XENOPHOBIA BAK

SEE MASS DEPORT TRUMP MILLER

SEE CRM 5 FOX BAD TRINITY

see border wall emergency see border BS

merri ok

SEEalso immigration

SEE RACISM

see violent crime vs stats

climate refugee 4

see birthright citizen

see immigr 5 open border

see invasion/infection

gt replacement

BAK 5 24

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gop trump always cranks up before election 2024 biden border bloodbath

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CRM 5

mma

Right-wing media's immigration wish list: Kill the bipartisan Dignity Act, more mass deportations, and fewer paths for legal immigration

Right-wing media are trying to pressure Republicans to move even further right on immigration

Written by Torri Lonergan & Isabella Sherk

Published 04/24/26

Right-wing media figures are rejecting recent messaging from the Trump White House to back away from calls for mass deportations and attacking bipartisan immigration legislation. These personalities have gone so far as to accuse the GOP of “pushing for mass amnesty” and “surrendering our country to foreigners.”

They are advocating for harsher anti-immigration policies — demanding that President Donald Trump enact his most extreme campaign promises for mass deportations, calling for “a 10-year ban on all immigration,” and encouraging Trump to start “denaturalizing citizens” and “removing lawful permanent residents.”

While the Trump administration slashes legal immigration, some congressional Republicans have backed away from mass deportations and cosponsored the Dignity Act}:

- The Trump administration has been slashing legal immigration and targeting non-criminal “immigration violators” while telling the public its efforts were prioritizing deporting “the worst of the worst.” The administration has drastically cut visas for legal permanent residents, international students, H-1B workers, and the foreign partners of U.S. citizens. Meanwhile, CBS reported that “30,986 — or 48% — of the ICE detainees in custody as of Nov. 16 lacked any criminal charges or convictions in the U.S. and were being held solely because of civil violations of U.S. immigration law.” Cato Institute, [4/13/26; CBS News, 11/26/25]

- A recent poll from Politico found that “half of Americans — including one quarter of Trump’s 2024 voters — said his mass deportations campaign is too aggressive.” However, the poll also found that two-thirds of his 2024 voters said, “Trump’s mass deportations campaign is either about right or not aggressive enough.” Politico, [4/18/26]

- In March, the White House reportedly advised congressional Republicans to avoid discussing mass deportations ahead of the midterm elections.According to Axios, White House deputy chief of staff James Blair urged House Republicans “to stop emphasizing ‘mass deportations’ and instead focus their messaging on removing violent criminals.” Axios, [3/10/26]

- A group of Trump allies have formed the Mass Deportation Coalition to encourage the administration not to back away from its deportation push. The coalition — which includes the Oversight Project’s Mike Howell, former Blackwater CEO Erik Prince, former Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan, and conservative groups including The Heritage Foundation — released a playbook urging the White House to continue raiding work sites and deporting migrant workers despite pushback from voters. Politico, [4/1/26]

- The Dignity Act is a bipartisan bill that would allow migrant workers who have been here more than five years to legally work in the U.S. The “Dignity for Immigrants while Guarding our Nation to Ignite and Deliver the American Dream Act of 2025” or the “DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act” was introduced by Reps. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX) in July 2025. 19 other Republicans and a similar number of Democrats have cosponsored the bill. Salazar described the legislation as “a serious, balanced solution: no amnesty, no path to citizenship, but a legal status for those who have worked, paid taxes, and contributed to our economy.” According to the American Immigration Council, “The Dignity Act would provide a path to permanent legal status — but not citizenship — for nearly all undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States since December 31, 2020.” Congress.gov, [7/15/25; Office of Rep. María Elvira Salazar, 3/25/26, 7/15/25; American Immigration Council, 7/15/25]

- In April, 11 House Republicans voted with Democrats to extend temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants through 2029. CBS News reported that TPS “allows immigrants to temporarily live and work in the U.S. without fear of deportation if DHS decides their home country is unsafe due to armed conflict, environmental disasters or other extraordinary circumstances.” Haitian immigrants have been granted TPS since 2010. The bill’s Republican supporters broke with Trump, who has attempted to end deportation protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitian immigrants and reportedly plans to veto the bill if it passes the Senate. CBS News, [4/16/26; NPR, 4/16/26]

## Right-wing media figures railed against the Dignity Act, calling the bill that bars undocumented people from citizenship “amnesty”

- The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh called Dignity Act cosponsor Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) an “anchor baby,” described the bill as “treasonous,” and claimed the legislation would “backdoor a mass amnesty.” The Daily Wire, *The Matt Walsh Show*, [4/9/26, 4/9/26]

- Fox’s Sean Hannity complained, “We have Democrats and some Republicans even that are pushing for this idiotic, imbecilic, insane idea of the Dignity Act.” He framed the proposed legislation as saying, “Oh, never mind that you didn't respect our laws, our borders and sovereignty. Never mind that we didn't vet you. We're just going to let you into the country anyway.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [4/9/26]

- On April 8, Fox host Laura Ingraham asked Dignity Act cosponsor Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), “How can you possibly look in the face of the American people and say that's dignity?” The next day, Ingraham argued that “American workers, taxpayers, and the rule of law” will lose if this bill gets passed. She also said that Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) “nailed it” when he referred to the bill as a “double middle finger to the middle class.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [4/8/26, 4/9/26]

- Discussing the Dignity Act, Fox host Will Cain asked Lawler, “How is this not amnesty?” Cain insisted, “Whatever words you want to use, amnesty, pathway to citizenship — I know you’re not proposing that — legal status, you are creating the continued incentive for illegal immigration.” Fox News, *The Will Cain Show*, [2/4/26]

- Right-wing podcaster Laura Loomer said that Republicans will “lose the midterms” because they are “talking about this Dignity Act to give amnesty to 65 fucking illegal aliens.”In February, she insisted the Dignity Act is “just another word for mass amnesty, it makes me so angry,” and said, “I think that Lawler should be primaried. I think that he should be removed from Congress.” Rumble, *Loomer Unleashed*, [4/7/26, 2/5/26]

- Megyn Kelly questioned why Republicans were cosponsoring the “betrayal bill” and said, “This is no time to be talking about amnesty.” She added, “I don't care about them being in fear of deportation,” and asked, “What is this, just to create a talking point for the Democrats right before the midterms?” Sirius XM, *The Megyn Kelly Show*, [4/9/26, 4/9/26]

- The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said Salazar is “pushing for mass amnesty” and declared that the Dignity Act is “as rancid as a bill as ever I have seen.” On The Megyn Kelly Show, Knowles said, “I have my own alternative legislation that I am proposing. The legislation is the All New Denizens Actually Leave En Masse Bill, or the ANDALE Bill.” He argued, “Mass deportations are a mainstream popular political issue. So what are these jokers, these Republicans in Congress say? They come around and they say I know what we'll do after winning the first popular election in 20 years. Let's give illegals mass amnesty. … Leave it to these people to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.” The Daily Wire, *The Michael Knowles Show*, [7/21/25; The Daily Wire, Friendly Fire, 4/8/26; Sirius XM, The Megyn Kelly Show, 4/9/26]

- Infowars host Harrison Smith said that Congress “named the amnesty bill in the Spanish language just to really emphasize how thoroughly they are surrendering our country to foreigners.” Infowars, *War Room*, [4/7/26]

- On former Trump strategist Steve Bannon’sWar Roompodcast, Immigration Accountability Project co-founder Rosemary Jenks criticized the Dignity Act, claiming, “It's got amnesty for at least 10 million illegal aliens to compete with low-wage American workers.” She said, “I call this bill, instead of the Dignity Act, the SAAW Act for Screw All American Workers, because this bill hits every American worker, whether they're low-wage, medium-wage, or high-wage.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [4/10/26]

- The Charlie Kirk Showexecutive producer Andrew Kolvet said the Dignity Act is “a new grift to try to get more illegals coming in.” He claimed, “There are people around the president right now saying, don't ever use the word mass deportation again — the thing that we all got so excited to vote for in 2024.” Real America’s Voice, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [4/7/26]

- Podcaster Vince Coglianese ranted, “What the hell did people vote for, by a majority? A majority? They said mass deportations. They said get everybody out of the country who's here illegally. Stop breaking our laws. Stop making it chaotic. Get out. Get out. And you're picking now for amnesty? No. None. No more amnesty.” Coglianese called the Dignity Act a “dumpster fire” and said, “The goal of the bill is to give amnesty to huge categories of illegal aliens.” He criticized Republicans who support the bill, complaining, “They're going to deliver the American dream. To whom? Not to Americans. To illegal aliens. What are you idiots doing?” Rumble, *VINCE*, [2/5/26]

## Right-wing media personalities demanded that Trump double down on mass deportations

- Podcaster Tim Pool complained about “the Trump administration telling people to back off of mass deportations,” claiming, “That says to me, yeah, MAGA's dead.” He continued, “If the Republican Party is now saying Joe Biden allowed in 10 million undocumented — undocumented — migrants, illegal immigrants, as we call them, if he really did that, and the Trump admin is saying we're done with this; we're not going to do it — OK. Well, then America's over.” Rumble, *Timcast IRL*, [3/17/26]

- War Roomhost Steve Bannon called for “mass deportation of every illegal alien that’s here. All of them, not just the bad hombres.” Previously, in late March, Bannon had complained that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and the White House said, “We can't even use the phrase mass deportations again.” Days later, Bannon insisted, “We cannot take our eye off the ball of mass deportations, even if the lobbyists that continue to hammer at the White House want us to stop doing it.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [4/14/26, 3/23/26, 3/31/26]

- In an episode ofThe Charlie Kirk Showtitled “The RINO Plot to Dump 'Mass Deportations,’” Andrew Kolvet said, “We’re going to keep saying mass deportations, because guess what? That’s what the people want.” Kolvet later complained, “If you're going to cuck out on deportations and immigration, you will depress turnout at the midterms. … You will depress our base and we will not get out and vote for you in the midterms." Real America’s Voice, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [4/9/26, 4/9/26, 4/21/26]

- Fox host Laura Ingraham told Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, “We want mass deportations, Mr. Secretary. That's what the American people voted for.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [4/15/26]

- White nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes lamented, “Trump always chickens out,” specifically complaining that the administration backed down on mass deportations.Fuentes said, “Mass deportations — where are they? Not happening.” Rumble, *America First*, [3/31/26, 4/8/26]

- Laura Loomer complained that “we're not getting all of the 65 million mass deportations like we were told,” saying, “At the rate of these deportations, they're not exactly mass deportations.”Rumble, *Loomer Unleashed*, [4/7/26]

- Conservative influencer Nick Sortor said he will continue to use the words “mass deportations” because “if we only go after the worst of the worst, that means amnesty for the rest.” Rumble, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [4/7/26]
- Megyn Kelly said, “We’ve gone from worst-first to pretty much worst-only, if that.” She said, “We’re going in the wrong direction in terms of the detention of illegals,” complaining that the drop in ICE detentions is “primarily driven by the decline in arrests of illegal immigrants without criminal records. It very much appears like we have moved considerably on from that group.” SiriusXM, *The Megyn Kelly Show*, [4/15/26]

- PBD Podcastpanelist Vincent Oshana said, “This mass deportation has slowed down. OK? And I’m sorry, I voted for the people that do not belong here to leave.” He continued, “The rules are the rules, you have to leave if you're freaking here illegally and that's it.” YouTube, *PBD Podcast*, [3/20/26]

- Mike Howell of the Mass Deportation Coalition said on Julio Rosas’Mostly Peaceful Podcastthat “only focusing on the worst of worst” is “comfort food for RINOS.” He continued, “It's a problem in that there's not that many criminal illegal aliens out of the total illegal alien population. And so, when you're focused on a small subset, you're going to get small numbers.” YouTube, *Mostly Peaceful Podcast*, [4/2/26]

- The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh complained that if Trump “won’t do” mass deportations, then “I don’t think anyone else ever will.” The Daily Wire, *Friendly Fire*, [4/8/26]

- The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said he’s sure the “abuelas are really nice, but abuela has to go too.” He said, “I want mass deportations. I don’t just want the face-tattooed criminals gone.” The Daily Wire, *Friendly Fire*, [4/8/26]

## Right-wing media figures attacked legal immigration and advocated for denaturalizing US citizens

- Steve Bannon said, “We should have a 10-year ban on all immigration. People say, oh well legal — it's not legal. It's all a scam.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [4/10/26]

- YouTuber Tyler Oliveira posted a video attacking the H-1B visa program that claimed to expose “Texas' Indian Invasion.” Oliveira said “infinite legal immigration” will “alter the fabric of any place” and asked, “If the law has allowed Frisco's Indian population to go from less than 2% to almost 20% Indian in the last 20 years, turning Frisco into a majority-minority city, is the intent of these work visas bringing Indians to America to support our labor force or to replace it altogether?” YouTube, Tyler Oliveira, [4/5/26, 4/5/26]

- Right-wing streamer Zack Hoyt, known online as Asmongold, said that “what needs to happen” is “denaturalizing citizens,” “removing lawful permanent residents,” and “scaling down the H-1B program by like 95%.” He said he would denaturalize and deport Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) “instantly” and added, “I am not satisfied in the level of aggression and force that they are using to get rid of a lot of these people.” Omar immigrated to the United States as a child and has been a U.S. citizen for over 20 years. YouTube, Asmongold TV, [4/13/26; Politico, 2/3/26]

- Hoyt complained about legal immigration from India specifically, saying, “It's way too fast, way too many.” Hoyt insisted, “The problem is the system that allows these companies to undercut American workers and then get cheap foreign labor and then import them here and then bring their entire family.” He went on to accuse Trump of “selling out the American people” by supporting H-1B visas. YouTube, Asmongold TV, [4/14/26, 4/14/26]

- Podcaster Benny Johnson said “Ilhan Omar’s family” is “a walking advertisement for why we should never take anyone from the Third World into our country ever again.”He complained that a “horrific” and “sick” “experiment” has been “run on us for the last 40 years that you need to flood our nation, that anyone can become an American, that paperwork Americans are just as American as you are. No, doesn't work.” YouTube, *The Benny Show*, [3/22/26]

- Podcaster Vince Coglianese said, “We need a full-blown moratorium on all migration into the United States.” He celebrated data from the Cato Institute finding that Trump has cut legal immigration more than illegal immigration, saying, “Yes, I voted for all of this. And, yes, these are all massive wins.” Coglianese also criticized Congress for extending temporary protected status for Haitians, saying that we need to “purge the ranks of people who would sell us out like this” and falsely labeling Haitian immigrants with TPS as illegal aliens. Rumble, *VINCE*, [4/16/26, 4/16/26]

- Fox host Laura Ingraham said it “drives me crazy” that Republicans voted with Democrats to protect Haitian immigrants in the United States with temporary protected status. Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [4/15/26]

- Blaze TV host Auron MacIntyre said onThe Charlie Kirk Showthat Haitians have a “high propensity toward violence” and “don’t belong in the United States.” MacIntyre railed against extending temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants, saying, “The problem with Haiti, the reason it's dangerous, is because Haitians live there.” Rumble, *The Charlie Kirk Show*, [4/16/26]

- Megyn Kelly said Haitians are continuing to “be rewarded for their illegal law breaking” and that Republicans who voted to extend temporary protected status for Haitians “deserve to be named and shamed.” Kelly said, “They pretend at every turn that there are not Americans who want these jobs. I'm here to tell you there are. There are. I've known and loved some of them. So fuck you and your bullshit excuses, Rep. Lawler and Nicole Malliotakis.” SiriusXM, *The Megyn Kelly Show*, [4/17/26]

### Right-wing pundits want Trump to heal the MAGA rift over the Iran war via the mass deportation of American Muslims

03/04/26 12:18 PM EST

### As Trump’s immigration polling numbers tanked, Fox News used old polls to claim his mass deportation plan is popular

01/30/26 6:13 PM EST

### A federal judge's ruling debunks right-wing media smears about Haitian immigrants

02/06/26

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MMA

February 9, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Five}:

JESSE WATTERS (CO-HOST): The game was so bad, everyone's talking about halftime. And halftime was so bad. Now, they say, the halftime was not bad. Okay. Last halftime was Kendrick Lamar, okay? That was also the most highly rated halftime. So is this. We didn't understand what Kendrick Lamar was saying last time, and that was English. Now how do you think we feel?

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): Jesse, they had a signer for the deaf but no translator for the Spanish. Why do you think that is?

WATTERS: I don't know. I like the Super Bowl not to be an international event. I like it when we kind of all come together as Americans, especially when it feels like the NFL's just using it as a marketing ploy to recruit Latin American audience -- on the heels of Latin America invading this country. 20 million pouring in and that's what you see. You see all these foreigners speaking a foreign language, with foreign flags marching into the camera like a caravan. Too soon!

