took $60,000 trip to South Africa for Beyonce; concert, records show

The President is going to abort 32 miles of those monstrosities known as "midget fences (vehicle barriers)" and "Vietnam War era metal landing strip sheet barriers" and replace them with a beautiful 20 to 30 feet WALL! This project will happen in Yuma, AZ.

How are those bread lines working out Bernie? Live coverage of clashes at the Columbia-Venezuela border.

🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:

Children ... kids ... it's an act. An act.

Meanwhile on the southern border.

Found on r/OffensiveMemes. I’m actually not offended at all.

Just a reminder for those keeping score on Bernie’s “support”. This man bent the knee to a DNC that had screwed him over, while his very own supporters protested outside the arena for him! Spineless!

PLEASE MR. PRESIDENT, I CAN'T TAKE ALL THIS WINNING!

Without further ado, some tunes to get you jamming through all this winning:

Steal My Sunshine

Ascension

How's It Going To Be

What I Got

Smells Like Teen Spirit

Roses

MAGA ON PATRIOTS!

submitted by /u/Ivaginaryfriend [link] [comments]

[robgrayofficial]

HAPPPPPPY SATURDAY PATRIOTS!u/Ivaginaryfriend here with your weekly recap of all things spicy! For those that missed any past recaps you can check those out here!Sunday, February 17th:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Important meetings and calls on China Trade Deal, and more, today with my staff. Big progress being made on soooo many different fronts! Our Country has such fantastic potential for future growth and greatness on an even higher level!Democrats in the Senate are still slow walking hundreds of highly qualified people wanting to come into government. Never been such an abuse in our country’s history. Mitch should not let Senate go home until all are approved. We need our Ambassadors and all others NOW!52% Approval Rating, 93% in Republican Party ( a record )! Pretty amazing considering that 93% (also) of my press is REALLY BAD. The “people” are SMART!Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!(Tweeting The White House)(Tweeting The White House)“These guys, the investigators, ought to be in jail. What they have done, working with the Obama intelligence agencies, is simply unprecedented. This is one of the greatest political hoaxes ever perpetrated on the people of this Country, and Mueller is a coverup.” Rush LimbaughThe Mueller investigation is totally conflicted, illegal and rigged! Should never have been allowed to begin, except for the Collusion and many crimes committed by the Democrats. Witch Hunt!Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won.... ... ....Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!William Barr is arriving at a Justice Department that desperately needs an infusion of credibility, writes @KimStrassel https://on.wsj.com/2SXMxNo … via @WSJSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Actual hate crimeSNL went to the dark side last night!Bahaha, Ted Cruz just drop-kicked CNN’s tweet back across the border 💯🔥Someone at the Air Force Academy wrote, "go home n*****," on a dorm wall in 2017. This made national news. The school president gave a speech condemning it and racism at the school. The video went viral. Turned out the student that wrote it was the same black student that reported it.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:so many people of color have fallen for the democrats lies.Hold my bleach!!!You are fake nooseThis is what happens when you let the kids sit at the grown-ups' tableHow do people not see this???Monday, February 18th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Trump Delivers Remarks to the Venezuelan American Community🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:“After two years and interviewing more than two hundred witnesses, the Senate Intelligence Committee has NOT discovered any direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and Russia.” Ken Dilanian @NBCNewsWow, so many lies by now disgraced acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe. He was fired for lying, and now his story gets even more deranged. He and Rod Rosenstein, who was hired by Jeff Sessions (another beauty), look like they were planning a very illegal act, and got caught..... ... ....There is a lot of explaining to do to the millions of people who had just elected a president who they really like and who has done a great job for them with the Military, Vets, Economy and so much more. This was the illegal and treasonous “insurance policy” in full action!Great analysis by @foxandfriends!“This was an illegal coup attempt on the President of the United States.” Dan Bongino on @foxandfriends True!Hope you are enjoying your President’s Day, our Country is making unprecedented progress!(Retweeting FLOTUS) A beautiful ceremony at @Nicklaus4kids hospital today to celebrate their new changes! I hope the garden nurtures & heals all the young patients who visit. Thank you to the generous donors & to @Nicklaus4kids for all the important work you are doing. #BeBestWe are here to proclaim that a new day is coming in Latin America. In Venezuela and across the Western Hemisphere, Socialism is DYING - and liberty, prosperity, and democracy are being REBORN...The people of Venezuela are standing for FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY – and the United States of America is standing right by their side!I ask every member of the Maduro regime: End this nightmare of poverty, hunger and death. LET YOUR PEOPLE GO. Set your country free! Now is the time for all Venezuelan Patriots to act together, as one united people. Nothing could be better for the future of Venezuela!Today more than 50 countries around the world now recognize the rightful government of Venezuela. The Venezuelan people have spoken and the world has heard their voice. They are turning the page on Socialism and Dictatorship; and there will be NO GOING BACK!“The biggest abuse of power and corruption scandal in our history, and it’s much worse than we thought. Andrew McCabe (FBI) admitted to plotting a coup (government overthrow) when he was serving in the FBI, before he was fired for lying & leaking.” @seanhannity @FoxNews Treason!Amazing!Thank you JT!Thank you Andrew - We all miss beautiful Meadow!(Retweeting real_defender) Our country is making unprecedented progress thanks to the fact that we finally have a president who is keeping his promises and putting America first.Remember this, Andrew McCabe didn’t go to the bathroom without the approval of Leakin’ James Comey!