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AN PP 5 26

Counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka is one of the most controversial figures in the Trump administration, a gate crasher in the buttoned-up world of national security.

In a field where quiet professionalism is revered, Gorka is loud and mercurial. With a booming, British-accented voice, he describes U.S. operations turning suspected terrorists into “red mist” and stacking bodies “like cordwood.” He wears a lanyard inscribed with “WWFY & WWKY,” referencing a line from President Donald Trump: “We will find you and we will kill you.”

It is a testament to the frenzy of Trump’s first year back in office that even the colorful Gorka had faded into the background as the nation reeled from a mass deportation campaign and sweeping cuts to federal agencies. That changed this February with the launch of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, which heightened the risk of retaliatory attacks on American citizens and interests around the world. Overnight, there was renewed interest in who leads White House counterterrorism efforts.

My editors and I decided it was time to break out the Gorka files. For six months, I had monitored Gorka’s public remarks for clues about the status of his long-promised national counterterrorism strategy and updates on deadly U.S. strikes in Africa and the Middle East. It had started as old-fashioned beat reporting; I cover counterterrorism, and he’s the senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

The trove of details I collected from months of Gorka’s public statements, along with interviews with more than two dozen current and former security officials, were woven into a ProPublica investigation published in April. It’s an in-depth look at Gorka and his role in the hollowed-out national security apparatus after a year of leadership turmoil and personnel loss as Trump shifted resources toward his immigration agenda.

ProPublica reached out to Gorka for comment in multiple ways. He never responded, instead lashing out at me via posts on X before the story published. He told his 1.8 million followers that I was anti-American and accused me of writing a “putrid piece of hackery.”

There went my hopes for a good-faith exchange. After discussion with my editors, ProPublica decided to note the insults in the story. It was another revealing layer to the combustible leader Trump had installed in a sensitive national security role. A former senior official noted the eruption was “Gorka being Gorka.”

Increasingly, journalists are pushing back against attacks on our credibility by “showing the work,” guiding readers through the reporting process to dispel myths and foster transparency. In that spirit, I wanted to take this opportunity to show how basic beat reporting — fact-checking the assertions of a powerful figure — led to a broader story about the state of the U.S. counterterrorism mission at a critical moment.

I’ve covered the post-9/11 counterterrorism apparatus for more than two decades, so Gorka was a familiar presence, an academic known mainly for a well-documented hostility toward Islam, which he has portrayed as inherently violent. Gorka has dismissed criticism of this portrayal as “absurd,” saying his focus is “the war inside Islam” between radicals and Western-aligned Muslim leaders. He also served as an adviser under the first Trump administration but was ousted after just seven months amid White House infighting.

At the time, dozens of lawmakers had demanded his resignation, and investigative outlets detailed links — which Gorka denies — to the Hungarian far right. After the bruising exit, Gorka waited patiently as the Republican Party swung harder right in the Biden era and eventually returned Trump to office.

Gorka was appointed White House counterterrorism czar — he called it his dream job — in a new era without the “adults in the room,” as some officials referred to the more moderate advisers around Trump in the first term. Privately, national security personnel expressed alarm that intelligence about threats was in the hands of an official who reportedly struggled to get security clearance in the first Trump administration.

To me, Gorka was a weather vane for the administration’s national security thinking: Would his “war on terror” mindset clash with the more isolationist “America First” camp that wanted no more forever wars? How would a vast security apparatus built for the Islamist militant threat reorient toward a new focus on far-left “antifa” militants and Latin American drug cartels newly designated as terrorist organizations?

I was especially interested in the status of a national counterterrorism strategy Gorka had been promising since taking office; such documents typically lay out an administration’s approach to fighting the most urgent threats. Though Gorka had described his plan as “imminent” and “on the cusp” of release, months ticked by without any sign of it.

To glean clues about the strategy, I made it my mission to watch every news appearance, read every interview and listen to every podcast featuring Gorka since December 2024, the month before he entered the White House. It took some digging — he rails against the mainstream news media and prefers to appear (largely unchallenged) on niche pro-Trump news outlets and at conservative think tanks.

I developed a nightly ritual. After dinner with my family, I’d hole up to listen to Gorka, hunting for the scraps of news buried in his over-the-top vocabulary and graphic storytelling. Alongside my note categories for “Trump Anecdotes” and “Militant Death Tolls” was one for “Big Words.” For example, the president calls Joe Biden “sleepy”; Gorka prefers “somnambulant.”

Weeks into the reporting, in February 2026, I realized Gorka’s speech had burrowed into my brain when I watched a silly video and thought, in his voice, “Preposterous!” It was time for a break.

I reread my notes from hours of listening sessions. I interviewed counterterrorism analysts and national security watchdog groups about Gorka and his remit. Veteran national security personnel added context and analysis. Just as my editors and I were discussing how to turn the findings into a story, the Iran war began and the spotlight on Gorka grew brighter.

Much of the material on air strikes and the dismantling of guardrails was first incorporated into astory I reported about the Pentagon moving away from more robust civilian protections, a reversal highlighted by a deadly U.S. attack on a girls’ school in Iran. Other reporting ended up in the story about Gorka’s phoenixlike return to the White House and what it says about the Trump counterterrorism doctrine.

Gorka didn’t respond to requests for comment beyond the hostile posts on X. When I asked the White House for comment, spokesperson Anna Kelly praised Gorka’s “incredible job” but sidestepped questions about his approach. “Anyone attempting to smear him and the President’s national security team is only revealing that they haven’t been paying attention for the past year,” Kelly wrote, “as anyone with eyes can see that our homeland is more secure than ever.”

As of writing, exactly two months into the Iran war, Gorka’s counterterrorism strategy has yet to appear.

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AN 4 26

March unfolded like a stress test for U.S. counterterrorism authorities.

The month opened with a gunman in an Iranian-flag shirt killing three people at a bar in Texas. Then, an attack with homemade explosives outside the mayor’s mansion in New York City. Next came a deadly shooting March 12 on a Virginia college campus and, the same afternoon, a car-ramming at a Michigan synagogue. Days later, agents arrested a man charged with threatening a mass shooting at an Ohio mosque.

To current and former national security officials, these were omens, signs of the dangers they predicted last year when President Donald Trump began redirecting counterterrorism resources toward his mass deportation campaign.

They had warned of a diminished ability to respond should major global events inflame threats at home and abroad. Now, they say, the war in Iran has locked the Trump administration into a showdown with a sophisticated state sponsor of terrorism at a time when U.S. security agencies have hemorrhaged expertise and leadership is in flux.

The urgency of the moment has trained a spotlight on Sebastian Gorka, the White House counterterrorism adviser tasked with drafting a blueprint for fighting homegrown and international threats. Nearly a year ago, Gorka declared a national counterterrorism strategy “imminent.” By July, he was “on the cusp” of unveiling the plan — a phrase he repeated three months later in October. And again in January.

To date, no strategy has appeared, and no explanation for the delay. When it is finally released, current and former counterterrorism personnel say, they expect a document rooted in politics rather than intelligence, with little detail on how to combat threats after a year of deep cuts across national security agencies.

“Strategies are only worth the amount of resources you put into them,” said a former senior official who served in the first Trump administration. “We’re entering very dangerous territory.”

The shifting promises are unsurprising to colleagues familiar with the brash, quick-tempered Gorka, a gate crasher in Washington’s buttoned-up defense establishment. His threats and boasts are laced with grandiose language and delivered in a booming, British-accented voice.

ProPublica interviewed more than two dozen national security specialists across party lines to trace Gorka’s path to one of the most sensitive jobs in government. Nearly all spoke on condition of anonymity because of the Trump administration’s record of retaliation.

His ascent, they said, tells the story of a startling transformation of the U.S. counterterrorism agenda in Trump’s second term. Eye-rolling over Gorka’s bombast has given way to anxiety about the administration’s preparedness to identify and stop major plots.

In the first Trump administration, Gorka lasted just seven months before being forced out by the “adults in the room,” as some staffers referred to the more moderate gatekeepers then around the president. In that brief stint, he reportedly struggled to obtain security clearance and faced an outcry over ties — which he denies — to a far-right group in Hungary.

After the exit, he hosted a right-wing podcast and popped up in ads selling fish-oil pills for pain relief. Then his fortunes changed again with the 2024 election that swept Trump back to power, this time with a more conspiratorially minded wing of the Make America Great Again movement. Gorka’s loyalty paid off with a phoenixlike return to the White House in a role sometimes called “counterterrorism czar.”

“I’ve been waiting 25 years for this job,” he confided on his podcast before taking office.

The first year of Trump’s second term was so frenzied that even the colorful Gorka faded into the background as the administration dismantled federal agencies and created a secretive, sometimes deadly immigration force. Now, however, the counterterrorism director’s role is coming back to light as hostilities roil the Middle East and heighten the risk of attacks in the United States or against American interests or allies overseas.

Days before U.S. military operations began in Iran, FBI Director Kash Patel fired a dozen personnel from a counterintelligence unit that monitored threats from Iran, CNN reported — part of a wider purge of some 300 agents specializing in counterterrorism.

Former officials said the sudden loss of that many colleagues is devastating to the sensitive, granular work of preventing attacks.

“I don’t think about it in raw numbers. I think about it in the wealth of expertise and knowledge that has been cut across all levels,” a former senior Justice Department official said. “What you lose is that nuance — with a smaller team, you can only go so deep.”

An FBI spokesperson said the bureau does not comment on personnel numbers but that agents are “working around the clock” and had disrupted four alleged U.S.-based terrorist plots in December alone. “The FBI continuously assesses and realigns our resources to ensure the safety of the American people,” the statement said.

ProPublica sought an interview with Gorka directly and via the White House. He did not respond to a detailed list of questions but assailed the requests in two posts on X, where he has 1.8 million followers. The first was a “no,” along with insults, addressed to several journalists who had asked him to comment on the strategy. In the second post, directed at ProPublica, Gorka accused the reporter of writing a “putrid piece of hackery.”

“If the criticism is we’re killing too many Jihadis (759) since 20th January 2024, or rescuing more US hostages in 12 months (106) than Biden did in 4 years, I stand by our historic wins for AMERICA First,” Gorka wrote, with an apparent typo. Trump took office in January 2025.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in an email that the restructuring of agencies “has made the entire foreign policy apparatus even more responsive to potential threats” and praised Gorka for “an incredible job” leading interagency talks.

“Anyone attempting to smear him and the President’s national security team is only revealing that they haven’t been paying attention for the past year,” Kelly wrote, “as anyone with eyes can see that our homeland is more secure than ever.”

Inattention “Can Be Deadly”

Gorka has emerged as one of the last men standing after a tumultuous stretch for U.S. counterterrorism leadership.

His original boss, national security adviser Mike Waltz, was booted to the United Nations after the Signalgate scandal, leaving the role to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was already juggling portfolios and is busier now with Iran.

Another blow came when Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, resigned last month in protest of the war in Iran, which he said was pushing the United States “further toward decline and chaos.”

Gorka was livid. He told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations that he called Kent the day of his resignation and left a message calling him an “utter disgrace” for criticizing the president in wartime.

“At the end of my voicemail,” Gorka recounted, “I said, ‘Good riddance to you, Joe.’”

Within days, Gorka was angling for Kent’s old job at the counterterrorism center, the government’s hub for analyzing terrorist threats, The Washington Post reported. Colleagues said they weren’t surprised — the role brings more power — but added that Gorka would likely face a tough Senate confirmation process if nominated.

The leadership disarray compounds the risks of hollowed-out counterterrorism operations, say national security analysts.

At a time when hundreds of personnel typically would’ve been assigned to thwarting attacks amid international conflict, the administration “has gutted this capacity through firings, forced resignations, and slashed budgets,” a panel of national security analysts wrote in the journal Lawfare.

The Justice Department acknowledged inbudget proposal documents that its National Security Division is facing “unprecedented personnel constraints,” struggling to keep up with increasing caseloads and a 40% drop in the number of prosecutors.

At the State Department, former officials said, Iran specialists at the counterterrorism bureau were dispersed to regional offices where counterterrorism is one of many priorities. The entire team focused on threat prevention was eliminated. As a senior official who recently left put it, “They keep saying we can do it all even though they have half an arm now, and no legs.”

Since the Iran war started, officials say, some counterterrorism specialists who had been reassigned to immigration have returned to their old roles, creating a whiplash that can disrupt investigations and analysis.

“If you’ve dropped all the cases and have taken people off the target set for an extended period of time, you can’t just drop back in and pick up where you left off,” said Ben Connable, a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who leads the nonprofit Battle Research Group. “The men and women who are back on that portfolio are going to have to play catch-up, and that conveys risk.”

The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t published any national terrorism advisory bulletins, periodic updates to alert the public to the current threat level, since September. It has not released the annual Homeland Threat Assessment since Trump returned to office, according to Colin Clarke, executive director of the security-focused Soufan Center, and fellow terrorism scholar Jacob Ware. A DHS spokesperson said updates on the documents “will be provided following the end of the Democrat DHS shutdown.”

Gorka’s long-awaited strategy, Clarke and Ware said in an op-ed, could help clarify White House thinking on how to handle threats when “defenses are divided, disorganized and under-resourced.”

“This is the moment for the Trump administration to demonstrate that it recognizes the stakes,” the researchers wrote. “In counterterrorism, inattention can be deadly.”

Winding Path to White House

Gorka’s path to the White House began in the cottage industry of self-styled terrorism experts that sprang up after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

He became a regular on a training circuit where speakers received lucrative contracts from international governments and law enforcement agencies to teach about the threat of militant Islamist movements. Many trainers of that era maligned Islamand backed policies that violated the rights of ordinary American Muslims in the name of counterterrorism, according to civil liberties watchdogs.

“For him, counterterrorism is kinetic and it’s against one type of enemy: the jihadist enemy,” said an associate who has known Gorka for two decades.

Born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, he attended college in London and served as a reserve intelligence soldier in the British military. He later spent time in Hungary, dabbling in nationalist politics and earning a doctorate degree.

In 2008, Gorka moved to the United States with his American wife, also a counterterrorism specialist, and eventually became a naturalized citizen — “a legal immigrant,” as he is introduced at events.

As an instructor at think tanks and military institutes, he pushed an image of Muslims as inherently violent, according to current and former colleagues. They say his fixation on Islamist militancy crosses into a more generalized bigotry, a claim Gorka has dismissed as “absurd.” He insists that his focus is “the war inside Islam” between radicals and Western-aligned Muslim leaders. “We want to see our friends win that war,” he has said.

A former senior Justice Department official recalled an FBI agent lobbying hard to get Gorka hired as a counterterrorism trainer several years ago. The official “didn’t feel comfortable clearing him in on my credentials” for an office visit so instead drove over an hour to watch a lecture.

Gorka’s talk was “reductionist” in its portrayals of Islam as locked in a civilizational war with the West, the former official recalled. Immediately after the event, the official advised against hiring Gorka because his teachings potentially violated department principles against bias in training.

“I came back and said to the U.S. attorneys, ‘Let’s be careful here,’” the former official said. “They put a flag.”

Concerns about Gorka’s approach flared again when he joined the first Trump administration through the MAGA strategist Steve Bannon. Gorka, who had worked at Bannon’s right-wing Breitbart outlet, was appointed to the Strategic Initiatives Group, an in-house think tank at the White House.

The appointment prompted 55 House Democrats to demand his firing in a letter calling his association with far-right groups “deeply troubling.” They focused on the Hungarian nationalist group Vitézi Rend, whose medal Gorka wore on a military tunic to Trump’s inaugural events. Gorka has denied belonging to the organization, which had Nazi ties during World War II, and said the medal honors his father’s escape from communism.

Gorka’s qualifications for the job also came under scrutiny. Critics dug out and posted his dissertation, which was pilloried by other academics for a simplistic chart that placed terrorism on a spectrum somewhere between “peacekeeping” and “thermonuclear war.”

He eventually was ousted in August 2017, days after Bannon, in an internal power struggle. In his resignation letter, Gorka blamed his departure on the idea that “forces that do not support the MAGA promise are — for now — ascendant within the White House.”

Reporters spotted him outside loading his belongings into the back of a Mustang convertible with vanity plates “ART WAR.”

Dream Job

Gorka’s comeback symbolizes the hard-right swing of Trump’s second term.

Even some prominent conservatives were shocked by Gorka’s return. Michael Anton, who also served in the last Trump administration, reportedly withdrewfrom consideration for a senior national security role rather than work alongside him.

The jabs don’t seem to faze Gorka, who tells a story of standing outside the White House in January 2025, ready to swipe his badge the moment it was activated after Trump’s swearing-in. He has referred to his role as a dream job.

“I pinch myself every single day,” Gorka.

The counterterrorism director’s responsibilities include coordinating policy for external threats as well as leading efforts to free wrongfully detained Americans around the globe. Gorka can be remarkably candid and mercurial for a senior official with such a sensitive remit, according to hours of his public remarks reviewed by ProPublica.

He has exploded at journalists (“Go to hell!”) and cut off interviews when he didn’t like the questioning (“We’re done!”). He repeats anti-immigrant tropes and boasts that “Judeo-Christian civilization is the ultimate form of human existence.” He has urged Christians and Jews to buy guns to defend themselves “on the front line of the war between civilization and barbarity.”

Gorka’s public remarks also offer behind-the-scenes glimpses of working for a boss he calls “the most consequential American president” of modern times. At one event, he pulled out his phone to let the audience hear his ringtone: Trump delivering his classic “tired of winning” line.

Gorka has said his workday begins with a drive to the White House while listening to his favorite podcast, hosted by pro-Trump military historian Victor Davis Hanson. Upon arrival, he has to turn in his cellphone before spending up to 12 hours a day in “my SCIF,” the acronym for the secure chambers where senior officials discuss classified matters.

On Thursdays, he convenes an interagency discussion of the latest threats. He name drops “Marco,” “Kash” and other friends in senior roles: “They ask me as I bump into them in the West Wing: ‘Have you killed more jihadis today?’”

In his office, Gorka keeps a globe on his desk and a large poster of the Twin Towers on the wall, an ever-present reminder of 9/11. His team’s custom lanyards are printed with “WWFY & WWKY” in honor of a Trump line: “We will find you and we will kill you.”

Cloud of “Red Mist”

On Gorka’s watch, targeted militants don’t simply die.

They are “human filth” who are “obliterated,” he tells audiences, describing bodies stacked “like cordwood” after receiving “eternal justice” from the Trump administration’s “hammers of hell.”

Before the Iran conflict, Gorka was focused on a revival of the “war on terror” in parts of Africa and the Middle East. He claims U.S. strikes have killed more than 750 militants he has described as “leading jihadis” with “American blood on their hands or who were plotting attacks against Americans.”

“If we know where you are, anywhere in the world, we can kill you within 72 hours if the president says so,” he boasted last spring.

In the example Gorka shares most often, he briefed the president on a militant recruiter in Somalia who had been under surveillance for over a year during President Joe Biden’s administration. On the spot, he said, Trump ordered the fighter killed. Around 30 hours later, on Feb. 1, 2025, Gorka says, he watched live from the White House Situation Room as a U.S. strike vaporized the fighter into “a cloud of red mist,” a description he has repeated at least half a dozen times.

He sometimes screens declassified video of the militant being blown to pieces, as several State Department staffers found out when they watched him speak last year. Unsettled, they tried to rush out after the event but were corralled to flank Gorka in a photo op. “I look like a hostage,” one person in the picture said.

The staffers — since pushed out of government by cuts — said they had expected Gorka’s bravado but were horrified by his glee over what they described as a “snuff film.” Many other personnel expressed similar concerns that issues requiring level-headed professionalism were entrusted to someone they regarded as a volatile ideologue openly preaching bloodlust.

“He’s trying to show off” to the president, one longtime counterterrorism official said. “‘I nuked another 100 jihadis — pay attention to me.’”