Listen, this was an open borders moment. Everybody knows it. That's what's going on here. And all the reporters, who are liberal, who don't even watch football, this is the first playoff game they've ever watched, they are saying they loved it? They didn't hear a word. They couldn't understand what the guy said. Of course, they loved it. It was foreign.

Now, a lot of us feel -- Americans, red-blooded Americans -- that it feels like the left is teaming up with large corporations and foreign populations to take our culture away from us. Now, I love Bad Bunny. I thought some of the tunes I could move to, and I love Puerto Rico. That's the thing. Not for Super Bowl halftime. Can you give me at least that? Give me that.

On Fox News, Kid Rock calls Jay-Z “a DEI hire” by the NFL

02/10/26 3:15 PM EST

Laura Ingraham says Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny's halftime show “didn't represent America at all”

02/09/26 7:51 PM EST

Greg Gutfeld launches incoherent rant about a Jewish halftime show with “dancing accountants” and “men slinging pastrami”

02/09/26

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AN 8 25

There are nearly 25 million naturalized citizens in the United States, accounting for 7% of the total population. Each and every one of them should be laser-focused on the Trump administration’s plans to denaturalize and deport as many of them as possible.

*This story originally appeared at Truthdig.

Denaturalization is the process by which the federal government revokes the citizenship of persons born outside of the country who became citizens by meeting the standards set by Congress in the Immigration and Nationality Act, which include swearing an oath of allegiance to the United States, and demonstrating “good moral character.”

Although denaturalization rates have declined over the past several decades, there is ample historical precedent for the revival President Donald Trump is planning. Between 1906 and 1967 — when the Supreme Court stepped in to tighten the legal requirements — more than 22,000 Americans were denaturalized. Many were left-wing activists who were singled out during the two Red Scares of the 20^th century. A common method to denaturalize them was to accuse them of fraud in taking their oaths of allegiance. In 1919, in perhaps the most famous case of all, the government deported Emma Goldman to Russia under the Anarchist Exclusion Act after revoking her naturalized citizenship. In the 1950s, the government tried but failed to denaturalize labor leader Harry Bridges.

On June 11, Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate wrote a memorandum that lists denaturalization as one of the Department of Justice’s top legal objectives to further Trump’s political goals. The memo was directed to the DOJ’s Civil Division, the department’s largest litigating component, which represents the United States and its executive agencies, members of Congress, cabinet officers and other federal employees in thousands of legal matters each year. It instructed the division’s attorneys to “prioritize and maximally pursue denaturalization proceedings in all cases permitted by law and supported by the evidence,” focusing on 10 broad categories of enforcement actions:

Cases against individuals who pose a potential danger to national security, including those with a nexus to terrorism, espionage, or the unlawful export from the United States of sensitive goods, technology, or information raising national security concerns;*

Cases against individuals who engaged in torture, war crimes, or other human rights violations;
Cases against individuals who further or furthered the unlawful enterprise of criminal gangs, transnational criminal organizations, and drug cartels;
Cases against individuals who committed felonies that were not disclosed during the naturalization process;
Cases against individuals who committed human trafficking, sex offenses, or violent crimes;

Cases against individuals who engaged in various forms of financial fraud against the United States (including Paycheck Protection Program [“PPP”] loan fraud and Medicaid/Medicare fraud);

Cases against individuals who engaged in fraud against private individuals, funds, or corporations;

Cases against individuals who acquired naturalization through government corruption, fraud, or material misrepresentations, not otherwise addressed by another priority category;

Cases referred by a United States Attorney’s Office or in connection with pending criminal charges, if those charges do not fit within one of the other priorities; and

Any other cases referred to the Civil Division that the Division determines to be sufficiently important to pursue.

IFrame Content

The first nine categories are generally consistent with the government’s existing powers, reflecting Trump’s penchant for exploiting the loopholes and weak links in current law whenever feasible. The 10th category, however, is a wildcard that could expand those powers exponentially and lead to a Red Scare encore.

And as dark and dangerous as that possibility sounds, it may be perfectly legal.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 4 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to establish a “uniform Rule of Naturalization.” Pursuant to this authority, Congress passed the first naturalization act in 1790, and ratified additional acts well into the late 19^th century. But it was not until the passage of the Naturalization Act of 1906 that Congress federalized naturalization procedures.

The act incorporated earlier race-based legislation that limited naturalization to white people and those with African origins. It also created the Bureau of Immigration Services, the precursor of the present-day U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency, which promulgated uniform application forms, and began the process of moving naturalization jurisdiction to the federal courts. (Prior to 1906, immigrants were able to apply for citizenship before any court of record, including state and municipal courts. In 1990, Congress shifted jurisdiction from the federal courts to the executive branch, where it remains to this day, although naturalization ceremonies are still conducted by federal district court judges.)

The Naturalization Act of 1906 was also the first federal law that provided for denaturalization, centered on individuals who had obtained citizenship by fraud, were racially ineligible and lacked “good moral character.” The act was amended on several occasions, most notably in 1952 by the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter Act, which added provisions for denaturalization based on activities deemed subversive or connected to communist or communist-front organizations.

Today’s denaturalization procedures are set forth in two sections of Title 8 of the U.S. Code. Section 1451 authorizes the Department of Justice to institute civil proceedings, alleging that citizenship was “illegally procured” or obtained “by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” The section also mandates denaturalization for individuals who refuse to testify before a congressional committee concerning their alleged subversive activities in cases where they have been convicted of contempt for such refusals.

Section 1425 of Title 8 authorizes criminal prosecutions, making it a felony punishable by 25 years in prison to knowingly procure, “contrary to law, the naturalization of any person.” A conviction results in automatic denaturalization.

Once denaturalized under either section, a person returns to their immigration status before becoming a citizen, rendering them vulnerable to deportation.

It’s easy to see why Trump and his advisers have opted to emphasize civil denaturalization proceedings over criminal prosecutions. In civil cases, there is no right to a jury trial or court appointed counsel, and there is no statute of limitations. The standard of proof is also lower. According to the Supreme Court’s precedent decisions, to prevail, the government must present “clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence” that the targeted individual obtained citizenship illegally or willfully misrepresented a material fact during the naturalization process. That is a rigorous test, but one far lower than the “beyond a reasonable” doubt standard for criminal prosecutions.

The first Trump administration attempted to make denaturalization a priority, launching an initiative dubbed “Second Look,” which built upon a similar Obama administration program called “Operation Janus” to identify alleged terrorists and fraudsters who had naturalized. In the end, however, Trump 1.0 filed a mere 102 denaturalization cases, amounting to an annual rate higher than the 16 cases per year filed under Obama, and eclipsing the total of 24 cases filed under Biden, but still miniscule. This time around, Trump 2.0 is pledging to bring the resources of the entire DOJ civil division behind the effort, reviving the specter of mass denaturalization.

The Shumate memo had largely flown under the media’s radar until Trump started talking in early July about deporting former best bro Elon Musk and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and stripping comedian and longtime celebrity nemesis Rosie O’Donnell of her citizenship.

O’Donnell, who is seeking dual citizenship in Ireland, appears safe from Trump’s clutches as she was born in Commack, New York, and enjoys birthright citizenship under the 14^th Amendment. Even Trump’s January executive order attacking birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants would leave her unscathed.

Musk and Mamdani are another story, as both are naturalized citizens. Musk, born in South Africa, naturalized in 2002. Mamdani, born in Uganda to Indian parents, naturalized in 1998. Musk allegedly worked illegally in the U.S. in violation of his student visa after leaving Stanford University in 1995. Mamdani has been accused of posting comments on X quoting rap lyrics suggesting support for Hamas.

Even if Trump’s threats against O’Donnell, Musk and Mamdani are basically performative, thousands of less affluent naturalized citizens will likely be caught up in the coming denaturalization dragnet. Millions more who are not targeted will be intimidated from exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and full political engagement. The net result will be a society less diverse and less free for the vast majority, exactly what Donald Trump and his cohorts want.

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6? 24

Under President Joe Biden, the United States has enjoyed record-low unemployment and considerable job growth. The unemployment rate, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), was 4.1 percent in June — which was an increase from 3.7 percent in May but shows no sign of a recession.

Trump has claimed that much of the job growth under Biden has gone to illegal immigrants. But liberal economist Paul Krugman debunks that claim in a July 23 newsletter for the New York Times.

"Since President Biden took office," Krugman explains, "the United States has gained 15.7 million jobs. Trump, however, has been dismissing the good news on employment, claiming that all the job gains are going to illegal immigrants."

The economist/columnist goes on to lay out some data.

"The question…. is whether the jobs immigrants have taken would have gone to native-born workers if immigration had been lower," Krugman writes. "Well, if immigrants were stealing our jobs, we'd expect to see a sharp rise in unemployment among the native-born. We don't."

Krugman adds, "The unemployment rate among native-born workers is near a historic low." The economist adds that there is no evidence showing that immigrants cause wages to go down.

"Most labor economists now believe that immigrants don't do much head-to-head competition with native-born workers; they bring different skills and take different jobs," Krugman argues. "And the past few years, with elevated immigration, have also been an era of exceptional growth in wages for the worst paid. So, none of these negative claims about the effects of immigration hold up.

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an 5 24

in his new book, "The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy," historian/author Federico Finchelstein examines authoritarian movements around the world — and cites Donald Trump's MAGA movement as an example.

Casey Michel of The Human Rights Foundation applauds the book as informative, if imperfect, in a review published by the conservative website The Bulwark on May 14.

Finchelstein, according to Michel, identifies four "primary characteristics" of fascism and lays out some reasons why "Trump and the other budding autocrats rising alongside him" are "so dangerous."

"As Finchelstein ably argues, it's only in properly defining Trump — and properly understanding his historical context, American and otherwise — that we can truly understand the threat he poses and navigate the world he’s ushered in," Michel explains. "Indeed, much of the book is devoted to definitions, and to identifying where the lines between populism and fascism truly lie.

The four pillars of fascism that Finchelstein identifies in his book are xenophobia, propaganda, political violence, and dictatorship.

According to Michel, Trump has "clearly built out planks" of the first three but "has been unable to construct a full dictatorship."

"In that sense…. Trump is simply an aspiring fascist, rather than a fully realized one," Michel argues. "He is, as Finchelstein writes, a 'populist aspirant to fascism' — or…. a 'wannabe fascist.'"

Finchelstein's book, according to Michel, underscores the dangers of Trump possibly winning the United States' 2024 presidential election.

"Right now, with a U.S. election less than six months away, the American wannabe despot is eager to take power once more in Washington — this time without any need for a self-coup," Michel warns. "It's for Americans themselves to decide whether they'd like to offer Trump the opportunity, as a would-be fascist, to finally get what he wants."

*Casey Michel's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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ctr to huge fatal fail of gop gov run 2024 on mask and vax is emergency at border where presumably covid cases are coming from?!

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judd pop info 4 24

in the 2024 presidential election, one of the central attacks that Trump and his political allies are levying against Biden is that Biden is responsible for a "migrant crime" wave. The argument was summarized by Trump in a March 22 video:

[A] real bloodbath is occurring right now under crooked Joe. It’s Biden’s Border Bloodbath. There’s never been anything like that. Every day, Joe Biden is setting loose thousands of unvetted, unscreened, military-age men into the United States from parts unknown… We had the safest border in history. Now we have the worst border probably in the history of the world. Every day innocent citizens are being killed, stabbed, shot, raped, and murdered because of Biden migrant crime. It’s a new word, a new term. It’s migrant crime, but we call it Biden migrant crime cause he’s responsible for it 100%... When I’m your president, we’re going to end this disgrace, and we’re going to stop Biden’s Border Bloodbath. It is a bloodbath indeed, and we’re going to get it stopped.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) has launched a website dedicated to the issue, BidenBloodbath.com. "History will remember Biden for his destruction, chaos, and failure. Lives of everyday Americans have been shattered as a direct result of Biden’s open border policies — and he doesn’t care," the RNC claims on the homepage. "We have to stand up and stop Biden before he destroys our nation. The cost of doing nothing is measured in the lives lost to the… crime wave washing across America."

This message has been amplified by the right-wing media. Fox News' Jesse Watters, who hosts the network's top-rated primetime show, offered this commentary on April 12:

Migrant crime is quickly becoming one of the largest issues affecting the American people. Communities all across the United States are being terrorized by violent illegals, while Biden rolls out the red carpet for them with his open border policies, but Donald Trump is pledging to take care of the problem and keep our citizens safe when Republicans get back in power

There are violent crimes committed by undocumented migrants, which are traumatic for the victims, their families, and their communities. That is why the accusation that Biden is responsible for a surge in violent crime by undocumented migrants is so politically potent. There are disturbing anecdotes of crimes that make powerful fodder for attacks during a political campaign. People, understandably, want to feel safe.

But is there evidence that, since Biden took office, there has been a surge in violent crime by undocumented migrants?

The most straightforward answer would be to look at crimes committed by undocumented migrants over time. Unfortunately, this data is unavailable because law enforcement agencies do not typically collect or report information about immigration status, analyst Jeff Asher notes.

In his newsletter, Jeff-alytics, Asher came up with the next best alternative. He looked at trends for "violent crime across the 14 counties along the Texas border with Mexico." If there is, in fact, a violent crime wave fueled by migrants, it would show up in these counties before anywhere else. The Texas Department of Public Safety maintains up-to-date, reliable crime data at the county level.

Asher found "no evidence of increasing violent crime along the US border with Mexico." In fact, these border counties "have seen a relatively steady violent crime rate below that of the rest of their state and the nation as a whole."

The same trends hold when you look at murder alone. The murder rate in border counties is consistently lower than the country as a whole, with little change over the last four years.

In other words, the best available data does not support the claim that Republicans have made a central issue in the 2024 campaign. There is no "bloodbath" at the border. These areas, in fact, have less crime than the nation as a whole.

The national crime decline

If there is no migrant crime wave at the border, perhaps it will show up in other areas of the country. The data does not support that claim either.

Nationwide, homicide and violent crime dramatically declined in 2023. According to the latest FBI’s Quarterly Uniform Crime report, which was released in March, homicides were down 13% in 2023 compared to 2022. Meanwhile, violent crime and property crime dipped 6% and 4% respectively. This data is preliminary and based on reports submitted by 15,199 of 19,152 law enforcement agencies across the country, reflecting “about 82% of the U.S. population.” (The FBI will release a more complete analysis for 2023 in the fall.)

Based on initial findings, Asher said “[t]he decline in murder in 2023 is likely the largest one year decline ever recorded.” The last time that happened was in 1996 when murder dropped 9.1%. In 163 of the 232 cities that submitted data, murder “was down or even,” Asher wrote. These findings were also mirrored in a survey by the Council on Criminal Justice, “which found that homicides were down an average of 10%” across 32 cities. The preliminary data also “suggests 2023 likely had the lowest reported violent crime rate nationally since the late 1960s,” Asher said. A few cities, including Chicago and DC, bucked the trend and saw an increase in violent crime in 2023. But there is no evidence this increase was attributable to migrants.

Asher said early data from 2024 shows that “murder is down around 20 percent in 2024 in more than 180 cities” compared to the same time period last year. In some cities, like DC, Las Vegas, and New Orleans, murder has declined by “more than 30 percent.” In Chicago, murder has declined 12%. But Asher concluded that the data, though incomplete, is encouraging overall. “A murder decline of even half the magnitude suggested by the early 2024 data would place the US murder rate this year largely on par with or below where it was from 2015 to 2019,” Asher noted.

The fact that we are not seeing evidence of a migrant crime surge is consistent with historical data that shows migrants, even undocumented migrants, are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. A peer-reviewed 2020 study, which used data from the Texas Department of Public Safety from 2012 to 2018, "found a lower felony arrest rate for immigrants in the U.S. illegally compared to legal immigrants and native-born U.S. citizens and no evidence of increasing criminality among immigrants." An upcoming study by a researcher at the libertarian Cato Institute similarly found that "undocumented migrants in Texas were about 26% less likely to be convicted of homicide than native-born Americans over the decade of 2013-22."

It appears, however, that Republican messaging around the issue is having an impact. Despite the data, most people believe crime is up. A Gallup poll in November 2023 found that 77% of Americans “believe there is more crime in the U.S. than a year ago.”