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Hahaha!!! John Oliver BTFO with an NPC billboard similar to the Bill Maher one!!!Easiest way to diagnose TDS; wear a hat.Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) on her tweet saying the Jussie Smollett case was an “attempted modern-day lynching”: “Which tweet? What tweet? … [laughs] Um, ah, ah, uh, okay, so I will say this about that case, I think the facts are still unfolding and um, I’m very, um, concerned”As His HATE HOAX Unravels, Jussie Smollett Refuses To Meet Chicago Police, Hires Crisis Management Firm...Never Forget: This Race-Baiting, Self-Loathing POS Was Apparently Going To ACCUSE TWO INNOCENT PEOPLE OF HIS CRIME! LOCK HIM UP!🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Just about sums it upSocialism (Communism) is EvilHappy Presidents Day pedes!The Boy Who Cried "TRUMP!"Happy Presidents Day!Tuesday, February 19th:TODAY'S ACTION:Text of Space Policy Directive-4: Establishment of the United States Space ForcePresident Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Individual to a Key Administration PostPresident Trump: “Socialism Is Dying, and Liberty, Prosperity, and Democracy Are Being Reborn."Vice President Pence and Mrs. Pence Visit Auschwitz and BirkenauV.P. Pence in Poland and Germany: "We will deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be."President Trump Participates in a Signing Ceremony for Space Policy Directive 4President Trump and the First Lady Welcome the President and First Lady of Colombia🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:“....(The Witch Hunt) in time likely will become recognized as the greatest scandal in American political history, marking the first occasion in which the U.S. government bureaucrats sought to overturn an election (presidential)!” Victor Davis Hanson And got caught! @FoxNewsHad the opposition party (no, not the Media) won the election, the Stock Market would be down at least 10,000 points by now. We are heading up, up, up!As I predicted, 16 states, led mostly by Open Border Democrats and the Radical Left, have filed a lawsuit in, of course, the 9th Circuit! California, the state that has wasted billions of dollars on their out of control Fast Train, with no hope of completion, seems in charge!The failed Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world record setting, is hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!The Washington Post is a Fact Checker only for the Democrats. For the Republicans, and for your all time favorite President, it is a Fake Fact Checker!I never said anything bad about Andrew McCabe’s wife other than she (they) should not have taken large amounts of campaign money from a Crooked Hillary source when Clinton was under investigation by the FBI. I never called his wife a loser to him (another McCabe made up lie)!(Video)SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:COVINGTON STUDENT SUES WASHINGTON POST FOR 250MTeam Trump statement on crazy BernieHere we go again - Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders enters crowded 2020 presidential raceThe Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it's still illegal to be gayDemocrats Hate ICE So Much, They're Protecting Illegals Caught Trying To Buy Guns🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:MFW I get to reuse all my Bernie memes from 2016Trump Supporters in 2019IT BEGINS dems going to eat each other alive in 2020Bernie announces he is running for President ONE DAY after President Trump talks about how bad socialism is. HOW FITTING!About that white privilege...Wednesday, February 20th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Trump Meets with the Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Austria🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:(Retweeting Geraldo Rivera) This is crazy scary. A cabal of unelected bureaucrats-angered & upset that @realDonaldTrump fired their boss-whispered about overthrowing him. Has this ever happened? Why isn’t the mainstream seeing this for what it is. This is malignant arrogance from a man fired for lying.“Andrew McCabe gave absolutely no evidence of any threat to substantiate his ABSURD claim.” @LouDobbsCrazy Bernie has just entered the race. I wish him well!The Press has never been more dishonest than it is today. Stories are written that have absolutely no basis in fact. The writers don’t even call asking for verification. They are totally out of control. Sadly, I kept many of them in business. In six years, they all go BUST!“The Washington Post ignored basic journalistic standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump.” Covington student suing WAPO. Go get them Nick. Fake News!“If thinking that James Comey is not a good FBI Director is tantamount to being an agent of Russia, than just list all the people that are agents of Russia - Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Rod Rosenstein who wrote the memo to get rid of Comey, the Inspector General....” Trey GowdyThe New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!California now wants to scale back their already failed “fast train” project by substantially shortening the distance so that it no longer goes from L.A. to San Francisco. A different deal and record cost overruns. Send the Federal Government back the Billions of Dollars WASTED!We have just built this powerful Wall in New Mexico. Completed on January 30, 2019 – 47 days ahead of schedule! Many miles more now under construction! #FinishTheWallI have instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and he fully agrees, not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Jussie Smollett has been indicted by a grand juryCNN claims that "Trump doesn't have a sense of humor." very fucking ironic considering this is the same network that got so butthurt over a meme that they doxxed the creator.BREAKING: Alabama woman who joined ISIS will not be allowed to return to US - PompeoFITTON: MASSIVE Voter Fraud: How many aliens illegally voting is too many? 30,000? 10,000? 1,000? 