Gorka’s claims of battlefield victories are often exaggerated or misleading about who was targeted and why, according to security officials and counterterrorism analysts. They say there are fewer than 10 “leading” Islamist militants in the world, and the idea of killing hundreds is absurd. The White House did not address a question about whether the numbers are inflated.

“It’s the word ‘leading’ that gets me,” said Clarke, of the Soufan Center. “I have no doubt they’re killing people, but they’re probably foot soldiers.”

Reports of civilian casualties from U.S. operations also muddy the death tolls, especially in Somalia and Yemen. But the Trump administration has shown little interest in investigating; it gutted a Pentagon office tasked with addressing civilian harm.

Take the “red mist” strike, for example. It targeted Ahmed Maeleninine, an Islamic State group recruiter who was hiding out in a cave complex in Somalia. Gorka said the Biden administration had surveilled Maeleninine for more than a year without striking. That’s true, said one former counterterrorism official with direct knowledge of the intelligence involved, but there was more to the story.

“He left out the part about the women and children,” said the official, who recently left government. “I knew the reason we hadn’t gone after him before was because he had his wife and children around him 24/7. Now, maybe they got lucky and found one time where they got a clear strike.”

U.S. Africa Command, which oversees the military’s Somalia operations, said in announcing the February 2025 strike that “approximately 14 ISIS-Somalia operatives were killed and no civilians were harmed.”

New Urgency

Gorka’s formal title is deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

The role was upgraded from “special assistant” in recent years, though officials say the powers of the office have weakened since the days of early counterterrorism czars like Richard Clarke, who served under three presidents and revealed that senior leaders had ignored repeated warnings about al-Qaida before the 9/11 attacks.

Christopher Costa, a retired Army intelligence officer who spent a year in the same job under the first Trump administration, described the role as “the convening authority for all things counterterrorism for the president of the United States.”

“It was rolling up your sleeves,” Costa recalled. “It was more than just policy work — it was mitigating current threats.”

Iranian threats against U.S. targets have brought renewed attention to the lack of a Trump counterterrorism doctrine.

Gorka has been tight-lipped about the contents of his strategy. Officials who typically would’ve been involved in interagency discussions say they haven’t been consulted. One person briefed on a working draft summed it up as “Sunnis. Shiites. Cartels.” Others said they expected the addition of far-left antifascist militants, a tiny subset of the extremist threat that receives disproportionate attention from the Trump administration.

Gorka told another colleague he was writing the document himself, without traditional input from partner federal agencies. “There was no ‘U.S. government strategy’ involved,” the colleague said. “It might as well have been a new book he was writing.”

At his recent Council on Foreign Relations appearance, Gorka was asked — again — when the strategy would be released. He glanced at his staff and shifted in his seat.

He confided that he had “put my life’s work into this massive document” but had received feedback in recent days to “Cut it down, Gorka!” He said he would make trims and send the draft back to senior aides in hopes of getting a presidential signoff.

“Keep your fingers crossed,” Gorka told the audience.

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MMA

As Trump threatens regime change in Venezuela, right-wing media embrace opposition figure María Corina Machado

Conservative pundits have given Machado a platform to agitate in favor of Trump’s aggressive military campaign, while she’s given them fuel for discredited conspiracy theories

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan, Sophie Lawton, Monica Rodriguez & Ben Van Bloem

Published 12/03/25

Right-wing media figures have spent the last year championing Venezuela opposition figure María Corina Machado, who has supported President Donald Trump’s threats of regime change in her home country.

The relationship between Machado and conservative media is mutually reinforcing: She provides right-wing outlets with inflammatory claims about President Nicolás Maduro — including exaggerated or false accusations of tampering in U.S. elections and running narcotics enterprises — and in return these outlets provide her with a platform to agitate for his ouster. As The New York Times reported, Machado recently endorsed the debunked conspiracy theory that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 U.S. election, further ingratiating herself to MAGA by adopting one of the movement’s core tenets. She has also claimed without evidence that Maduro is the leader of two drug cartels, one of which doesn't even exist as a discrete or coherent organization, according to many experts.

Since early September, President Donald Trump has ordered airstrikes on at least 21 boats, killing at least 83 people, in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean — part of a larger pressure campaign aimed at removing Maduro from office. In October, the administration ended diplomatic outreach to the country, though Trump and Maduro reportedly spoke over the phone in late November. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a key Machado-backer, has been pushing for Maduro’s ouster for months with what some believe is an eye toward eventually collapsing the government of Cuba as well.

Right-wing media responded to Trump’s escalation by defending the extrajudicial boat strikes and pushing for even greater incursions into Venezuela, including toppling Maduro’s government. Many in conservative media have told their audiences that regime change in Venezuela would be easy, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Right-wing coverage of Machado often relies on a blurry distinction between supporting Machado and cheering the removal of Maduro on the one hand while misleadingly claiming to oppose U.S.-led regime change on the other — arguably a distinction without a difference. Sometimes Machado employs this sleight-of-hand rhetorical device herself, seemingly to assure her audience that attacking Maduro’s government would not result in a replay of George W. Bush’s unpopular forever wars.

Fox News’ Rachel Campos-Duffy is perhaps Machado’s most significant ally in right-wing media, having interviewed her in both English- and Spanish-language media. Campos-Duffy’s colleagues at Fox have also praised Machado, as has Donald Trump Jr. on his Triggered podcast. Other conservative figures celebrated her even prior to Trump’s election in November 2024.

Machado’s rise has also given election deniers an opportunity to revive the long debunked conspiracy theory that Venezuela interfered in the 2020 U.S. election against Trump. Machado — who had recently been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — repeated that false claim during an October 31 interview on a Bloomberg podcast. “I have no doubt that Nicolás Maduro, Jorge Rodríguez, and many others are, you know, the masterminds of a system that has rigged elections in many countries, including in the U.S.,” Machado said. “I have no doubt about that.”

Former Overstock CEO and "prominent election denier" Patrick Byrne mocked a post criticizing Machado’s interview on his Telegram channel, writing that people who say the 2020 U.S. was fair “doth protest too much.” In August, Byrne claimed that Smartmatic, which provides electronic voting systems, is “a spinoff of the Venezuelan government” and that the company “has been rigging elections for people around the world.” In October, Bryne said the United States had to “overthrow the governments of Venezuela and Cuba" because they “overthrew our republic.”

In November, Trump promoted a right-wing show on social media during which a guest said “there are at least a dozen people in Venezuela that have more money and power” than the CIA, adding: “This is the largest transnational criminal organization in the world that no one knew about, or no one wanted to talk about, until they stole our election in 2020."

For all of the right-wing media claims that Maduro interfered in the 2020 election, it’s worth underscoring that in 2002 the United States at least tacitly supported a failed coup against then-President of Venezuela Hugo Chavez. During Trump’s first term, his administration engineered an unsuccessful campaign to oust Maduro and install opposition figure Juan Guaidó.

:{Despite those failures, conservative media have embraced Machado in a way that’s reminiscent of earlier episodes in U.S. foreign policy, when media and government officials celebrated opposition figures in the early years of the invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

As The New York Times notes, Machado has been a “darling” of Washington for decades, and her people are in constant contact with Secretary Rubio, the Trump administration figure leading the charge to topple Maduro. One possible reason Washington has been enthralled with her for so long is that, according to Bloomberg, she “favors privatizing all industries in Venezuela,” including the state-owned oil company, if the United States takes out Maduro. Ian Bremmer noted that U.S. action in Venezuela “in large part about the oil.”}:

Should Trump's plan move forward, Machado is the most likely candidate for his administration to rally behind. She’s already won over right-wing outlets — but as U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan showed, sometimes an opposition figure’s charm offensive is the easiest battle of the war.

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an 525

no lnx

'Sad white boys': Fear as Trump terror adviser shrugs off threat from 'inside the house'

Members of a neo-Nazi group pose with shields during 'Unite the Right' rally in Charlottesville, in 2017. (Karla Cote/Flickr)

Jordan Greenand Raw Story May 03, 2025

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz was removed this week but a key Trump counterterrorism official remains in place at the White House — and he's planning a change in strategy to focus on jihadists rather than white supremacist groups that one leading expert said remain a significant domestic threat.

"The call is coming from inside the house," said Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. "We all understand why the right doesn't want to tackle domestic violent extremism — it's their base."

The Trump official is Sebastian Gorka, an Anglo-Hungarian-American academic who spent seven months in the first Trump White House as a national security strategist before being removed. Closely connected to Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, Gorka's far-right views have proved consistently controversial. His return to the White House generated protests from former Trump advisers, who called him names including “conman” and “clown.”

Regardless, Gorka is promising a new policy focused on “killing jihadis,” thereby downplaying, if not altogether abandoning, a Biden-era emphasis on white supremacist threats.

Now deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism in the National Security Council, Gorka is by his own estimation an expert on “Middle Eastern jihadism, al-Qaida [and] ISIS.” His X biography includes the acronym “WWFY&WWKY,” which stands for “we will find you and we will kill you.”

This week, Gorka wrote for Breitbart News that Trump has “already engineered a complete reversal in American counterterrorism policy.”

Gorka recounted a meeting with Trump and Waltz during the second week of the new administration. Gorka and Waltz laid a map on the Resolute Desk, showing a cave complex in northern Somalia that was being used as a base by ISIS, Gorka said.

“Kill them, and kill them now,” Trump said, according to Gorka. Thirty hours later, he said, the men were in the Situation Room “watching living hell rain down” on the caves.

'Back to the basics'

Speaking last week at Semafor’s World Economy Summit, Gorka said the new counterterrorism plan, expected to be ready in the coming month, will be “utterly, completely” different from the strategy under Joe Biden. Gorka said the new plan will “go back to the basics,” as “the majority of threats we face are jihadi terrorists.”

In his preface to the 2021 National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, Biden highlighted white supremacist attacks: the 2015 massacre of Black worshipers at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., the 2018 mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh that was targeted for supporting immigrants, and the 2019 slaughter of Latinos at a Walmart in El Paso, Tex. by a gunman who echoed the Trump epithet “invaders.”

Though it cited an array of violent ideologies, the national strategy asserted that “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (principally those who promote the superiority of the white race) and militia violent extremists are assessed as presenting the most persistent and lethal threats.”

Like other officials in the Trump administration, Gorka has said little if anything publicly about the threat posed by violent neo-Nazi accelerationists, who seek to bring about the collapse of society through mass shootings and industrial sabotage.

But Gorka has in the past downplayed white supremacy. In 2017, as an adviser in the first Trump White House, he told Breitbart, where he was previously a national security editor, that where terrorism was concerned, white supremacy was not a problem. Three days later in Charlottesville, Va. a man who had rallied with the white supremacist group Vanguard America drove a car into a group of peaceful anti-racist protesters, killing a young woman, Heather Heyer. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions called the attack “domestic terrorism.”

Gorka could not be reached for comment for this story. Lewis, from George Washington University, worried that a national strategy on terrorism that erases references to racial motivation might discourage FBI agents from seeking authorization to investigate white supremacist plots.

“In the face of overwhelming statistical evidence, there is a complete unwillingness to acknowledge the reality, because it would fly in the face of their narrative,” Lewis told Raw Story. “It’s not going to go away. We can put our heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happening. There’s still going to be mass shootings, even if we don’t acknowledge that they’re motivated by white supremacy, and the FBI just calls them ‘sad white boys.’

“If anything, the complete inability of the administration to even acknowledge the problem will afford these individuals a more permissive environment to recruit, radicalize and carry out attacks.”

'Growing threat'

In his recent article for Breitbart, Gorka charged that the Biden administration “ignored the growing threat of global jihadism.”

Under the Biden administration, the FBI arrested an Afghan national who allegedly planned a mass casualty attack on Election Day in the name of ISIS. In total, Lewis said, 10 ISIS supporters were arrested in the U.S. in 2024.

On New Year's Eve, a man inspired by ISIS used his truck to attack revelers on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people. Before that, Lewis said, the last lethal jihadi attack on U.S. soil occurred in 2019, when a Saudi airman taking courses at Naval Air Station Pensacola murdered three U.S. sailors.

Since then, avowed white supremacists have carried out mass shootings targeting African Americans in Buffalo, N.Y., resulting in 10 deaths, and Jacksonville, Fla., with three deaths.

In terms of disrupted plots, a review by Raw Story found that since 2021, the FBI has disrupted at least three attempts to attack the power grid by white supremacists affiliated with the Terrorgram Collective, a group recently designated by the State Department as a global terrorist entity. In the same period, the FBI disrupted at least six plots by white supremacists to carry out lethal attacks against police officers and LGBTQ+ people.

Gorka has also promised changes in emphasis on resources used to counter terror groups. For Breitbart, he wrote that the centerpiece of Trump’s counterterrorism approach will be “allowing our special operators, the intelligence community, and the bravest warfighters in the world to deal death to those who have the blood of Americans on their hands or who are plotting to murder our citizens.”

ProPublica, however, has reported that the new administration has cut nearly 20 percent of the workforce at a Department of Homeland Security center responsible for “strengthen[ing] the nation’s ability to prevent targeted violence and terrorism nationwide, through funding, training, evidence-based resources and increasing public awareness across every level of government, the private sector, and local communities.”

NOW READ: Trump’s clown car cabinet is driving off a cliff

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note // lawfare // fascism

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A top Trump administration official said those demanding due process for a wrongly deported Maryland dad might themselves be accused of “aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists.”

Appearing onRob Schmitt Tonight on Newsmax, Donald Trump’s senior director for counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, suggested critics of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s incarceration in a Salvadoran megaprison might even be committing a federal crime.

He said: “It’s not left and right, It’s not even Republican or Democrat. There’s one line that divides us: Do you love America or do you hate America? It’s really quite that simple.”

Bondi Says Deported Dad’s Family Better Off Without HimPLEADING FOR HIS RETURN

Janna Brancolini

Gorka, born in the U.K. to Hungarian parents, suggested in the Tuesday interview that Democrats who argue that Abrego Garcia should be returned to the U.S.—per the Supreme Court’s orders—don’t “love America.”

The former Newsmax host added that those who dissent against the Trump administration’s actions are “on the side of the cartel members, on the side of the illegal aliens on the side of the terrorists.”

He went even further, saying: “And you have to ask yourself, are they technically aiding and abetting them? Because aiding and abetting criminals and terrorists is a crime in federal statute.”

Bolton Slams Trump’s Latest Cabinet Pick as a ‘Con Man’NO CONFIDENCE

Will Neal

Gorka failed to mention that Abrego Garcia’s alleged links to the MS-13 gang—used to justify his deportation—have been disputed and are based upon an allegation made in a field interview report from 2019, and a confidential informant supposedly telling police he was a member of the organization.

Gorka said critics of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s deportation and apparent incarceration in an infamous supermax prison are “aiding and abetting” terrorism.Newsmax.

The cop who penned the field report was suspended in wild circumstances soon after he interviewed Abrego Garcia, yet his allegation is among the scant evidence the government has produced to support its MS-13 claim.

The informant reportedly claimed the father was part of the “Westerns” clique of MS-13. This is despite the fact that group operated out of Long Island and Abrego Garcia had never lived anywhere other than Maryland while in the U.S.

Additionally, Abrego Garcia’s lawyers were unable to interview the cop who supposedly spoke to the informant because of his suspension.

The government has also tried to justify the deportation of Salvadorian migrants based on their tattoos, using a point-scoring system to determine whether their ink relates to gang affiliation.

IFrame Content

When he was arrested in 2019, ICE officers also reportedly pointed towards his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie as potential gang involvement indicators.[dollar over ears?]

The El Salvador native had fled his home country in 2011 at age 16 after gang members threatened to kill him. He was arrested while undocumented, found hanging around outside a hardware store looking for day labor work.

He was handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement without being charged with any crimes.

At his deportation hearing in 2019, ICE stated that he was a danger to the community because he had been detained “in connection with a murder investigation,” and local police had “verified” he was a gang member.

The Trump administration has ignored judges’ orders to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran migrant who was deported to El Salvador on March 15, to the United States.Abrego Garcia Family/Handout via Reuters

Abrego Garcia applied for asylum and was granted a “withholding of removal” order, a legal form of protection that says the government won’t deport someone to their home country if the person is “more likely than not” to face persecution there.

Since he was picked up by ICE again in March this year, the Department of Justice has not presented any evidence in court showing gang affiliations.

Government lawyers have even “abandon[ed]” their earlier position that Abrego Garcia was “a danger to the community,” a federal appeals court found.

But despite, this, top government officials continue to brand him as a danger and a “terrorist.”

His attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told NBC News that these claims “endanger his life.”

IFrame Content

A60 Minutes investigation discovered that at least three-quarters of the 250 men shipped to the infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) had no criminal records at all. The facility is notorious for human rights abuses.

The Trump administration has admitted it deported Abrego Garcia after an “administrative error,” but still refuses to bring him home.

In fact, it has doubled down. In a Wednesday X post, the Department of Homeland Security again branded him an “MS-13 gang member,” and revealed a protective order his wife took out against him in 2021.

Sharing the documents, DHS officials echoed comments from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who said on Tuesday that he was “not the father of the year.”

IFrame Content

“Kilmar Abrego Garcia had a history of violence and was not the upstanding ‘Maryland Man’ the media has portrayed him as,” the post said.

“According to court filings, Garcia’s wife sought a domestic violence restraining order against him, claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm. This MS-13 gang member is not a sympathetic figure.”

Abrego Garcia’s wife—Jennifer Vasquez Sura—addressed the restraining order in a statement to Newsweek.

“After surviving domestic violence in a previous relationship, I acted out of caution after a disagreement with Kilmar by seeking a civil protective order in case things escalated,” she said. “Things did not escalate, and I decided not to follow through with the civil court process.”

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note fbi ctr-terror fail // tulsi gabbard

Controversial Trump picks like Sebastian Gorka likely to bypass Senate scrutiny

CBS

JAnuary 7, 2025 / CBS New

President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the counterterrorism chief on the White House National Security Council, Sebastian Gorka, is raising concerns among security experts because of his inability to obtain a security clearance early in Trump's first term.

Gorka was forced to departafter seven months, in August 2017, as a lower-level White House staffer after officials were informed that he would not pass his background investigation, sources have confirmed to CBS News.

It is unclear whether the past concerns that led to the denial of his security clearance will impede him from obtaining this new, higher-level post. The job of deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism does not require Senate confirmation, but neither did his position in the first Trump administration.

A Trump transition source told CBS News that Gorka currently "has an active security clearance with the U.S. government." But the transition did not respond to requests to clarify whether the Gorka had been given the customary temporary clearance appointees receive as they are preparing to assume their government position and before they go through the more rigorous FBI background investigation.

Trump has the ultimate authority over who serves on his national security team in the White House, and he can bypass recommendations about clearances. Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump transition, defended Gorka's credentials and told CBS News that "Dr. Gorka has decades of experience working on matters of national security, irregular warfare, and counterterrorism."

Gorka "will bring a wealth of knowledge and boldness to the National Security Council that will help make America safe again," Hughes said.

But some former law enforcement and intelligence officials told CBS News they believe Gorka's past security roadblocks should also be a red flag this time around.

"Typically when someone has been disqualified at some point, unless there is a grace period to allow them to [enter] the process again to see if the issue can me mitigated, they should not be afforded a position of trust in the government," said Stephen Laycock, who served as executive assistant director for the FBI's intelligence branch until 2021.

John Bolton, who was Trump's third national security adviser during his first term and is now a staunch critic of the former president, has said that Gorka should be subjected to a "full FBI field background investigation" before assuming the NSC position.

Gorka has been named as Trump's pick for one of the most important jobs in the counterterrorism firmament – one that would put him at the center of life-and-death decisions involving elite U.S. forces. The role requires access to some of the most sensitive, compartmentalized intelligence in the U.S. government.