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Fox News' attempt to manufacture a Biden crime crisis runs into a problem: Violent crime is down | Media Matters for America

'There’s no evidence': Experts debunk Trump’s claims of 'migrant crime' wave in US cities - Alternet.org

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INVASION HIST

mma 1 24

The bogus premise that migrants entering the United States in search of a better life are conducting an “invasion” of the country has moved from the fringes of the right-wing media to its core over the past decade. The idea of an imminent threat to personal safety and national identity posed by columns of faceless brown masses marching on the border is now a fixture of right-wing commentary, from the depths of the online fever swamps to the talk-radio world of Rush Limbaugh to the heights of Fox News. And this incendiary talking point is now the pretext for a looming constitutional crisis.

Texas and the U.S. government are in a standoff over whether the state’s government can defy orders from federal officials by constructing and maintaining razor-wire barriers along the border with Mexico to prevent migrants from crossing into the country. On January 22, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated an appeals court order which had barred the U.S. Border Patrol from taking down the barriers at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, near the Rio Grande — but Texas officials are still preventing federal agents from entering the area.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a January 24 statement that due to President Joe Biden’s “lawless border policies,” Abbott had “declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself,” and that state officials would continue “acting on that authority, as well as state law, to secure the Texas border.”

Legal experts have skewered Abbott’s contention that his state is suffering an “invasion” and that that overrules the federal government’s constitutional supremacy over immigration policy and the maintenance of national borders. They note that mentions of “invasion” in the Constitution refer not to metaphorical examples like migration but to literal armed incursions by hostile foreign powers.

“The claim that a large increase in the number of would-be migrants gaining entry at the southern border constitutes an ‘invasion’ under Article IV is constitutional nonsense,” University of Missouri law professor Frank O. Bowman III wrote for Just Security. “It cannot be sustained by any reasonable reading of the text of the Constitution, the original understanding of the Constitution, or subsequent interpretations of the Constitution by courts or constitutional scholars.”

Indeed, three different federal appeals courts summarily rejected the idea in the 1990s, as Immigration Council’s Aaron Reichlin-Melnick noted.

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But constitutional arguments be damned, the right wants to increase the salience of a chaotic border (while preventing both bipartisan legislation that would provide more money for border security and increases in legal immigration) because they think that will help Donald Trump win the presidency. Every Republican governor but one and numerous Republican members of Congress are supporting Abbott’s effort, as are the full constellation of right-wing commentators (some of whom are hyping a potential civil war).

It’s impossible to disaggregate the Republican Party’s full-throated adoption of the bogus “invasion” analogy as a constitutional argument from the right-wing media’s use of that rhetoric.

Language once limited to far-right figures like Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, Steve King, and the Minuteman militia has become commonplace among the movement’s demagogues. Right-wing stars like Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham, and Tucker Carlson, who strive to terrify their audiences with the prospect of dangerous immigrants, popularized the “invasion” framing in order to gin up support for the GOP and its ethnonationalist wing and to make space for extraordinary measures at the border. Republican Party leaders, up to and including Trump, have followed in their wake. And along the way, armed white nationalists spouting the same talking point conducted a series of massacres, with targets ranging from an El Paso Walmart to a Pittsburgh synagogue.

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Here’s the history, ripped from the Media Matters archives.

2005 — 2012: Pat Buchanan and the “Reconquista”

There is a long American tradition of right-wing bigots warning that immigrants would contaminate and ultimately destroy the country. But President George W. Bush’s ultimately unsuccessful effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation during his second term brought the issue to the fore this century and exacerbated a schism between the right’s pro-business, pro-immigration reform wing and its nationalist, immigration-restrictionist wing.

Right-wing restrictionists used the increasing migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border during that period, an overwhelming majority of which involved Mexican citizens, to claim that the United States was suffering an “invasion” by that country.

“This is an invasion, the greatest invasion in history,” Buchanan wrote in his 2006 book, State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America. “We are witnessing how nations perish. We are entered upon the final act of our civilization. The last scene is the deconstruction of the nations. The penultimate scene, now well underway, is the invasion unresisted.”

Buchanan and his allies, like Michelle Malkin, argued that the migrant influx was part of the “Reconquista,” a purported plot by Mexico’s government and Hispanic politicians in the U.S. to reclaim the American Southwest. “Chicano chauvinists and Mexican agents have made clear their intent to take back through demography and culture what their ancestors lost through war,” Buchanan explained. He argued that the “invasion” would cause a “balkanization of America” in which the Southwest “de facto is going to secede from this country.”

The “Reconquista” theory fell out of fashion in subsequent years, as migrants with Mexican citizenship fell from 85% of all border apprehensions to 20%. But even without the involvement of a purportedly hostile foreign nation, “invasion” rhetoric recurred on the right’s fringes whenever the immigration issue returned to the fore — and ultimately spread into its mainstream.

2013 — 2016: Laura Ingraham’s “invasion” talk helps take down Cantor, Breitbart’s lifts up Trump

Immigration reform once more seemed within reach during President Barack Obama’s second term. The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill in 2013 that would have increased border enforcement, expanded legal immigration, and provided a path to citizenship for unauthorized migrants. With Obama promising to sign the bill, the remaining holdup was the Republican-controlled House — and right-wing immigration restrictionists like Laura Ingraham, then a prominent radio host and Fox contributor, demanding that the GOP legislators oppose reform.

But the first months of 2014 saw a near-doubling of unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border over the previous year, which experts attributed to a rise in gang violence in Central America. Obama’s June declaration that the surge constituted an “urgent humanitarian situation” requiring the provision of food, housing, and medical treatment for the children triggered a firestorm on the right — complete with claims that the kids constituted an “invasion.”

“The Obama administration has basically put out the welcome mat at the border: ‘Come on in, we'll feed you, we'll house you, we’ll clothe you, we'll get you medical care,’” Ingraham said in a Fox & Friends appearance. “This is an ongoing invasion into our country, and it is horrifying for our sovereignty and our rule of law.”

Ingraham also blamed Republican Eric Cantor, then the House majority leader and a congressman from Virginia who supported citizenship for young people brought to the U.S. as children, if not necessarily broader immigration reform, for aiding what she described as “an invasion facilitated by our own government.” And she did more than complain about him — she endorsed and campaigned for Cantor’s primary opponent, Dave Brat.

Brat won that June 10 election in a victory widely credited to the anti-immigrant rabble-rousing of demagogues like Ingraham. Cantor’s defeat sent a seismic shock through the GOP, and by the end of the month, House Speaker John Boehner informed Obama that immigration reform would not receive a vote that year. The increasingly powerful right-wing media had exercised its veto over the Republican agenda.

Soon after, immigrant “invasion” rhetoric began gaining traction on right-wing Facebook pages, Media Matters found. Breitbart.com, the far-right website controlled at the time by Trumpist Steve Bannon, sought to capture that fringe-right grassroots energy — and snag market share from Fox — with virulent anti-immigration content. By 2015, the site “became the center of a distinct right-wing media ecosystem,” Harvard researchers reported in a post-mortem on election coverage that cycle.

The right-wing media’s incessant fearmongering over the border eliminated any space within the party for reformers. The ultimate beneficiary was Trump, who launched his presidential campaign claiming that Mexico was sending “rapists” to the U.S. and promised to build a wall and make that country pay for it as his supporters touted his ability to turn back the purported “invasion.”

2017 — 2020: The migrant caravan and the mainstreaming of “the great replacement”

Trump’s ascension to the presidency put his party in control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives and left him ultimately responsible for the border. But as the 2018 midterm elections approached, Trump adopted Fox’s preferred campaign strategy by focusing attention on a caravan of migrants 1,000 miles from the U.S. border with Mexico, an “invasion” he falsely blamed on Democrats.

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The Fox-fueled president’s fevered statements attracted crisis-level coverage from national broadcast shows, cable news networks, and newspapers, though the attention ultimately failed to prevent Democrats from gaining control of Congress.

Trump’s caravan push coincided with a major increase in Fox references to migrants as an “invasion” or “invaders,” a trend that continued even after the GOP’s November defeat, Media Matters found. “Prime-time Fox News hosts and guests used the words to refer to migrants 33 times in the 30 days ahead of the election, up from 25 times in all of 2015, 2016 and 2017,” we reported. “Fox has kept up the attacks in the weeks after the Republicans lost the U.S. House: Prime-time hosts and guests used the terms 48 times between Election Day and the end of November.” A follow-up review found more than 70 Fox references to a migrant “invasion” in the first seven months of 2019.

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As Democrats took power in Congress, Fox commentators began pushing something even darker alongside their constant invocations of a migrant “invasion.” Influential figures like Ingraham and fellow Fox host Tucker Carlson adopted the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, a white supremacist talking point which posits that Democrats are deliberately importing brown migrants to “replace” white Americans in order to corrupt the country and increase their own power.

The “great replacement” rhetoric moved from internet fever swamps to the prime-time hours of the nation’s most-watched cable news network — and to the manifestos of white nationalist spree killers bent on stopping the “invaders.”

2021 — 2024: Forever war

The right’s anti-immigrant rhetoric has been more incendiary than ever since Biden took office in 2021. Border apprehensions and expulsions have increased to record levels as migrants flee political and economic instability in Central and South America for the booming post-COVID U.S., and hundreds of thousands have made asylum claims to authorities at the border.

But for the right, “Biden’s border crisis” is a deliberate effort by a president who does not want to stop the invasion.

Every possible news event, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the end of Title 42 deportation authority to the upcoming presidential election, brings a new wave of fearmongering over the “invaders” who will “replace” the population. They’re using this rhetoric to argue for extreme measures on the border and to denounce Biden for not pursuing them. As Carlson claimed, “Our military could seal the border with Mexico in days. That would save American lives, it would restore order, and it would end the invasion.”

Texas, with its long border with Mexico and numerous Republican politicians eager for the right-wing media’s spotlight and support, is a natural subject for this coverage. Indeed, over a three-day period in July 2022, Media Matters found that Fox aired at least 20 claims that the state was being invaded by migrants. That period overlapped with a push by county officials to get Abbott to declare an “invasion” under the Constitution in order to seize control of border policy from the federal government.

At the time, legal experts pointed out that the effort was ridiculous and based on “a total mischaracterization of what an invasion is.” But the GOP’s propaganda wing currently wields more influence over the party’s legal policy than its legal experts, and 20 months later, Texas is in a standoff with the federal government based on its “invasion” talking point.

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Worldwide fascism is being accelerated by the one thing few people want to talk about

Thom Hartmann

August 22, 2023

This article was paid for by AlterNet subscribers.

The government of the Netherlands fell this summer. The issue that tipped it over the edge was immigration driven by climate change. If Putin wanted to destroy democracy in Europe (and he does), back in 2015 he couldn’t have picked a better strategy. Odds are, though, he was just trying to protect his deepwater ports; it wasn’t until the crisis developed that he realized how he could exploit it to overthrow liberal democracies in the EU. The way it’s played out gives us a glimpse into our future — and the future of democratic republics all across the world — as the global climate emergency and the refugee crisis associated with it grows more severe over the next few years.

The current rise-of-rightwing-fascism crisis building in Europe began in 2010 and started with global climate change.

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The fall of that year sawunusually severe rainfall across the wheat-growing parts of Canada, cutting that nation’s wheat harvest, along with drought across Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and China. A La Nina caused crop failures in Argentina and Peru. Worldwide prices of staple foods, particularly wheat, exploded.

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On December 17 of that year a street vendor inTunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire to protest the high cost of the wheat he needed to make the foods he and his peers sold, and the harassment of police against their protests. It sparked what we referred to then as the Arab Spring, that lasted through most of 2011.

The steady warming and drought in that area, though, never let up and the desert in North Africa relentlessly continued to eat up millions of acres of food-producing land, particularly across Syria. By 2015 it had pushed over a million Syrian subsistence farmers off their land — that had desertified — and into Syria’s cities, particularly Damascus and Aleppo.

Northern Africa became the world’s number one food importer, and the prices kept rising relentlessly.

Newly homeless, hungry, and destitute, these Syrian farmers began demonstrations in the streets demanding food, shelter, and employment or “welfare” payments from the Syrian government.

Bashar Assad, being a psychopathic dictator, ordered his troops to fire live ammunition into the crowds in 2012 and 2013, and soon a full-blown revolt was on: “rebels” seized Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, in early 2013.

Syria was also the base for Russia’s Mediterranean fleet, with multiple deep-water ports that Putin believed were critical to his nation’s military defense. By 2015 he had a dozen battleships there, along with submarines and other warships.

He had to prevent the Assad government from falling or risk an “Arab Spring democracy” emerging — as happened for a short while in Tunisia and Egypt [ALSO DROUGHT]— that might align itself with the West and kick Russia out.

Making a long story short, Putin bombed the crap out of Syria on Assad’s behalf, virtually leveling the city of Aleppo, killing hundreds of civilians.

It was one of the worst war crimes of this century, almost as deadly as George W. Bush’s brutal and criminal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Millions of climate and war refugees fled the country, joining Bush’s wars’ fugitives making their way into Europe by any means possible.

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Thus began Europe’s refugee crisis, which just helped bring down Holland’s government. In two weeks, it may well cause the rightwing fascist-aligned anti-immigrant People’s Party to come to power in the Spanish elections on July 23.

As the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) noted in a 2021 report:

“By the end of 2016, nearly5.2 million refugees and migrants reached European shores,undertaking treacherous journeys from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries torn apart by war and persecution.”

This flood of brown-skinned Muslims fleeing African and Middle Eastern climate change and wars into Europe over the past decade is why Italy and Sweden now have rightwing leaders; why Viktor Orbán was able to gain and hold power in Hungary with his promise to “build a wall” along Hungary’s southern border (a promise he kept); and why rightwing parties are today growing so rapidly in Germany, Greece, Norway, Austria, Belgium and France.

The legacy of five centuries of racist imperialism across four continents has been that wealth and safety from the ravages of climate change are concentrated in mostly White-run nations, while vulnerability to desertification and poverty are concentrated in mostly Brown- and Black-run nations.

When Russia intervened in British politics to tear apart the EU, their trolls’ main Facebook pitch for Brexit was that “those [Brown and Black] people” the EU had let in were now making their way to the UK.

While every country in the world can accept refugees in small numbers without crisis, when “other people” begin showing up in large numbers the response by every nation in history typically tends toward rightwing nationalism and xenophobia, an obsession with borders, and demands for racial, cultural, and religious “purity.”

Here in North America we’re seeing a similar dynamic. Reagan so severely destabilized Central America and Venezuela with his sanctions, illegal Iran-Contra program, and support for rightwing death squads that those nations never recovered. In the years since, climate change has bit these weakened governments deep, forcing millions of subsistence farmers — just like in Syria but here mostly from hard-hit Guatemala — off land that once grew crops but is now, just a few years later, scrub desert.

Exploiting the climate refugee crisis on America’s southern border, Republican politicians have spent the years since Obama’s election in 2008 falsely claiming that Democrats had thrown the border “open,” producing thousands of news stories that have been used by coyotes — human traffickers — to draw even more refugees toward the United States.

Compounding that, Trump launched his 2016 campaign on keeping Brown people out of the United States, and today racism and xenophobia form the foundation of most Republican political campaigns (when they aren’t hating on queer people or women).

The result of these trends has been a worldwide shift to the right. As Freedom House noted in a 2022 report, over 60 countries experienced “declines” in democracy the previous year; only about 20 percent of people worldwide now live in “free” nations:

“Global freedom faces a dire threat. … Authoritarian regimes have become more effective at co-opting or circumventing the norms and institutions meant to support basic liberties, and at providing aid to others who wish to do the same. …

“The global order is nearing a tipping point, and if democracy’s defenders do not work together to help guarantee freedom for all people, the authoritarian model will prevail.”

So far, the western world’s refugee crisis has been mostly driven by massive policy errors and outright war crimes: Russia’s response to the Syrian farmers, the US invasion and destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and American meddling in Central America and Venezuela.

But all have been either triggered or exacerbated by the worldwide climate emergency. And, as we can see from this summer’s weather worldwide, that emergency is building at a rate far more rapid than even alarmist climate scientists were predicting just a decade ago.

Recent projections show that within just the next two decades as many as three billion people could be fleeing areas that will soon only marginally support human life.

As equatorial regions become uninhabitable, the mostly darker-skinned people living there will be migrating north and south into areas controlled by lighter-skinned people in numbers that will make today’s Syrian, Iraq, and Afghan refugee crisis look like a statistical blip.

It will put worldwide white supremacist and Nazi movements into hyperdrive.

In addition to acting immediately to mitigate climate change and green the world’s economy, the free nations of the world must harden our democracies against reactive rightwing violence- and hate-based racist political movements.