100? Even one may be too many if it is YOUR vote canceled out by an alien illegally voting! Voter id and citizenship verification needed to secure our elections...Attorney general may announce completion of Mueller investigation next week🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:PerfectBeat way to picture itWhen fake news backfires (Washington Post BTFO)US/India relations have never been better... Thanks to Malhari Trump!HOLDUP MuthanaThursday, February 21st:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Appoints Individuals to Key Administration PostsPresident Trump Participates in a Reception for National African American History Month🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:I want 5G, and even 6G, technology in the United States as soon as possible. It is far more powerful, faster, and smarter than the current standard. American companies must step up their efforts, or get left behind. There is no reason that we should be lagging behind on......... ... ....something that is so obviously the future. I want the United States to win through competition, not by blocking out currently more advanced technologies. We must always be the leader in everything we do, especially when it comes to the very exciting world of technology!THE WALL IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION RIGHT NOW!.@JussieSmollett - what about MAGA and the tens of millions of people you insulted with your racist and dangerous comments!? #MAGASenator John Cornyn has done an outstanding job for the people of Texas. He is strong on Crime, the Border, the Second Amendment and loves our Military and Vets. John has my complete and total endorsement. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!We are here to honor the extraordinary contributions of African-Americans to every aspect of American Life, History and Culture. From the earliest days of this Nation, African-American Leaders, Pioneers, & Visionaries have uplifted & inspired our Country...(Retweeting FLOTUS) Wonderful evening at @WhiteHouse celebrating #AfricanAmericanHistoryMonth!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:The 404 page on Trump’s website leads to this. LOLThe rest of Reddit hides things that go against the narrative. That's why they have to hide The_Donald from /all. Ridiculous!There goes her campaign.More Leftist Violence - Caught on Video - University of California Police Seek Public's Help Identifying Attacker who Assaulted Conservative at UC-Berkeley Campus During Recruitment DriveUnfrigging Real. Back on the set of Empire after arrest.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Washington Post needs to think of a better strategy.5/7 doctors agree that The_Donald is better than antidepressants (aka fake news). Ask your pede if Covefe is right for you.Aged like cheap red hair dyeMake Communist An Insult Again.Friday, February 22nd:TODAY'S ACTION:President Trump Meets with the Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Highly respected Senator Richard Burr, head of Senate Intelligence, said, after interviewing over 200 witnesses and studying over 2 million pages of documents, “WE HAVE FOUND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA.” The Witch Hunt, so bad for our Country, must end!Fake News is so bad for our Country!A must read by @KimStrassel!(Retweeting Secretary Sonny)BREAKING: In Oval Office meeting today, the Chinese committed to buy an additional 10 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans. Hats off to @POTUS for bringing China to the table. Strategy is working. Show of good faith by the Chinese. Also indications of more good news to come.I am pleased to announce that Kelly Knight Craft, our current Ambassador to Canada, is being nominated to be United States Ambassador to the United Nations.... ... ....Kelly has done an outstanding job representing our Nation and I have no doubt that, under her leadership, our Country will be represented at the highest level. Congratulations to Kelly and her entire family!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:ISIS bride who called for the DEATH of both American veterans and patriots, falsely claims to be a U.S. citizenPresident Trump to Use 'Nuclear Option' to Recover $2.5 Bn More from California's Failed High-Speed Rail ProjectDON’T PICK A FIGHT WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS MORE MONEY THAN GOD, HORSEFACE 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Of Course: CAIR is Defending ISIS Bride Who Called For the Murder of U.S. Troops, Innocent AmericansJustin Trudeau's Top Adviser Resigns amid Corruption Scandal. This needs more coverage in the media, don't let it die please. Canada needs a new PM🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:The current state of the political side of reddit.Ralph Northam, Baby Killer, is still governor of Virginia because the blackface sideshow worked.I was trying to take a picture with VP and I got photobombed by POTUSTake a lap, BernSpot the difference? Fake AF NewsSaturday, February 23rd:🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Great new book: “The Case For Trump” by Victor Davis Hanson, Hoover Senior Fellow.God Bless the people of Venezuela!There is far more ENERGY on the Right than there is on the Left. That’s why we just won the Senate and why we will win big in 2020. The Fake News just doesn’t want to report the facts. Border Security is a big factor. The under construction Wall will stop Gangs, Drugs and Crime!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Alleged? We have the Video.Uh oh, the mask fell off, pssst your dictatorship is showing.5 House Democrats took $60,000 trip to South Africa for Beyonce; concert, records showThe President is going to abort 32 miles of those monstrosities known as "midget fences (vehicle barriers)" and "Vietnam War era metal landing strip sheet barriers" and replace them with a beautiful 20 to 30 feet WALL! This project will happen in Yuma, AZ.How are those bread lines working out Bernie? Live coverage of clashes at the Columbia-Venezuela border.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Children ... kids ... it's an act. An act.Meanwhile on the southern border.Found on r/OffensiveMemes. I’m actually not offended at all.Just a reminder for those keeping score on Bernie’s “support”. This man bent the knee to a DNC that had screwed him over, while his very own supporters protested outside the arena for him! Spineless!PLEASE MR. PRESIDENT, I CAN'T TAKE ALL THIS WINNING!Without further ado, some tunes to get you jamming through all this winning:Steal My SunshineAscensionHow's It Going To BeWhat I GotSmells Like Teen SpiritRosesMAGA ON PATRIOTS! #robgray

