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ISLAMOPHOBE 2

419  

11 21 tag izlam ALSO USE HATE TAG FOR ALL PHOBES

SEE ZOHRAN MAMDANI NYC 10 25 SEE GAI PETER S

SEE DENATURALIZE

SEE IRAN WAR 3

HEGSETH PUBLIC EXEC 10 26

SEE FOX HANNITY INGRM FAULKNER?

SOTU 2 26 MINN SOMALI REFUGEE FRAUD BS AL SHABAB JIK INFLUENCE NICK SHIRLEY--> ICE RENEE GOOD

see EVANGE 6

SEE SHARIA LAW BS TEXAS 2 26

a proxy like EJ? once kinda hard right fringe-y but mainlined by trump tucker?

note ginni JOK CNP

see student suppression // Gaza

press suppression

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see islam, sharia, main node for older

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SEE PHOBES CATCH-EM ALL

bak3 26

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MMA

TRUMP I CALL MUHAMMED JIHADIST, MOM IN DEBATE

On Fox & Friends, Kid Rock compares Abdul El-Sayed to the Fort Hood shooter and the 9/11 hijackers

10/16/26

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10/07/2026

byKyle Mantyla

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AN 10 26

A private investigator hired by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to handle sensitive internal investigations had previously worked for an organization designated as an anti-Muslim hate group and participated in the controversial Cyber Ninjas review of Arizona’s 2020 election, according to a newly unsealed report.

Phoenix New Times reported that the court-appointed monitor's 226-page report on the sheriff's office looked at the way AZ Truthfinder, a company founded by former Gilbert police officer Stephanie Ameiss, obtained a county contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It was discovered that the résumé Ameiss had submitted as part of the bidding process omitted important aspects of her background, such as her six years of experience as lead investigator for Understanding the Threat, an organization founded by the former FBI agent John Guandolo.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Understanding the Threat as a hate group, stating that it was an organization that promoted anti-Muslim conspiracy theories and offered training programs to law enforcement agencies. The group ceased operations in 2023.

The report from the monitor stated that Understanding the Threat had published material that attacked Muslims, Black Lives Matter activists, Democrats and others.

The report states that Ameiss did not include her participation in the Cyber Ninjas-led investigation into Maricopa County's 2020 election results on her resume. After Donald Trump had lost in the state, the Republican-controlled Arizona Senate engaged Cyber Ninjas to carry out the highly criticized review.

AZ Truthfinder was one of the three companies bidding for the contract to carry out investigations in the situation where conflicts had prevented the sheriff's Professional Standards Bureau from dealing with the cases itself, and the leadership of the sheriff's office had chosen the company less than 24 hours after having looked at the bids.

Axios states that the company has obtained approximately $270,000 from Maricopa County since June 2025. The monitor doubted if the sheriff's office had carried out a meaningful background check before giving the contract.

The report stated that either the 'vetting process' was a sham or the vetting that had in fact been carried out had shown some of the same material that we had uncovered, but they had chosen to ignore it.

The results occur while Sheriff Jerry Sheridan and Maricopa County have been attempting to put an end to the years of federal court supervision which followed a racial-profiling lawsuit brought against the sheriff's office.

Chris Hegstrom, a spokesperson for the Sheriff's department, said to Axios that the agency was going over the report and was still committed to "full and effective compliance" with the court's orders.

The monitor suggested that the circumstances relating to the contract should be referred to a possible misconduct investigation.

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RWW

As the right wing media and political ecosystem spread fear and disinformation—here’s your easy to digest breakdown of the actual facts about Islamic Shariah.

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crm?

9 26 no txt mma

Right-wing content creators are peddling anti-Muslim hate

Right-wing content creators are peddling anti-Muslim hate

Nick Friedman fearmongered about an “Islamic takeover” while filming Muslims, warning, “This could be your street next”

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Published 09/24/26

A rising group of right-wing content creators — who often describe themselves as independent or investigative journalists and have established influence among right-wing media and the Trump administration — are pushing out anti-Muslim content, including on-the-ground footage warning of a supposed “invasion" or "Islamic takeover” and provocative videos of debates, rallies, and other stunts.