That will also require radically reducing the Supreme Court-gifted political power of big money here in America — particularly from the fossil fuel industry and the billionaires it has created — and returning that power and wealth to the hard-hit majority. The Democratic Party in America is increasingly committed to this, but Republicans and the dozens of billionaires in their camp are prepared to spend heretofore unimaginable sums to keep climate deniers and race-baiters in office.

We also must help those nations most hard-hit by the warming — caused largely by our carbon pollution — to deal with their own refugees internally, lest they irrecoverably destabilize first their own governments and then ours.

To paraphrase JFK, we are not helpless before this task.

But it will require western and American media and political systems to take on these three crises — climate change, the refugees it produces, and politicians who demagogue the issue while blocking forward progress — now.

We are quite literally out of time.

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Evangelical Christians

Trump’s followers are a diverse alliance. Southerners who feel ignored are just one faction within a broad alliance of citizens who feel that the national government does not serve them. One other easily identifiable group are evangelical Christians.

Non-Americans tend not to realize the scope of evangelical Christianity in the United States and are often puzzled by the many references to God in speeches by politicians, especially federal politicians.

These are references to the idea that Americans are God’s chosen people. This is, however, not a homogeneous group, despite media generalizations. Not all are anti-abortion and anti-gay, but many have a sense that America is sliding backwards morally.

That explains why a segment of the movement supports a president who is almost certainly a serial adulterer — his speeches and his actions correspond with their concerns.

Trump was the first president to attend the annual March for Life this past January, and supporters also welcomed his appointment of social conservatives to the Supreme Court, bringing it closer, they believe, to overturning Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion.

Xenophobes, the economically disadvantaged

Another segment of hard-core supporters feel strongly that America is under attack by foreigners, including Central Americans crossing the southern border. They also falsely believe the Chinese sent COVID-19 to kill Americans.

Sixty years ago, these supporters would have been in the “my country right or wrong” camp supporting American involvement in the Vietnam War. They believe they are supporting traditional American values, free enterprise, hard work and white society against destructive change.

For these supporters, Trump promised the wall along the southern border to keep out “rapists,” talks often about “the Chinese virus” and says kind things about counter-protesters, even excusing the actions of the young man, Kyle Rittenhouse, accused of killing two people at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Wisconsin.

A sizeable segment of Trump supporters, and the ones who often get the most attention, are the economically abandoned. When Trump was elected, some in the media were quick to dismiss his supporters as lacking education, and therefore unable to grasp that Trump lied, embellished the truth and stoked bigotry.

That’s unfair on several levels.

For one, as corporations move their manufacturing offshore and the U.S. economy relies more on high-tech jobs, the less educated have lost their jobs, whether in the coal mines of West Virginia or the industrial areas of the Midwest.

Understandably, they’re attracted to a president who slapped tariffs on foreign countries, including China and Canada, in the hopes manufacturing jobs will return to America.

Not surprisingly, people who believe they’ve watched the American dream of “work hard and you will succeed” vanish have lost patience with politicians on Capitol Hill who seem only to care about power. And so they’ve turned to a populist, someone who seems to understand. A lot of them don’t care about Trump’s lies; they only care that he talks about their problems.

And not all of those suffering economically are manufacturing or industrial workers service with poor education. There are middle-income earners who have been hurt by the flight of industry, which resulted in regional downturns in the economy.

The news industry

Fifty years ago, a sizeable portion of the American population would tune in every evening to the nightly news on one of three networks and listen to a trusted anchor deliver the news. Now many choose either CNN or Fox, throwbacks in many ways to newspapers of the 19th century that supported one political party and framed the news to favour that party.

Not surprisingly, this approach reinforces existing views of what is going on in the United States. The traditional networks have lost the large audiences of earlier years andlocal news in most markets has become infotainment.

Many people, even those who didn’t bother watching news in past, now get a quick fix from the internet, the source of much of the “fake news” that Trump claims the mainstream media circulate, but really originates in the minds of internet fraudsters.

How many times, for example, have we heard that COVID-19 is a Chinese biological weapon, sent to destroy the American population?

Can we blame lack of education for Trump support when even well-educated individuals have their views of the world reinforced by what they see on the internet or on a cable news channel?

Throw in a number of militant supporters of small government and lower taxes, and you have the hard-core Trump supporters.

Violence a real possibility

Many who identify with these different groups may fall into more than one category; for instance, evangelical Christians who are angry about the de-industrialization of America.

Why are Trump supporters likely to make the situation worse this election?

The answer should be obvious. When a group feels that something critical has been denied them for a long time, its members will protest. If the protest still does not bring about change, some or all will resort to violence to try to force change.

Among the staunch Trump supporters are those who will merely vote for him, those who will demonstrate for him — something Trump encourages — and those who willuse violence in order to ensure the re-election of the man they see as their only potential saviour. Violence is a real possibility as the campaign progresses.

Should Trump lose to Joe Biden, the new president must quickly show sympathy towards the economic issues embodied in the pro-Trump movement and empathy towards the more contentious goals of Trump’s supporters, or it is almost certain the violence will escalate.

Ron Stagg, Professor of History, Ryerson University

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/08/feds-charge-ex-trump-official-steve-bannon-with-criminal-fraud-in-crowd-funded-border-wall-campaign/

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/how-tucker-carlson-is-crafting-a-dangerous-and-preposterous-conspiracy-theory-to-prop-up-trump/

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How Tucker Carlson is crafting a dangerous and preposterous conspiracy theory to prop up Trump

Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon April 23, 2020

During the months when Donald Trump thought he could somehow defeat the novel coronavirus by lying, minimizing it and calling concerns about the coming pandemic a “hoax,” most Fox News hosts were right there with him. The one major exception, however, was popular prime time host Tucker Carlson. While Sean Hannity kept calling the coronavirus crisis a “hoax” and Laura Ingraham described people concerned about it as “panic pushers,” Carlson actually criticized Trump and his Fox colleagues for “minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem,” arguing that the virus was “a major event” that “will affect your life.” The fact Trump made a reluctant pivot and began to admit that the coronavirus was a real threat — even though he’s still trying to cover up the spread of the disease — is likely due to Carlson’s pressure.

In fact, the difference between Carlson’s approach and that of his fellow Fox News hosts, especially Hannity, was so pronounced that it likely altered the course of the disease. A new study shows that communities that favored Hannity’s show over Carlson’s show had more cases of COVID-19 and more deaths. The reason is simple: Because Hannity downplayed the seriousness of the coronavirus, his viewers were less likely to follow stay-at-home recommendations and therefore more likely spread the disease.

Don’t get too soft on Tucker, however. He wasn’t motivated by a real concern about the safety of his audience, much less about Americans at large. He simply took a more opportunistic attitude, viewing the inevitable panic and instability that would result from thepandemic as a chance to push his white nationalist views by blaming immigrants. He encouraged people to embrace racist frames that impliedpeople of color were dirtier than white people, and encouraged Trump to use the pandemic as an excuse to shut down immigration.Trump has taken that advice, although his ban — which only affects people seeking green cards, not those seeking temporary work visas — has already been criticized by Carlson, who thinks it doesn’t go far enough.

But now even Carlson’s racism-inflected willingness to take the coronavirus seriously has abruptly ended. Starting at the beginning of April, even after his Fox News colleagues had begun to take the virus more seriously,Carlson switched gears and moved toward a denialist viewpoint. He started attacking public health officials for the stay-at-home orders and saying the economic results of the lockdown were worse than the disease.

(This argument, it should be noted, is entirely false. The notion that the economy would be doing fine with a highly contagious and often deadly disease ripping through the population is asinine. Evidence shows that the economy will not rebound, even if politicians remove the lockdown orders. And, as I’ve repeatedly argued, workers who stay home because they’re sick aren’t any more productive than workers who stay home because they’re under lockdown.)

As happened with his emerging white nationalism, Carlson’s denialist stance towards the coronavirus has only grown more extreme in the past few weeks. Last week, he praised the astroturfed protesters who swarmed state capitals, armed with rifles and Confederate flags, to portray the lockdowns as an elite conspiracy to destroy Trump.

On Wednesday night, Carlson stopped playing footsie with the conspiracy theorists and went full science denial.

“Mass quarantines, they tell us again and again, are the only way to save lives, but that’s a lie,” he said, bizarrely suggesting that quarantines have “never been done” and saying that we “have spent trillions of dollars and crushed millions of people, purely on the guess that a nationwide lockdown would save us from the coronavirus.”

Carlson is lying, which should be obvious without even doing a moment’s worth of historical research. If quarantines are a brand new thing that no one has ever considered before, why do we have a word for the practice? How is it that the word for this novel, unheard-of practice is so common that everyone knows what it means? How many other words does the English language have for things that don’t exist and no one has ever heard of?

Humans figured out quarantines worked before they even knew why they worked. The CDC website I found after a Google search for “history of quarantine” explains that the “practice of quarantine, as we know it, began during the 14th century in an effort to protect coastal cities from plague epidemics,” by holding ships at anchor for 40 days before docking. The website for PBS’ “Nova” dates the practice back to 549 A.D. Boston first instituted maritime quarantines in 1647. Federal management of quarantine orders dates back to the 19th century.

Famous works of literature — including the Bible, with its references to leper colonies — have references to the practice. “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio, one of the most famous literary works of the Renaissance, is about people telling stories to pass the time as they shelter in place to avoid the bubonic plague. “The Plague” by Albert Camus tells the story of a plague and quarantine measures in a 1940s setting. Why do Romeo and Juliet die in the famous Shakespearean play? Because a messenger with a letter outlining the plan for their survival is waylaid by a quarantine. (Those of us still awaiting Amazon packages can relate.)

Tucker claims he’s the protector of the great traditions of “Western civilization,” mind you, but when it comes to actual history, he’s decided to play ignoramus.

Of course, it’s hardly news that Carlson thinks his audience consists of illiterate morons who don’t know any history prior to 1982, but even for him this is a stretch. People know how disease spreads and why reducing exposure works. Polling shows that not only are Americans broadly supportive of the shelter-in-place orders, but that even a majority of Republicans aren’t keen on ignoring well-established germ theory just because Fox News tells them to.

Still, Carlson is doing this for a reason: He needs to give his audience some excuse to claim that none of this is Trump’s fault. (Narrator: It is Trump’s fault.) He’s offering them a conspiracy theory that these lockdowns aren’t an authentic attempt to slow the spread of a deadly disease, but an invented crisis aimed at bringing down Trump. It’s true that Carlson hasn’t come out and said that, but it’s the only real conclusion one can draw from his accusation that thousands of public health experts, bureaucrats and elected officials are working together (and none are blowing the whistle!) to crash the economy in order to grab “godlike power” for themselves.

There is no small amount of projection in his rant, in which he complains that “mediocre people” are trying to control “when people can get married, which medical procedures you are allowed to have.” The people who are actually interested in doing that are, of course, Republicans who would like to ban same-sex marriage and abortion. But of course, accusing your opponents of doing what you are actually doing is exactly what right-wing conspiracy theorists do.

Carlson’s full-blown Alex Jones-style conspiracy theories aren’t just a threat to our democracy. They’re a threat to the health of his viewers. As the study mentioned earlier in this piece has shown, many Fox News viewers are willing to break the stay-at-home orders to demonstrate their loyalty to Trump and faith in Fox News. Some have already died because of this. Tucker Carlson clearly doesn’t care how many of his own viewers get sick and die. He has a larger agenda: Create some explanation, no matter how preposterous, that deflects the blame for this national catastrophe away from Donald Trump.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/how-the-birth-tourist-became-trumps-latest-bogeyman/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/heres-the-data-that-proves-americans-who-rage-against-political-correctness-are-the-most-xenophobic-and-most-likely-to-vote-trump-in-2020

no lnx

Here’s the data that shows Americans who rage against political correctness are the most xenophobic — and most likely to vote Trump

Written by Samuel L. Perry / Religion Dispatches March 24, 2020

Admittedly, Trump’s initial references to “the Chinese Virus” earlier in March seemed rather ad-hoc. Though clearly xenophobic in context and implication, it seemed that Trump was casually parroting the language of other far-Right commentators like Charlie Kirk. Within the past week, however, Trump has ramped up his labeling campaign, often going out of his way to refer to COVID-19 as “the Chinese Virus” in Twitter storms and White House press briefings.

Two key strategies likely drive Trump’s efforts here. Both involve distracting Americans from his own administration’s failings at dealing with the coronavirus earlier on. The first is simply to blame China, laying responsibility for America’s situation solely at their feet. The fact that a Chinese propaganda director recently suggested the virus may have originated with American soldiers who brought it to China provided the perfect (and tacitly justifiable) motivation for Trump to remind the world forcefully and repeatedly where the virus originated.

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The second factor also involves distraction from Trump’s failings, but one in which “China” is only incidental. They are merely a stand-in for all “dangerous outsiders.” By repeatedly and brazenly referring to “the Chinese Virus,” and provoking a media backlash against the xenophobic implications of his language, Trump wishes to remind his base who our internal threats are: politically correct liberals who care more about defending foreigners than they do the American people.

Though Trump has previously raged against political correctness explicitly, and indeed, campaigned on it in 2016, when it comes to this recent COVID-19 labeling campaign, other far-Right thought-leaders have been doing this for him. For example, in a March 14th interview on Fox News, Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton stated, “Anyone who complains that it’s racist or xenophobic to call this virus the Chinese coronavirus or the Wuhan virus is a politically correct fool, and they ought not to be listened to about anything.”

And March 20th, Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told Glenn Beck: “The worst thing in this pandemic virus outside of the actual illness itself of course is the political [sic] correct media still, still peddling garbage that hurts the American people.” Quoting an ABC News reporter, O’Reilly said in a whiny, mocking voice, “A lot of people think it’s racist if you call it the Chinese Virus. …It’s sickening.”

But survey data confirm that white Americans—like President Trump, Senator Tom Cotton, Bill O’Reilly, or their followers—who attack politically correct language as the enemy are in fact the most likely to hold racist or xenophobic views. In a nationally representative survey fielded in February 2020, we asked Americans to indicate how much they agreed with statements about using politically correct language. We also asked Americans for their views on refugees from the Middle East and America’s control over its Southern border.

In the first figure [left], we see that, as Americans’ agreement with the statement “Too many people are easily offended these days over language” increases, the more likely they are to believe that the federal government should do more to secure the Southern border and that Middle Eastern refugees pose a terrorist threat.

In the second figure [below, right], we see a similar trend, but in the opposite direction. The more strongly Americans disagree with the statement “People need to be more careful with language to avoid offending people,” the more likely they are to hold xenophobic views about refugees from the Middle East and to want stricter border control.

In sum: both figures show that white Americans who voice the strongest opinions against politically correct language also hold the strongest anti-immigrant attitudes.

Just as important, they are also the group most likely to plan on voting Trump in 2020.

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The last figure [left] shows the percentage of white Americans who indicate they plan on voting Trump in 2020 by their level of agreement with our two statements regarding politically correct language. Nearly 80% of white Americans who strongly disagree that “People need to be more careful with language to avoid offending people,” or who strongly agree that “Too many people are easily offended these days over language,” intend to vote for Trump in November.

Seen in light of these data, Trump’s dual strategy is clear. By unapologetically referring to COVID-19 as “the Chinese Virus,” Trump is first able to signal to his white base that he too is disdainful of scheming, disease-ridden outsiders. But he can also intentionally provoke a backlash against his hurtful and xenophobic language, which he and his followers can dismiss as leftist “political correctness.” Trump shores up support against both a perceived external threat (immigrants) and an internal threat (liberals) with a single dangerous and offensive swipe.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/how-the-coronavirus-has-exposed-the-religious-rights-racism/

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trump-uses-coronavirus-fears-to-advance-bannons-far-right-agenda/

When President Donald J. Trump delivered his latest market-rattling remarks on the coronavirus pandemic from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, political reporters collectively scratched their heads over the president’s announcement of a ban on travelers from Europe and cargo coming from the continent. (The cargo ban was later walked back.)

But anyone paying attention to the rise of the global right knew what Trump was up to: using well-founded fears of the virus’s spread in the U.S. to strengthen the hand of Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s erstwhile chief White House strategist, in the former’s quest to weaken the European Union.

In his remarks, Trump blamed European travelers for “seeding” the “foreign virus”—first identified in China—on American shores, and blamed Europe for the spread of the new coronavirus, because, he said, the E.U. had not banned travel from China as the U.S. has. “And taking early intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in Europe,” Trump said, conveniently omitting the fact that Europe has a viable testing regimen, while it’s still impossible for most people in the U.S. to obtain a test for COVID-19, as the new coronavirus is formally known. Consequently, no one knows just how many people in the land of the free are freely walking around, spreading the virus. Nor do we know how many deaths from respiratory failure are due to the new virus.