[clubofinfo]

Expert: The Helsinki Summit – or the Treason Summit, as some call it – of the 16th of July, has come and gone.  It left a smell of burning hot air behind. President Trump opened the meeting by saying that up to now relations between the United States and Russia were bad, and confessing that the US was to blame for it. He wanted them to improve and hoped that this meeting – he indicated that others of similar nature may follow – may be a first step towards normalizing relations between the two atomic super-powers which together, he said, control 90% of the world’s nuclear destructive force. A timely admission, but ignoring the most dangerous and unpredictable atomic power, the rogue nation of Israel. If ever the promising dream-like sounds of Donald Trump of denuclearizing the globe were to see the light of day, Israel would have to be among the first countries to be de-nuclearized, which would be a real step towards world security and peace in the Middle East. During the later Press Conference, Trump though voicing his appreciation for the ‘fine’ secret services of his country, admitted that he trusted more Putin’s word on Russia’s non-interference than that of his secret service —  “why would they interfere?” — for which he was trashed at home by his adversaries, the MSM, the democrats and even the Republicans. Now, back home, Trump has to accommodate the public, telling them he mispronounced ‘would’; he really meant “wouldn’t”… a first rate spectacle of idiocy that, surely, after a while will go away, as everything does that has no solution, but gambles with dishonesty. There is no winning in the indoctrinated and brainwashed to the bones American public. It couldn’t be more obvious how the media are rallying the American people for war with Russia. The greedy military needs war and the economy of the US of A also needs war to boost her GDP, or rather for sheer economic survival. The topic of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential Elections will just not be dropped. After a zillion of proven false accusations, in a reasonable world it would fade away. Not in the US. It is a clear sign of the decline of the empire. It’s the desperate hopelessness of the naked emperor that speaks. So, they call Trump treacherous towards his country – a President who dares saying the truth publicly is called by the slimy Democrats and the yet slimier Republicans and foremost by the mainstream media – a case for impeachment. There is an internal battle raging in the United States. It pulls the country apart. It’s the want of making America Great Again, by concentrating on internal production for local markets, versus the globalized aspirations – the drive for a dollar world hegemony and the full and total subjugation of the peoples and their resources of this globe. The latter will not be possible without an all-out war – and the elite doesn’t really want to live underground perhaps for years in protection of a nuclear fallout nobody knows how long it may last. Trump’s handlers are aware of the alternative, ‘building from within’. Is what Trump is propagating, “America First”, the right approach? Maybe not, but the concept might be right, given the destitute state of the world, where sanctions and trade wars, also initiated by Trump, are creating havoc among former partners. A regrouping of nations, aiming at self-sufficiency and selective trading partners according to cultural and political similarities might bring back national sovereignties, abolishing the corporate globalized approach that has been doing harm to 90% of the people. WTO, the monster made by the west to further advance corporate power over the weak, should and would become obsolete. Trump’s contradictions are what defeats his credibility. He admonishes Madame Merkel for being enslaved by Russia for buying Russian gas instead of the US’s environmentally destructive fracking gas. “We put NATO in Europe to protect you from the enemy, Russia, yet you prefer buying Russian gas than dealing with those who protect you”. It didn’t occur to any of the European NATO halfwits to tell Trump that all that NATO has done so far is destroying countries throughout the Middle East and the world, and that they, the Europeans, have supported the US in their senseless destruction, creating a flood of refugees which now threatens to suffocate Europe. There was nothing, but nothing about protection by NATO. If anything, NATO was an aggressive force, moving ever closer to Russia and flanking China on the eastern front. None of this was said, though, by the European NATO puppets. Trump then goes to Helsinki, meets Putin and says he likes him and he wants to be friends and make peace with Russia. Of course. We all want peace. But who can believe him, when a few days before he accused Germany of playing into the hands of the enemy, Russia? Remember, a year ago at the G7 summit in Hamburg, Trump was shaking Putin’s hand and said ‘I like him’. At the recent disastrous G7 conference in Canada, which turned out to be a G6+1 summit, before running off to Singapore to meet North Koreas Kim Jong-Un, Trump dropped a little bomb, “why not converting the G7 again to the G8 and include Russia?”  He left the group stunned and speechless. So, his drive towards improved relations with Russia is nothing new. It’s just not accepted by the warriors in Washington. The Helsinki summit looked and sounded like a summer show just to continue the attention deviation maneuvers of the World Cup that ended the day before in Russia. What’s going on behind the scenes? It’s one of those hot summers when nobody wants to think, just to be entertained, never mind the farces and lies.  Like during Roman Empire times it’s the modernized Colosseum, adopted to the age of cell phones, tablets and micro-chips. The Colosseum is the all-so transparent veil that should shield the world’s eyes from the empire’s auto-destruction. Today’s gladiators are the peoples of entire countries, continents, slaughtered or made homeless by the millions, by teleguided missiles and bombs, causing the largest migration streams – by far – in modern history; 70 million worldwide and upwards are on the move. Generations without homes, education; generations without a future, drifting across the seas in desperate hope of survival. Mr. Putin’s words in Helsinki were words of wisdom, propagating peace as a good thing and dismissing Russian interference in the American elections. Not even discussing the re-inclusion of Crimea. Period. He could have mentioned, instead, the hundreds of elections and regime changes that Washington initiated, manipulated and manufactured around the globe within the last 70 years alone, but he didn’t. Wise man; non-aggression. It is obvious, the “muttonized” world of Americans and European vassals don’t even think that far anymore. For them it’s natural that the ‘exceptional nation’ does what she wants with impunity but the same rights wouldn’t apply to others. President Putin handed Trump a list of steps and actions to consider to embark on a denuclearization process. Trump and those of the deep state elite whose love for life is too great to risk a nuclear war, may just take advantage and do something about it. The enigma Trump is perfect for the Deep Dark state. He is a roller-coaster of confusion and contradictions. To the NATO members, at the recent Brussels NATO summit, he ordered “pay up, or else’’ which could mean or we pull out of NATO. Though that is the desire of a large majority of Europeans, for Trump it’s a contradiction as he pretends that NATO is supposed to defend Europe against her arch-enemy, Russia. But, then, in turn, Mr. Trump moves on, courting this very “arch-enemy’’, by responding to the peace bells Mr. Putin has been offering ever since he came to power, never a negative word against Washington, calmly calling the demonizers ‘our partners’. Confused people can easily be taken off-guard and manipulated. Who knows what the real agenda of the Trump handlers has in store. Trump’s bold statements on the side of President Putin will make his demonization at home easier. Though the people at large clearly want peaceful relations between the two nations, everybody fears war, but they will continue to be indoctrinated by the CNN-NBC-BBC’s of this world. Let’s face it, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was and is no reason to make Putin and Russia America’s enemy. But Putin’s assertiveness in bringing Russia to the fore and onto the world stage again, was a good reason to upset the self-appointed Uni-Power, US of A. The US super-power lives of wars, and this lifestyle requires enemies. Russia and China are ideal, as they control huge land masses with almost unlimited natural resources.  They have done nothing of what the mainstream accuses them of. And if the President of the United States annuls the key enemy, turning him from foe to friend, such a President becomes a liability for the swamp of Washington – a liability, indeed – “or else”. http://clubof.info/