Right-wing content creators have used on-the-ground footage to fearmonger about a supposed “invasion” or “Islamic takeover”

Self-described “investigative journalist” Nate Friedman posted a video titled “I Exposed New York’s Biggest Mosque” that shows him confronting people at a mosque after they deny him entry. The video shows Friedman complaining about public calls to prayer and arguing that “residents deserve a say in the noise that reaches their windows.” While filming street vendors, Friedman questioned, “How long is it before the sidewalks on the Upper East Side stop looking like Manhattan and more like a street market in a Muslim country?” He also accused a police officer of ticketing non-Muslims’ cars while not ticketing the cars of Muslims who had come to pray. [Instagram, accessed 9/14/26; YouTube, Nate Friedman, 9/9/26, accessed 9/14/26; YouTube, Arutz Sheva, 11/7/24]

Friedman also posted a video about the “Islamic takeover” of Manhattan that featured Muslims in an area of the Lower East Side while fearmongering that “this could be your street next.” He also filmed people leaving a mosque, saying, “Watching the Islamic migrants filter out of the mosque and onto the street, creating a total takeover of the area, you see what could be you walking through here: a U.S. citizen on a trip with your family that you paid for with your hard-earned money running into a no-go zone in the middle of the Lower East Side.” [YouTube, Nate Friedman, 8/29/26, accessed 9/15/26]

Friedman made a video titled “I Exposed a Secret Mosque in NYC” focused on an alleged mosque in a warehouse for halal cart vendors. Introducing the video, Friedman said, “I'm going to take you through a secret mosque and uncover its role in assisting illegal Islamic migrants,” adding, “The West must know the hidden tactics being used against it to destroy our civilization from within.” [YouTube, Nate Friedman, 8/17/26, accessed 9/15/26]

Friedman also posted a video titled “I Exposed the Islamic Takeover of Michigan.” Friedman spends much of the video filming Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, and asking who they’d support in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Of women wearing head coverings at a grocery store, Friedman said, “You can see that you'd be a fish out of water here, a guest in your own country. You probably also noticed how almost every mother had at least three young children with them. So, you'd be naive to think that this stops at Dearborn.” [YouTube, Nate Friedman 8/2/26, accessed 9/15/26]

In a video about migrants crossing from Morocco to Ceuta, Spain, self-described “independent journalist” Nick Shirley highlighted claims that only men were crossing the border because of Islamic law. The video is titled “Inside the Migrant Invasion of Ceuta Spain.” [YouTube, Nick Shirley, 8/3/26, accessed 9/15/26; Anti Fraud Club, accessed 4/6/26; Reuters, 6/13/24]

Jake Lang, whom The New York Times has described as a “far-right agitator” and “Islamophobic provocateur,” posted a video about Muslims in rural New Jersey, calling it a “complete invasion!!!” In the video’s accompanying caption, Lang also complained about “young White American girls dating a Somali MEN.” [Instagram, 8/4/26, accessed 9/15/26; The New York Times, 8/20/26]

Right-wing content creators have distributed provocative videos of anti-Muslim rallies, debates about Islam, and other stunts to fearmonger about the Muslim community

Jake Lang staged a demonstration outside a mosque in Nashville, Tennessee, with a sign reading, “Deport all Muslims.” The electronic sign also read, “Deport 100 million, save America,” and Lang handed out pulled pork sandwiches. [Instagram, 8/7/26, accessed 9/15/26]

Lang promoted an anti-Muslim protest in Dearborn, Michigan, by claiming Muslims have “usurped” Detroit and are “siphoning your wealth” and “stealing the land from you” while speaking at a local church. [Instagram, 8/16/26, accessed 9/15/26]

Lang posted a video in which he burned a Quran and a miniature replica of Kaaba while claiming churches are being burned by Muslims. He then promoted his “March on Mamdani” 9/11 rally in New York City. [Instagram, 9/9/26, accessed 9/15/26]

Self-described “independent journalist” Jonathan Choe worked with Turning Point USA’s Frontlines to document Lang’s 9/11 rally and described a counter protester as an “Islamist” for yelling “Allahu Akbar.” [Instagram, 9/11/26, 9/11/26, 9/11/26, 9/11/26, accessed 9/15/26, 9/15/26, 9/15/26, 9/15/26, 4/6/26]