While a number of claims made by Trump in the remarks he delivered from the Resolute Desk have since been walked back by various government agencies, it is notable that a clarification from the Department of Homeland Security says that the European countries affected by the executive order signed by Trump include only those in the Schengen area, which means those that are party to a multi-nation agreement to maintain open borders among them. Most of those 22 nations are members of the E.U.

In other words, this is an ideological and punitive action against those nations for daring to act in coalition—and for having demonstrated, since 1985, the value of such a compact.

Since before his ouster from the White House (for saying mean things about Trump’s son, Don Jr., daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner that were reported in the Michael Wolff book, “Fire and Fury”), Bannon has been working on growing the right-wing nationalist parties in Europe, Brazil and elsewhere, with a foremost goal of busting up the E.U. While he served as an executive at Cambridge Analytica, Bannon helped fuel the Brexit referendum that has led to the United Kingdom’s departure from the E.U.

In his Wednesday-night remarks, Trump said that the U.K. would be exempt from his European travel ban—never mind that confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.K. leapt by more than 20 percent since Trump spoke to the American people yesterday from the Oval Office, now standing at 596, with 20 deaths reported. “However,” according to the BBC, “the actual number of people infected could be between 5,000 and 10,000, the government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance said.”

Politico notes that the parameters of his European travel ban functionally exempt travelers from Trump’s own properties in Scotland and Ireland.

In addition, Trump’s framing of COVID-19 as a “foreign virus” fits neatly into one of Bannon’s newer projects, a group he calls Committee on the Present Danger: China, whose major donor, Guo Wengui, appears to be Bannon’s latest sugar daddy, now that he’s said to have been abandoned by his former patrons, Robert and Rebekah Mercer.

While Trump and Bannon may have their personal differences, it is clear that they’re working in tandem. The constellation of right-wing actors that forms the alliance colloquially known as Bannon World are firmly on team Trump, as was obvious at last month’s Conservative Political Action Conference, which has become, for all intents and purposes, an arm of the Trump campaign. (The conference is run by Matt Schlapp, whose wife Mercedes works for the Trump campaign. Matt Schlapp and his roster of speakers at the four-day conference almost all effusively praised the president, with many urging his reelection.) Bannon World speakers at CPAC included former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka, Brexit Party Chairman Nigel Farage, Brazilian politician Eduardo Bolsonaro and China critic Gordon Chang.

The American Conservative Union, which stages CPAC, reported last week that one this year’s CPAC attendees—revealed today to be the Republican donor Alan Berger—tested positive for the virus after attending the conference.

Tags: Donald J. Trump Donald Trump Jr.Eduardo Bolsonaro Gordon Chang Guo Wengui Ivanka Trump Jared Kushner Matt Schlapp Mercedes Schlapp Michael Wolff Miles Kwok Nigel Farage Rebekah Mercer Robert Mercer Sebastian Gorka Steve Bannon Bannon World Coronavirus European travel ban global far-right American Conservative Union BBC Committee on the Present Danger: China Department of Homeland Security European Union Politico

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/09/revealed-the-fbi-is-targeting-immigration-activists

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Revealed: The FBI is targeting immigration activists

Written by Igor Derysh September 6, 2019

An FBI document obtained by Yahoo News shows that the bureau is monitoring groups that protest the Trump administration immigration policies as “extremists.”

An FBI “external intelligence note” that was sent to law enforcement and government agencies by the bureau’s Phoenix field office in May warns that immigration activists are “increasingly arming themselves and using lethal force to further their goals,” although it offered no evidence of violence.

The memo alleges that “anarchist extremists” are “very likely” increasing the “targeting” of immigration enforcement officers and detention facilities and pose the “risk of armed conflict.” The memo acknowledges that the claims were made with “medium” and “low confidence.”

Even though nearly all evidence cited in the memo refers to nonviolent protests and statements, the document alleges that the “threat” to Arizona “likely will grow” and may be “emboldened” if given an “opportunity for an escalation to violence.”

The memo further claims that some of the groups it described as “anarchist extremists” have “banned firearms or [are] carrying loaded weapons.” No specific evidence that this had actually happened was cited.

“These indicators, if found to be accurate, could cause a change in the confidence levels or in the assessments in general,” the document says.

The evidence cited for the FBI’s claims largely refers to activist websites and social media accounts calling for “disruptions” near ICE facilities.

The allegation that immigration activists are arming themselves appears to refer to comments from “antifa” groups about training members to use firearms. There have been no instances of shootings linked to antifa members. The document also cites a single human source to claim a group planned to provide “armed support of the migrant caravans” in December 2018. There has been no evidence that any group or any individuals actually did so.

Despite this general lack of hard evidence, the memo states that agents assessed that it was “likely” that immigration activists planned to use firearms against the government and right-wing groups, rather than arming themselves for self-defense, even though sources had told the FBI that these groups have “summarily banned the use of firearms.”

The memo was produced by the FBI Phoenix field office and distributed to other agencies. A bureau spokesperson told Yahoo News that the contents of the document offered only the perspective of the Phoenix field office and included nuanced qualifiers.

“These products are intended to be informative in nature,” the spokesperson said, “and as such, they contain appropriate caveats to describe the confidence in the sourcing of information and the likelihood of the assessment. Additionally, when written at a local level, these products will note that the perspective offered may be limited to the field office’s area of responsibility.”

Mike German, a former FBI special agent, told Yahoo News that the memo is evidence of the bureau’s post-9/11 “overreach” in classifying protest groups as terror threats.

“It’s been a feature of the post-9/11 counterterrorism effort by the FBI to focus on nonviolent civil disobedience and to prioritize it,” German said. “For several years after 9/11, the FBI called environmental activists the No. 1 domestic terror threat, even though there’s not a single homicide related to environmental ‘terrorists’ in the United States.”

A 2010 FBI inspector general report criticized the bureau for targeting groups like PETA and Greenpeace, noting that some investigations were “factually weak,” and showed no indication of federal criminal activity.

“In some cases, the FBI extended the duration of investigations involving advocacy groups or their members without adequate basis, and in a few instances the FBI improperly retained information about the groups in its files,” the report said. “The FBI also classified some investigations relating to nonviolent civil disobedience under its ‘Acts of Terrorism’ classification, which resulted in the watchlisting of subjects during the investigation.”

German told Yahoo News that even groups like antifa, which have been involved in violent street clashes with far-right groups, would not qualify as terror threats.

“Congress passed a definition of domestic terrorism. It requires illegal activities harmful to human life,” German said. “I’m not aware of any fatal attacks committed by somebody associated with an antifascist movement.”

Nate Snyder, a former Homeland Security and Justice Department official, told Yahoo News that the FBI also erred in linking antifa to anarchist groups and immigration activists.

“Those are three very different groups,” he said.

This federal scrutiny is apparently not limited to activist groups. An NBC San Diego investigation earlier this year found that government authorities are tracking journalists who have covered migrant caravans at the border.

Snyder called the memo a “head scratcher.” In July, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified to Congress that domestic terror cases are on the rise, but that most of them involve “white supremacist violence.”

Despite Wray’s testimony, Yahoo News reported last month that the Justice Department had suppressed a report showing that white supremacists were responsible for all race-based domestic terror incidents last year. The Trump administration has also shifted resources and staff away from investigating white supremacist violence, while increasing DHS investigations that have targeted Muslims and other minority groups.

“There are people out there actually harming other people, and that’s where the counterterrorism resources should be devoted,” German told Yahoo News, “not toward people who are simply challenging government policy,”

...References to an immigrant “invasion,” according to the Times, have appeared on “more than 300 Fox News broadcasts.”

One right-wing media figure who finds the frequent use of the word “invasion” troubling is neocon Bill Kristol, formerly of the now-defunct Weekly Standard. Kristol, a major critic of President Donald Trump, asserted that what was once the language of the lunatic fringe has become everyday discourse in today’s right-wing media.

“It’s a bit of a vicious cycle,” Kristol told the Times. “Something is said on Fox News, and Trump repeats it, and that legitimizes it — and then, someone else goes a little further…. The use of what once would have been viewed as really extreme and inappropriate and sometimes conspiratorial, sometimes dehumanizing language is really striking.”

The Times reports that back in the 1990s, Buchanan’s “notion of immigrants as a national threat” was controversial on much of the right and “ran counter to the Republican Party’s efforts to make itself more appealing to Hispanics.” But these days, according to the Times, that type of rhetoric is the exception rather than the rule in right-wing media

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icn 719

Ravaged by Drought, a Honduran Village Faces a Choice: Pray for Rain or Migrate

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08072019/climate-change-migration-honduras-drought-crop-failure-farming-deforestation-guatemala-trump

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...One place where the intersection between these two perceived identities becomes more tangible is the allusion often made to Soros as a “billionaire globalist” or the leader of a “globalist movement.” The term “globalist” is used by anti-Semites as shorthand for the idea of a global Jewish conspiracy for power and control. This idea of a global conspiracy has its roots in the Middle Ages, where paranoia about wealthy Jews began to become more prevalent, and the continued thread of this harmful trope can be traced to the 20th century myth of Judeo-Bolshevism.

Another aspect of these conspiracies is the suggestion that Jews are conspiring to weaken the state where they reside in order to heighten their own influence. This, specifically, is a common assertion when it comes to Soros’s treatment in the U.S. and Hungary. Soros has been known to lobby for the humane treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, especially after Hungary’s controversial treatment of asylum seekers in 2014. This has lead the Right to cast Soros as radically pro-immigration, with some asserting that he is trying to destabilize Europe and the U.S. by allowing dangerous migrants to enter.

In 2018, Donald Trump and others accused Soros of being the “mastermind” behind the migrant “caravan” that trekked from Central America to the U.S. Southern border in 2018. This narrative of Soros as a global mastermind and promoter of non-white immigration “replacing” white Europeans or Americans was cited by thesuspected shooter in the 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.** The gunman had posted shortly before the massacre about his fears of “white genocide” by these migrant “invaders.”

During the migrant caravan controversy in the U.S., many right-wing commentators suggested that the migrants were being paid by Soros to come to the U.S., echoing similar accusations by right-wing politicians and media in both the U.S. and Hungary that Soros pays protesters to create chaos. By portraying protesters as “Soros agents,” right-wing leaders hope to undermine the legitimacy of protests.

The term “Soros agent” has been used to describe a plethora of people, including Hungary’s first black parliament member, Olivio Kocsis-Cake; the former chancellor of Austria, Sebastian Kurz; and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, John Podesta. In 2018, the government of Hungary published a list of over 200 “Soros mercenaries,” which included human rights advocates, journalists, teachers and professors. By portraying these people as members of a foreign conspiracy to control local politics, right-wing political leaders seek not only to dismiss their critics but also to intimidate those who are working for change.

These anti-Semitic critiques of Soros are not limited to Hungary and the U.S.; Austria’s vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the far-Right FPÖ party described the Soros-funded Central European University as a “Wanderuniversität” or “Wandering University.” The “wandering Jew” is an image that has its origins in the medieval era and was co-opted by the Nazis in the mid-20th century to promote violence and hatred against the Jewish people.

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Potential DHS senior official Ken Cuccinelli suggested that states invoke “war powers” to turn back migrant “invasion”

Right-wing pundit Ken Cuccinelli is an anti-LGBTQ bigot, and Trump is set to appoint him to a senior DHS position

headlines everyone’s talking about: We got to the bottom of a caravan conspiracy, and Kanye is over politics.

It's Halloween, and the sun is going down! If you live in Iowa, get your dad jokes ready. Corny jokes are necessary for Des Moines' amazing Beggars' Night tradition (which is basically Halloween Jr.).

A lie about George Soros and the migrant caravan went viral. USA TODAY followed it.

A caravan of Central American migrants is slowly progressing toward the United States, and with every step, falsehoods about them multiply. One in particular stands out: a baseless claim that liberal billionaire George Soros was paying them to make the journey. He's not. Echoes of that conspiracy appear in the online lives of one man accused of killing 11 worshipers at a Pittsburgh synagogue and another man charged with sending explosives to 13 prominent critics of President Donald Trump. The lie's ascent from Internet obscurity to the political mainstream was dramatic, blossoming in days from a handful of mostly anonymous and unnoticed social media accounts to congressmen and celebrities. This is the life of a lie.

Kanye West makes an exit from ‘Blexit’

Kanye West's bromance with President Donald Trump might be over. West, the controversial rapper who has become one of Trump's highest-profile celebrity supporters, said he has become a political pawn. "I’ve been used to spread messages I don’t believe in," West tweeted. His latest revelation came after a series of tweets where West sought to clear his name after the “Blexit” campaign revealed a line of shirts and hats that tout, "Design by Kanye West." "Blexit" is short for "Black Exit," urging black voters to leave the Democratic Party. "I never wanted any association with Blexit,” West said.

These candidates are poised to make history on Nov. 6

New Hampshire will elect either its first African-American or first openly LGBTQ member of Congress. In Mississippi, voters could send the state's first elected woman to the Senate – or the first African-American since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War. And in one of nearly three dozen congressional races where both candidates are women, Arizona voters will choose the state's first woman senator. From age to race to gender to sexual orientation, meet the candidates in some of these potentially barrier-breaking races.

Too harsh of a consequence for harsh words?

Some disagree with how NBC resolved the uproar over Megyn Kelly's remarks in defense of blackface by canceling "Megyn Kelly Today.” A new poll survey published Tuesday found that nearly half of the 2,201 adults questioned felt that canceling the show was "too harsh of a consequence." On Wednesday, Kelly broke her silence since the show was axed, tweeting that she just wants the press — and one media outlet in particular — to leave her children alone.

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https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/nation/2018/10/31/george-soros-and-migrant-caravan-how-lie-multiplied-online/1824633002/

How a lie about George Soros and the migrant caravan multiplied online

USA TODAY followed the rapid spread of a social media conspiracy theory about George Soros and migrants that grew from obscurity to the political mainstream.

Brad Heath, Matt Wynn and Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY

Updated 12:27 p.m. PDT Oct. 31, 2018

How a George Soros conspiracy theory spread from online to cable news

USA TODAY followed the spread of a social media conspiracy theory about George Soros and migrants that grew from obscurity to the political mainstream.

This is the life of a lie.

Three weeks ago, a caravan of Hondurans began walking nearly 2,000 miles to the United States. Their ranks grew as they inched north and, along with them, falsehoods grew, too. But one stands out: aconspiracy theory that liberal billionaire George Soros, a Jewish immigrant, is paying the migrants to make the journey – or even orchestrating it.

Members of Congress and the president’s son both repeated it. Conservative celebrities, too.

It also may have resonated in darker places. Cesar Sayoc, the man charged with mailing pipe bombs to Soros and other prominent critics of President Donald Trump, dwelled at length online about conspiracy theories involving the Hungarian-American philanthropist.

Robert Bowers, charged with killing 11 people worshiping in a Pittsburgh synagogue on Saturday, used his social media accounts to post extensively about the caravan, including circulating an image of refugees in Guatemala purportedly climbing into a truck with a Star of David on the side.

But it began with a handful of posts in the caravan’s early days.

One of the first was from a North Carolina writer who goes by the screen name “lorettatheprole.” Loretta Malakie has more than 6,000 followers on Twitter,to whom she directs frequent posts about “white genocide,” Jews and the “invading force” approaching the border.

On Oct. 14, Malakie posted a link to an article about the caravan, with a single word of commentary: “Soros.”

That same day, identical posts appeared over the course of 20 minutes in six pro-Trump Facebook groups. Combined, those six groups had 165,000 members. A user who gave the name Philip Balzano, a Trump supporter from Chicago, wrote to the Trump Train group: “Here Comes ANOTHER Group of Paid for New Demoncratic Voters Just in Time for the Primaries... The Financier aka ‘Win at All Costs’ ‘Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste’ the Evil George Soros and His 140+ Orgs, Should Be Classified as Terrorist and Terrorist Orgs.”

Malakie declined to comment, though on Twitter she panned the USA TODAY reporter who called her as “evil.” Balzano did not respond to an interview request sent through Facebook.

The Soros theory was not new – it had made the rounds during previous caravans in the spring and again in August. In fact, one Facebook user posting in October provided as evidence a video of Glenn Beck discussing the spring caravan’s alleged connections to Soros.

GEORGE SOROS WEBSITE

This time, though, the theory snowballed, gaining political purchase as the caravan became a flashpoint in the final weeks of a contentious midterm campaign.

“It’s really significant how these memes can go from feverswamp-ish places to be amplified by lawmakers, even the president," said David Carroll, associate professor at The New School's Parsons School of Design in New York. “From there, the impact on world events can’t be underestimated.”