[foursproutwealth-blog]

The "Fake News" Story Is Fake News

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/the-fake-news-story-is-fake-news/

The "Fake News" Story Is Fake News

Authored by Philip Weiss via MondoWeiss.net,

Almost every day on public radio or public television, I hear reports about how fake news is undermining our democracy.

These high-minded reporters and anchors seem truly to believe that a feverish menace is overwhelming the minds of once-sensible people.

This story is itself fake news for several obvious reasons.

We’ve never had more good information than we have now; people are as well-informed as they want to be. There will always be outlets purveying lies; that is the nature of communication. And the insistence on the “fake news” issue is an effort to assign Trump’s victory not to those who brought it to us (the electorate, and the incompetence of the Clinton campaign) but on some nefarious agents.

The fact that we have more and better information today than ever almost goes without saying. When I started in the news business more than 40 years ago, few reporters carried tape recorders, largely because they worked for a guild and were never subject to correction. Today there are countless outlets, thanks to the internet, and important events are almost always recorded. The amount of data we have on public figures is vast compared to even ten years ago.

We can all argue about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing; but we are today awash in information. That information is more reliable than it has ever been before. My own work on Palestine and the Israel lobby has shown me that global consumers can get more accurate information about that conflict than they’ve ever had. Yes, as we assert here all the time, the mainstream US media is in the tank for Israel; but it’s not as if better information is not available at your fingertips, much of it from Europe and Palestine, often citizen video.

Before the internet, alternative sources were much harder to obtain. You had to subscribe to journals, or go to Hotaling’s newsstand in Times Square for out-of-town papers. The best example is  sports. I had to hope the newsstand had the late edition of the Times, or that the Times carried the box score for my hometown team. Today I can find out any score and see videos of my team’s performance in an instant. And the destruction of the guilds by the internet has brought us sharp commentators who would never had access to the media traditionally (like this tweeter I turn to every morning to get the score).

“Do you trust everything you read on social media?” an ad for WNYC radio asks. They used to say the same thing about newspapers when I was a kid! The idea that information used to be a clean pool before all the clever internet liars arrived is a delusion on the part of entitled reporters of the fake news storyline. Storytelling is a primordial human experience. It is rooted in the need for knowledge to enhance our survival. We tell stories in an effort to make our lives better, more fulfilling, more understandable. And from the beginning of the story, there were lies. Some say that human beings have tongues in their mouths to deceive others, while some fiction writers will tell you that artifice is the soul of story. We all learn to sort out sincere and truthful from exaggerated and bogus. No, we don’t always succeed as readers and listeners at that job, but we try. Just as reporters seek to convey accurate versions of events despite their limitations; and artificers seek to construct more perfect tales to relate social and psychological quandaries.

There are surely hundreds of thousands of news sites today (millions?) where there used to be thousands of news outlets. The great preponderance of these sites do as we do here, try and present the most genuine version of events they are able to. As Ezra Pound once said, there is only one standard for writing: accuracy of statement. It’s not rocket science, but it is a struggle.

Are there sites that try to hoodwink readers? Of course. There have always been sensational papers, yellow journalism, scandal sheets, rumors, disinformation, boys crying wolf, and unreliable sources. Readers have always had a duty to sort this out. How many of us feel that we can size up the accuracy of an unknown site in a few seconds, from one sign or another? Readers are way more sophisticated than the fake-news reporters believe them to be. More than that, we know that some of the biggest lies originate from authorities. Which gives rise to conspiracy stories, going back to Shakespeare…

The claim that liars and fake-news sites handed the election to Donald Trump is fiction. A democracy gives the franchise to a lot of stupid people, on all sides. People believe what they want to believe. No doubt the internet has served to socialize information, tailoring it to tribal audiences (I seek out that baseball tweeter because we are likeminded, still our team can’t win), but it’s not as if information was objective before. The belief that people were manipulated into voting for Trump may be comforting to those who love the neoliberal elitism and interventionism of the post-9/11 world, but it doesn’t answer the complex reality that is American society.