In 2017, Trump had named Gorka, a longtime acolyte and Steve Bannon protégé, to a nebulously defined unit of the National Security Council called the Strategic Initiative Group, a kind of West Wing think tank. John Kelly, Trump's second chief of staff, was perplexed by Gorka's role, three sources who worked in the White House said. At the time, the retired four-star Marine general was focused on imposing discipline on a chaotic White House.

"He saw people like (Steve) Bannon and Gorka running around the White House with an open loop to the president," said one former White House official. When Kelly learned Gorka had been unable to obtain a high-level security clearance for the job, he dismissed Gorka, sources told CBS News.

Why Gorka failed his security screening at that time has not been disclosed, although the review came soon after he was caught by TSA at a security checkpoint carrying a gun into Ronald Reagan National airport. Gorka faced a misdemeanor weapons charge, which was eventually dismissed. Gorka, British-born to Hungarian parents, also was denied clearances to serve on a panel in 2002 that was investigating the then-Hungarian prime minister's past as a member of the Soviet-era Communist secret police, Buzzfeed News reported in 2017.

A firebrand and MAGA crusader, he endeared himself to Trump as a White House aide during his first term with his frequent cable TV appearances defending the administration's most controversial "America First" policies, including the so-called "Muslim ban."

He drew scrutiny for controversial remarks about the Judeo-Christian West being in a civilizational struggle against Islam and for his alleged ties to right-wing Hungarian nationalists. He has also faced questions about his academic credentials (Gorka earned a Ph.D from a relatively obscure Hungarian university and served as an administrative dean at the National Defense University.)

Last month, Gorka was a featured speaker at a MAGA Turning Point USA gathering in Arizona, where he stoked conspiracy theories about last summer's assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. "The most charitable thing you can say about it," Gorka said ominously, is that "it was failure by design, failure by design, but we will get to the bottom of it."

As NSC counterterrorism chief, at any given moment, Gorka could be interacting with the president, Pentagon officials or the CIA to help coordinate lethal strikes against suspected terrorists or risky hostage rescues, for instance. It would also be within his purview to steer policies that require the support of diplomatic partners.

One former Trump counterterrorism official recalled that during Trump's first term, Gorka was involved in efforts to designate Mexico's drug cartels as a foreign terrorist organization, and he said he expects that Gorka could try to revive that policy push. That redesignation would give the U.S. a stronger legal basis for conducting military operations in Mexico. It was scuttled during the last term over fierce opposition from the State Department.

Some Trump critics told CBS News they are concerned that Gorka's return could signal a less disciplined approach to managing the White House – in which an array of advisers with competing interests could gain unfettered access to the Oval Office — recreating some of the pitfalls of Trump's first administration.

"For Trump, process is anathema and discipline is foreign," said Chris Whipple, an author, former "60 Minutes" producer and documentary filmmaker whose book, "The Gatekeepers," is a behind-the-scenes study of White House chiefs of staff from Reagan to Trump. "The only qualification that matters is abject loyalty, period," Whipple said. "And that's why you have people like … Seb Gorka running around the Oval Office."

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tex obs

These accounts have drawn the attention of conservative commentators, activists, and even elected officials. The X account belonging to Republican U.S. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky follows three of the four neo-Nazi accounts, while the account belonging to GOP Arizona state Senator Wendy Rogers follows two. The account belonging to Sebastian Gorka, former and future deputy assistant to Donald Trump, follows 9mm_smg, and the account belonging to Chuck DeVore, an executive at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has retweeted one of 9mm_smg’s posts.

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A former aide to President-elect Donald Trump in his first administration has just received a high-profile appointment to the White House National Security Council (NSC) — despite being a member of a far-right group with ties to Nazi Germany.

Politico reported Friday that Sebastian Gorka has been hired as deputy assistant to the president and the NSC's senior director of counterterrorism. Gorka had been angling to be deputy national security advisor, though Trump ended up appointing Alex Wong, who was a State Department official in the first Trump administration.

In 2017, NBC News reported that Gorka was photographed wearing a medal associated with the Hungarian organization Vitezi Rend (which translates to "valiant order"), and that he occasionally signs his name with a lowercase "v" which order members use as an identifier. NBC also cited Jewish newspaper the Forward's report that three Vitezi Rend leaders confirmed that Gorka was a lifelong member.

READ MORE:**4 appalling facts about Fox News' latest hire, Sebastian Gorka**

The Forward reported in early 2017 that the State Department described Vitezi Rend as having been "under the direction of the Nazi Government of Germany." During World War II, members of the group helped deliver hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews into the hands of the Hitler regime, which massacred nearly all of them. The group's founder, Admiral Miklos Horthy, was a "self-confessed anti-Semite" who ruled Hungary for 24 years.

According to the Forward, Gorka did not disclose his membership in the group when he emigrated to the U.S. in 2012, as the State Department says Vitezi Rend member "are presumed to be inadmissible" under the Immigration and Nationality Act. Leaders of Vitezi Rend say members take a lifelong oath of loyalty to the group.

Gorka argued at the time that he wore the Vitezi Rend medal to honor his father, who won it in his opposition of Hungary's communist government that ruled between 1949 and 1989. But the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect doubted that explanation and called for a formal investigation into Gorka.

"How many ducks in the Trump White House must walk, talk and quack Anti-Semitically before our country wakes up and sees the greater problem?" the organization told NBC News. "Who among us wears a medal of a Nazi-sympathetic organization to remember loved ones?"

READ MORE:[Proud Boys wreak havoc on DC as Mike Flynn, Sebastian Gorka and others rally Donald Trump loyalists

Like other Trump Cabinet appointees, Gorka is a Fox News personality, and joined the network after leaving the Trump White House in 2017. However, he left Fox just two years later to host his own show on the conservative Salem Radio Network. Gorka — a friend of Fox primetime host Sean Hannity — told the Hollywood Reporter he would still be an occasional guest on Hannity if called upon.

"I’m still supporting Sean Hannity and other Fox shows as a free agent as my new schedule permits,” Gorka said.

Even though he was quoted on Fox shows as an "expert" in national security and terrorism matters, Stephen Sloan, a professor who advised Gorka on his Ph.D. dissertation still held off from using the word "expert" to describe Gorka's level of knowledge.

"I would not call him an expert on terrorism," Sloan told CNN in 2017. "[Gorka] does a very good job being the bulldog, if you will, for the administration … but as an adviser, I have some discomfort."

READ MORE:[RFK Jr. once compared Trump to Hitler and called MAGA 'outright Nazis'

Click here to read Politico's report in full.

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mma

After former White House chief of staff John Kelly criticized Donald Trump, right-wing commentators linked to the former president have called Kelly a “traitor,” a “seditionist,” “compromised,” a “threat to America,” and treasonous.

In a trio of audio interviews with The New York Times, Kelly “said that, in his opinion, Mr. Trump met the definition of a fascist,” and “discussed and confirmed previous reports that Mr. Trump had made admiring statements about Hitler, had expressed contempt for disabled veterans and had characterized those who died on the battlefield for the United States as ‘losers’ and ‘suckers.’”

Reflecting the chaotic nature of the Trump White House, numerous former staffers have supported and bolstered Kelly’s warnings and recollections. Right-wing media figures, however, have dismissed, ignored, or cast doubt on his remarks.

They have also descended into retributive rhetoric, saying Kelly is a “traitor,” treasonous, and seditious. Such language echoes the words of Trump himself, who has promised to carry out a retribution tour if he’s elected president.

The following are several right-wing commentators who have connections with Trump who have lashed out at Kelly:

Sebastian Gorka is a radio host who pushes conspiracy theories and extreme rhetoric. He is a former Trump White House adviser. Gorka has interviewed and been praised by Trump.

During an interview with Salem Media Group colleague Mike Gallagher, Gorka said: “I've got a message for John Kelly. You're no Marine, John Kelly. You're a seditionist. You're a traitor. You tried to push me and Steve Bannon out.” He added: “I spit on his career because he is not a Marine and people like him are the threat to America.”

Peter Navarro is an election denier and Project 2025 author. He is also a Trump campaign surrogate who was recently released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for defying a congressional subpoena.

He wrote an opinion piece attacking Kelly with the headline “Trump’s four-star bully chief of staff John Kelly was a traitor within.”

Mike Flynn is a right-wing commentator who spreads conspiracy theories and toxic rhetoric. He is also a Trump ally and former national security adviser who left in disgrace. Trump told Flynn last year that Flynn would return to the White House if he wins. And CNN reported that “multiple foreign diplomats tell CNN they see Flynn as someone who will have influence if the former president retakes the White House and have privately speculated that he could be tapped for another high-level position if that comes to pass.”

He endorsed a post by conspiracy theorist Buzz Patterson that claimed: “Flag officers who perpetuate lies and fraud, like Kelly, Milley, Austin, Brennan, etc, have violated their oaths and, in some cases, the law. They are treasonous and, dare I say, the ‘enemy within.’ Yes, I said that.”

Flynn responded to Patterson: “What Buzz said!”

Tony Shaffer is a right-wing commentator and conspiracy theorist. He advised Trump and is part of his Veterans and Military Families for Trump coalition.

During an interview, Shaffer said of Kelly: “I think he's compromised. He was part of — I'll be very clear. He was compromised when he was chief of staff to Trump.” As evidence of him being compromised, Shaffer claimed that Kelly wouldn’t let him talk to the president about concerns over the FBI being corrupted. He added on social media that “people like John Kelly were the inside men of the whole effort to conduct a coup to remove President Trump.”

//

Fox anchor Harris Faulkner on labeling Trump fascist: “This is hate speech now”

10/25/24

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Anti-Muslim Zealot Sebastian Gorka Set for Counterterrorism position - Global Project Against Hate and Extremism

Anti-Muslim Zealot Sebastian Gorka Set for Counterterrorism position

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*This position does not require Senate confirmation

Summary:

The British-born Sebastian Gorka, recently nominated by Trump to the position of deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism, has a long history of anti-Muslim bigotry and ties to far-right groups both in the United States and abroad. A fervent anti-Muslim activist particularly following 9/11, Gorka first made his career in Hungary, where he was an advisor to Viktor Orbán from*1998 to around 2006*.


In January 2007, he*started*his own political party with former members of the antisemitic political party Jobbik. After this endeavor failed, he and his wife Katharine moved to the United States where they worked as national security “experts” in various right-wing think tanks. Around 2014, both of them contributed to the American far-right website Breitbart, co-founded by former Trump advisor Steve Bannon in 2007. When Trump was elected in 2016, both Sebastian and Katharine joined the new administration with Sebastian joining Trump in the White House as an advisor and Katharine joining the Department of Homeland Security. Sebastian was instrumental in advocating for the “Muslim ban” put in place by the administration, while Katharine helped defund Countering Violent Extremism programs focusing on white supremacy.

Contrary to*the FBI*and many federal agencies, Sebastian Gorka has made light of the threat of terrorism from white supremacists, making his position fighting terrorism even more concerning. Sebastian was forced out of his position in the first Trump administration within less than a year after his connections to a Hungarian Nazi collaborationist group were brought to light. Since then, Gorka has become a well-known figure in far-right circles due to his frequent media appearances and for his radio show “America First with Sebastian Gorka.”*

In His Own Words:

:{“Yes, we’re Christians. Yes, we believe that all men are made in the image of our creator. But at the same time we understand that evil is real, that evil lurks in the hearts of man. We are not the lambs of the Bible; that is Jesus, our savior. We are to turn over the tables of the money lenders. We are there when he calls, “Sell everything you own and buy a sword.” That is the Christianity we believe in. Turn the other face is not the message that we believe in. The message of Christ is truth in God. And as a result, I have to say this :{unequivocally to everyone listening, and it may be tough for some people who think that the church is some Sunday social club, but this administration [Biden’s] is evil. And I mean it. In terms of the heart of darkness, black hearts of evil. Because they know what they’re doing … putting in place a legal system that allows anyone—it could be terrorists, it could be the cartels—to pre-screen and clear themselves as quote-unquote “asylum seekers” … when they get on a plane with my wife, with your daughter.”}:

–Sebastian Gorka speaking with Steve Bannon, January 25, 2024

“Wehave to understand that this is a war between the civilized world, the Judeo-Christian West, the greatest civilization the world has ever seen, and the barbarians.” [vid]

“Here we have the fruits grown from the seeds of the radical Left of the 1960s. First they tried to ignite in America the kind of violent Marxist overthrow that was attempted on the streets of Paris in 1968, but it failed. They very soon realized that in America, given our unique historic development, our rugged individualism, our individual liberty, and our freedom of speech and religion, this use of Marxist or Maoist tactics would not function in a country like ours.

These individuals—some of whom were terrorists, such as Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, members of the Weathermen Underground— didn’t retire. They didn’t surrender their objective to turn America into some kind of radical Leftist construct when their “Days of Rage” failed in 1969. Instead, they became educators. They became high school teachers. In some cases, like with Ayers and Dohrn, they became tenured professors at otherwise reputable colleges. Why? Because they knew their Trotsky, they knew their Lenin—in fact, they knew what Hitler had taught his acolytes: “If you give me their children, I will control their future.” So they took the indoctrination from the streets into the classrooms.

And that is how today we have courses upon courses that have nothing to do with our heritage, with our Judeo-Christian culture, with patriotic American history, with the wisdom of the Founding Fathers. Instead, every college that has federal funding for deans of diversity, courses on gender studies, on so-called “Critical Studies” which is really the criticism of all that is Western and good. They’ve created generations obsessed with environmentalism, which is the god of the atheist Left. We have arrived at the point where you can major in English at otherwise serious universities without ever having studied Shakespeare. This is what the conservative surrendering of education has wrought in America.”

“Look at [New York Times reporter] Maggie Haberman and her acolytes in the Fake News media who immediately have a conniption fit and say, ‘What about Oklahoma City?” What about Oklahoma City? A) That individual is not a jihadi. My comments were about jihadism post-September 11. Second, Timothy McVeigh had an accomplice. Second, by the way, this the one I love, that event was twenty-two years ago. Can you talk to me about the last sixteen years of hundreds of thousands of people killed in the Middle East by jihadis? It’s this constant: ‘Oh, it’s the white man. It’s the white supremacists. That’s the problem.’ No it isn’t, Maggie Haberman. Go to Sinjar. Go to the Middle East and tell me what the real problem is today. Go to Manchester.”

“What have those now in power wrought — invoking social justice, but really pursuing the goal of maintaining power after millions of minority illegals are amnestied? The Biden-Mayorkas open borders regime has resulted in 12,000 illegals crossing into America in a single day. More than 60% of the women and girls being trafficked get raped or sexually assaulted. And the horrors don’t stop after the journey. In one harrowing case in Minnesota, authorities say several male illegals kept an 11-year-old girl tied to a bed and raped her. Repeatedly. Yes. That happened in America. I could go on. I could describe how American girls are being raped in high schools by cross-dressing peers. Or how parents are being targeted for investigation as “radical” by the FBI because they are Catholic or don’t want their children to be sexually groomed at school.”

“If you ever wondered whether or not we are in a culture war, wonder no more. When global platforms invest and distribute shows such as Cuties, which feign innocence but celebrate the sexualization of minors; when the establishment — from the top of the Biden administration to the third biggest brewer in the world — push transgender ideology; when Disney workers themselves protest laws designed to protect minors, it all becomes transparent. But their time has come.

From the explosion of new organizations such as Moms for Liberty, predicated on parental rights and the defense of the innocent, to even new gay groups fighting against the sexualization of minors, to both UFC’s Dana White and President Trump buying tickets for employees to see Sound of Freedom and holding private showings with the stars, America is waking up. Will you be part of this new awakening and stand up for the most vulnerable in our world? Start by finding a theater near you to see this crucial work.”

Coming to America

Sebastian “Seb” Gorka is the son of Hungarian parents who became naturalized British citizens after having fled that country’s anti-Soviet uprising in 1956. While at college, he served for several years until it was disbanded in 1992 in the British Territorial Army in a reserve military unit with counterterrorism responsibilities. That year he moved to Hungary, where he would attempt a career in politics in right-wing and far-right political parties, and tout his “expertise” on television as a counterrorism expert.

Starting around 2008, he and his American wife Katharine Gorka immigrated to the United States, and began working at various think tanks and higher education institutions such as the National Defense University in 2008, Gatestone Institute from 2009 to 2011, and Georgetown University from 2011 to 2013. From 2014 to 2016, he worked as an editor for the American far-right publication Breitbart under the leadership of Steve Bannon, who dubbed the site as the home of the “alt-right.”.

Starting in 2015, the Trump campaign hired Gorka as a political consultant for national security issues, and in January 2017, Gorka was chosen by Trump to be his chief counterterrorism adviser as a part of the Strategic Initiatives Group set up by Bannon. During this short stint in government, Gorka became known for his combative television appearances in defense of Trump, his mysterious role within the administration, and his lack of a security clearance.

Gorka was forced out of his position on August 25, 2017, after Bannon’s departure from the White House. Gorka would return to government again in July 2020 after Trump appointed him to serve as a member on the National Security Education Board, which awards scholarships to students and grants to universities in order to advance the development of language experts and specialists in different regions of the world.

After leaving the first Trump administration, Gorka became a prominent figure in the far-right media ecosystem. From November 2017 to March 2019, he was a contributor to Fox News, which distanced itself from him after an especially radical speech at CPAC that year where he compared Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and claimed that she would “take away your hamburgers.” In 2021, he started hosting a show on NewsMax called “The Gorka Reality Check.” His most important media endeavor, however, was the launching in 2019 of his own nationally-syndicated radio show on Salem Media called “America First with Sebastian Gorka.”

Anti-Muslim Zealotry

Gorka sees the West as being locked in an existential ideological conflict with Islam, and like Stephen Miller and Bannon, Gorka was one of the major figures in the early days of the first Trump administration who pushed hard for anti-Muslim policies such as the infamous 2017 “Muslim ban.” Whereas most experts on radical Islam focus on underlying issues related to poverty, civil strife, alienation, or bad governance to explain why some Muslims become radicalized, Gorka focuses most of his attention on passages from The Quran in order to “prove” the religion is inherently violent. In response to these factors, he has stated that “this is the famous approach that says it is all so nuanced and complicated … This is what I completely jettison.” For him, all of the violence from Islamist extremists is explained by passages in The Quran and rooted in the religion.

Gorka is hardly the “expert” on radical jihadi ideology and counterterrorism that he portrays himself as. Gorka does not speak Arabic or other languages native to the Muslim world and has not spent any time in the Middle East. He has also said that he has no desire to engage with the works of other scholars on the topic of Islam.

Gorka’s dissertation further demonstrates his lack of expertise in the subject which, as actual academics have stated, is not “a work of scholarship.” Professor Dan Nexon from Georgetown University described the dissertation in the following way: “He makes little effort to consider alternative explanations, use anything resembling a proper methodology, adequately source key claims, cite or take seriously more than a smattering of scholarly works, or even sufficiently develop lines of thought. Parts of the dissertation come across as filler. Perhaps they are.”

Other academics have given similar reviews of his dissertation. Gorka’s academic supervisor, András Lánczi, a pro-Orbán commentator who now works at Orbánist institutions such as the pro-Orbán university Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC) and pro-regime think tank and survey organization Szazadveg (Century), and writes for the pro-Orbán outlet The Hungarian Conservative, is a political philosopher who refused to respond when asked why Gorka was allowed to pass his dissertation defense, while the other reviewers did not have academic degrees and one was a close family friend.

Just days prior to the August 2017 Charlottesville, Va., Unite the Right rally, put on by white supremacist groups and where a counterprotester was killed by one of them in a car attack, Gorka claimed that white supremacists were “not the problem,” instead pointing the finger at radical Islamist groups abroad. He stated, “Oh, it’s the white man. It’s the white supremacists. That’s the problem.’ No, it isn’t, [New York Times journalist]Maggie Haberman.”