Lies, of course, are not new either. But social media can turn a breeze into a hurricane. It carried this falsehood to millions with a few taps on a screen. It also left a distinct trail that makes it possible to follow how lies spread and who told them, a map of their trajectory from the darker corners of the internet to the political mainstream.

USA TODAY followed that path by examining tens of thousands of social media posts on three major mainstream social media sites: Twitter, Facebook and Reddit.

Over the next three days, a few louder social media voices weighed in. By Oct. 16 – four days after the caravan departed – the combined following of accounts mentioning both Soros and the caravan had reached 2 million, still a pebble in the flood tide of social media.(The total includes some duplicates because people follow more than one account.)

On Twitter, someone with the username “LibertyBell1000” warned about 42,000 followers that Soros had “manufactured yet another immigrant caravan ‘crisis.’ ” Another, using the name “WhoWolfe,” asked “Anybody else think Soros and the Dirty Dems are behind this?”

More posts spread across Facebook. Trump supporter Randy Penrod posted in a group called “The Deplorable's,” with about 186,000 members, “Our stable leader just called out the Soros conspired invasion of new Democrat voters in a tweet just moments ago.”

Tap, tap, tap.

It took just one more day for the theory to reach critical mass, breaking through into widespread public consciousness.

The evening of Oct. 17,a Republican member of Congress posted a video on Twitter of what he said was people in Honduras handing out small sums of money to migrants.

“Soros? US-backed NGOs? Time to investigate the source!” he wrote.

Rep. Matt Gaetz would later concede that he was mistaken about where the video was shot (it was Guatemala). But by then his message had metastasized, spreading far beyond the 153,000 people who follow the north Florida congressman’s tweets.

Conservative commentator Ann Coulter retweeted it to her 2 million followers. So did Sarah Carter, a journalist who’s a frequent guest on Fox News.

Jack Posobiec – a correspondent for conservative cable news television channel One America News Network – got more specific, implying Soros was renting RVs for the migrants.

Posobiec was among the early proponents of “Pizzagate,” a social-media conspiracy that falsely claimed then-candidate Hillary Clinton and other Democrats were running a pedophile sex trafficking ring from the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. It drew a man with a gun to Comet Pizza, where he intended to rescue the children.

The next day, even more influential voices repeated it.

One was the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., who retweeted Gaetz’s post to his 3.1 million followers. The younger Trump has been actively campaigning for Republicans on television and the campaign trail in the lead up to the midterm elections. A spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. declined to comment.

On Twitter alone, at least 43,000 accounts with a combined 127 million followers carried some message linking Soros to the caravan over those two days; most fanning the conspiracy, a few seeking to knock it down.

On Reddit, where users share and comment on news and memes, the lie exploded. Five posts in The_Donald subreddit tied Soros to the caravan. Within a week, there would be 10 times more. The_Donald has 675,000 members.

Ten days after the caravan began in Honduras, police started intercepting what appeared to be pipe bombs – PVC tubes packed with what the FBI later called “energetic material,” wrapped with tape and attached to a clock – that had been sent to Soros and other prominent critics of President Trump.

By the time police found the first of those bombs in Soros’ mailbox in Westchester County, New York, the lie about his involvement with the caravan had been posted by 20,000 more users on Twitter – to a combined audience of 117 million – and more weighed in on Facebook, Reddit and other sites.

It was like a runaway train. Unstoppable.

Another member of Congress, Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said in a Fox News interview that he couldn't “help but think that Democrats, perhaps Soros and others, may be funding this thinking it will help them.”

By then, the lie also was at an inflection point. Online, the biggest voices were those debunking it.The day before the bomb was found at Soros’ house, the most prominent people mentioning the theory on Twitter had no longer been conservative commentators but instead New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Chelsea Clinton.

But researchers say repetition is repetition. Even exposing a lie plays a central role in mutating fantasy into fact, or at least a matter of debate. Here, news coverage – including this story – play a significant role.

“The choices reporters and editors make about what to cover and how to cover it play a key part in regulating the amount of oxygen supplied to the falsehoods, antagonisms, and manipulations that threaten to overrun the contemporary media ecosystem,” Syracuse University professor Whitney Phillips wrote in a paper this year on disinformation.

Attention alone can lend credence to the very information critics mean to undermine.

By Oct. 22, posts debunking the theory also emerged. One from Arizona Christian conservative Joshua Feuerstein was among Facebook’s most-viewed videospushing the Soros-caravan connection. Feuerstein is best known for characterizing Starbucks’ shift to generic red holiday cups as a war on Christmas.

His video purported to show Honduran migrants on a truck. Accompanying text popularized a direct connection not just to Soros, but to the midterms: “They are not coming on foot as CNN #FakeNews says! George Soros is paying for them to show up at the border by mid term elections!”

The video and text drew 137,000 views.

Exactly how far the lie linking Soros to the migrant caravan has traveled is impossible to measure in full. Messages on 4chan and other sites where conspiracies germinate disappear quickly. Gab – a social media site that attracted right-wing figures banished from more mainstream platforms – itself was on the verge of disappearing this week. Even on mainstream sites like Facebook and Instagram, many messages are private.

Still, by the morning of Oct. 27, it had spread to hundreds of millions of users onmainstream social media, and found its way to many more on cable news.

That morning, federal prosecutors allege that trucker Robert Bowers stormed into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and shot 11 worshipers to death. The authorities have offered few details about what might have motivated him to attack, but online Bowers left his own trail of grievance and conspiracy.

Using the handle OneDingo on Twitter, Bowers shared anti-Jewish content and criticized President Trump. Since January, he was a regular on Gab, too, where his bio read: “Jews are the children of Satan.” The image on his Gab account referred to a white supremacist meme. His last message read: “Screw your optics, I'm going in.”

And by the next day, he did.

In the aftermath, as the news media rushed to cover the killings and to explain the internet conspiracies that might have precipitated such a massacre – the lie spread anew.

Originally Published 6:54 a.m. PDT Oct. 31, 2018

Updated 12:27 p.m. PDT Oct. 31, 2018

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intercept

...

Targeting Critics of the President

In the last two years, law enforcement agencies executing the Trump administration’s immigration agenda have cracked down on critics of the president’s policies.

In Arizona, the U.S. Border Patrol and Trump administration attorneys have aggressively targeted humanitarian volunteers providing food, water, and medical aid to migrants trekking through the desert with criminal prosecutions. And in the San Diego-Tijuana area, Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol, and counterparts in Mexican law enforcement have run a sweeping intelligence-gathering operation targeting immigration attorneys, journalists, and activists working with, and around,migrant caravans.

The monitoring of last year’s family separation protest now adds a private intelligence firm to the mix.

...

BUT CANNOT REUNITE FAMILIES 0FLIP BD)

more caravan BS

https://www.foxnews.com/world/questions-arise-over-politics-motivations-of-caravan-organizers

oct 25 no lnx

Questions arise over politics, motivation of caravan organizers

Hollie McKay

By Hollie McKay | Fox News

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What can US do to stop migrant caravans?Video

What can US do to stop migrant caravans?

President Trump vows to deploy troops to the border as migrants from Central America make their way toward the U.S.; insight from former ICE Acting Director Tom Homan and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise.

As several thousand Central Americans and Mexicans continue to march toward the United States in the migrant caravan, more questions are being asked about how the effort was brought together, who is behind it, and what prompted the movement to this point just weeks before critical U.S. elections.

While some claim the caravan began organically, others argue opponents of President Donald Trump's immigration policy have played a key role in the movement, with the aim of embarrassing the U.S. administration, and its supporters in Central American countries like Honduras.

“This caravan was initially organized by Bartolo Fuentes, a known leftist activist and former member of the national Congress in 2013, representing the political party of deposed Honduras president Manuel Zelaya," Johan Obdola, president of Latin America-focused global intelligence and security firm IOSI, told Fox News. "Now, this is not new, but is the first time it gets a high level of international media attention. And the reasons are beyond the political.”

Obdola argued it's in the interest of Honduran opposition members like Zelaya to “actively create violent acts and destabilization in Honduras," and said the caravans are part of a plan to keep the region "in constant chaos." He also argued the former Honduran leader – who served as president from 2006 to 2009 – is closely allied with the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro, and questioned that conflict-riddled nation’s role in fostering mass migration in an effort to embarrass the current, pro-U.S. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Honduras has been plagued by discord since its election last November of Hernandez, who defeated Zelaya. Many Zelaya supporters protested the results, claiming they were fixed in favor of a U.S-approved leader. The subsequent unrest has been cited as a key factor for Hondurans wanting to leave their country.

Fuentes, a former Zelaya government legislator and host of the migration-focused radio show “Without Borders,” is often characterized by Honduran government figures as a "coyote," or human trafficker. To others, he is a social activist. Fuentes himself last week was pulled from the main caravan group in Guatemala and deported back to Honduras.

Zelaya staunchly denied any link to the caravan, or any effort to push Hondurans toward the United States.

“This apocalyptic exodus is due to the disgraces that the people are living,” he told Fox News in an exclusive interview Thursday. “The caravan is a natural process of unity. It is self-summoned, and there is no organization assembling this quantity of immigrants in the country. It is a reaction from the people to the problems they are living in our countries.”

The former president also accused the U.S. of “maintaining a socialist dictatorship” in its support for the “illegitimate” Hernandez leadership, but denied any other governments – including Venezuela – were behind the caravan.

“No leftist government has come here to promote immigration to the U.S., nor has it financed it. No one needs to pay Honduras to leave. They leave voluntarily,” Zelaya continued, adding that while he has personally worked with Bartolo Fuentes in the past, immigration has long been his most important issue of advocacy.

“Fuentes has worked with the immigrant community for 20 to 30 years – well before entering politics – and that he receives no money for this work nor has he given out money to anyone,” Zelaya insisted.

The Honduras Embassy in Washington and Fuentes did not immediately respond to request for comment. Fuentes wrote on Facebook this week that the migrants are in need of basics like ointments for blisters, socks, shoes, diapers, and umbrellas. He thanked the help of pastors and churchgoers for food and other supplies.

While Fuentes had much to do with helping bring to life and expand the presence of the caravan, others contended he was not the first. Rather, social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp laid the first foundations that made it easy to draw in Hondurans looking for an easier path to the U.S.

“They had been unable to afford coyotes, so they viewed joining this caravan as their opportunity to flee turmoil in much of Central America,” said James Hyde, an analyst and member of the Electromagnetic Pulse Task Force on National and Homeland Security. “When Honduran TV picked up the posts and the reactions to it, the number of people swelled from hundreds to thousands.”

Hiring coyote smugglers for the perilous journey can cost up to $5,000, more than double what most Hondurans make in one year.

Central American migrants walking to the U.S. start their day departing Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, Sunday, Oct. 21, 2018. Despite Mexican efforts to stop them at the border, about 5,000 Central American migrants resumed their advance toward the U.S. border early Sunday in southern Mexico. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Small groups started to talk among themselves about making a journey last month, sources said, while Fuentes got on-board to help mobilize the migrants – just as he had with another caravan in April – this time urging the group to meet up at the San Pedro Sula bus station.

“It’s very well-organized by those who started the social media campaign. It gained momentum when Bartolo Fuentes got involved and the movement stirred up lawyers group funded with dark money, who teach those headed north what to say for asylum,” Hyde said. “Joining the massive group is simple. People decide to cast away their current lives and jump into the opportunity to join.”

Word spread with media attention and a local news coverage. And soon Hondurans from across the country, who saw it as an opportunity to relocate cheaply and under the guise of “safety in numbers,” allowing them safe passage from dangerous drug cartels and smugglers along the dangerous roads.

Estimates on the size of the current caravan vary. And while there are signs the Mexican government is taking steps to better control or reduce the number of migrants, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras seemed unwilling or unable to take much action. Some two-thirds of those in the caravan are Hondurans, according to estimates, with the remainder from other Central American countries and Mexico.

COLOMBIAN MOTHERS CHALLENGE 'BAD LUCK' TABOOS, TAKE THE LEAD EMERALD MINING

The motivations for those in the group also vary. Many are seeking better economic opportunities. Others are members of persecuted groups who say they're unable to live safely and openly in their home countries. Some were previously deported from the U.S., and are trying to get back to family members who remained behind.

“For most of these people trying to reach the USA, and fleeing violence and poverty, they are the ones paying the highest price as many of them are victims of crime, torture and sexual abuse," said Obdola. “There are some humanitarian and social groups assisting the caravan along the way. Some with only a humanitarian interest, some with more of a political interest who see the USA and Trump as the enemy.”

Sources said the caravan is being supported and nourished in part by an array of Mexican church and human rights organizations, as well as locals on the streets.

“It’s a weird mishmash of people involved. Small amounts of money have been handed out, but it is not clear from who and where,” said one Mexico-based law enforcement source. “It isn’t a cartel operation and cartels aren’t involved. The cartels are very nervous about what is happening, the last thing they want is attention on the border which only makes their job harder.”

Some have strongly argued the issue should be viewed in humanitarian rather than national security concerns.

VENEZUELAN OPPOSITION LEADER LAMENTS "GENOCIDE" IN HIS COUNTRY, REVEALS HIS ESCAPE FROM DETAINMENT

“We need to focus on the human aspect of this and consider what is driving this migration; violence, corruption, economic limits or degradation, and the effect of climate change,” said Michael Scadden, Geopolitical Risk and Corporate Security Advisor specializing in Latin America. “Food and water security is a major factor in many migrants’ decisions to take the risk of this journey.”

A caravan migrant stops for a break in Mexico on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Others contend that whatever the legitimate asylum claims of those in group, international law dictates caravans should not make it to the United States border.

“International law on asylum is that the asylum seeker is supposed to present themselves to the authorities of the first international border they reach upon fleeing their countries," said Dennis Santiago, a global risk and foreign policy analyst. "For Central Americans fleeing north from their governments, that country is Mexico; specifically, the southern border of Mexico.”

Santiago explained that Mexico, with aid from the international community, should have set up refugee camps at the borders to handle the migrant flow. That would have then triggered the involvement of the U.N. High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR).

"It is from these camps that other organizations such as the U.S. Office for Refugee Resettlement are supposed to process persons to qualify eligible refugees for movement from the camps to a third host nation,” he said.

Santiago also asserted the U.S., Mexico and the U.N. have the money and resources to support the refugee camps.

"We’re talking 1,500 people per caravan, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the 11 million Syrians, Kurds and Yazidis displaced in the Middle East,” he continued. “But most of these people are refusing to go into camps and process as refugees. Somebody’s giving them a better deal than the internationally sanctioned solution set. Instead, they are marching towards the U.S. border. Are these people really legitimate refugees from their own governments?”

Joseph Fallon, a research associate for the U.K. Defense Forum, also argued that “if fear of violence in their country was their primary motive, they could have traveled to neighboring Costa Rica.”

Central American migrants, part of a caravan trying to reach the U.S., cross the Suchiate River to avoid the border checkpoint in Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico, October 20, 2018. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Under pressure from the Trump administration, Mexican officials have been desperately urging caravan members to stay in Mexico and be processed there. Yet the vast majority have remained steadfast in their endeavor to get to the United States. Migrants in the past have complained that applying for asylum in Mexico is a demoralizing process, which can take more than a year, and even then routinely results in a rejection.

For the first time ever in 2016, Mexico deported double the number of Central Americans than did the United States. That has at least in part what has motivated many to head north.

Yet at least some of those seeking asylum also appear to have been "coached," according to several sources, and have memorized scripted stories that would make them more sympathetic to U.S. immigration officials.

Migrants bound for the U.S.-Mexico border wait on a bridge that stretches over the Suchiate River, connecting Guatemala and Mexico, in Tecun Uman, Guatemala, Friday, Oct. 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Oliver de Ros)

“Caravans didn’t exist before 2010. Trips are carefully planned and coached. Aliens removed do share their experiences back home and that presents lessons learned for a return trip for others planning their first run,” Gabriel Ruiz, a California border-based deportation officer with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told Fox News. "Almost all have birth certificates and identity documents, but establishing the validity of those documents is time-consuming and difficult because a processing officer doesn’t have that sort of time to investigate identities in detail.”

Hollie McKay has a been a Fox News Digital staff reporter since 2007. She has extensively reported from war zones including Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, and Latin America investigates global conflicts, war crimes and terrorism around the world. Follow her on Twitter.

http://thejewishvoice.com/2018/10/31/meet-the-folks-who-are-really-behind-the-illegal-alien-caravan/

News about the caravan of illegal aliens from Central America who are making their way across Mexico in an attempt to breach the U.S. border has been shuttled to the sidelines thanks to the attempted bombing of prominent Democrats.