The smartest reporting on the 2016 election was the study showing that Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all had high casualty rates from America’s wars; and that these voters regarded Clinton as pro-war. And Clinton failed to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan, even as her surrogates advocated for regime change in Syria on the cables. Those factors would seem to be as determinative as anything else that the big papers have told us about the debacle November 8. It would be a lot better if they would actually interview Trump voters, rather than lecturing us about fake news.

The claim that the Russians are behind fake news and they threw the election is just more fiction from a Democratic Party determined to have a new cold war in order to excuse itself from its failures to reach the white Obama voters who voted for Trump. Do people really think that the ads Russians placed on Facebook, or the data that Trump allies had access to through Cambridge Analytica, swayed people to vote for Trump? Is that how you made up your mind? Maybe a few fools changed their vote because of lies; but again that does not go to the real dynamics of the 2016 race. People disliked Clinton for good reasons. People sought a disrupter for good reasons.

If Russians were behind the Wikileaks hack of the Democratic National Committee emails, maybe we should be thanking them. The hack exposed real corruption: on my issue, the Clinton team’s active efforts to sell Clinton’s stance on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to big pro-Israel donors as a way to salve them for her support for the Iran deal. No one has disputed the accuracy of these emails, and they are a disturbing window on how politics works. It would be nice if the media would spend a little time on the substance of those emails. But no, the fake news story has a life of its own.

P.S. Judy Woodruff’s picture is atop this post because she and the PBS News Hour have taken the fake news story way too seriously. In fairness, I urge readers to watch her interview of two Boko Haram survivors, some of the best journalism you will ever see. 

[foursprout-blog]

The "Fake News" Story Is Fake News

New Post has been published on http://foursprout.com/wealth/the-fake-news-story-is-fake-news/

The "Fake News" Story Is Fake News

Authored by Philip Weiss via MondoWeiss.net,

Almost every day on public radio or public television, I hear reports about how fake news is undermining our democracy.

These high-minded reporters and anchors seem truly to believe that a feverish menace is overwhelming the minds of once-sensible people.

This story is itself fake news for several obvious reasons.

We’ve never had more good information than we have now; people are as well-informed as they want to be. There will always be outlets purveying lies; that is the nature of communication. And the insistence on the “fake news” issue is an effort to assign Trump’s victory not to those who brought it to us (the electorate, and the incompetence of the Clinton campaign) but on some nefarious agents.

The fact that we have more and better information today than ever almost goes without saying. When I started in the news business more than 40 years ago, few reporters carried tape recorders, largely because they worked for a guild and were never subject to correction. Today there are countless outlets, thanks to the internet, and important events are almost always recorded. The amount of data we have on public figures is vast compared to even ten years ago.

We can all argue about whether this is a good thing or a bad thing; but we are today awash in information. That information is more reliable than it has ever been before. My own work on Palestine and the Israel lobby has shown me that global consumers can get more accurate information about that conflict than they’ve ever had. Yes, as we assert here all the time, the mainstream US media is in the tank for Israel; but it’s not as if better information is not available at your fingertips, much of it from Europe and Palestine, often citizen video.

Before the internet, alternative sources were much harder to obtain. You had to subscribe to journals, or go to Hotaling’s newsstand in Times Square for out-of-town papers. The best example is  sports. I had to hope the newsstand had the late edition of the Times, or that the Times carried the box score for my hometown team. Today I can find out any score and see videos of my team’s performance in an instant. And the destruction of the guilds by the internet has brought us sharp commentators who would never had access to the media traditionally (like this tweeter I turn to every morning to get the score).

“Do you trust everything you read on social media?” an ad for WNYC radio asks. They used to say the same thing about newspapers when I was a kid! The idea that information used to be a clean pool before all the clever internet liars arrived is a delusion on the part of entitled reporters of the fake news storyline. Storytelling is a primordial human experience. It is rooted in the need for knowledge to enhance our survival. We tell stories in an effort to make our lives better, more fulfilling, more understandable. And from the beginning of the story, there were lies. Some say that human beings have tongues in their mouths to deceive others, while some fiction writers will tell you that artifice is the soul of story. We all learn to sort out sincere and truthful from exaggerated and bogus. No, we don’t always succeed as readers and listeners at that job, but we try. Just as reporters seek to convey accurate versions of events despite their limitations; and artificers seek to construct more perfect tales to relate social and psychological quandaries.

There are surely hundreds of thousands of news sites today (millions?) where there used to be thousands of news outlets. The great preponderance of these sites do as we do here, try and present the most genuine version of events they are able to. As Ezra Pound once said, there is only one standard for writing: accuracy of statement. It’s not rocket science, but it is a struggle.