He went further saying that there was “no such thing as a lone wolf” and there “has never been a serious attack or a serious plot that was unconnected from ISIS or al Qaeda.” This “analysis” is contradicted by data on domestic terrorism in the United States, which show far-right violence to be more prominent than radical Islamist violence in recent years. The FBI and most relevant federal agencies have stated clearly that white supremacy is the most serious domestic terrorism threat today.

Global Far-Right Activist

Gorka has a long history of ties to far-right groups both in the United States and abroad. Prior to the 2016 election, Gorka had written opinion pieces for the far-right media outlet Breitbart, then led by Bannon who touted it as the publication of the “alt-right,” as the outlet’s national security editor. Following Trump’s victory in the 2016 election, Gorka was first nominated to the position of deputy assistant to the president and strategist for issues related to terrorism and national security as a part of the Strategic Initiatives Group set up by Bannon. After being pushed out of his position in the White House alongside Bannon when Herbert Raymond McMaster joined the administration, he joined the Canadian far-right website The Rebel, often known as the “Breitbart North” known for publishing articles such as “10 Things I Hate About Jews.”

Gorka also has ties to the Heritage Foundation, responsible for organizing the rights-stripping Project 2025 (for more on Project 2025, see the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’s (GPAHE) reporting here). After being forced out of his position in the White House, Gorka was employed by Heritage as an independent contractor to give a series of speeches at the foundation, andinvited Heritage President Kevin Roberts, the face of Project 2025, onto his radio show on October 5, 2023. Katharine was also a research fellow for outreach and director for civil society with Heritage from around May 2020 to December 2022. On April 3, 2024, Sebastian Gorka gave a presentation at Heritage alongside his wife Katharine on a book co-published by Katharine and Heritage’s Mike Gonzalez called NextGen Marxism. By this time, Gonzalez and Gorka were referring to the social justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s as “cultural Marxism.”

Hungarian Extremist

Abroad, Gorka, who goes by the name Gorka Sebestyén Lukács, has notable ties to far-right groups in Hungary that came to light in 2017 after he was first brought into the White House. Gorka, who is a British-American dual citizen with Hungarian ancestry, became a public figure in Hungary starting in the 1990s. In 1992, he worked with the Strategic Defense Research Institute of the Zrínyi Miklós Military Academy while undergoing his studies at the university, now known as Corvinus University, and in 1998, he served as an official advisor to Viktor Orbán in his first administration until around 2006.

Gorka alongside the former Vice-President of Jobbik Tamás Molnár, 2006 (Source: Forward)

At this time, Orbán and his party Fidesz were a typical European center-right party unlike their contemporary, authoritarian form; however, Gorka became disenchanted with Orbán after his loss in the 2006 election and left to establish his own party called the Új Demokratikus Koalíció (New Democratic Coalition) in January 2007.

He formed the party with former members of the political party Jobbik in January 2007, that was known for their neo-fascist paramilitary group, the Magyar Gárda (Hungarian Guard), which intimidated Roma and other minority groups in the country and was banned by Hungarian authorities in July 2009. While Jobbik has moderated to some extent since that time, for more than a decade, Jobbik was known in Hungary for their antisemitism and a tendency to blame Jews for all of the country’s problems. They became somewhat electorally popular in the 2010 elections that followed the 2008 economic crisis, gaining more than 16 percent of the vote.

When it was formed, Gorka and the other founders of the New Democratic Coalition positioned themselves as a “conservative party” that stood against “corruption” and sought to “bring Christianity into the constitution” (the constitution passed after the fall of the U.S.S.R. was secular). Gorka went on record in 2006 defending the use of the red-and-white-striped Árpád flag, a symbol used throughout the history of Hungary, but which is also controversial due to its cooptation by Ferenc Szálasi’s fascist Arrow Cross movement that collaborated with the Nazis. After the Soviet collapse, the Árpád flag has mainly been used by far-right groups such as the Hungarian Guard.

Gorka is on record supporting the formation of the Hungarian Guard in 2007. In a television interview in August 2007, Gorka referred to it as “a big societal need,” as the Hungarian military was “sick, and totally reflects the state of Hungarian society…. This country cannot defend itself.” Subsequent statements from Gorka’s political party demonstrate that they supported the Hungarian Guard even after the Guard’s extremist views had become known.

Gorka wearing the uniform and medal of the Vitézi Rend (Source: Facebook)

After being nominated to his position in the White House, Gorka displayed even more ties to the Hungarian far right when he “proudly” wore the uniform and badge of the Vitézi Rend (Order of Chivalry) at Trump’s Inaugural Ball. The Order of Chivalry are a group known in Hungary for having collaborated with the Nazis and received property confiscated from Jews sent to concentration camps by the government. Banned by the subsequent socialist government in 1945, two Vitézi Rend groups reemerged in the 1990s, with the “Historical Vitézi Rend” faction that Gorka belongs to upholding all of the same racial supremacist principles as the first iteration of the group. It still includes members with deeply antisemitic views.

While it is possible that Gorka inherited the memorabilia from his grandfather like he claims, he has used the initial “v.,” short for Vitezi, in his name in official documents, including his dissertation and in his :{biography at the Gatestone Institute,}: which signifies membership in the organization. Leaders of the Vitézi Rend claimed that Gorka was a life-long member and said that they were proud of Gorka for wearing the medal.

Gorka, who received American citizenship though his American-born wife Katharine, apparently was able to bypass State Department rules that bar members of certain organizations that were “participants in Nazi persecution, genocide, or the commission of any act of torture or extrajudicial killing” from obtaining entry visas to the United States.

Marriage to Far-Right activist Katie Gorka

In 1994, Sebastian Gorka met his future wife Katharine in Romania, who worked at the time for a public policy think tank in New York. The two would eventually marry in Hungary and remain in Europe for more than a decade. After relocating to the United States, both would become active in national security circles and the far-right wing of the Republican Party. Katharine “Katie” Gorka is a republican party activist who heads the Fairfax County Republican Party, and who has held positions in various think tanks, party organizations, and governmental posts.

Katharine, along with Sebastian, is president of the consulting firm Threat Knowledge Group, and was once the president of a now-defunct think tank called the Council on Global Security. Like Sebastian, Katharine has also written in the past for Breitbart. In one column, she defended Republican members of Congress who were denounced by their party for spreading false conspiracy theories about a Clinton aide having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Katharine was a part of Trump’s 2016 transition team, and she served in the first Trump administration as a senior policy advisor in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), starting in 2017, and as press secretary for Customs and Border Protection for two months in 2019.

Like Sebastian, Katharine focused on shifting DHS’s emphasis towards radical Islamist groups at the expense of other forms of extremism. In 2013, she was critical of the Obama administration for seemingly “allowing Islamists to dictate national security policy,” and the administration’s “emphasis on Islam as a religion of peace.” While at DHS, Katherine was involved in the efforts to defund Countering Violent Extremism efforts that focused on white supremacists, so as to reorient the department’s focus back towards Islamist extremists.

===

Trump ally Sebastian Gorka defends Mark Robinson during interview: “I hope you sue [CNN] into the ground. … I hope you win.”

09/27/24 mma

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mma

What I saw at the Moms for Liberty summit: a diminished and desperate group

Written by Olivia Little

Research contributions from Madeline Peltz

Published 09/06/24

Scandal, school board election failures, and a disastrous 60 Minutes interview appear to have diminished Moms for Liberty’s once powerful influence, and last weekend’s summit provided plenty of additional evidence that the group is currently flailing.

Nearly every Republican presidential hopeful and a number of right-wing giants spoke at Moms for Liberty’s lively summit last year. But this year’s gathering was comparatively small, with far fewer panels and a weaker speaker lineup. In fact, Glenn Beck and D-list comedian Rob Schneider were advertised as the star headliners until the exceptionally late addition of former President Donald Trump just days before the event.

This is the second year that my colleague Madeline Peltz and I attended Moms for Liberty’s summit. It was immediately apparent to us that the small crowd had seemingly been reduced to largely die-hard members who, unlike many, remained loyal to Moms for Liberty through its year of scandal and failure. Co-founder Tina Descovich acknowledged that the organization was losing some support while presenting an award, saying, “You have been a friend to Moms for Liberty when some have stepped away.”

A quick recap of Moms for Liberty’s really rough year

Invoking transgender panic}:

Much of the conference was spent attempting to terrify parents into believing that schools are secretly grooming, manipulating, and transitioning students. The bag handed to us at registration included an illustrated flyer laying out the ridiculous “school to clinic pipeline,” which, according to the flyer, begins at “pronouns” and ends in a hospital.

Almost every speaker we listened to incorporated transgender panic into their speech. One panel was even titled “Protecting Kids from Secret Gender Transitions in Schools.”

In a panel condemning Title IX’s protection of students from discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, attorneys encouraged parents to file complaints with the Department of Education to put “sand in the regulatory gears for this administration” because each report has to be investigated and filing more will create a backlog.

Title IX, Moms for Liberty

August 30, 2024

Audio

Each year, members of Moms for Liberty from across the country are nominated for the group’s Founders Awards. These awards, named after notable women, are presented at their annual summit. Ironically, one of this year’s awards was named after Deborah Sampson, a woman “so invested in the cause of liberty that she disguised herself as a man and fought in the Revolutionary War.”

Spiritual warfare is anything you want it to be

“This is spiritual warfare,” said far-right political commentator Sebastian Gorka at Friday’s lunch session, “and they are on the side of the devil.”

Gorka, spiritual warfare

August 30, 2024

Audio

Speakers repeated vague accusations of “spiritual warfare” throughout the weekend. Even comedian-turned-conservative-activist Rob Schneider accused the pharmaceutical industry of engaging in spiritual warfare.

Religious scholar Brad Onishi describes the concept of spiritual warfare as the idea that Christians are called to fight a “cosmic battle between good and evil.” It’s a belief that Christians face a constant war against Satan and his minions.

In recent years, right-wing figures have increasingly invoked the phrase to describe and condemn anyone or anything they disagree with. Trump’s indictment, Democrats, transgender identities, the Olympics opening ceremony — all “spiritual warfare.”

The summit’s itinerary included the March for Kids, an event promoting parental rights with coalition partners such as Gays Against Groomers and PragerU. (It’s worth noting that the March for Kids wasn’t actually a march, but a largely empty assembly at DAR Constitution Hall.)

March for Kids speaker Naomi Van Wyk used the rhetoric of spiritual warfare to describe homosexuality and encouraged intervention to alter same-sex attraction, promoting a form of conversion therapy.

Van Wyk testified that Jesus set her “free from same-sex attraction,” describing it as “a demonic spiritual attack.” Again and again, she described homosexuality as “demonic” and advocated for parents to convert their LGBTQ children.

Video

CitationFrom the March for Kids video livestream

The Heritage Foundation was one of the earliest supporters of Moms for Liberty and, in turn, the group fell in line with Heritage’s policy priorities and shepherded members toward the think tank’s “resources for parents.” In 2022, Moms for Liberty was the recipient of Heritage’s Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship and Heritage President Kevin Robertsspoke at the group’s 2023 summit. In a breakout session last year, anti-trans activist “Billboard Chris” Elston revealed that The Heritage Foundation had identified and brought together 40 people, including him, in March 2022 to “fight gender ideology.”

This year’s summit was saturated with an array of Heritage employees, alumni, and partners. Notably, Lindsey Burke, Director of the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation and author of Project 2025’s extreme right-wing education policy plan, led a panel advocating for the abolition of the Department of Education.

Project 2025 is a right-wing initiative organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide policy and personnel to the next Republican administration. Moms for Liberty is a partner with Project 2025, and The Heritage Foundation recruited members to participate in Project 2025 at last year’s summit.

Citation Project 2025 pamphlet received at Moms for Liberty's 2023 summit

Despite massive right-wing support, Moms for Liberty is clearly floundering. This year’s summit was disorganized, small, and weird.

:{Sebastian Gorka haunted the convention hall all weekend, occasionally appearing on stage to theorize about whether the assassination attempt on Trump was an inside job, yell about spiritual warfare, or lament about “political prisoner” Steve Bannon.

Far-right author James Lindsay won “The Liberty Sword” and was introduced as “Moms for Liberty’s favorite lady killer” when presented with the award. Even Trump’s appearance was odd. Instead of a traditional speech, he sat down with Justice and spoke at length about varying topics, including The Apprentice and Scotland.}:

I was one of the first to write about Moms for Liberty when the group launched in 2021 and have spent the last several years documenting the group’s meteoric rise. But Moms for Liberty seems to be in danger of burning out just as quickly.

related

  1. ### Inside Moms for Liberty’s summit: Big money and even bigger conspiracy theories

07/07/23

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see katherine cspan with mike gonzales nextgen commies; he MC, reffed horowitz? 5 24

crt parents rights BS

katharine "Katie" Cornell Gorka is an American national security analyst who served as a senior policy adviser in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the Trump administration from 2017,[1] and press secretary of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in 2019. She is married to Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to the president.[2]

Background

Gorka was born in Boston and grew up in different places on the East Coast.[3] She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a B.A. in comparative literature, and received a M.Sc. in international political economy from the London School of Economics.[3][4] She lived in Budapest, Hungary for twelve years after the fall of communism,[3] and married Sebastian Gorka in Sopron in 1996.[4] She later founded the now-defunct Council on Global Security think-tank, and the Threat Knowledge Group consulting firm, which provided counter-terrorism training for the U.S. government and military. She was later also a contributor to Breitbart News, and a co-editor of the book Fighting the Ideological War: Winning Strategies from Communism to Islamism with Patrick Sookhdeo.[1][5]

Views

Prior to her appointment in the Trump administration, Gorka has advocated for an "ideological war" against Islamists, and supported legislation sponsored by Rep. Michele Bachmann to designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, which would extend to United States Muslim organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).[1] She has claimed that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is the "headquarters" of the enemy of the West,[1] and that the Obama administration was "supporting Islamist groups abroad" and "allowing Islamists to dictate national security policy."[6] She has also proposed "shutting down the radical mosques," and suggested that Al Jazeera should not be allowed to broadcast in the United States.[7] She has been described as a part of the counter-jihad movement.[8]

Trump administration

Gorka was named to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) transition team by Donald Trump in November 2016. It was noted that she had previously complained extensively that the DHS trained its agents that Islam is a "religion of peace", which she claimed to be false.[5] In May 2017, Gorka was named an adviser to the DHS's policy office.[2] She then ended funding from the Countering Violent Extremism Task Force (CVE) to Life After Hate, a group that works to de-radicalize white supremacists, as well as to the Muslim Public Affairs Council.[9] Watchdog groups requested records during her time as a senior adviser at DHS, with the Democracy Forward group suing to get documents.[10]

It was later revealed in emails that Gorka had wanted, apparently without success, to redirect the focus of the CVE against antifa during her time in the DHS.[6]

She became press secretary of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in June 2019, but left her position in August in order to spend more time with her family.[11][12] Gorka did not appear frequently in public during her time at the CBP, leading the Democracy Forward group to sue the DHS to find out "what Gorka is doing" there.[13]

Later activities

Gorka was elected to the McLean, Virginia Community Center Board in 2023, where she had lived since 2008, after having unsuccessfully tried to become elected the previous year amid controversy over a Drag Queen Story Hour.[14] She has also been involved with the activist group Moms for Liberty.[15] She was elected as chair of the Fairfax County Republican Party in 2024.[16]

Bibliography

References...

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an 7 24

Appearing on CNN Thursday to discuss President Joe Biden's struggles after a poor debate performance more than two weeks ago, a Republican party strategist found herself having to explain away an ugly racist attack on Vice President Kamala Harris made by one of Donald Trump's closest allies.

On Newsmax's "Rob Schmitt Tonight" on Wednesday, the host asked Sebastian Gorka, "Do these donors really think that Kamala Harris is going to do better in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania than Joe Biden would?"

Gorka, who served as Trump's deputy assistant in 2017, shot back, "Stop it, alright? :{She's a DEI hire, right? She's a woman. She's colored! Therefore she's gotta be good."}:

On Thursday, CNN host Sara Sidner put Maura Gillespie, who served as press secretary to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), on the spot by asking, "Is this line of attack going to backfire? To try to use that kind of language against Kamala Harris?"

"I don't see right now where he was on, but I'm assuming that because of the fact that he was on a far-right network, no, it's not going to backfire on him," Gillespie offered.

"A lot of what most people in the Trump world say and do actually gets some positive reactions, which for me as a woman is infuriating because my worth is not based on my body part. It is my intellect and it's who I am and who I bring to the table and what I bring to the table."

Still not addressing the offensive "colored" remark, she continued, "It's really frustrating when this is the kind of comment we hear across the board. We hear it — I've been hearing this my entire career.

"But, that being said, it doesn't mean that just because she is a woman or if she weren't, that she is the next best person to be in the White House," she added. "I think we take things based on her work, her merit and again, she is staying behind Joe Biden and she's staying with him and has not said that she is trying to lead ahead of him or anything like that."

Watch below or at the link.

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GORKA (HOST): God willing, if we do our part, and our former boss becomes the 47th president, not just the 45th, we've got the problem of what we do then with the deep state. After you served in the Marines, before you became President Trump's attorney, you served in the Department of Homeland Security, including alongside seditious individuals like Miles Taylor, the so-called anonymous author. Will you say a couple of words, Christina, on how serious the threat of the permanent bureaucracy is -- those people who are never elected but who think they get to run the country? You saw it from the inside, Christina.

CHRISTINA BOBB (GUEST): Yeah, it's very serious. You know, I had come from the military where you obey orders, and you follow orders. And as you mentioned Miles Taylor, supposedly he's, you know, chastised me for wanting to follow the orders of the president and not using my own discretion to come up with a different plan, other than what the president had ordered. I think it's ludicrous to think that anybody other than the president is in charge of any of the agencies. Certainly there's Cabinet members in charge, but they follow the direction of the president. And these are all people who openly — if you look at the quotes that they're saying and writing and in the articles and in books that they're writing, they are saying it should be the people in these agencies that are making the decision who none of us know. None of us know who they are.

If Miles Taylor hadn't outed himself as being, you know, the crazy conspiracy theorist author of Anonymous, which I'm not fully convinced that was all his work anyway — you can't really trust much of what comes out of his mouth — no one would know who he is. No one would know how to hold him — hold him accountable. No one would be able to. So, it's a very real threat that needs to be cleaned out. And Donald Trump, I believe, has every intention of draining the swamp the way that he said. We just didn't know how deep it was.

GORKA: We have to root out individuals like Miles Taylor and anyone who committed crimes, denuded Americans of their civil rights like Peter Navarro, like Steve Bannon, like President Trump, like January 6-ers — grandmothers who are going to prison for praying inside Congress. They must be charged. They must be charged for abuse of power under the color of law, and I know somebody who could bring that case against them.

Miles Taylor is one of the many former Trump officials who are speaking out about the former president's potential return to office:

Taylor said that if Trump returns to the White House, the former president will avoid appointing anyone who might turn against him in an effort to avoid the mistakes of his last administration.

“Donald Trump realized very late in his first term that he had far too many people who went to bed and grew a conscience every night and came back in with little inklings of a conscience to say no and push back,” Taylor said. “He doesn't want those people around. His preference is for that Oval Office to be an echo chamber. That's what he wants, and it's what he'll get.”

...

As one of Trump's most vocal critics, Taylor made damning allegations about the former president in the run-up to the 2020 election, including that Trump did not pay attention to intelligence briefings and that he tried to block emergency aid to California at one point because it was a Democratic state.

On Tuesday, Taylor said Trump has already “found ways” to appoint loyalists to his cabinet. He used the example of Chad Wolf, who served as the acting Homeland Security Secretary for a year before a federal court ruled his appointment unlawful because he was never confirmed by the Senate.

“You know what the consequences were?” Taylor asked. “There weren't consequences. They learned a very valuable lesson there, which is Trump can put whoever the hell he wants into these jobs.”