But they’re still coming. And as they approach the U.S. border, more questions are being asked about who organized the caravan in the first place.

Many on the right believe that George Soros is behind the effort. But an investigation by Fox News discovered that domestic Honduran politics was the impetus for forming the caravan and sending it on its way.

“This caravan was initially organized by Bartolo Fuentes, a known leftist activist and former member of the national Congress in 2013, representing the political party of deposed Honduras president Manuel Zelaya,”Johan Obdola, president of Latin America-focused global intelligence and security firm IOSI, told Fox News. “Now, this is not new, but is the first time it gets a high level of international media attention. And the reasons are beyond the political.”

Obdola argued it’s in the interest of Honduran opposition members like Zelaya to “actively create violent acts and destabilization in Honduras,” and said the caravans are part of a plan to keep the region “in constant chaos.” He also argued the former Honduran leader – who served as president from 2006 to 2009 – is closely allied with the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro, and questioned that conflict-riddled nation’s role in fostering mass migration in an effort to embarrass the current, pro-U.S. Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Fuentes, a former Zelaya government legislator and host of the migration-focused radio show “Without Borders,” is often characterized by Honduran government figures as a “coyote,” or human trafficker. To others, he is a social activist. Fuentes himself last week was pulled from the main caravan group in Guatemala and deported back to Honduras.

Zelaya staunchly denied any link to the caravan, or any effort to push Hondurans toward the United States.

Zelaya’s supporters may be pulling the strings behind the scenes, but the group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, or “People Without Borders,” was heavily involved in organizing the caravan.

Capital Research Center:

Some left-leaning publications such as the New York Times have said that “no group has claimed responsibility for organizing [the most recent] caravan,” perhaps in order to stave off claims by President Trump and other conservatives that it is being aided by left-wing activists in the United States.

The Times, however, is only partially correct. While no single group has claimed control of the migrant caravan, at least two activists from Pueblo Sin Fronteras – Denis Omar Contreras and Rodrigo Abeja – are embedded in the caravan, according to the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and the Mexican newspaper La Jornada. Contreras (sometimes spelled Contera or Contrera) reportedly helped lead the caravan to illegally enter Mexico, where he told migrants “Welcome to Tapachula!” (referencing a town near the Guatemala border). Abeja, too, was identified as one of the leaders of the April 2018 caravans, which were also supported by Pueblo Sin Fronteras.

On October 18, Irineo Mujica – director of Pueblo Sin Fronteras in Mexico and an American citizen – was arrested by Mexican officials for allegedly attacking immigration officials at a pro-illegal immigration protest near the Guatemala-Mexico border.

By: Rick Moran

(American Thinker)

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Pentagon Plan Would Expand Role for Military on U.S.-Mexico Border

100k arrests one month, try to prevent from being able to reqasylum (illegal b/c int'l treaty congress ratify thus --> US law?)

trump cuts funds to central am to improve conditions, thus death spiral [[tho complex b/c some skimmed of by cops/corrept) ucsc honduras new bk?]

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basically fired when she told trump he was asking he to do crimes

Kirstjen Nielsen Steps Down as DHS Secretary

miller calling deputies to scream for not being tough enough

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/04/trump-accused-of-manufacturing-crisis-by-slashing-aid-to-el-salvador-honduras-and-guatemala/

In a move that was immediately denounced as “cruel” and counterproductive, the Trump State Department on Saturday confirmed that it is cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid to Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.

“Cutting foreign aid to Central America is the absolute last thing the Trump administration should do right now,” Vicki Gass, senior policy advisor for Central America and Mexico with Oxfam America, said in a statement. “Not only is it morally wrong, it also counters efforts to address the root causes behind migration.”

“Aid cuts would be devastating to the region and would only foster the same instability that is making people flee in the first place,” Gass added.

The decision to slash around $500 million in aid to the three Central American nations comes as President Donald Trump is threatening to “close” the U.S.-Mexico border.

Critics argued that Trump’s aid cuts to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala will worsen economic hardship in those nations and force more people to flee out of desperation.

“This will create more refugees. This is the exact opposite of what we should be doing,” tweeted journalist Thor Benson.

Some observers accused the president of manufacturing a crisis at the border for political gain.

“Making desperate people even more desperate and less able to stay in their own countries… It’s almost as if Trump wants more asylum seekers at the U.S. border,” Andrew Stroehlein, European media director with Human Rights Watch, tweeted on Sunday. “As if he wants more media images that he will then twist for his fear-mongering.”

...

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100k this mo so border, 40% kids? deport 7 yo solo?!

Trump cuts aid for Central American countries, threatens border shutdown

House Democrats called the move "entirely counterproductive."

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new

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/trump-government-tracked-targeted-database-american-citizen-journalists-activists-migrant-caravan.html

Days before the Nov. 2018 midterm elections, President Trump cooked up pre-election hysteria over the so-called “caravan” of migrantsa thousand miles away in southern Mexico, who were slowly making their way on foot towards the U.S. border. The president’s anti-immigrant chauvinism couldn’t stop his party from losing the House in a blue wave of Democratic victories, and afterward Trump largely dropped the issue until it became politically useful again months later during the government shutdown. The American government, however, sharpened its focus after the furor died down, according to a chilling report from NBC 7, NBC News’ local affiliate in San Diego. Documents leaked to NBC 7 show that the Trump administration went about gathering names of journalists, activists, and attorneys who had covered or worked with the fleeing migrants, and created a database that included dossiers on 57 people, including 10 journalists.

Those swept up in the government database where then targets for surveillance and harassment with at least 21 individuals subsequently questioned or arrested by Customs and Border Protection. The U.S. government, in some cases, placed alerts on the targeted individuals’ passports who were listed in thedatabase titled: “San Diego Sector Foreign Operations Branch: Migrant Caravan FY-2019, Suspected Organizers, Coordinators, Instigators and Media.” The documents dated Jan. 9, 2019 included files onsome 39 American citizens, including seven who were tracked by the U.S. government. The documents are part of an interagency “SharePoint” application accessible to a myriad of agencies, including agents from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S.

Border Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations, and the San Diego office of the FBI.

Some of the individuals who were there for the ultimate caravan standoff with border patrol suspected they were being targeted in the aftermath and the leaked documents showed the extent to which they were being singled out, including journalists being harassed at the U.S.-Mexican border, taken into secondary screening on the grounds it was a national security matter, and in one case denied entry to Mexico altogether. Here’s more on what was compiled from NBC 7:

For each person, the documents show their photo, often from their passport but in some cases from their social media accounts, along with their personal information. That information includes the person’s date of birth, their “country of commencement,” and their alleged role tied to the migrant caravan. The information also includes whether officials placed an alert on the person’s passport.

One dossier, shared with NBC 7, was on Nicole Ramos, the Refugee Director and attorney for Al Otro Lado, a law center for migrants and refugees in Tijuana, Mexico. The dossier included personal details on Ramos, including specific details about the car she drives, her mother’s name, and her work and travel history.

Trump’s America.

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http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/children-were-tear-gassed-and-david-clarke-is-concerned-about-the-propaganda-war/

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https://www.alternet.org/how-mainstream-media-helps-weaponize-far-right-conspiracy-theories

Once an anti-Semitic rumor moved from fringe to the mainstream, it took less than two weeks for violence to erupt. The false allegation that liberal philanthropist George Soros was funding or supporting a caravan of Honduran refugees heading to the U.S. spread wildly from a single tweet posted on Oct. 14.

Along with far-right memes, that allegation helped motivate both an alleged mail-bomber and a mass shooter at a Pittsburgh synagogue. The way these messages traveled across the internet in this short time span is just one example of how extremist messages and memes circulate with incredible speed across mainstream social media platforms.

From our vantage point as researchers of visual and digital communication, memes– short, often image-based forms of communication – are powerful engines of persuasion, even though they can appear innocuous or even humorous. Perhaps the best known examples are LOLCats memes, pairing funny pictures of cats with customizable phrases or sentences.Memes can disseminate information quickly because they invite people to share or remix content with little effort required, making widespread dispersal more likely.

Memes need not be humorous or factual to be functional. All they need to do is attract attention online, which often translates into mainstream media coverage. That makes memes potent tools for distributing disinformation. Moreover, the online and mainstream platforms that amplify memes’ circulation can weaponize false claims and encourage conspiracy theorists – sometimes toward violence.

Memes move conspiracies

Understanding how these messages embolden anti-Semitism and other forms of terrorism involves grappling with how white supremacists use digital media. As we detail in our forthcoming book “Make America Meme Again,” messages and memes weaponized in far-right networks are deft political tools that move swiftly across social and traditional media. Because memes are stealthy political messages that usually offer rebellious or irreverent humor, they can be easily retweeted, shared or even pasted to the side of a van.

Before the dawn of today’s social media network, right-wing extremists were more difficult to find, often gathering in local communities and later discreetly in online forums unknown to the vast majority of internet users. Paranoid, rabid discourses of this ilk still boil around those darker corners of the internet. Today, memes help right-wing extremists communicate with one another and with mainstream audiences.

Soros has been demonized by right-wing activists for years, if not decades. Long before the Pittsburgh attack and the mail bombings, conspiracy theories about him were common on all sorts of right-wing discussion areas – including on Infowars, 4chan, Reddit and Gab. Starting in March 2018, the terms “caravan,” “immigrants” and “Soros” were frequently posted together on Twitter and Facebook. Memes depicting Soros as an evil fascist facilitating an invasion were commonplace.

The alleged mail bomber covered his van with “images and slogans often found on fringe right-wing social media accounts.” But the suspect didn’t find them on radical sites where white supremacists hide. Instead, based on his social media activity, he likely was radicalized in the same place most people look at cute photos of friends’ kids and check up on Aunt Beatrice – Facebook.

From fringe to network

Social media platforms have tried to push hate speech and uninformed conspiracy theories off their sites, but that’s a difficult task both technologically and ethically. Often, conspiracy promoters find ways to get their ideas into well-trafficked social media, where algorithms promote posts that garner lots of responses – whether appreciative or outraged.

Despite repeated fact checking, the conspiracy grew. Bots and other automated accounts drove roughly 60 percent of online talk about the caravan – but people were part of it too, often sharing posts without doing any sort of verification. Ultimately, these messages and memes may have inspired terrorism.

By October, discussions of the “caravan of immigrants” had grown beyond social media. Within a week of that Oct. 14 tweet alleging Soros was funding a group of refugees seeking asylum, far-right commentator Alex Jones broadcast the conspiracy on Infowars, to his audience of over 1 million daily visitors.

The conspiracy grew from there, with the video or related images popping up on nearly every platform. Eventually the conspiracy reached hundreds of thousands of potential viewers – including the men who would allegedly become the mail bomber and the synagogue shooter.

The two men may never have known of each other or the other’s plans. But their actions intertwined with a viciously networked conspiracy theory.

Connecting to mainstream media

Once there is enough social media attention on a topic or claim, it may be covered in more traditional news outlets. That can spread the idea even more widely, and lend credence to inaccuracies and lies. Politicians may also notice online discussion and join in, as U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and a clerk for Texas’ Harris County did with the purported Soros connection to the migrant caravan.

Conspiratorial ideas often become an echo chamber, in which each post draws more attention than the last, generating stronger outrage and escalating the conspiracy. The average user who looks at a conspiratorial meme may not believe its message, but many users may. Even people who don’t believe it initially might come to assume it’s true after seeing an idea several times from different sources. Still others might spread the conspiracy just for amusement in the distress of others.

Demonize, divide, conquer

Memes, tweets and other forms of propaganda are designed to rile up constituents. Scaring voters with purported invasions was one way to infuriate voters as they headed to vote in the midterm elections.

President Donald Trump has historically spread far-right conspiracy theories with little regard for the truth. Just before the election – after the mail bomb attempts and the tragedy in Pittsburgh – Trump himself explicitly repeated the conspiracy about Soros.

When anti-Semitic, racist and xenophobic ideas spread through social media networks, they can infect a host of mainstream information sources – and make fear and violence more likely. That broadens the picture of a dangerous world from which people need protection. Fear appeals of this sort can influence voting, and even push people to take matters into their own violent hands. Until social media platforms or federal agencies find ways to diminish extremism, the proliferation of far-right memes, videos and texts will continue to imperil the citizenry.

Heather Woods, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Technology, Kansas State University and Leslie Hahner, Associate Professor of Communication, Baylor University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

no lnx

The Washington Post

‘These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas.’

A migrant girl from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America, cries after running away from tear gas thrown by U.S. border agents. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)]

By Tim Elfrink and

Fred Barbash November 26 at 6:09 AM

A little girl from Honduras stares into the camera, her young features contorted in anguish. She’s barefoot, dusty, and clad only in a diaper and T-shirt. And she’s just had to run from clouds of choking tear gas fired across the border by U.S. agents.

A second photograph, which also circulated widely and rapidly on social media, shows an equally anguished woman frantically trying to drag the same child and a second toddler away from the gas as it spreads.

The three were part of a much larger group, perhaps 70 or 80 men, women and children, pictured in a wider-angle photo fleeing the tear gas. Reuters photographer Kim Kyung-Hoon shot the images, which provoked outrage and seemed at odds with President Trump’s portrayal of the caravan migrants as “criminals” and “gang members.”

Trump officials said that authorities had to respond with force after hundreds of migrants rushed the border near Tijuana on Sunday, some of them throwing “projectiles” at Customs and Border Protection personnel.

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The chaos erupted Sunday around the bustling San Ysidro border crossing, which Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said was closed “to ensure public safety in response to large numbers of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.”

But Democratic leaders, human rights advocates and others focused on the images of the two children in particular. Many pointed to the children left gagging from the gas attack as evidence that Trump’s push against a caravan of asylum seekers from Central America had gone too far.

“Shooting tear gas at children is not who we are as Americans,” tweeted Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. “Seeking asylum is not a crime. We must be better than this.”

[Why tear gas, lobbed at migrants on the southern border, is banned in warfare]

Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor-elect of California, argued that images of kids sprinting from tear gas run counter to American ideals.

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“These children are barefoot. In diapers. Choking on tear gas,” he tweeted. “Women and children who left their lives behind — seeking peace and asylum — were met with violence and fear. That’s not my America. We’re a land ofrefuge. Of hope. Of freedom. And we will not stand for this.”

Others, such as Democratic Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, noted that the families at the border crossing were fleeing violent conditions in Central America and had the right to seek asylum.

Asking to be considered a refugee & applying for status isn’t a crime.

It wasn’t for Jewish families fleeing Germany.

It wasn’t for targeted families fleeing Rwanda.

It wasn’t for communities fleeing war-torn Syria.

And it isn’t for those fleeing violence in Central America. https://t.co/qhv7Rr1itn

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) November 25, 2018

Unlike the relatively bipartisan criticism of Trump’s now-abandoned family-separation method of deterring migrants, the initial outrage at the tear-gassing of children appeared to come primarily from Democrats and critics of the president.

Some on the right expressed the view that the migrants could avoid getting tear-gassed by not hurling projectiles or by not attempting to cross the border “illegally.”

If you don’t want to be hit with tear gas when entering a country illegally then don’t enter the country illegally

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— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) November 26, 2018

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Trump’s response in an early-morning tweet on Monday was to call for Mexico to return the migrants to their home countries, and to again threaten to “close the border permanently.”

That’s never been done, and experts interviewed by The Washington Post on Sunday night knew of no provision explicitly allowing Trump to permanently close the borders. Most of the border, with the exception of designated crossings, is already closed, which doesn’t stop migrants from entering.

[Borderline: Navigating the invisible boundary and physical barriers that define the U.S.-Mexico border]

So it probably would not solve Trump’s problems with asylum seekers, who, by law, must be allowed to present their claims if in fact they are able to cross the border anywhere.

“This is yet another of several Trump attempts to change what he disparagingly calls the policy of ‘catch and release’ without or against legal authority,” said Yale Law School’s Harold Hongju Koh, legal adviser to the State Department during the Obama administration. “All have been blocked. What he does not understand,” Koh said in an email, “is that everyone crossing our Southern border is not illegally present. Those with valid asylum claims have a legal right to assert those claims and remain.”

Closing the border “permanently” or otherwise would conflict with the asylum laws, agreed Peter S. Margulies, an immigration law expert at Roger Williams University School of Law.

Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries. Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!

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— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 26, 2018

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Had the migrants made it to the border and presented themselves as asylum seekers, U.S. officials would have been required by federal law to consider their claim before sending them back to Mexico. Indeed, they are required to do so whether the migrants cross at a designated point of entry or anywhere else.