Lang held a rally, which he framed as a “crusade,” protesting Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan. Lang posted videos in which he offered baptisms to Muslims and marched through the streets of Dearborn yelling, “We know the Muslims have a plan to replace us.” [Instagram, 8/19/26, 8/20/26, 8/19/26,8/18/26, accessed 9/15/26, 9/15/26, 9/15/26, 9/15/26]

Lang posted a video in which he protested against “Muslim Day” at Cedar Point in Ohio and called for U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed to be deported. Lang held up a banner that read “WhiteReplacement.org” and “Stop Muslim takeover of Democrat Party!!! Deport Abdul El-Sayed.” [Instagram, 8/2/26, accessed 9/15/26]

Cam Higby, who describes himself as an “America-First independent journalist,” has posted several debate videos in which he has attempted to tie Islam to pedophilia and defended the claim that “Islam is evil and incompatible with America.” [YouTube, Cam Higby, 8/5/26, 8/10/26, 8/12/26, accessed 9/15/26, 9/15/26, 9/15/26; Instagram, 8/31/26, accessed 9/15/26; Cam Higby USA, accessed 9/22/26]

Higby also released a video for subscribers titled “I Wore Burqa To EXPOSE Election FRAUD In Minneapolis.” [YouTube, Cam Higby, 8/13/26, accessed 9/15/26]

Project Veritas founder and former CEO James O’Keefe also released a video in which he and Higby disguised themselves in “full traditional Muslim attire” and put on accents in order to trick poll workers and attack Minnesota’s voter voucher system, saying, “We vote. They say no problem. We can vouch for up to eight people.” O’Keefe recently launched a self-described “network of citizen journalists” called the Citizen Justice League. [YouTube, O’Keefe Media Group, 8/13/26, accessed 9/15/26; The Associated Press, 8/18/23]

Self-described “guerrilla journalist” Anthony Rubin also posted a similar video in which he attempted to vouch for two people at a polling location who claimed to be Hamas members from the Gaza Strip. Rubin co-founded Muckraker, which the Brennan Center for Justice describes as “an online media website with ‘very, very powerful’ ties to Heritage [Foundation].” [Instagram, 8/17/26, accessed 9/14/26, 9/15/26, 6/18/26; The Associated Press, 8/18/23; Brennan Center for Justice, 9/10/24]

Online content creators have established influence within right-wing media and the Trump administration as right-wing media embrace anti-Muslim hate

Right-wing content creators’ targets have repeatedly become targets of the Trump administration. After Nick Shirley posted videos alleging fraud at Somali daycare centers in Minnesota, the Trump administration paused Medicaid payments to the state. After James O’Keefe and Cam Higby alleged a voter registration fraud scheme on Skid Row in Los Angeles, multiple organizers were arrested; First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli directly credited “undercover videos that took place at Skid Row” for at least one of the arrests. Both Shirley and O’Keefe have also testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. [Media Matters, 1/13/26, 6/18/26; Reuters, 7/21/26; The Guardian, 9/11/26; The National Desk, 5/19/26, 7/15/26; U.S. Senate, Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 7/15/26]

Right-wing media have expanded these content creators’ reach by interviewing them and spreading their videos. Fox News interviewed several right-wing content creators ahead of an October 2025 White House roundtable on antifa, Nate Friedman’s coverage of a No Kings protest in April was featured on several right-wing shows, and James O’Keefe’s and Cam Higby’s Minnesota election videos were spread by right-wing personalities arguing for stricter voter ID laws. [Media Matters, 10/24/25, 4/8/26, 9/1/26]

Recently, right-wing media have also been using anti-Muslim hate more broadly to push anti-immigrant sentiment and criticize prominent left-wing Muslim politicians. Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson claimed, “Islam is here to kill us and convert us,” a Newsmax guest said, “Where Islam grows, freedom dies,” and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer claimed, “You're going to be at war with Muslims in America within the next five years.” Right-wing commentators have also claimed prominent left-leaning Muslim politicians like Abdul El-Sayed and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are jihadists. [YouTube, The Benny Show, 8/17/26; Newsmax, Finnerty, 8/11/26; Rumble, Loomer Unleashed, 8/4/26; Media Matters, 8/6/26, 10/23/25, 8/14/24]