He added, “There were no heroes inside the Trump administration. There were only survivors. And in a second term, it's not going to be heroes, it's not going to be survivors, it's going to be supplicants. And that's by design.”

mma 5 24

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Newsmax's Sebastian Gorka: "I know who the next vice president is going to be. I can't reveal my sources." | Media Matters for America

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mma 11 23

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mma 8 23

right-wing media are attacking Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over Donald Trump’s pending criminal case in Washington D.C.

Chutkan was randomly selected to preside over the case. Appointed by former President Obama, she has been described as a “tough Jan. 6 sentencer”of defendants who participated in the insurrection, though she has “avoided some of the most pointed criticisms of Trump that some of her colleagues on the federal bench in D.C. have delivered.”

Media figures on the right have leveled numerous attacks and charges against her, describing her as politically motivated, and calling for her recusal in the case against the former president.

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at infamous gathering mtg?

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mma 1 23

SEBASTIAN GORKA (NEWSMAX HOST): Yeah, absolutely stunning. I mean, a more blatant example of politically-motivated censorship is hard to imagine. And this coming as we have all the revelations, thanks to Elon Musk at Twitter, of government-sponsored censorship. Is this something being done in league with the White House, with the DNC? We don't know, but we know the facts of the case, that Newsmax was asking for fair remuneration, which is exactly the same for the top 75 channels on DirecTV, 22 of which, 22 are hardcore left-wing news channels. So, why is it that only Newsmax is treated like this? It's very clear - it's because Newsmax is growing in popularity, it's growing in influence, and they want to shut down a voice that isn't the mainstream lying media, but actually brings the facts to all of our viewers.

...

HOGAN GIDLEY (GUEST): Thankfully, you know, I think people are outraged by it and they can take some action to try and fix it.

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gorka wears lapel pin (dad nazi?)

6 22 gmail the next marxist scam

gas prices newsmax granholm plan to increase oil? she ha; stabenow EV marie A; the new bk = gt reset

collapse current sysyem, put Am on our knees so gov't can save us; unelected bureaucrats to save us from the calamity they created;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpJ1XNNgZLs montage Biden ~ FF

they're here to 'save' us: Author sums up 'The Great Reset' - YouTube

YouTube

Author Marc Morano joins The Gorka Reality Check on Newsmax to discuss the various crises in Joe Biden's America that are being exploited to .

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// when use guns?

https://www.mediamatters.org/sebastian-gorka/tpusa-event-sebastian-gorka-asked-when-it-will-be-time-overthrow-government

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what kind of pension plan gig going? 320 wife in trump admin?

mystery solved!

an 11 21

teenage vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse, recently acquitted on homicide and attempted homicide charges, is being exalted as a hero by far-right MAGA Republicans —some of whom are offering him internships. Steve Benen, a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show" who frequently writes for Maddow's MaddowBlog on MSNBC's website, weighs in on these internship offers in an op-ed published on November 24 and describes some ways in which they are becoming "increasingly bizarre."

Rittenhouse, now 18, was only 17 when he went to a racial justice demonstration in August 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin carrying an AR-15-style weapon. And shot three Black Lives Matters supporters, two of them fatally. Rittenhouse, during his trial, insisted that he acted in self-defense, and the jury voted "not guilty" on the charges he was facing.

Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida are among the far-right MAGA Republicans who have offered Rittenhouse internships.

"As Kyle Rittenhouse's trial unfolded," Benen observes, "a variety of Republican officials and candidates saw a political opportunity to exploit. The defendant, charged in the fatal shooting of two men during protests in Wisconsin last year, took on totemic value for the far-right. With this in mind, in the wake of Rittenhouse's acquittal late last week, many Republicans quickly embraced and celebrated the verdict as a victory in some kind of culture war. This, in and of itself, said a great deal about the state of the GOP and its unhealthy approach to our civic life."

Benen continues, "But then it got a little weird. Some congressional Republicans not only saw Rittenhouse's acquittal as validation of a conservative worldview — they wanted to be personally and directly associated with the defendant."

After Gaetz offered Rittenhouse an internship, far-right Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona — who recently drew widespread condemnation for posting an animated video that depicted him murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — tweeted, "I will arm wrestle @mattgaetz to get dibs for Kyle as an intern."

Benen says of Gosar, "It's possible the Arizonan was kidding. It's also possible he wasn't. The fact that it's become difficult to tell the difference is itself disconcerting."

Justice was served for #KyleRittenhouse and he is fully exonerated. As I said last year, obviously self-defense. \n\nI will arm wrestle @mattgaetz to get dibs for Kyle as an intern.https://twitter.com/mattgaetz/status/1461760240739917832\u00a0\u2026

— Paul Gosar (@Paul Gosar) 1637346122

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado is also offering Benen an intership. Appearing on Newsmax TV, Benen told Sebastian Gorka (a former Donald Trump aide turned cable news host), "Now, I do have some colleagues on the Hill who have, just like me, offered Kyle Rittenhouse an internship in their office. And Madison Cawthorn, he said that he would arm wrestle me for this Kyle Rittenhouse internship. But Madison Cawthorn has some pretty big guns, and so, I would like to challenge him to a sprint instead…. Let's make this fair."

Benen notes that because Cawthorn is in a wheelchair, "competing in a sprint isn't much of an option."

"Given his attorney's recent comments, it seems unlikely that Rittenhouse will intern for any of these GOP officials," Benen writes. "But that doesn't change the fact that it's unsettling to see them compete for his affection in increasingly bizarre ways."

---

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/09/sebastian-gorka/

prANKED BY INTERN

Right-wing radio host and former Trump aide Sebastian Gorka, the self-styled Dragon of Budapest" who drives around the nation's capital in his 2.3L EcoBoost Mustang, was duped by a fake Twitter account on Tuesday — which in a bizarre turn of events led to a former MSNBC intern being the recipient of an outpouring of online hate instigated by Gorka.

On Tuesday morning, Hajah Bah, a USC Annenberg journalism student, and former MSNBC intern, woke up to numerous Twitter notifications. Many of those notifications stemmed from Gorka's tweet accusing her of being a "bigoted ableist."

The former Trump adviser had clearly been duped by a fake account pretending to be the journalism student. As of Wednesday morning, after Salon had reached out to Twitter, the social media company suspended the spurious Bah account, which appeared to have been operated by a troll who frequently retweeted right-wing content, such as tweets from Fox News host Dan Bongino.

"This person works for NBC12. Why is MSNBC OK with their employee calling someone she politically disagrees with a 'retard?'" Gorka posted, implying that the fake account actually belonged to Bah. "What protects foul-mouthed bigoted ableists like @Hajahbahh?"...

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Gorka: “We need the U.S. Marshals to deploy and they need to break down the doors of those polling stations”

11/05/20 8:02 PM EST

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mma

Gorka pushed for schools to reopen: “Put the bloody teachers in body condoms. I don't care."

==

mma 720

National talk radio hosts reject calls for masks, echoed by local hosts in at least one coronavirus hot spot

07/02/20 3:04 PM EDT

Conservative talk radio hosts across the country are mocking the use of masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, even in states like Arizona where cases are surging.

Masks are an essential tool in the effort to limit the spread of COVID-19. Infected people are less likely to transmit the virus to others when wearing a mask, and while no mask can completely prevent inhalation of virus particles, even cloth masks provide some protection for healthy individuals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to recommend that Americans wear cloth face masks when interacting with people outside of their households.

Despite clear evidence demonstrating significant public health benefits, some in right-wing media have sought to undermine public support for mask wearing. On Fox, host Laura Ingraham has questioned the science behind masks, and fellow prime-time host Tucker Carlson has attacked public health officials and elected representatives over their mask guidance. Meanwhile, anti-mask posts on Facebook — many posted by right-wing media figures like Tomi Lahren — are racking up millions of interactions from users.

Conservative talk radio is no different. While some hosts have spoken positively about the potential benefits of masks, others have questioned their value and decried the supposed message wearing masks conveys. For instance, host Rush Limbaugh has previously referred to masks as “a required symbol on the left to promote fear.”

Now as cases are surging in a number of states, some local officials in places like Arizona have implemented mandatory-mask orders to help slow the spread. Yet these orders are being met with resistance from local radio hosts who have declared they will not be complying and have provided a platform for disgruntled callers and medical misinformation. The local focus of these hosts, combined with messaging from some nationally syndicated programs, threatens to undermine public support for mask wearing when it’s needed most.

Nationally syndicated hosts have mocked masks as a sign of “submission” and questioned their effectiveness

In Arizona, local hosts rejected mask orders designed to slow surging case numbers

Arizona has seen one of the worst surges in coronavirus case numbers in the country in the past month. On June 17, Gov. Doug Ducey finally allowed local officials to implement mandatory-mask orders after weeks of resistance. Cities like Phoenix passed these orders almost immediately, much to the dismay of some local radio hosts.

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ARCH 12, 2020 1:40 PM

Sebastian Gorka Won’t Stop Blaming the Left for Coronavirus ‘Mass Hysteria’

joining the trend of right-wing commentators calling the coronavirus no big deal, former White House deputy assistant Sebastian Gorka won’t stop telling his audience that the virus is “mass hysteria” created by the left.

“This year alone, for the record—tell your friends if they start getting hysterical saying ‘I can’t buy those medical surgical masks’—16,000 Americans have died of the flu. The flu. Is that a front-page story?” Gorka said on his “America First” podcast last Friday.

“Are they [Democrats] blaming that on the president? No, because they can’t, but 12 deaths from some new threat called coronavirus? Let’s politicize that. There is no gutter they will not sink into,” Gorka said. (At the time of the podcast’s recording, 12 people had died from coronavirus; the number has since risen to 38 and continues to rise.)

Gorka had Dr. Marc Siegel, a regular Fox News contributor, on his podcastlast Wednesday to affirm his claims that the fear was overblown and attack Democrats for shifting the blame of the virus’s outbreak on to Trump.

“How is this president responsible for this virus? It came from China, didn’t it?” said Siegel, who also called the World Health Organization (WHO) “a bunch of alarmists” on a recent Fox News panel.

OnMonday, Gorka blamed the virus’s spread on Democrats and “lying hacks and propagandists,” in mainstream media, including Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper.

“We’re not sick as a nation, but you should be sickened by what the media is trying to do to you,” Gorka said.

More than 100 countries have been affected by the coronavirus. Globally, more than 4,000 people have died from it, including more than 800 people in Italy alone. On Wednesday, WHO Director-General announced that “concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity,” and by the alarming levels of inaction,” the organization had designated the virus a pandemic.

Gorka gave a speech at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference where an attendee has been confirmed to have been sick with the coronavirus. Gorka’s speech, titled “How Socialism Kills Today,” was a harangue against socialized medicine as it exists in Hungary.

---

taG RERLATED RWW

Trump Uses Coronavirus Fears to Advance Bannon’s Far-Right Agenda

Sebastian Gorka Won’t Stop Blaming the Left for Coronavirus ‘Mass Hysteria’

Right Wing Round-Up: Power Worshippers

At CPAC, Everything Is Socialism and the Only Solution Is More Trump

Right Wing Round-Up: All Is Well

Right Wing Round-Up: The Impeachment Before Christmas

Right Wing Round-Up: Sondland’s Sudden Recollection

Sebastian Gorka: Conspiracy to Topple Trump ‘Makes Watergate Look Like a Non-Event’

‘We Are Witnesses to a Coup’: Trump Supporters Rally Against Impeachment in D.C.

At Values Voter Summit, Religious Right Activists Gear Up for 2020 Trump Campaign on Abortion, Judges, ‘Religious Liberty’

==

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-everything-is-socialism-and-the-only-solution-is-more-trump/

Interviewing EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Fox News contributor Lawrence Jones mused, “This is an anti-socialism conference, but there has to be an alternative,​ administrator,​ to the people that want socialism.” At this year’s ​CPAC, it seemed the only prescription put forward was voting for four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House.

Last year, CPAC was explicitly committed to formulating effective ways to combat what American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp dubbed “creeping socialism.” This year​’s conference was similarly committed to sounding the alarm against a socialist resurgence supposedly inching closer to the heart of power in Washington, exemplified in ​Democratic presidential frontrunner ​Sen. Bernie Sanders’ victories in early Democratic primary states. ​Attendee badges bore the tagline “America vs. Socialism,” and numerous main stage panels were devoted to the topic.

Sanders has called himself a democratic socialist for years while advocating for increases to the federal minimum wage, the expansion of social welfare programs, and the nationalization of healthcare. The organization Democratic Socialists of America describes its agenda as one that believes “both the economy and society should be run democratically.” The United States already has several ​popular socialist programs, ​including Social Security and Medicare, and public attitudes about socialism have been shifting. ​

“Socialism, we believe, gets to the very core of violating the dignity of the individual human being that has God-given rights,” Schlapp said ​Thursday.

On CPAC’s main stage this year, every Democrat was a socialist, and socialism was a threat to the ​very essence of America. To save it, conservatives need​ to ensure that Trump is reelected president.

Vice President Mike Pence told CPAC attendees that “there are no moderates in this Democratic field” of presidential candidates​ that every Democratic candidate running—despite any stated policies—embraces Sanders’ “socialist agenda.” It was important, Pence said, for conservatives to renew Trump’s 2019 State of the Union declaration: “America will never be a socialist country.” Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee abided Pence’s demand, declaring on a panel Thursday that conservatives were “going to help stamp out socialism forever.”

During a conversation with Schlapp Friday, Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said that socialism was a far bigger threat to the American economy than even the coronavirus, which had just sent the stock market into its worst week since 2008.

“The virus is not going to sink the American economy. What is or could sink the American economy is the socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle,” Kudlow said.

[twet]

kudlow was joined in his warning by other Trump administration officials,​ including Department of Veterans Affairs Sec. Robert Wilkie, who warned that socialism would leave veterans neglected.

“Socialism in America will kill the promise that Abraham Lincoln made … that we would take care for those who have bore the battle and for the widows and the orphans. If socialism ever comes to America, that sacred promise will be destroyed​, and our warriors will go to the back of the lines,” Wilkie told CPAC​, echoing growing civil war rhetoric on the right. ​

Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the youth conservative organization Turning Point USA, warned conservatives that communism was spreading across college campuses across ​the United States and that via Sanders, socialism has a real chance to succeed in America.

“I want every conservative activist to get your laughs out of the way and your mockery out of the way and get deathly serious,” Kirk said. “Because we should not do what the left did in 2016 and dismiss an outsider populist candidate.”

Former White House Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka agreed with Kirk. “America needs to wake up. America needs to understand the reality of the threat that this November could come to fruition,” ​he said in his speech Saturday. He went on to attack Sanders’ advocacy for implementing universal healthcare in America.

“Didn’t Bernie have a heart attack? Did he go to Venezuela to get treatment? Did he go to Cuba or Canada? Did he go to Canada? Of course he didn’t! He got treated here. Why? Because he wanted to live, that’s why,” Gorka said.

Dale Bellis, President Emeritus of Liberty HealthShare, vowed to do what he could to never allow America to experience the “ravages of socialism in healthcare.” People who advocate Medicare for All plans don’t actively seek to replicate the Soviet Union, he said, but “however you slice it, the end result is still the same.”

Bellis said that socialism is “immoral” and “strips human dignity and the value of the individual,” that it “assaults the very foundation of our individual freedom as creators created by God,” and that it is “antithetical” to fundamental human rights.

Right-wing news commentator Mark Levin criticized the increasingly popular democratic socialism movement, rhetorically asking, “how do you have democratic socialism when socialists hate democracy? You get one vote, they get in power, then they destroy everything.”

Levin stressed the need for conservatives to “crush” Sanders and “his little Marxist army” in 2020. Echoing Pence’s statements, Levin said that of the Democratic field of candidates, there was “not a moderate among them."

twt]

Right-wing conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck opened the stage Saturday by claiming that Sanders and his supporters were leading a revolution that “will result in death and misery,” as Media Matters documented.

“Another Holodomor. Or another Holocaust. Or whatever we call the next great socialist atrocity,” Beck said. He later added, “They’re armed with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and guns. They are here for revolution.”

Joshua Philipp of the reportedly Falun Gong-tied outlet Epoch Times was hosted on stage, where he warned that socialism was designed to destroy peoples’ religion, morals, and culture while on the path to implementing communism.

“It is about attacking and destroying your values, your culture, your ideas, and the foundations of your society,” Philipp said.

Rick Harrison of “Pawn Stars” fame took a brief round of questions from the audience and put the threat of socialism simplistically.

“It’s not a bad thing having a lot of money,” Harrison said. “All your leftist friends would love to have a lot of money; they just don’t want anyone else to have it.”

But Republican U.S. Senate candidate John James, who is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Gary Peters in Michigan, contrasted many speakers at CPAC by cautioning that it would not simply be enough for Republicans to run on the message “socialism sucks.” The 2020 election, James said, is not about “beating Bernie,” and he wanted to be “crystal clear” that the audience should not underestimate the appeal of socialism “for those whom the status quo has failed.”

“For us to defeat socialism, for us to save a generation, we can’t just say ‘socialism sucks’ and assume that people will follow us. Stuck Americans don’t want socialism, they just want the pain to stop.” James said. “It’s up to us to offer a remedy that works.”

Some conversations about socialism were also less serious. Conservative pundit Jesse Kelly took to the stage for a skit styled after ​”The Daily Show” called “Socialist News Network,” with a CNN-inspired logo, that bore little resemblance to socialist thought in the United States. Kelly parodied praise of figures like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joe Biden, both of whom socialists broadly hold critical views of. In the CPAC exhibition hall, a booth played a socialism versus capitalismrap battle video.

Tags: Charlie KirkDale BellisGary PetersGlenn BeckJesse Kellylarry KudlowMark LevinMarsha BlackburnMatt SchlappMike PenceRick HarrisonRobert WilkieSebastian GorkaCPAC 2020Election 2020 socialism

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==

booktv

in Depth with Sebastian Gorka

Sebastian Gorka, former assistant to President Trump, joins us to talk about American foreign policy and domestic politics. He is the author of “Defeating Jihad,” "Why We Fight," and “The War for America’s Soul.”

==

new 1219

We’ve noted the regime’s past hostility toward investigating white supremacist terrorism. This week, CREW sued the Department of Homeland Security for refusing to turn over documents “that would explain former-DHS Advisor for Policy Katharine Gorka’s involvement in revoking grants combating white supremacy and white nationalism.” Gorka is the wife of Sebastian Gorka, the fascist former deputy assistant to Trump.

Before joining the government, [Katharine] Gorka was a contributing author of Breitbart, a website favored by white nationalists and white supremacists. While Gorka was a DHS official, DHS focused almost exclusively on combating Islamic extremism while reducing or eliminating funding of programs to combat white supremacy. DHS even reportedly considered renaming the DHS Countering Violent Task Force to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism.”

This comes in the wake of leaked emails revealing that senior White House advisor Stephen Miller, the regime’s point-person on immigration and refugee policy–sent a bunch of white supremacist claptrap to his sources at Breitbart.

*****

==

> Gorka: Conservatives 'Owe It' to Trump to be Active on Social Media on His Behalf

October 11, 2019 12:29 pm

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suspended campaign to go home to take care of shooter [ post- elpaso] Odessa? ppl:

no lnx

How bots and far-right figures spread a lie about Beto O'Rourke and the Odessa shooting

A likely bot network, QAnon accounts, a TPUSA advisory council member, the Proud Boys, Sebastian Gorka, and a member of Trump's 2020 advisory board helped push the false claim

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

PUBLISHED 09/04/19 1:52 PM EDT

UPDATED 09/05/19 9:08 AM EDT

Multiple far-right figures helped a likely network of bot accounts spread a false claim on social media connecting former Texas congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke with an alleged mass shooter in Texas.