U.S. District Judge Jon S. Tigar forcefully reminded Trump of that law last week when he issued a nationwide restraining order against the president’s plan to consider asylum requests only from migrants who cross at legal checkpoints. It was Tigar’s ruling that prompted Trump to lash out last week against the “Obama judge” and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which in turn brought a rare rebuke from Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Trump’s legal options appear limited. “The border is very long,” Margulies told The Post. But if the administration can “stop people just short of the border, there’s a better argument that those people are not entitled to asylum. I think it would be terrible policy and I think it would be morally repugnant,” he said, “but the administration would be on better legal footing.”

Attempting to stop them short of the border appears to be just what Trump may be planning.

The Post’s Joshua Partlow and Nick Miroff, citing Mexican officials and senior members of President-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s transition team, reported that the administration is working with the incoming government of Mexico on a plan that would require asylum seekers to wait in that country while their claims moved through U.S. courts.

While Trump hinted at such a possibility in a tweet Saturday, he did not offer any detail. He could try to invoke an exception to the law called “safe third country,” which permits the government to keep asylum seekers in another country, in this case Mexico, under a bilateral agreement while their claims are being considered in the United States.

However, there are several catches to that provision, American Civil Liberties Union immigration attorney Lee Gelernt told The Post on Sunday night. If and when an agreement is worked out, the law says, “there needs to be an assurance that individuals waiting on the Mexican side are safe, not just from the Mexican government but from gangs” and others.

"We believe it would be impossible for the U.S.” to make that assurance, he added.

Tim Elfrink joined The Washington Post in 2018

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tear gas started as WWI weapon kpfa book 1848 commune? fr 1st to use in ww1.

https://kpfa.org/episode/letters-and-politics-november-26-2018/

U.S. closes major crossing as caravan migrants mass at border in ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/...caravan.../f94aabe0-f0ea-11e8-99c2-cfca6fcf610c_s...

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../these-children-are-barefoot-diapers-choking-tear-ga...

6 hours ago - A migrant girl from Honduras, part of a caravan of thousands traveling from Central America, cries after running away from tear gas thrown by ...

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/.../migrant-caravan-tear-gas_us_5bfb11ace4b0771fb...

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https://www.huffingtonpost.com/.../kirstjen-nielsen-migrant-caravan-tear-gas_us_5bfb...

8 hours ago - Kirstjen Nielsen, the Homeland Security secretary, appeared to defend her agency's use oftear gas on members of a migrant caravan ...

Web results

djt spends 2 mill$ on mil, takes them away from family, then pulls before caravan arrives? nope 2x down:

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/donald-trump-john-kelly-use-force-cabinet-order

no lnx pix

'Stunt or an attempt to please POTUS': Bizarre report suggests White House is expanding military's 'use of force' at the U.S.-Mexico border

Everything about this order is strange and ominous.

By Matthew Chapman / AlterNet November 21, 2018, 3:24 PM GMT

14 COMMENTS

U.S. Department of Homeland Security

On Wednesday, the Military Times reported that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had signed a "cabinet order" directing Defense Secretary James Mattis to give the troops stationed at the border in anticipation of the approaching Honduran migrant caravan the authority to use deadly force to protect Border Patrol agents, and to engage in some law enforcement activities like crowd control, detention, and searches.

The order represents yet another show of force by the administration, which has tried to gin up public fear about the caravan as an "invasion" and possibly a cover for terrorists, even though it is not a national security threat. But this new move is bizarre and unsettling on a number of levels.

First, the law enforcement provisions of the order raise questions about the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the military from serving domestic law enforcement functions. Until now, the military has only been serving in a support role, including surveillance and transportation. Mattis gave assurances that the order complies with Posse Comitatus. Retired Army lawyer and Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn, however, is unconvinced, calling the order "troubling" and noting that "absent the invocation of a law called the Insurrection Act, the president is not supposed to deploy federal active-duty military forces" for law enforcement:

Embedded video

PBS NewsHour

@NewsHour

President Trump has issued a new directive to the troops stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border that allows them to use "lethal force" to defend border patrol agents. Federal law, however, restricts domestic military force. @NickSchifrin examines the legality of this directive.

Second, although this order does follow a "memorandum of understanding" signed by the president, some are questioning why Kelly, a White House official with no role in the military chain of command, was the one who signed the order to the Secretary of Defense:

...

U.S. military intelligence analysis documents obtained by Newsweek reveal that defense officials do not believe there are terrorists or other national security threats present within the so-called “migrant caravan.” Despite this, Trump has demanded that up to 15,000 military troops be dispatched to the border, to brace for an “invasion” that doesn't exist, just before the midterm elections.

These documents show that U.S. troops are preparing for encounters not so much with the asylum seekers, but with armed white supremacist American crackpots at the U.S. border. Because they are ones with all the guns. Not the migrant caravan.

“Preliminary intelligence assessments are preparing for encounters with a litany of groups from unregulated militias to transcontinental criminal organizations,” reports Newsweek:

In a powerpoint presentation from Saturday, the Joint Force Land Component Commander Threat Working Group prepared an intelligence assessment for Pentagon officials as they begin to carry out Operation Faithful Patriot, the interagency operation with the Department of Defense and led by the Department of Homeland Security, that started Tuesday.

The presentation is marked as “UNCLASSIFIED//FOUO//LES,” meaning, the documents are for official use only and are law enforcement sensitive. Newsweek obtained the operational planning documents earlier this week from two different Defense Department sources that have direct knowledge of U.S. Northern Command's mission on the southern U.S. border.

The documents take a detailed look at the four-point of entry locations spread across the southwest border and assesses where the caravan might travel. Two areas of concern to U.S. intelligence officials involving points of entry and transcontinental criminal organizations is the point of entry in Brownsville, Texas, where the Rio Grande River is located between Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico, and the San Ysidro point of entry, separating San Diego, California from Tijuana, Mexico.

The assessment underscored news reports that combatant commanders might encounter unregulated militia members along the southern border in alleged support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents.

“Estimated 200 unregulated armed militia members currently operating along the southwest border. Reported incidents of unregulated militias stealing National Guard equipment during deployments. They operate under the guise of citizen patrols supporting CBP [Customs and Border Protection] primarily between POEs [Points of Entry],” according to the documents.

The documents go onto highlight historical protests that support immigrants crossing the U.S. border. Those protests in some cases have shut down points of entry controlled by Customs and Border Protection, but the assessment concludes that protests are “normally peaceful unless extreme right or left groups attend.”

Go read the whole report, which includes an embedded copy of the original document they're referencing.

BORDER TROOPS PREPARING FOR THREAT OF ARMED, UNREGULATED MILITIAS, LEAKED DOCUMENTS SHOW

[JAMES LAPORTA AND CHANTAL DA SILVA, 11/1/18 AT 12:55 PM]=

noam notes only no ref from nicaragua, as had army to fend off death squads.

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AN Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on Friday raked mainstream news reporters over the coals after they spent days leading up to the midterms covering the migrant caravan hyped by President Donald Trump as a massive threat to American security.

Writing on Twitter, Krugman said that the coverage of the caravan reminded him of the coverage of Hillary Clinton's State Department email server in 2016 -- that is, a phony issue pushed by Republicans and eagerly taken up by the news media.

"The midterms election feels like a mix-and-match combination of two ugly episodes from history," he explained. "For weeks it felt like 2016: Rs created a fake issue -- the caravan playing the role of emails -- and the news media happily went along with it."

Krugman then pointed out that coverage of the caravan had completely died ever since the election ended on Tuesday -- a sure sign that it was a manufactured issue Republicans used to gin up their voters.

"Notice that the caravan totally disappeared as an issue as soon as the votes were cast -- not just Fox News, but mainstream media too," he wrote. "Guys, you really need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask why you're so easily played."

Notice that the caravan totally disappeared as an issue as soon as the votes were cast -- not just Fox News, but mainstream media too. Guys, you really need to take a hard look in the mirror and ask why you're so easily played 2/

— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 9, 2018

ref

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/11/homegrown-killers-are-the-problem-cnns-don-lemon-rips-trump-for-insisting-americans-should-fear-caravan/

CNN’s Don Lemon said that “homegrown killers” are the problem in response to the latest mass shooting in America happening in Thousands Oaks, California.

On Wednesday, a gunman opened fire and killed twelve people in a Country music bar. Lemon listed off a few of the places where mass shootings have happened.

Lemon said, “Americans aren’t safe in a Country & Western bar. They’re not safe in synagogues. Not safe in churches, schools, supermarkets, concerts, offices, gay bars, military bases, and newsrooms. And don’t forget about malls and baseball fields. I could have a longer list here.”

Lemon then play a short clip of the shooting and called it “chilling” that nobody was screaming.

“What’s really chilling is that you don’t hear the people screaming. Just gunshots and the sound of people trying to escape,” Lemon said. “Everyday Americans now know what they should do if they’re caught in a shooting. You don’t scream. You stay down. You run as soon as you can. It’s chilling that we’ve all thought about this.”

He then slammed the White House for insisting that Americans should be afraid of the caravan when the true killers are homegrown.

“And remember just last week when the president told you it was the caravan that you should be afraid of,” he said. “The caravan he is strangely not talking about much since the election.”

Adding, “The caravan didn’t shoot up that bar in Thousand Oaks. Which caravan did the shooter belong to? None of them as far as I know. The caravan didn’t kill 11 people in that Pittsburgh Synagogue.”

“The caravan is not the problem and hasn’t been the problem. Homegrown killers are the problem. Homegrown killers are the problem. The question is when are we going to do something about it?”

Watch the full video below via CNN.

ref2

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/fox-news-says-migrants-in-caravan-have-leprosy/

no lnx

Fox News commentator claims migrants in caravan have ‘leprosy’ and ‘small pox’

Dominique Jackson DOMINIQUE JACKSON

29 OCT 2018 AT 17:25 ET

Charles Payne and David Ward [Photo: Screengrab from video

DON'T MISS STORIES. FOLLOW RAW STORY!

Follow @rawstory

As the migrant caravan crisis grows, Fox News is peddling fear tactics to their viewers. On Monday, a former ICE agent David Ward told Fox News host Charles Payne that some of the migrants have leprosy.

“We have three tenants of problems, national security, public safety, and public health issues with these caravans coming to the United States,” Ward said.

“In the national security realm, we have all sorts of people, not only from Central America but they are coming in from Africa and the Middle East and other places in this caravan,” he said.

He added, “They are going to come between the ports of entry where we have the paths of least resistance. Then [we have] public health. Individuals [are] coming from all over the world that has the most extreme medical care in the world.”

“They are coming in with diseases such as smallpox and leprosy and T.B. [and this is] going to affect our people in the United States,” he said.

Watch the video below via Fox News.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/1/18052666/john-bolton-troika-tyranny

N ational Security Adviser John Bolton’s ultra-hawkish speech on US foreign policy toward Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua scheduled for delivery this afternoon in Miami is, in part, about John Bolton’s longtime ultra-hawkishness. But the timing of the speech is all about cynical politics.

There’s a certain irony in Bolton appealing to a community that fled oppression in Cuba and found prosperity on American shores even as President Donald Trump’s closing argument in the 2018 midterms is demagogic fear-mongering about would-be asylum-seekers from Central America. But Bolton’s charge against the “Troika of Tyranny” encompassing Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua comes today not despite Trump’s anti-immigrant rantings, but precisely because of them.

After all, while an effort to put anti-immigrant themes front and center is a plausible strategy for shoring up the GOP’s position in a boatful of Midwestern races, it’s also a potential problem in the Sunshine State.

Republicans have relied for generations on the loyal support of Cuban-American voters in South Florida, and the risk of alienating them with nonstop politics of racial fear-mongering is very real. The Cuban vote is influential in a troika of South Florida House seats — FL-26 (currently rated as a tossup), FL-27 (currently rated as likely Democratic), and FL-25 (currently rated as leaning Republican). These three seats, all currently GOP-held, would on their own represent more than 10 percent of the gains Democrats need to secure a majority in the House.

Meanwhile, Democrats have also opened up narrow leads in the statewide races for both governor and senator in Florida.

This is all just one slice of the overall midterm battleground. And across the country as a whole, a focus on immigration likely does work in the GOP’s favor — which is exactly why Democrats are trying to keep attention on health care. But there’s enough at stake in Florida that Republicans can’t afford to just write it off, and the anti-Latino themes the president is emphasizing are likely counterproductive in these key races.

A renewed emphasis on the Latin American Cold War to help remind Florida’s Cuban-American population of why they became Republicans in the first place and to try to convince them that the GOP is still the party of Ronald Reagan could be just what the doctor ordered.

It’s unusual to deliver a major foreign policy speech not pegged to any particular external event right in the closing days of a political campaign. But it’s also unusual to be dispatching thousands of soldiers to the border to stop a caravan that is still weeks away from arriving — if it ever does arrive.

Drastic last-minute moves on both fronts — moves that invoke contradictory themes — are confusing and likely unproductive from a foreign policy standpoint. But Trump is not one to put the niceties of the policymaking process over the partisan political needs of the moment. And he’s certainly not one to worry too much about whether or not he is putting forward a coherent agenda regarding the merits of people who flee bleak conditions in Latin America to seek a better life in the United States.

https://www.alternet.org/fox-news-migrant-caravan-coverage-spectacularly-backfires-panel-independent-voters-rejects-blatant

When "Fox & Friends" co-host Steve Doocy asked a panel of independent voters for their thoughts on a caravan of 5,000 Central American migrants traveling through Mexico to reach the United States, he seemed surprised by their answers, which expressed sympathy for the individuals fleeing poverty, oppression and violence.

"I think uneven immigration laws are a problem for any country," one independent voter told Doocy when asked about America's immigration laws. "And I think our immigration laws need to be modernized and updated. But this country is founded on immigration. And all of us come from immigrants."

When asked how he would feel if the caravan reached 20,000 people, the voter responded, "This is the mightiest country on the planet, I think we can handle a caravan of people, unarmed, coming to this country," although he added that the government should "process them properly." "There’s a humanitarian crisis taking place in Central America. And yet, this issue gets turned into a complete political football. There’s very little honest discussion about what’s actually happening, it gets turned into talking points," he told Doocy.

A third panelist, seemingly referring to Fox News' coverage of the issue, commented that, "Treating this as an ‘invasion’ is a bad idea and it’s going to end horribly... People have to realize these are human beings coming here, and there needs to be a real solution offered in dealing with it."

Earlier, "Fox & Friends" host Doocy implied sinister forces were at work behind the caravan.

At a different point in the Fox News program on Monday, co-host Brian Kilmeade seemed to undermine his network's own fearmongering coverage."I imagine these are good people. Most of them are good people. I'm sure some are up to no good. I'm sure they just want a better life. I get that."

At the same time, Kilmeade pointed the finger of blame at Sen. Dianne Feinstein, claiming that she had supported policies which had encouraged lax immigration policies.

"Where are they getting water? Where are they getting food? Who's handling the logistics? I mean, I was reading in the LA Times that apparently a number of Mexicans who live in the area lined the highway, handed out clothes and sandwiches and bottles of water, but still: 7,000 people. You know, that's an army of people. Who is feeding them?" Doocy asked. His comments played into a larger right-wing theory that the immigrant caravan is being secretly funded by wealthy left-wingers, with Jewish business magnate and philanthropist George Soros frequently cited as one such villain.

The individuals in the caravan have a number of backgrounds, according to The Washington Post. They include men and women fleeing political turmoil in Nicaragua, poverty in Guatemala and violent crime in Honduras. Many of them are migrants who had lived in the United States for years but been deported and are now attempting to reunite with their families and get back their old jobs. Trump, by contrast, has depicted the migrants in disparaging terms, claiming last week that "there are some bad people in that group. This country doesn’t want them."

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ginni 2013 pix

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/ginni-thomas-caravan-fake-meme

...

invasion thank gof for trump"

...BVut sharing extremist right-wing content is not a new thing for Thomas, a conservative activist who has made frequent use of social media. Earlier this year, she shared posts attacking the Parkland kids and praising the "#WalkAway" movement, a fake campaign of Russian trolls pretending to be people of color leaving the Democratic Party.

The migrant caravan, which consists of thousands of men, women, and children fleeing civil strife in Central America and heading toward the United States, is not actually anything new or unusual; similar groups of migrants have routinely formed over the last 20 years, and there is no evidence anyone in the group poses a danger. But it has still become the fear du jour in the Republican Party, particularly among those hoping to gin up enough fear among President Donald Trump's core voters to turn them out to the polls and counteract a blue wave.

Trump has claimed with no evidence that "unknown Middle Easterners" are traveling with the caravan. And last week, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) theorized that left-wing Jewish billionaire George Soros is secretly funding the caravan, in the hope that it will somehow disrupt the midterm election in favor of Democrats.

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