Are there sites that try to hoodwink readers? Of course. There have always been sensational papers, yellow journalism, scandal sheets, rumors, disinformation, boys crying wolf, and unreliable sources. Readers have always had a duty to sort this out. How many of us feel that we can size up the accuracy of an unknown site in a few seconds, from one sign or another? Readers are way more sophisticated than the fake-news reporters believe them to be. More than that, we know that some of the biggest lies originate from authorities. Which gives rise to conspiracy stories, going back to Shakespeare…

The claim that liars and fake-news sites handed the election to Donald Trump is fiction. A democracy gives the franchise to a lot of stupid people, on all sides. People believe what they want to believe. No doubt the internet has served to socialize information, tailoring it to tribal audiences (I seek out that baseball tweeter because we are likeminded, still our team can’t win), but it’s not as if information was objective before. The belief that people were manipulated into voting for Trump may be comforting to those who love the neoliberal elitism and interventionism of the post-9/11 world, but it doesn’t answer the complex reality that is American society.

The smartest reporting on the 2016 election was the study showing that Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all had high casualty rates from America’s wars; and that these voters regarded Clinton as pro-war. And Clinton failed to campaign in Wisconsin and Michigan, even as her surrogates advocated for regime change in Syria on the cables. Those factors would seem to be as determinative as anything else that the big papers have told us about the debacle November 8. It would be a lot better if they would actually interview Trump voters, rather than lecturing us about fake news.

The claim that the Russians are behind fake news and they threw the election is just more fiction from a Democratic Party determined to have a new cold war in order to excuse itself from its failures to reach the white Obama voters who voted for Trump. Do people really think that the ads Russians placed on Facebook, or the data that Trump allies had access to through Cambridge Analytica, swayed people to vote for Trump? Is that how you made up your mind? Maybe a few fools changed their vote because of lies; but again that does not go to the real dynamics of the 2016 race. People disliked Clinton for good reasons. People sought a disrupter for good reasons.

If Russians were behind the Wikileaks hack of the Democratic National Committee emails, maybe we should be thanking them. The hack exposed real corruption: on my issue, the Clinton team’s active efforts to sell Clinton’s stance on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to big pro-Israel donors as a way to salve them for her support for the Iran deal. No one has disputed the accuracy of these emails, and they are a disturbing window on how politics works. It would be nice if the media would spend a little time on the substance of those emails. But no, the fake news story has a life of its own.

P.S. Judy Woodruff’s picture is atop this post because she and the PBS News Hour have taken the fake news story way too seriously. In fairness, I urge readers to watch her interview of two Boko Haram survivors, some of the best journalism you will ever see. 

[itsfinancethings]

February 23, 2020 at 10:30PM

President Donald Trump is due to make the first ever visit by an American head of state to Ahmedabad, the biggest city in the western state of Gujarat. It is the state that Narendra Modi, now Prime Minister, ruled for 12 years. It’s also where where generations of my family have lived. A big reason that Trump chose Ahmedabad is that the largest number of Indians in the U.S. – and the most fervent supporters of Modi – are Gujaratis. Trump is hoping that, by showing up in Ahmedabad to declare his everlasting love for Modi, American Gujaratis like me will be persuaded to vote for him and donate to his campaign.

The leaders of the country of my birth, and the country of my citizenship (the U.S.), do seem to have this in common: they have both said and done hateful things towards Muslims. I first became aware of this when in 2015 Trump tweeted lies about Muslims cheering the fall of the Twin Towers. I was certain of it when, as President, I saw his retweets of a British far right hate group, itself retweeting three inflammatory (and untrue) videos titled “Islamist mob pushes teenage boy off roof and beats him to death”; “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches”; and “Muslim destroys a statue of Virgin Mary.”

In 2002, Ahmedabad was the site of anti-Muslim pogroms in which some two thousand people were murdered. Children saw their fathers set on fire and their mothers raped. Modi, who was chief minister of the state at the time, held back security forces who could have stopped the rioting, and members of his government actively participated in the killings. It made me ashamed to be Gujarati.

As soon as he assumed office, Trump banned citizens of several Muslim countries from entering the U.S. Modi’s government recently passed a law granting expedited citizenship to refugees from neighboring countries who belong to any major religion — except Islam. This was the first time in independent India’s history that a religion has been specifically targeted in an act of Parliament. And it is to be followed by a registry with the likely eventual goal of a nationwide system of gulags for people who can’t prove their citizenship, also aimed at Muslims. These initiatives have been overseen by another Gujarati named Amit Shah, Modi’s home minister, who has referred to Bangladeshi migrants as “termites.”

I want to tell the world: please don’t judge all fifty million Gujaratis by their actions. These people do not represent me, or millions of other Gujaratis. We are kinder than them, we are more open to the rest of the world than them. Gujaratis are global citizens par excellence. One out of every three overseas Indians is Gujarati; we can be found in 129 of the 190 nations of the earth.

But it’s true that the home of my grandparents has had, in recent times, a bloody history. My grandfather’s house in Ahmedabad was right next to a Muslim neighborhood. In peaceful times the Muslims shopped in the Hindu-owned markets; the Hindus went to Muslim tailors. During riots, which happened every few years or so, the border suddenly became visible, tangible. You were not to step across this line; there were always the boys standing guard, armed with hockey sticks, knives, kerosene.

The Gujaratis who lead the country now want to turn India into Ahmedabad. All are welcome in their India, they say, except Muslims. And, one imagines, also Christians, once they’re done with the Muslims. And gays, once they’re done with the Christians. And women, once they’re done with the gays.