On August 31, a gunman in Odessa and Midland, TX, killed seven people. While the alleged shooter’s motive is still unknown,a false claim appeared afterward on social media that the alleged shooter had an O’Rourke sticker on his car (authorities said there is no evidence for this) and reportedly spread with the help of likely bot accounts. Other crucial players that spread the falsity included multiple accounts supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory, a member of Turning Point USA’s advisory council, far-right gang the Proud Boys, former Trump White House adviser and current Sinclair contributor Sebastian Gorka, and current Trump campaign adviser Tony Shaffer.

How the lie spread

On the afternoon of September 1, Twitter account @suemo54 tweeted that the shooter was “a Democrat Socialist who has a Beto sticker on his truck.” As a data analyst noted on Twitter, even though the @suemo54 account had few followers, the tweet containing the false claim received hundreds and eventually thousands of retweets. A misinformation-tracking firm told The Washington Post that “the post appears to have been amplified mainly by bot accounts.” The account was later suspended but has since been reinstated.

@suemo54 image

The @suemo54 account’s Facebook page has previously shared material from JoeM, a major QAnon account.

Also that afternoon, a Facebook user called Lupe Fuentes posted almost identical language to @suemo54’s tweet in a meme, along with “BINGO!” The account had also previously postedQAnon material from JoeM. The meme was subsequently shared tens of thousands of times, and Fuentes bragged about the post’s virality.

Fuentes Facebook Beto false claim

Following these posts, other Twitter accounts began tweeting similar language, with some, according to the data analyst, getting “traction on their shooter/Beto tweet above and beyond what one might expect from their follower count.” Some of the accounts spreading the false claim that received thousands of retweets included @paphotog, an account that used to support QAnon; @nightingalern, a QAnon account that has the QAnon slogan “Where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA” in its profile; and @bbusa617, which also supports QAnon.

@paphotog

@nightingalern

@bbusa617

Joel Fischer, an advisory council member for Turning Point USA, also tweeted the false claim by the evening, receiving thousands of retweets. Fischer has a history of pushing social media falsities, including those from the QAnon community.

Joel Fischer Beto false claim

Fischer’s tweet was spread by other right-wing figures and outlets, including the Telegram channel for the far-right group the Proud Boys, a Daily Wire writer whose tweet has since been deleted, and former White House official and current Sinclair contributor Sebastian Gorka, who has previously amplified false content spread by QAnon supporters.

Gorka Beto false claim

Telegram Proud Boys Beto false claim

Meanwhile, the false claim also continued to spread on Facebook, where some directly cited Fischer and Gorka and, as noted by The Associated Press, some “posted a picture of a white truck with a ‘Beto 2020’ sticker on the back window, saying it belonged to Ator”; on Twitter, including from Dustin Nemos, a co-author of a bestselling QAnon book who pushed @suemo54’s tweet; and on white nationalist hotspot 4chan,where a user shared Fuentes’ meme.

Dustin Nemos

Facebook Beto false claim Gorka Fischer

4chan Beto false claim

4chan Beto false claim2

Tony Shaffer, a former intelligence officer and member of President Donald Trump’s 2020 advisory board,shared @suemo54’s tweet on the morning of September 2, adding that it showed the alleged shooter “was a @BetoORourke supporter.”

Tony Shaffer Beto false claim

When The Washington Post told Shaffer in a brief interview that the claim in his tweet is false, Shaffer doubled down, saying, “That’s not what I’ve seen from people.”

The baseless claim tying the shooter to a Democratic presidential candidate -- and to the left more broadly -- appears to have jumped from social media to right-wing talk radio; on September 4, host Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed the alleged shooter “was an out-of-control Democrat.”

A Facebook spokesperson, in response to criticism from O'Rourke's campaign about the falsity's spread on social media, told the Post that it was looking into whether “inauthentic behavior amplified content promoting the false story on its platform.” Neither Google nor Twitter responded to the paper's inquiries about the false claim.

==

==

Sebastian Gorka: "I think that whole trans thing started with Teletubbies"

July 22, 2019 6:34 PM EDT

==

new still useful 719

https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/trumps-social-media-summit-was-a-complete-embarrassment-that-did-just-what-trump-wanted/

kos

On Thursday, Donald Trump unexpectedly folded on the question of adding a citizenship question to the census. After warning that he could absolutely put the issue in place with an executive order, Trump hauled out his attorney general and secretary of commerce, set up a podium in the Rose Garden, and did what he always does when not throwing insults—he whined. But Trump had the perfect audience for his “We tried to slip this in at the last minute, then ran out of time, so it’s all everyone else’s fault” complaint. Because on Thursday afternoon, Trump filled the Rose Garden with a collection of villainy and scum that would embarrass any Mos Eisley cantina.

The event was labeled as a “press conference,” but it was a very Trumpian press conference: one at which Trump took no questions, and one where the actual press was made to stand at a distance on the other side of ropes. That’s because all the chairs at this press conference were reserved for the internet’s most hateful: the alt-right pundits that were scraped up to attend Trump’s “social media summit.” That group didn’t try to ask Trump any questions. That’s not their role. Instead, they used this moment of access and historic location to join Trump in attacking the free press.

There was badge-wearing Nazi, and former Trump adviser, Sebastian Gorka threatening reporters. And there was professional 9/11 truther Mark Dice yelling at CNN. There was pundit, songwriter, and congressional candidate Joy Villa—a candidate in California, or New York, or possibly Florida, she hasn’t made up her mind yet—smirking at the media and informing them that their day, the day where people asked questions, expected answers, and checked those responses for truthfulness, is over.

These are the voices that Trump is trying to elevate. Voices that scream racism. Voices that scream hate. And,in the case of Dice, voices that scream that both Hollywood and the music industry are run by a combination of Illuminati and Satanists who hide spells in Super Bowl halftime rituals designed to blind the public to the existence of a worldwide gay conspiracy. And the Starbucks logo features a mermaid prostitute. And Katy Perry is a witch.

But the real purpose of Trump’s “social media summit” wasn’t to promote conspiracy theorists. It was to promote two of his own conspiracy theories.

The  primary focus of Trump’s summit on social media was … how awful all the social media platforms are.Despite not just a lack of real evidence, but mountains of genuine counterevidence , Trump continues to push the conspiracy theory that “conservative voices” are being banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms for nothing more than supporting Trump. As The Washington Postreported, Trump spent much of his time focused on telling the alt-right that they were the real victims of one of those conspiracies they love to write about.

“We have terrible bias. We have censorship like nobody has any understanding,” said Trump. This is the reason Trump believes his tweets get much less support than those of Barack Obama, who, three years out of office, continues to have far more followers than Trump. And, in fact, Trump did go on at length about ways in which he believes Twitter has suppressed his followers. But the actual fact is more likely that Trump doesn’t believe it anymore than Mark Dice believes that “monkey bars are racist.” It’s just a handy claim.

It’s handy to Trump in reinforcing his even bigger conspiracy theory. His “They’re all out to get me” theory. That’s the theory in which every honest investigator looking into his actions is part of the “deep state”; any honest reporter showing that Trump’s words aren’t true is spreading “fake news”; any judge following the law is part of the “swamp”; and every torch-carrying white supremacist is “good people.” Anyone, even someone who organized a boycott of a Star Wars movie because it was “feminist propaganda” (and yes, that’s Mark Dice again), is good people, so long as they support Trump.

This is the America that Donald Trump champions, and for a very good reason. Because when there is no authority for truth, the loudest voice wins. It really doesn’t matter if those voices are screaming hate. It doesn’t matter if they’re networks of screaming bots run by the Russian military. All that matters is that they’re screaming loud enough to drown out the press … which has to stand way back there, behind the ropes.

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==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/former-breitbart-writer-to-be-new-spokesperson-for-our-border-policies/

no lnx

https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/former-breitbart-writer-to-be-new-spokesperson-for-our-border-policies/

Former Breitbart writer to be new spokesperson for our border policies

written by Martin Longman / Washington Monthly June 19, 2019

Sebastian Gorka was never properly vetted before he joined the Trump administration, which is why his affiliation with a Hungarian pro-Nazi group wasn’t an obstacle for him getting a job as Deputy Assistant to the President. Even after the following was reported, Gorka really had nothing to worry about:

The Forward reports Thursday that officers of Vitézi Rend, an anti-Semitic, quasi-Nazi Hungarian nationalist group, say Gorka is a sworn member. Gorka wore a medal typically worn by Vitézi Rend members to a January 20 inauguration ball, but said at the time that it was a gesture honoring his late father. He has also at times referred to himself as Sebastian L. v. Gorka, using a “v.” initial employed by Vitézi Rend members.

What eventually did Gorka in was his failure to obtain a security clearance as well as the departure of his ally Steve Bannon. He left the White House in August 2017.

But what you might not realize is that his wife Katharine never left. She served on the transition team before taking a position at the Department of Homeland Security as a policy adviser. She briefly was the subject of controversy after the deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, but then was mostly forgotten.

In August 2017, the Huffington Post reported that Gorka and other aides worked to eliminate a DHS grant for Life After Hate,which would have been used to expand its outreach and intervention services for former white supremacists and others in the “criminal underground.” Earlier that summer, DHS, under the leadership of then-DHS Secretary John Kelly, cut some organizations out of grant money to counter violent extremism — including nearly a dozen that the Obama administration considered worthy of receiving the funds.

Some people put two and two together and thought there was perhaps a relationship between the husband’s affinity for Hungarian white supremacists and the wife’s opposition to funding programs aimed at rehabilitating white supremacists, but who knows what truly goes inside a marriage, right?

In any case, Katharine Gorka looks like she’s going to be getting a much higher-profile job.

Katharine Gorka, a political appointee at the Department of Homeland Security who has stirred controversy for her views on terrorism and her role in the department’s efforts to combat violent extremism in the US, is expected to be the new press secretary at Customs and Border Protection.

Acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders told CNN Tuesday that Gorka is expected to take the position and he advocated for her to join the agency.

The Customs and Border Protection agency is responsible for policing our borders and is distinct from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which is responsible for patrolling the interior of the country. Both agencies are now controversial as they attempt to carry out the president’s cruel, inhumane, and draconian immigration policies.

I don’t think the best way to alleviate people’s concerns is to hire the wife of the guy who wore a Vitézi Rend medal to an inauguration ball as the spokesperson for our border enforcement policies.  It doesn’t help that she, like her husband, used to write anti-Islamic diatribes for Breitbart News.

In the Trump administration, every day is worse than the last, which means that every day is the worst day of our lives.

==

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/432450-gorka-fox-part-ways

hmmn

gorka...parted ways with Fox News and has joined Sinclair Broadcasting. 

Gorka, who joined Fox News as a national security strategist in November 2017 following a seven-month stint in President Trump's White House, will serve as a national contributor at Sinclair.

"I'm very excited to be one of Sinclair's national contributors," Gorka told the Hill by email. "Fox News and Fox Business Network have both been very good to be before I joined the Trump Administration and after I left the White House.

"I am especially grateful to Sean Hannity," he continues. "My new nationally syndicated radio show with Salem Radio and position with Sinclairwill allow me to go deeper on the key issues of the Trump era."

The 48-year-old British, Hungarian and U.S. citizen told The Hill that his Fox News contract had expired. A Fox News spokesperson confirmed the exit and said the the parting of ways was mutual.

Gorka launched his syndicated talk radio show, "America First," in November.

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/former-trump-aide-warns-democratic-socialists-want-to-take-away-your-hamburgers-what-stalin-dreamt-about-but-never-achieved/

Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, told attendees at the right-wing CPAC convention on Thursday that nobody should be fooled about the term “democratic socialism,” because that’s just the politically-correct term for “communism” being used by people that “want to take away your hamburgers.” Also your house and your pick-up truck.

“This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved,” Gorka blustered. “You are on the frontlines on the war against communism.”

It’s pretty funny. Watch:

Aaron Rupar

?

@atrupar

Replying to @atrupar

.@GOPChairwoman Ronna McDaniel: "People eating dog food to survive. That's the path Democrats want to take us down."

Embedded video

Aaron Rupar

?

@atrupar

Former Trump White House official Sebastian Gorka: "They want to take away your hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved."

????????????? pic.twitter.com/t5amL02ABm

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8:08 AM - Feb 28, 2019

Gorka front-loaded his fear mongering by pointing specifically to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and her leadership on pushing for a Green New Deal to help solve the climate crisis. “That is why Ocasio-Cortez has introduced the Green New Deal, which is, which is — remember this one, use it — it’s a watermelon,” Gorka said. “Green on the outside, deep, deep red communist on the inside.”

For people afraid of actual communism or having their hamburgers taken away by an authoritarian left-wing state, however, Gorka said there is no reason to be scared. “Donald J. Trump,” he declared, “is never going to let it happen!” The crowd roared with approval.

Whether that’s true or not, the American people—who polls show are increasingly favorable to the ideas of “socialism” and “democratic socialism“—will just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, everybody remains free to watch this sendup of Gorkas speech which features, you guessed it, infamous Stalin sidekick “The Hamburglar”:

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booktv 1/19

*After Words* Sebastian Gorka, Why We Fight

Former Trump Administration strategist Sebastian Gorka offers his thoughts…

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pension plan

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crooks &

ho would DO such a thing?

There is evidence that someone connected to the Trump White House hired Israeli spy firm Black Cube to find "dirt" on at least two former Obama officials connected to the Iran Nuclear Deal.

What is the point in that? Apparently to make it look like some low-level officials privately benefitted from the deal? To blackmail them or their wives? The whole thing is so weird but then again, Gorka.

It's Roger Stone, Gorka, Corey Lewandowski, Steve Bannon dirty tricks bullying straight out of the Nixon playbook.

So Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker finds that these two officials, were pretty low-level... and their wives were contacted via fake emails from fake people of fake companies:

    The Observer reported that aides of President Trump had hired Black Cube to run the operation in order to undermine the Iran deal, allegations that Black Cube denies. “The idea was that people acting for Trump would discredit those who were pivotal in selling the deal, making it easier to pull out of it,” a source told the Observer. One of the sources familiar with the effort told me that it was, in fact, part of Black Cube’s work for a private-sector client pursuing commercial interests related to sanctions on Iran....

    Kahl, who worked as an adviser to Vice-President Joe Biden, said that he believed Trump associates may have been involved because of unsubstantiated reports in conservative media outlets accusing Rhodes and Kahl of damaging leaks about the Trump Administration. “Why Ben and I? Why conjoin Ben and me?” Kahl asked. “Of all the other senior people in the White House, I’m least senior.”

Of course. The reason someone close to Trump hired Black Cube to go after Rhodes and Kahl is because they're unknown enough that those two in particular could be the subject of smears at right wing blogs.

Today on Andrea Mitchell's show, national security expert Ned Price noted that this targeting has Seb Gorka's fingerprints all over it.

    ANDREA MITCHELL: I want to ask you about another intelligence controversy, Black Cube. New revelations that, in fact, an Israeli covert firm was being used by some people connected to the Trump administration to go after former Obama people like Ben Rhodes, who were involved in the Iran negotiations, and try to discredit them.

    NED PRICE: It's a very strange story and suggests that dirty tricks were not confined to the Nixon administration. What we found here, there is a circumstantial case to be made that a lot of this points back to former White House officials, people like Sebastian Gorka. It's very odd that Ben Rhodes and Colin Call were the alleged targets of this operation. They were not the architects of the Iran deal. Yes, they worked on it. But they were the focus of Sebastian Gorka. If you look at what he said during this time, he consistently harps on these two individuals and then just last night, we learned from a UK paper and from "The New Yorker," that this intelligence agency, this intelligence firm, was focusing on these very two individuals. You add those two things up, and his fingerprints appear to be all over this. There's a lot we don't know, but we need to find out more.

Here's video of what Price is talking about:

    In this video from #Hannity, May 2017, #Gorka mentions Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl, right around the time they were both being investigated by #BlackCube. #trumprussia #resist https://t.co/Rpdm7qGguo

    — Barry Thomas Goldberg (@barrytgoldberg) May 7, 2018

Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes noticed their names being targeted at the same time:

    But, but what about the "Rhodes-Kahl Nexus"? Certainly Dr Gorka, PhD can get his Breitbart buds to write about that! https://t.co/auqN5qUreo

    — Colin Kahl (@ColinKahl) May 27, 2017

and now, Ben Rhodes and Colin Kahl are fighting back:

    CONFIRMED: The Israeli intel firm Black Cube used to go after Harvey Weinstein’s accusers also targeted me & @brhodes (& our families).

    Lots of new details in this new @RonanFarrow piece. https://t.co/T2ERbnYSMu

    Was this authorized by the Trump White House? 1/10

    — Colin Kahl (@ColinKahl) May 7, 2018

    Why would someone feel the need to do this to win a debate about the merits of the Iran Deal? What message does this send to people entering into public service? https://t.co/uI3ORTnlJ6

    — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) May 6, 2018

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https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/26/fcc_eliminates_rules_preventing_media_consolidation

major decision by the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday eliminated a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. This comes as the FCCannounced plans Wednesday to abolish long-standing media ownership rules. Opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. We speak with Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, whose story in their new issue is titled “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”

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major decision by the Federal Communications Commission that eliminates a decades-old rule that ensures community residents can have a say in their local broadcast TV station. The regulation is known as the “main studio rule,” and it requires broadcasters to have a physical studio near where they have a license to transmit.

This comes as the FCC also announced plans, at a hearing Wednesday, to abolish long-standing media-ownership rules, including limits on how many stations or newspapers one company can own in a single market. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai testified Wednesday during a congressional hearing.

    AJIT PAI: If you believe, as I do, that the federal government has no business intervening in the news, then we must stop the federal government from intervening in the news business. And that is why, this afternoon, I shared with my fellow commissioners an order that will reform our media ownership rules and help pull the government, once and for all, out of the newsroom. We will vote on this order at our November 16th meeting.

    The marketplace today is nothing like it was in 1975. Newspapers are shutting down. Many radio and TV stations are struggling, especially in smaller and rural markets. Online competition for the collection and distribution of news is even greater than it ever was. And just two internet companies claim 100 percent of recent online advertising growth. Indeed, their digital ad revenue alone this year will be greater than the market cap of the entire broadcasting industry. And yet the FCC’s rules still presume that the market is defined entirely by pulp and rabbit ears.

AMY GOODMAN: But opponents say these changes will accelerate media consolidation, allowing massive corporate media companies, such as the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group, to buy up and control even more local stations. Earlier this year, Trump’s FCC appointees revived a regulatory loophole that could allow Sinclair to buy 42 TV stations from Tribune Media Company, on top of the more than 170 stations it already owns. The deal means Sinclair stations would reach about 72 percent—almost three-quarters—of U.S. households.

This comes as former Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly has reportedly been negotiating for a position with Sinclair Broadcast Group. O’Reilly secretly settled a sexual harassment claim for $32 million in January, the sixth and by far the largest such settlement during his tenure at Fox, from which he was fired.

For more, we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, where he’s written extensively about the FCC. His latest story in the current issue is headlined “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”

Andy, welcome back to Democracy Now! You know, a lot of the meme going around is that Trump just can’t get anything done, but it sure doesn’t look that way at the FCC this week. Can you talk about what’s happened?

ANDY KROLL: Well, at the FCC this week, as you described, the commission voted along party lines—three Republicans voting in favor, two voting in opposition—to eliminate the main studio rule, this rule from about 80 years ago saying that a local TV or radio station needs to have its studio, its primary studio, in or near the community it serves. And that served a number of purposes, not only for the community to be able to interact with that station, but also tethering that station to the community in which it’s reporting the news and delivering some value to the people who watch it. That rule has been eliminated.