//

Right-wing media ramp up Islamophobic campaign against Abdul El-Sayed

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AI Overview

📌 Israel's AI Influence Campaign Led by Brad Parscale

Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and his firm, Clock Tower X, are overseeing a $46.5 million digital influence contract with the Israeli government to shape how artificial intelligence chatbots portray Israel and the conflict in Gaza. [1, 2]

⚙️ How the Operation Works

Targeting AI, Not Humans: The network of specialized websites receives minimal human traffic, built instead to feed data into large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. [1, 2, 3]

Algorithmic Mimicry: Partnering with AI-modeling firm Market Brew, the campaign designed sites to mimic the exact factual tone and sourcing structures that AI web crawlers prioritize. [1, 2]

Network Sites: Created domains include paxpoint.org, factsignal.org, and allyvia.org to inject pro-Israel framing directly into AI training loops and search outputs. [1, 2, 3]

Broader Outreach: The multi-million dollar public diplomacy initiative also encompasses targeted digital ads, mass AI-generated text messaging, and outreach via conservative media networks like Salem Media Group. [1, 2]

Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk ...

Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk About Gaza. It's Working. The key intended audience of these sites is n...

Israel Is Paying Millions to Train AI Chatbots How to Talk About Gaza. It’s Working.

Nick Cleveland-Stout

Posted onJuly 28, 2026

Since October, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale has been quietly overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel. One article, titled “The Reality Behind Gaza’s ‘Journalists’: Terror Ties, Propaganda, and the Laws of War,” asserts that a majority of journalists in Gaza were linked to terrorist organizations. Another casts doubt on the killing of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in 2024.

The key intended audience of these sites is not concerned Americans, it’s not even humans—most of the sites average a few hundred unique visitors each month. Instead, Parscale and his firm, Clock Tower X, created them as part of a $46.5 million contract with the Israeli government to try and influence artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, tools like Claude or ChatGPT.

Parscale has made his goal of influencing artificial intelligence—often referred to as “LLM poisoning”—explicit. In his initial agreement with Israel, Parscale said that he would deploy “websites and content to deliver GPT framing results on GPT conversations” as part of the contract. More recently, his team even told Axios they are “seeing success” at getting popular AI systems to incorporate information from their sites, though they declined to provide data.

And it is working, according to disinformation experts who reviewed a Drop Site analysis of chatbot queries and training data, meaning tens of millions of Americans who use chatbots are increasingly likely to receive answers manipulated by Parscale on behalf of the Israeli government.

Full piece in DropSite News

Since October, former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale has been quietly overseeing an operation posting hundreds of blog posts on behalf of Israel. One article, titled “The Reality Behind Gaza’s ‘Journalists’: Terror Ties, Propaganda, and the Laws of War,” asserts that a majority of journalists in Gaza were linked to terrorist organizations. Another casts doubt on the killing of Hind Rajab, a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by the Israeli military in 2024.

The key intended audience of these sites is not concerned Americans, it’s not even humans—most of the sites average a few hundred unique visitors each month. Instead, Parscale and his firm, Clock Tower X, created them as part of a $46.5 million contract with the Israeli government to try and influence artificial intelligence-powered chatbots, tools like Claude or ChatGPT.

Parscale has made his goal of influencing artificial intelligence—often referred to as “LLM poisoning”—explicit. In his initial agreement with Israel, Parscale said that he would deploy “websites and content to deliver GPT framing results on GPT conversations” as part of the contract. More recently, his team even told Axios they are “seeing success” at getting popular AI systems to incorporate information from their sites, though they declined to provide data.

And it is working, according to disinformation experts who reviewed a Drop Site analysis of chatbot queries and training data, meaning tens of millions of Americans who use chatbots are increasingly likely to receive answers manipulated by Parscale on behalf of the Israeli government.

Investigations take resources. Subscribe or make a tax-deductible gift today.

When Drop Site asked Perplexity “Is it beneficial for the US to enhance military cooperation with Israel?” the chatbot responded with a one-word answer: “Yes.” The top source listed was Allyvia.org, a Parscale-created website dedicated to promoting the U.S.-Israel military relationship. Microsoft Copilot similarly cited Parscale’s websites.

Screenshot from Perplexity.