It is a family fight, among Gujaratis. Most of my relatives adore Modi, and think he has restored Hindu and Gujarati pride after centuries of Muslim rule. But many children of Gujarati immigrants in the U.S. and the U.K. want nothing to do with this politics of hate. They identify as South Asian, or desi, rather than Indian. They don’t understand how their parents could oppose Donald Trump – 87% of Indian-Americans voted Democratic in the 2016 election – and also support Modi. They don’t understand how we can demand tolerance for Indian immigrants abroad while being intolerant to Bangladeshi immigrants at home. India has done what Trump dreams about: it has built a 2,000 mile-long wall on the border with Bangladesh, to keep out immigrants.

In honor of the American president’s visit, the Gujarat government hastily constructed a brand-new wall along the route of Trump’s motorcade, to shield his sensitive eyes from the slum on the other side. He’s going directly from the airport to a rally in the world’s largest cricket stadium, then a quick visit to Mahatma Gandhi’s ashram by this least Gandhian of Presidents, and then a dash back to the airport. The government is spending a reported $12 million for the three hours that Trump is to visit the city.

May I propose an alternative itinerary for the visit? Trump could take a look at some of the most exquisite medieval Islamic architecture in the world, such as the intricate carvings of Sidi Sayed’s mosque, or the ‘shaking minarets’ of Sidi Bashir. In 2017, Ahmedabad became India’s first city to acquire World Heritage status, for the 15th century Walled City built by Sultan Ahmad Shah. “The presence of institutions belonging to many religions (Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Judaism) makes the historic urban structure of Ahmadabad an exceptional and unique example of multicultural coexistence,” reads the UNESCO citation.

Until recently, this coexistence was a feature of much of Gujarat’s history, which had to rely on an openness to other cultures, religions, if nothing else than for purely mercantile reasons. In order to be a good businessman, in order to have the widest possible market, you have to trade with many people who may be very different from you. You have to put aside your hatreds, and you have to be pragmatic.

Trump is also going to India to haggle with the government over trade; he has imposed punitive tariffs on Indian goods. Gujaratis are supposed to be famous for their business acumen, but Modi has failed in the first duty of a Gujarati businessman: to make a profit. India now has the slowest growth of all the emerging economies, at 4.8% and falling, and the unemployment rate is the highest in 45 years. Modi promised to build millions of toilets, but it’s the economy that he’s dragging into the toilet.

To divert attention from its failures, the government is encouraging its citizens to focus on Pakistan, hating Muslims, keeping an imaginary Bangladeshi horde out. It’s the politics of mass diversion. Trump does it with Mexicans; the Brexiteers do it with Eastern Europeans; Modi and Shah do it with Bangladeshis.

Any real Gujarati would be concerned about the incalculable harm these nativist, Islamophobic policies are having on the country’s international image, and its business prospects. Indian-born Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, recently took on on the citizenship act directly: “I think what is happening is sad… It’s just bad. I would love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who comes to India and creates the next unicorn in India or becomes the next CEO of Infosys.”

Many countries and companies like to trade with India because it has a better reputation than, say, China. It is an open society; it does not have a state religion and the army stays largely out of politics. But if that image changes – if you suspend autonomy for a state like Kashmir and flood it with Hindus; if you yank someone’s overseas citizenship because of what he writes, like my friend Aatish Taseer; if you use the tax authorities to browbeat media houses into submission; if you use the machinery of the state to beat up students protesting anti-Muslim measures in their dorms – than it becomes just another dismal autocracy. Then Indian companies will be the targets of boycotts in the West, and foreign investment, already low, will continue to avoid India.

Whether Indians like it or not, much of the world now thinks of India in the same league as other corrupt and repressive regimes such as Brazil – whose President, Jair Bolsonaro, was the chief guest at the India’s Republic Day parade – and Turkey. India has lost its good name as a liberal democracy. This is going to cost the country money.

Gujaratis are, above all, a pragmatic people. It is pragmatic to make accommodation with everyone, even those who you perceive as your enemies. Today, India is the world’s second largest Muslim country; by 2060 it will be the biggest. The Muslim population will go from 15% to 20% of the country, and nothing short of an outright genocide is going to change that. On the whole, Indian Muslims have not been radicalized, and the Muslim women of Shaheen Bagh in Delhi wave the tricolor even as they protest government policy. Muslims voted with their feet to stay in the country after Partition. But if Indian Muslims are constantly otherized, if they are told over and over again: you don’t belong here, you are not truly Indian, then some segment of them is sure to become radicalized. And that could lead to the mother of all civil wars, something that will make Partition look like a schoolyard brawl.

Indians can’t afford not to work together, or be diverted by fighting each other. Because the next few decades are going to be challenging, even apocalyptic. Take just one issue: water. By 2030, it is estimated 40% of Indians will have no drinking water, and demand for water will be twice the available supply. I saw this every time I went back to Gujarat as a child. My grand-aunt could recite the names of the five rivers that flowed through her part of Gujarat. All of them are dry now, or mere trickles in the monsoon. Dhoodiyu desh, they call it, “the dust country.” We have to fight all these problems together, Hindu, Muslim, and all the other religions. United, we survive; divided, we die of thirst.

The first thing you are offered when you enter a Gujarati home is a glass of water. Every Gujarati home I have gone to has been welcoming. A visitor will be given water, shade, rest, and an invitation: come eat with us. When you part from a Gujarati, he will not say, “Goodbye.” He will say, “Aavjo”: “Come again.” That is the true spirit of Gujarat. We do not erect doors, fences, walls, detention camps. We wander the earth, and welcome the wanderer.