And then, as we saw in the clip that you just showed, the chairman of the FCC, Ajit Pai, a Republican, former staffer to Jeff Sessions, now the attorney general, has said that there is a whole bunch more deregulation in the works. This comes in a year, since President Trump’s inauguration in January, in which the FCC has consistently knocked down one barrier after another to enabling a massive deal frenzy, a consolidation in the broadcast business, which is exactly what companies like Sinclair want, going forward, so that they can gobble up as many TV stations around the country as they can, and basically dominate the local news business.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Andy, before we get to Sinclair Broadcasting, I wanted to ask you about the context of this attempt—or, in fact, the overturning of the main studio rule. It’s been in effect, as you said, for several decades. Has any other administration attempted to overturn it?

ANDY KROLL: No. The rule has been tweaked over time, on several occasions, to, what they say, modernize it. But the substance of the rule, having that studio in the community where the viewers, where the people who depend on that TV or radio station is, that has not changed over time. And the supporters of the rule say there’s a very clear reason for that. Yes, it’s true that with email and with social media you can send a message to your TV station, but the rule also gave that sense of locality. It gave that connection in the newsgathering and in the—you know, just the connection to a community that is so vital to local news. And that has been a bedrock of broadcast television for nearly 80 years and has gone unchallenged under Republican administrations and under Democratic administrations. And now, under President Trump and with Commissioner Pai at the FCC, that rule is ancient history.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, Andy, before—could you explain, because—as a result of overturning this rule, all of these different stations, TV stations and radio stations, can be increasingly consolidated. Now, one of the companies under which these stations have been consolidated is Sinclair Broadcasting. But this media organization, very few people know about. So could you tell us about this broadcasting channel?

ANDY KROLL: Yeah. I like to say that Sinclair Broadcast Group is the most influential media organization that most Americans have never heard of. It owns nearly—owns or operates nearly 200 local TV stations around the country. It has a tremendous influence over the local news business.

And it marries that influence, that size, reaching into 40 percent of households right now, with a unabashed conservative and pro-Trump agenda. You see that in the kind of programming that Sinclair produces and sends out to its local stations. These are called “must-run segments.” They take, you know, basically, a shamelessly pro-Trump message, repeating talking points of the administration’s through its commentators, and putting that into the local news.

And as you mentioned earlier, Sinclair is eyeing a deal to acquire 42 new stations around the country, giving it a reach to almost three-quarters of American households. So this is a massive broadcast company, set to get even bigger. And it has a distinct conservative viewpoint that it is intent and bent on projecting out to the millions of people who watch its television channels.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean when you say “intent and bent on.” Your headline of your piece, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.” What are the edicts being handed down?

ANDY KROLL: Well, Sinclair is a pioneer in what’s known as the “must-run segment.” This is a segment that is produced by Sinclair’s corporate headquarters here in the D.C. area and also in Maryland, that it produces, and then it sends out to its stations around the country—again, almost 200 of them—and says, “You are required to run this 90-second commentary or this two-minute editorial.” That content, that is being distributed out around the country, has a very clear, unequivocal conservative, partisan bent to it and, frankly, a pro-Trump bent to it.

You know, the lead political analyst, if you could call it that, at Sinclair is a man named Boris Epshteyn, former Trump campaign aide and a former Trump White House aide, who left the administration and immediately went into this role at Sinclair. His segments are called “Bottom Line with Boris.” They are distributed, and they are required to run every day at Sinclair stations. And these are basically Trump talking points. And, I mean, you can go on YouTube, you can watch all of his clips in a row. They are 100 percent toeing the Trump line. And if they’re not that, they’re softball interviews with Trump administration officials.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I mean, of course, people might know who Boris Epshteyn is, because during the campaign he was one of his spokespeople, always interviewed on TV. This is one of Boris Epshteyn’s recent commentaries.

    BORIS EPSHTEYN: It is important to note that voter fraud goes beyond stealing or miscounting ballots. Intentionally improper voter registration is absolutely a type of voter fraud. The Commission on Election Integrity has gotten to work. … The extent of voter fraud in our elections has been hotly debated between the left and the right. The president’s commission has been established to come up with a factual, impartial answer to that question. The states should do everything within their power to cooperate with the commission. And that’s the bottom line.

AMY GOODMAN: And that is required by every station to run, Andy Kroll?

ANDY KROLL: That’s correct. You are—

AMY GOODMAN: This is—

ANDY KROLL: Yes, that’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: This is another clip from a Sinclair station, featuring former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka. The show was broadcast earlier this month.

    SEBASTIAN GORKA: You do not make legislation out of outliers. Our big issue is black African gun crime against black Africans. It is a tragedy. Go to Chicago. Go to the cities run by Democrats for 40 years. Black young men are murdering each other by the bushel.

AMY GOODMAN: “By the bushel.” That’s former Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka referring to “black African [gun] crime” on “black [Africans],” saying black men are killing each other “by the bushel.” Andy Kroll?

ANDY KROLL: Sebastian Gorka, of course, another alumnus of the Trump White House, who, upon leaving, went immediately to Sinclair and is now a talking head at Sinclair. So you see this trend of Trump officials going to Sinclair Broadcast Group and then them being put on the airwaves and either pushing a completely crazy message, that Sebastian Gorka just did, on a segment that was supposed to be about guns in America—

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, I think “outright racist” is a very—

ANDY KROLL: Outright racist, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —more accurate way to describe it.

ANDY KROLL: Yeah, it’s hard to find the words to describe what that was. You have Boris Epshteyn, as well. His segment, that we just listened to, is basically advocacy for the Trump administration in its deeply flawed, inept supposed commission on investigating voter fraud, which, of course, in most cases, doesn’t exist.

So, you have this message, and you have stations around the country that, in a lot of cases, just want to do local news. But as they come under the Sinclair umbrella, they are being told by headquarters, “You will run these segments.” In Boris Epshteyn’s case, Sinclair doubled down and tripled the number of times that Boris Epshteyn was required to be run by its stations. And so, this is the progression we’re seeing this year. So we’re only seeing a more pro-Trump message, at the same time that Sinclair is looking to gobble up more stations and consolidate its control.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, could you talk, Andy, about the founder of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, David Smith?

ANDY KROLL: Yeah. David Smith is a media mogul with an incredible amount of sway over what goes on on the local airwaves. He’s not well known on the level of, say, a Rupert Murdoch, for instance, even though the two men would, I think, consider themselves contemporaries or competitors.

David Smith built a small family company that had three TV stations, starting in the mid-’80s. They were based out of Baltimore. And he—by finding ways around the law and taking advantage of ways that the law was changed—in this case, deregulated—in the past few decades, he has grown Sinclair into this conservative TV behemoth that it is today, and one that stands to get even bigger if the Tribune Media merger goes through.

David Smith, longtime donor to mostly Republicans, though Democrats, as well, who are in a position to help his company. And today, you know, he throws a party for a Supreme Court justice, Clarence Thomas. He travels in a, you know, elite, rarefied group of Republican supporters. He’s even bragged about dining at the White House with the president. So he is right at the top of a Republican-industry-donor pyramid, if you will. But he has managed to avoid the amount of attention that, say, a Rupert Murdoch or some other international media moguls that we do of have attracted.

AMY GOODMAN: And the merging of Sinclair and Tribune? I mean, these are the smaller local stations that dot the United States, you know, crisscross the United States.

ANDY KROLL: That’s right. The deal would give, again, 42 television stations from Sinclair—or from Tribune into Sinclair. It would add more of those dots on the map, as you mentioned. Right now, Sinclair has no presence in Colorado. This would give it a major presence in Colorado. But it would also bring stations in the three largest media markets in the country into the Sinclair company: New York, WPIX; KTLA in Los Angeles; and WGN, one of the most famous broadcast companies in America, in Chicago. So this would really seal Sinclair’s position as the sort of dominant broadcast company—and, of course, given that many more tens of millions of people who would be potentially seeing Boris Epshteyn, Sebastian Gorka, potentially Bill O’Reilly.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, when we were talking about Sebastian Gorka, just to understand, as he’s talking about black African violence here in the United States, who he is, the whole controversy around him wearing that pin at the inauguration, of the Vitézi Rend, the newspaper The Forward reporting members of the Vitézi Rend elite order confirmed Gorka took a lifelong oath of loyalty to the Hungarian far-right-wing group, listed by the U.S. State Department as having been under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany during World War II. I mean, just the significance of what is being required by these local stations to run all over the country?

ANDY KROLL: Yeah. And Gorka is—if you watch that clip, or the roundtable that that clip comes from, which is available on Sinclair’s website, I mean, Sebastian Gorka is more or less given an open mic to say what he thinks about, in this case, quote-unquote, “guns in America.” We see where he took that theme. But he was a foreign policy aide in the Trump White House. He was not a domestic policy expert. He was not someone working on the issue of guns, for all that we know. And yet he is just given this platform, as he has been on several other occasions with Sinclair.

The company seems to have no qualms, given the background that you describe, the fantastic reporting that The Forward has done on his past. They seem to have no problem giving him that platform, just as they reportedly seem to be considering an arrangement with Bill O’Reilly, someone who, as you mentioned, has settled sexual harassment claims for tens of millions of dollars when he was at Fox News, to the point that Fox fired him.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, explain that last part. What do you understand is the state of these negotiations? And have they been stopped by this latest news of his $32 million settlement with a Fox host for sexual harassment?

ANDY KROLL: What I’ve heard and what I’ve seen reported in the past week is that there are negotiations underway between Sinclair and O’Reilly around either—whether it would be bringing him in as a host or a commentator or some kind of arrangement or partnership between O’Reilly having his own—potentially his own program, his own platform, and Sinclair as the megaphone, if you will, projecting that program, projecting O’Reilly out, using its empire of stations. Now, Sinclair has denied that it is talking with O’Reilly, and has repeatedly done that, though the reporting, that doesn’t go for the official comment from Sinclair, would suggest otherwise.

I will say that I, you know, have talked to people in and around Sinclair, and among the rank and file, if you will, there is kind of shock and disgust that—in light of O’Reilly’s sexual harassment settlements and all the allegations at Fox, that Sinclair would be thinking about considering a partnership with him has a lot of people there upset, concerned about their futures, whether they want to work there if Bill O’Reilly joins the company in some capacity.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Andy Kroll, we want to thank you for being with us. We’ll certainly link to your piece. Andy Kroll, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine, where he has written extensively about the FCC and Sinclair Broadcasting. His piece published this week, we’ll link to, “Ready for Trump TV? Inside Sinclair Broadcasting’s Plot to Take Over Your Local News.”

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http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/stephen-miller-captain-odious-last-major-alt-right-figure-trumps-white-house

fter torch-bearing white nationalists marched in Charlottesville last month and a peaceful counter-protester, Heather Heyer, was murdered by a neo-Nazi, the leaders of the black, Hispanic, Asian and progressive caucuses in Congress sent a letter to President Trump. They asked that he fire White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka and senior policy adviser Stephen Miller.

They wrote:

    Americans deserve to know that white nationalists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis are not in a position to influence U.S. policy.

It's hard to believe it somehow became necessary to write such a thing to the president of the United States about his high-level White House advisers, but it did. All three of those men have affiliations with or connections to white supremacists, "alt-right" groups and neofascist organizations. In the wake of those horrifying events in Charlottesville, and the president's insistence that the neo-Nazi marchers included "very fine people" and that anti-fascist protesters had created many of the problems, it seemed important to go on the record with this request.

As it happens, Bannon was exiled from the White House shortly afterward and Gorka followed a couple of weeks later. The press reported that they were both let go as part of a staff reorganization by John Kelly, the retired general who had come in to replace the hapless Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and put an end to the chaos that had characterized the Trump administration from the beginning. For their part, Bannon and Gorka insisted that they had made the decision to leave because they believed they could better serve Trump from the outside. Let's just say that didn't sound convincing.

Most political observers, even many conservatives, were relieved. Gorka was an embarrassment, a man who literally wore medals associated with Nazi collaborators to the inauguration. The Daily Beast reported this week that he had landed a new job working for a pro-Trump super PAC called the MAGA Coalition, which is best known for its promotion of conspiracy theories, notably "Pizzagate," the imaginary child-rape ring allegedly run by Hillary Clinton out of a Washington pizza parlor. Gorka told Laura Ingraham on her radio show on Tuesday that the group plans to run primaries against "fake conservatives."

We know where Steve Bannon went. He's back at Breitbart making Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell miserable and plotting the apocalypse. Most observers saw Bannon as the most sinister presence in the White House, a white nationalist Rasputin with special access to Donald Trump's id. It was assumed that getting rid of Bannon meant that Kelly had removed the main influence that stoked Trump's darker impulses.

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see steven miller

When TV news viewers saw Trump adviser Stephen Miller accuse Jim Acosta of harboring a “cosmopolitan bias” during Wednesday’s news conference, they might have wondered whether he was accusing the CNN White House reporter of an excessive fondness for the cocktail made famous on “Sex and the City.” It’s a term that’s seldom been heard in American political discourse. But to supporters of the Miller-Bannon worldview, it was a cause for celebration. Breitbart, where Steve Bannon reigned before becoming Trump’s chief political strategist, trumpeted Miller’s “evisceration” of Acosta and put the term in its headline. So did white nationalist Richard Spencer, who hailed Miller’s dust-up with Acosta as “a triumph.”

Why does it matter? Because it reflects a central premise of one key element of President Donald Trump’s constituency—a premise with a dark past and an unsettling present.

So what is a “cosmopolitan”? It’s a cousin to “elitist,” but with a more sinister undertone. It’s a way of branding people or movements that are unmoored to the traditions and beliefs of a nation, and identify more with like-minded people regardless of their nationality. (In this sense, the revolutionary pamphleteer Thomas Paine might have been an early American cosmopolitan, when he declared: “The world is my country; all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.”). In the eyes of their foes, “cosmopolitans” tend to cluster in the universities, the arts and in urban centers, where familiarity with diversity makes for a high comfort level with “untraditional” ideas and lives.

For a nationalist, these are fighting words. Your country is your country; your fellow citizens are your brethren; and your country’s traditions—religious and otherwise— should be yours. A nation whose people—especially influential people—develop other ties undermine national strength, and must be repudiated.

One reason why “cosmopolitan” is an unnerving term is that it was the key to an attempt by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to purge the culture of dissident voices. In a 1946 speech, he deplored works in which “the positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitanism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers, is many times applauded.” It was part of a yearslong campaigned aimed at writers, theater critics, scientists and others who were connected with “bourgeois Western influences.” Not so incidentally, many of these “cosmopolitans” were Jewish, and official Soviet propaganda for a time devoted significant energy into “unmasking” the Jewish identities of writers who published under pseudonyms.

What makes this history relevant is that, all across Europe, nationalist political figures are still making the same kinds of arguments—usually but not always stripped of blatant anti-Semitism—to constrict the flow of ideas and the boundaries of free political expression. Russian President Vladimir Putin, for example, has more and more embraced this idea that unpatriotic forces threaten the nation. As Foreign Policy put it in 2014:

“The new theme of Russian politics [is] the conflation of loyalty to the Kremlin with patriotism. It says much that dissidents at home, from journalists failing to toe the official line to protesters on the streets, are castigated either as outright ‘foreign agents’ (every movement, charity, or organization accepting foreign money must register itself as such) or else as unknowing victims and vectors of external contamination — contamination, that is, from the West, whose cosmopolitanism and immorality Putin has come to see as an increasing threat to Russia’s identity.”

That same notion has characterized the politics of the former Soviet bloc. In Hungary, the president of its Parliament has repeatedly denounced his political opponents as “people without a country,” loyal only to values like freedom, contemptuous of tradition and religion. Its prime minister, Viktor Orban, has openly advocated for “illiberal democracy” and launched a campaign against the Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros. In Poland, the reigning Law and Justice Party sees the nation besieged by dangerous influences. An article last year in World Press succinctly summarized the situation:

“In the party’s propaganda the country is in ruins, its economy robbed blind by international capital, while the foreign ownership of some newspapers and other types of mass media outlets made Poland into a colony, infecting Poles’ minds with rootless cosmopolitanism. … What is at stake is Polish Christian national values that must be protected at all cost, namely the linguistic and religious homogeneity of the country. Only Poles should reside in Poland, and a proper Pole must be a Polish-speaking Catholic.”

In one form or another, such sentiments have been at play in the politics of the Netherlands, Germany, France, and (in less blatant form) in the Brexit vote in Great Britain last year.

And they undergirded much of Trump’s campaign. One of its central premises was that “globalists,” regardless of ideology or party, were undermining American interests—by bringing low-skilled workers to our shores, by building factories in other lands, by letting international financial institutions grow rich while hollowing out American cities and towns.

“We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon,” Trump said in his inaugural address. “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be—always—America First.”

To be clear: Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller would angrily wave away any suggestion that they are echoing the sentiments of anti-democratic political movements, much less anti-Semitic dog whistles. But there is no evading the unhappy reality that to label someone a “cosmopolitan” carries with it a clear implication that there is something less patriotic, less loyal … someone who is not a “real American.”

So maybe the next time Miller wants to duel with an obstreperous reporter, he might consider going back to “elitist”—that’s a real homegrown insult.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/03/the-ugly-history-of-stephen-millers-cosmopolitan-epithet-215454

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https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/06/12/qatari-crisis-shows-grave-implications-trump-s-twitter-account/216873

President Donald Trump’s staffers have excoriated the media for covering the president’s tweets and for questioning his use of the platform, claiming that "it's social media," not official government policy. However, the Qatari government’s bewildered reaction to Trump’s tweets criticizing the Persian Gulf state over terrorism financing, followed by the president contradicting his secretary of state’s call to ease a recent blockade against Qatar by other Arab nations, demonstrates that journalists should ignore White House staffers’ admonishments and treat Trump's social media comments as presidential statements.

On June 5, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and deputy assistant to the president Sebastian Gorka made television appearances where they lectured journalists about their coverage of the president’s tweets. When hosts on NBC’s Today and CNN’s New Day asked Trump’s staffers about tweets he had sent earlier that morning, they derided the hosts for their, as Conway put it, “obsession with covering everything [Trump] says on Twitter.” Gorka also repeatedly told his interviewer that the interviewer was “obsessed” with Trump’s tweets and tried arguing that “a hundred characters is not policy. … It’s not policy. It’s social media.”

Enter the sudden diplomatic crisis between Qatar, which hosts America’s largest military base in the region, and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Several Arab nations cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and cut off access routes to its territory because of the nation’s supposed support for radical Islamist groups. Trump reacted to the volatile situation by posting a series of tweets taking credit for the move to isolate Qatar -- while also explaining why he uses social media to communicate:

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gone? nope

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/5/1/headlines/sebastian_gorka_ousted_from_white_house_amid_reports_about_links_to_nazi_allied_group

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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/report-gorka-vitezi-rend-andras-horvath-piliscsaba

The  spokesperson for a Hungarian ultranationalist group, whose founder oversaw the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews during World War II, said he was "proud" to see White House counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka wear the group's medal, as he did at an inaugural ball on Jan. 20.

"When he appeared on U.S. television ... with the medal of the Vitez Order ... it made me really proud," Vitezi Rend spokesman Andras Horvath told NBC News, the network reported Saturday.

Gorka has said that he wears the medal in honor of his late father, who was a member of the group, and his struggle against the post-war communist rule of Hungary. Horvath told NBC that Paul Gorka, Sebastian's father, was at "an advanced level" of the Vitezi Rend, also called the Order of Vitez.

The current White House staffer pointed NBC to a statement he gave to the online publication Tablet, in which he denied ever being a member of, or pledging loyalty to, the order.

That statement, made to Tablet on March 16, came after another publication, The Forward, reported that two leaders in Vitézi Rend told them that Gorka was a sworn member of the order.

Hungarians who used to know Gorka, including a local political ally of his, also told NBC that Gorka was a member of the order, though the network clarified they did not offer any proof aside from their recollection of him making no effort to hide his membership.

"Everybody knew that he was member of the Order of Vitez," Csaba Gáspár told NBC. He ran against Gorka for mayor of the small town of Piliscsaba in 2006. He came in second place, Gorka came in third.

''I knew that Sebastian Gorka was a member of Vitezi Rend, even then," geologist Gabor Solti told the network. He ran for town council on Gorka's ticket in 2006.

Solti eventually served as mayor of Piliscsaba from 2009 to 2010, NBC reported, and Gáspár served from 2010 to 2014....

no link

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wife on a landing team

KATHARINE GORKA, A CONTROVERSIAL national security analyst who specializes in discussing the threat posed by Muslims to the United States, has complained bitterly that the Department of Homeland Security trains its agents — falsely, in her opinion — that Islam is a “religion of peace.”

Now, Gorka will have a chance to help Donald Trump remake the department. On Tuesday, she was selected by Trump to be part of the DHS “landing team” that will meet with Obama’s DHS officials to manage the handoff to new leadership.

Gorka, the president of a think tank called the Council on Global Security and the president of Threat Knowledge Group, a consulting firm, is a well-known figure among anti-Muslim campaigners.

Gorka argues that defeating terrorism depends “upon our being able to call the enemy by its proper name: Global Jihadism.” She has pushed legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group and impose sanctions on its “affiliates, associated groups, or agents.”

The affiliated groups mentioned in the legislation include mainstream civil rights organizations such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Islamic Society of North America.

Gorka also writes about Islam for Breitbart News, a website described by its former executive chairman Steve Bannon as a “platform” for the white supremacist “alt-right” movement. Bannon is one of Trump’s top advisers. In one 2014 column, Gorka wrote that when “Presidents Bush and Obama both publicly declared Islam to be a religion of peace,” it “struck a sour chord for many,” and that “American and Western leaders have preemptively shut down any debate within Islam by declaring that Islam is the religion of peace.”

In another column, she defended five members of Congress, including then-presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minn., who were widely denounced by their own party leaders for spreading conspiracy theories in 2012 after they accused a top Clinton aide of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and called on President Obama to investigate.

Gorka claimed that the New York Times had “provided proof of Muslim Brotherhood influence” after it published an exposé on how Gulf-state monarchies were funding U.S. think tanks.

Katharine Gorka is married to Sebastian Gorka, another Breitbart contributor and former policy consultant to the Trump campaign. Sebastian Gorka has accused mainstream Muslim civil rights organizations like the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Council on American-Islamic Relations of using “subversive tactics” and having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

Speaking to the Family Research Council in June, Sebastian Gorka called the religious profiling of Muslims “a synonym for common sense.” When asked by The Intercept about Trump, Sebastian said Trump “is no fan of political correctness, he knows we are at war, and he wants to win. And my golly gosh isn’t that a refreshing attitude!”

==

When the Trump administration recently refused to acknowledge how Jews were the primary and specific targets of the Holocaust, it was White House deputy assistant Gorka who called  the controversy over that decision as “asinine.” Perhaps it is no coincidence then that Gorka — who was born in London to Hungarian émigré parents — has repeatedly been photographed wearing a medal associated with the Order of Vitéz, an overtly anti-Semitic chivalric organization that collaborated with the Nazi regime during World War II.

Writing for Policy Mic, Tom McKay offered some additional context on the order’s founder, Miklós Horthy:

    Horthy, the Hungarian regent that [the order] supported, held a profound animus for the Jews of Hungary. “Concerning the Jewish question, for all my life, I have been an anti-Semite,” Horthy once wrote. His government allied with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, enacted anti-Semitic laws, brutally cleansed Hungarian Jews, enslaved others in work details and collaborated with German authorities to deport them to death camps.

    “Many supporters of the Horthy regime were enamored by the Nazis and Hitler, and the ‘knights’ were especially so,” Balogh told LobeLog. “After 1948, one wouldn’t have bragged about his father being a ‘vitéz.’ Lately, however, especially since 2010, it has become fashionable again to boast about such ‘illustrious’ ancestors.”

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http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/key-trump-adviser-has-disturbing-ties-anti-semitic-groups

Gorka, who was named deputy assistant to the president in January and who worked for Steve Bannon at Breitbart, collaborated with members of a neo-Nazi political party in Hungary and even wears a medal associated with the nation’s Nazi collaborationist regime during World War II. He’s also on Bannon’s controversial Strategic Initiatives Group, a pseudo think tank within the White House that is likely an attempt to supercede the National Security Council when it makes recommendations that Bannon and Trump don’t like.

A recent investigation by Forward details how Gorka has close ties to far-right Hungarian nationalists. In 2007, he collaborated with former prominent members of the deeply anti-Semitic Jobbik Party in Hungary to form a new political party, the New Democratic Coalition, which failed to take off. Gorka also published articles in a racist and anti-Semitic newspaper and attended events with “some of Hungary’s most notorious extreme-right figures,” Forward discovered.

There is no question that the Jobbik Party is overtly anti-Semitic. The party was formed in 2003 and went on to ride a nationalist wave in Hungary. In 2013, Al Jazeera put out a shocking documentary on rising fascism in the country that has a nationalist leader, Viktor Orban, who is sympathetic to the far-right wing of the nationalist spectrum (and whom Gorka advised). The film relates how neo-Nazi paramilitary militias intimidated and even murdered Roma people, sometimes occupying Roma villages. The country also had de facto labor camps where Roma were forced to do manual labor for less than the minimum wage.

The last time Roma and Jews were sent to labor camps, the Nazis were doing it.

“Hungary’s fascist past is undergoing a makeover,” says the narrator. Rallies in central Budapest commemorate the Nazi SS units that helped Hungary send hundreds of thousands of Jews to their deaths at Auschwitz.

In 2012, one Jobbik member of parliament proposed a bill to create a registry of Jews in Hungary. Gorka’s collaboration with fierce bigots like those in the Jobbik Party, along with his previous political work in Hungary, elevated a far-right, racist ideology, spreading hate and anti-Semitism. Now he’s working in the White House.

Donald Trump has often had a strange aversion to explicitly calling out anti-Semitic acts, which have quickly increased since Trump won the presidency, despite having a son-in-law who is Jewish and a daughter in Ivanka who converted. The president has come under scrutiny after failing to name Jews as victims of the Holocaust and taking days to say anything about a rash of bomb threats to Jewish synagogues and community centers and vandalism at Jewish cemeteries. Most recently, Trump appeared to imply that these anti-Semitic attacks were the "reverse,” staged to make Trump and his supporters look bad.

Some think one reason for Trump’s troubling silence and conspiracy theories is that he doesn’t want to alienate some of his biggest fans, who are neo-Nazi members of the racist so-called alt-right. Another possible explanation is that anti-Semitism coming from the heart of his administration is guiding his moves.

The influence that Gorka, also an Islamophobe, has in the Trump administration is troubling considering the hateful and bigoted company he keeps there. Bannon is a prime example of hate, but another key adviser, Stephen Miller, is a young and outspoken nationalist and Islamophobe (who’s Jewish). Before joining Trump’s campaign, Miller worked for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom Bannon credited with laying the groundwork for America’s populist nationalist movement long before Trump entered politics.

Bannon has sought to ally the Trump administration with far-right nationalist movements in Europe, including those in England, France and Austria. Breitbart has an office in London and is setting up branches in Paris and Berlin, seeking to propel nationalism in those countries in much the same way it does in the U.S.

Trump’s top adviser has commended Vladimir Putin for Russia’s nationalism, saying that “strong countries and strong nationalist movements in countries make strong neighbors.” Hungary, a fiercely nationalist country with an increasingly friendly relationship with Russia, would fit that description.

Hungary just began building a second wall at its border with Serbia and Croatia to keep out migrants, having already built a barbed wire fence there in 2015. (Breitbart London cheered the fence’s “effectiveness” that year.) The government is suing the European Union for imposing a refugee quota on Hungary. Orban wants to ban all refugees in his country, having said that migrants are “poison” and that “every single migrant poses a public security and terror risk.”

Unsurprisingly, Orban called Trump’s security policies “valiant.” After Trump’s inauguration, Orban sent the new president a congratulatory letter praising his policies of border control and migration. The two nations have “a historic opportunity to shape the future together,” he wrote. Trump responded by saying that the U.S. and Hungary can overcome challenges “through partnership” and achieve “common goals.”..

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In his first days as president, Donald Trump has added two Breitbart staffers to his administration, highlighting his bond with the populist right-wing news outfit formerly run by his chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Julia Hahn, who covered immigration issues for Breitbart through an aggressively anti-immigration lens, has been named special assistant to the president, a source with knowledge of the matter told CNNMoney.

Sebastian Gorka, the site's national security editor and a policy consultant on Trump's presidential campaign, has joined the Trump White House in a yet-to-be-announced role, a source with knowledge of the matter confirmed. Business Insider, which was first to report the move, said Gorka will likely have a role on Trump's National Security Council.

The Trump administration did not respond to requests for comment regarding the hires. But the moves indicate that Breitbart, which praised and defended Trump throughout his campaign, now has an open door to his White House.

Hahn's hire also threatens to antagonize House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republicans at a moment when they are looking to establish common ground with the new administration.

A former executive producer for Laura Ingraham, Hahn gained notoriety at Breitbart for attacking Ryan on immigration policy. In December 2015, she and Bannon co-authored an article titled "Paul Ryan Betrays America" in which they accused Ryan of "a total and complete sell-out of the American people masquerading as an appropriations bill."

When Hahn asked a panel of lawmakers around the same time if they would support a suspension of Muslim immigration into the United States, Rep. Raul Labrador, an Idaho Republican, shot back: "I don't answer questions from you, because you are not a truthful reporter."

Gorka, who has been with Breitbart since 2014, is the author of "Defeating Jihad" and served as a paid policy consultant on Trump's presidential campaign. He was also a Fox News contributor up until his appointment in the Trump administration.

At Breitbart, Gorka was an aggressive critic of President Barack Obama's handling of ISIS and other terrorist groups, often arguing that the Obama administration empowered America's enemies.

Gorka is also awaiting a court hearing in Arlington County Criminal Court relating to a January 2016 incident in which he was stopped by Transportation Security Administration officers for going through security with a 9mm handgun in his carry-on bag. That incident was confirmed by TSA and by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which confiscated his weapon and charged him with a weapons offense.

Court filings show that Gorka is now awaiting adjudication in Arlington County Criminal Court after accepting a guilty verdict without admission of guilt, or what's known as an Alford plea. The court date is scheduled for February 3.

Gorka, his defense attorney, White House press secretary Sean Spicer and White House spokesperson Hope Hicks all did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding Gorka's pending court appearance.

cnn

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wikifluff

Sebastian L. Gorka (Hungarian: Gorka Sebestyén) is a national security professional specializing in irregular warfare, including counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. He is a full-time Professor of Strategy and Irregular Warfare and Vice President for National Security Support of the Institute of World Politics[2] in Washington, DC and the Chairman of Threat Knowledge Group. Previously he served as the Major General Matthew C. Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University.[3] He is a founding member of the Council for Emerging National Security Affairs[4] and has served as the Associate Dean for Congressional Affairs and Relations to the Special Operations Community at the National Defense University. Gorka is also currently affiliated with USSOCOM’s Joint Special Operations University, and [5] is a regular instructor for the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School in Fort Bragg, as well as the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division. He has testified before Congress[6] on the threat of ISIS and Global Jihadism and briefed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Intelligence Council, the National Counterterrorism Center and the Commandant of the Marine Corps.[7] Born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, Gorka became an American citizen in 2012.[8]

Gorka is the author of 2016 New York Times bestseller [9] book, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War published by Regnery.[8] He is a two-time recipient of the US Department of Defense Joint Civilian Service Commendation, first awarded to him the by US Special Operation Command.[10][non-primary source needed]

Contents   [hide]

    1Early life and education

    2Career

    3Policy Positions

    4Publications

    5Congressional Testimony

    6External links

    7References

Early life and education[edit]

Sebastian Gorka is the son of Paul and Susan Gorka who escaped from Communist Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. He was born and raised in the U.K. where he attended St Benedict's School, Ealing and received his first degree from the University of London.[7]

Gorka married Katharine Cornell Gorka on July 6, 1996 in Hungary.[11]

Gorka is a graduate of the University of London where he received his Bachelor of Arts honors degree in Philosophy and Theology. At university, he joined the British Territorial Army reserves, serving in the Intelligence Corps. [12]

He holds a Masters in International Relations and Diplomacy from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration. After that institution was renamed the Corvinus University of Budapest, he went on to study for, and receive a Ph.D. in Political Science, writing a dissertation on the strategic differences between the politically motivated terrorism of the Cold War and religiously motivated terrorists such as Al Qaeda.[13]

Gorka was also a Kokkalis Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.[citation needed]

Gorka was detained January 2016 at the Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington D.C. for attempting to board a plane with a handgun in his luggage. Gorka was charged with a weapons offense.[14][15]

Career[edit]

After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, Gorka left the U.K. to work in the first freely-elected government of the newly democratic Republic of Hungary. In Budapest he served in the Ministry of Defense for 5 years working on international security issues and Hungary’s future accession into NATO.

In 1997 Gorka was awarded the second Partnership for Peace International Research Fellowship at the NATO Defense College in Rome.[16]

In 1998 Gorka was awarded the Kokkalis Fellowship at Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. At Harvard he became one of the founding members of the Council on Emerging National Security Affairs, CENSA.[4] Before starting the second year of his public policy fellowship, he was hired by the RAND Corporation in the fields of transatlantic security and counterterrorism. In 2000 Gorka moved back to Budapest to establish and head the Center for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy, where he continued his work on security.[citation needed]

After the September 11th attacks of 2001, Gorka became a public figure in Hungary when he was asked by Magyar Televízió, the Hungarian National Television Corporation, to provide live commentary on the events occurring in the United States, and then later in Afghanistan and around the world as part of the Global War on Terror. One year later he was asked to serve as an official expert on the parliamentary investigatory committee created to uncover the Communist background of the new Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy. It had been revealed, soon after the 2002 general election, that Medgyessy, who had served in the Communist government prior to 1989, had been an undercover officer in the Secret Police, the organization which had maintained the previous dictatorship and helped crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.[17] Gorka rejected Medgyessy's claims of having not spied on people when he was a secret policemen.[18]

After the committee's mandate elapsed, Gorka and his wife Katharine Gorka established The Institute for Transitional Democracy and International Security, an independent think-tank. The group focuses on issues of international security and democratic transition in post-dictatorial regions. Katharine Gorka had been the director of the USAID-funded Democracy Network program for Central and Eastern Europe. All through the 1990s and early 2000s, Gorka was a contributor to the Jane's Defence Weekly group of publications out of the U.K., writing for Jane's Intelligence Review and others.[citation needed]

In 2004, Gorka joined the faculty of the new US initiative, the Program for Terrorism and Security Studies (PTSS), a Defense Department-funded program based out of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmsich-Partenkirchen, Germany.[19] At the same time Gorka began to teach for USSOCOM's Joint Special Operations University, MacDill Air Force Base. He served on the faculty of the PTSS until he and his family moved to the United States in 2008. In America Gorka joined the US Defense Department as a professor for the National Defense University, Fort McNair, Washington D.C. There he taught on the ASD(SOLIC)-funded Masters Program in Irregular Warfare and Counterterrorism as part of the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program,[20] where he was named Associate Dean of Congressional Affairs and Relations to the Special Operations Community. Gorka then left government service in order to assume the privately-endowed Major General Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at the Marine Corps University.[3] In August 2016, he joined The Institute of World Politics on a full-time basis as Professor of Strategy and Irregular Warfare, and also serves as Vice President for National Security Support.[2]

With his wife, Katharine Gorka, he also runs the private Virginia-based company Threat Knowledge Group. TKG provides training and strategic support to the armed services, the FBI, elements of the US Intelligence Community, and state and local law enforcement.[21] He is co-author and editor of several reports through TKG.

Between 2011-2013 Gorka taught US National Security and Foreign Policy for Georgetown University's McCourt School of Public Policy.[5]

Since 2014 Gorka has acted as editor for National Security Affairs for the Breitbart News Network.[22]

Since 2015 he has maintained TheGorkaBriefing.com, a site which hosts his public analyses and media interviews.[23] Gorka has appeared on the BBC and CNN, and is a regular guest on the FOX News Channel, the FOX Business Network, WABC’s the John Batchelor Show, the Sam Sorbo Show, and the Lars Larson Show.[citation needed]

Policy Positions[edit]

[24] and his 2016 book, Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War,[8] Gorka claims that since 9/11 America has become superb at applying force against high value terrorist targets, whether through the use of drone strikes or Special Operations raids, but is still losing the war against what he terms the "Global Jihadi Movement" (GJM). This lack of success is the result, according to Gorka, of America failing to counter the ideology of Global Jihadism and the Obama Administration's belief that terrorism is the result of unemployment and lack of education instead of ideology.

Gorka has argued[25] that America acts astrategically due in part to the influence of the Cold War. According to Gorka, This lack of strategic behavior has made decision makers and strategists reactive instead of proactive and fundamentally incapable of prioritizing American national interests.

Gorka has claimed that Carl von Clausewitz's writings (or flawed interpretations of his works) have had a negative impact on the Western understanding of unconventional warfare.[26]

In the post-2001 debate between the pro- and anti-Counter-insurgency (COIN) circles, Gorka has argued that COIN and FM 3-24, or the so-called "Petraeus Manual", were un-American approaches and fatally flawed choices for both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gorka has frequently criticized[27] the intrusion of politics and what he describes as political correctness into counterterrorism practices and policies. Gorka has claimed that both the Bush and Obama administrations have excised mention of religion when analyzing and discussing the terrorist threat, which he says has made America less capable of defeating groups like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State. Gorka has advocated the teaching of works of key Jihadist theorists within the military and law enforcement communities and the inclusion of their Enemy Threat Doctrine within the intelligence cycle.[24]

Publications[edit]

    Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War (ISBN 978-1-62157-457-6), Regnery Publishing, 2016.

    With Katharine Gorka, "ISIS: The Threat to the United States," Threat Knowledge Group, November 2015

    "Understanding the Enemy" in Special Warfare, Volume 27, Issue 2, April–June 2014.

    With David Kilcullen "An Actor-Centric Theory of War" in: Joint Force Quarterly 60, January 2011.

    With Christopher Harmon, Andrew Pratt (Co-editors) Toward a Grand Strategy Against Terrorism (ISBN 978-0-07-352779-6), McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2010.

    With David Kilcullen “Who’s Winning the Battle for Narrative? Al-Qaida versus the United States and its Allies” in: Influence Warfare, Edited by James J. F. Forest, Praeger, 2009.

    "Understanding history's seven stages of Jihad" in: CTC Sentinel 2, 10, October 2009.

    With Stephen Sloan "Contextualizing Counterinsurgency" in Journal of International Security Affairs 16, Spring 2009.

    Content and End-State-Based Alteration in the Practice of Political Violence since the End of the Cold War: The difference between the terrorism of the Cold War and the terrorism of al Qaeda: The rise of the “transcendental terrorist”, PhD dissertation, 2007.

Congressional Testimony[edit]

    Subject Matter Expert Briefing, House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, US Congress, January 8, 2016[6]

    Ten Years On: The Evolution of the Terrorist Threat , House Armed Services Committee, Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, US Congress, June 22, 2011[28]

External links[edit]

    Official website

    Profile of Gorka at the Institute of World Politics website

    Profile of Gorka at the Marine Corps University website.

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Katharine Gorka - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharine_Gorka

Katharine Fairfax Cornell ("Katie") Gorka is the President of the Council on Global Security, a think tank, and was the president of Threat Knowledge Group, ...

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Katharine Gorka | LinkedIn

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View Katharine Gorka's professional profile on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the world's ... Current. Council on Global Security,; Threat Knowledge Group. Previous.

Anti-Muslim Activist Katharine Gorka Named to Homeland Security ...

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/30/katie-gorka-trump/

Nov 30, 2016 - Gorka, the president of a think tank called the Council on Global Security and the president of Threat Knowledge Group, a consulting firm, is a ...

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