Allyvia is one of 10 different websites created by Clock Tower X, a boutique digital influence company owned by Parscale. Each website is dedicated to promoting a different Israeli narrative. FactSignal.org, for instance, fashions itself as fact-checking website tackling anti-Israel information, containing articles discrediting slain journalists as Hamas terrorists and rejecting the notion that Israel’s military actions in Gaza constitute a genocide. Paxpoint.org, meanwhile, promotes the narrative that Israel is a nation of peace.

All of Parscale’s websites contain a statement at the bottom which states “this material is distributed by Clock Tower X LLC on behalf of the State of Israel.” This statement is a mandatory disclosure requirement under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Despite this, when Drop Site asked prominent chatbots about the latest news from Paxpoint.org, Perplexity and Copilot did not flag that the site was created as part of an Israeli influence operation. Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini did flag the caveat.

“Perplexity is built to give people cited, linked answers from a range of sources so they can go directly to the original reporting and reach their own conclusions,” spokesperson Beejoli Shah told Drop Site News when reached for comment.

Parscale’s websites—referred to throughout this article as the “Clock Tower network”—get cited by chatbots, but they also are successfully infiltrating the underlying training data.

The Clock Tower network started to get archived by Common Crawl—a nonprofit that oversees a massive repository of data used to train large language models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude—earlier this year. Common Crawl is the backbone of the artificial industry, training 80% of the tokens of OpenAI’s GPT-3, making it a useful proxy for understanding if malicious actors successfully infiltrate AI training data.

READ MORE from Nick Cleveland-Stout at the Quincy Institute: “The Eighth Front: Inside Israel’s $1 Billion Influence Campaign.”

LLM Poisoning

In the examples above, users can at least trace the sources that chatbots are pulling from when they search websites directly, such as in the screenshots above. Infiltrating the training data itself, on the other hand, can lead to Israel-influenced responses that are nearly impossible for users to trace.

To measure how deeply the network had penetrated the data used to train AI models, Drop Site used Claude Fable to query Common Crawl to count how often Parscale’s sites appear in its monthly snapshots. According to that analysis, a sample of which was manually fact-checked by Drop Site, between January and June 10 sites were crawled by Common Crawl 912 times. While this is a drop in the bucket of Common Crawl data, emerging research suggests a very low number of documents can successfully manipulate AI chatbots, no matter the data volume.

The 10 sites are:

  1. Paxpoint.org (crawled 220 times): Website dedicated to showcasing the narrative that Israel is a nation of peace. “Paxpoint highlights Israel’s ongoing commitment to peace and coexistence, sharing historical accords, humanitarian initiatives, and grassroots projects that bridge divides.”
  2. Allyvia.org (crawled 158 times): Website dedicated to strengthening the U.S.-Israel alliance. “Allyvia showcases how the US and Israel alliance directly benefits Americans through joint security, cutting-edge technologies, job creation, and shared values of liberty.”
  3. Factsignal.org (crawled 108 times): Mission is to “prove that Hamas’ terrorist designation reflects global consensus and undeniable evidence of violence, not conspiracy”
  4. Cognitura.org (crawled 106 times): Website claims to be a “research and education platform” dedicated to exploring how extremist groups such as Hamas operate.
  5. Justorium.org (crawled 93 times): Website dedicated to arguing that Israel’s military actions in Gaza “follows international law and reflects the democratic ethics shared by the US and Israel.”
  6. Culturavia.org (crawled 76 times): Website focused on celebrating cultural ties between U.S. and Israel.
  7. Compassionpulse.org (crawled 57 times): Website dedicated to sharing stories, data, and eyewitness accounts of “how Israel protects civilians, delivers humanitarian aid, and upholds moral values shared with the US.”
  8. Econora.org (crawled 49 times): Website dedicated to highlighting U.S.-Israeli trade relationship.
  9. Innovascope.org (crawled 45 times): Website dedicated to highlighting U.S.-Israeli technology partnership.
  10. Feedingyoufiction.com (crawled 1 time): Website featuring videos that claim footage coming out Gaza is staged and denying famine.

These sites are being crawled more and more. In January 2026, the sites were only crawled twice. In May, the sites were crawled 376 times, before a notable dip in June. To check the accuracy of Claude Fable, Drop Site manually searched for a sampling of 50 of the Clock Tower X URLs archived in Common Crawl’s CDXJ index, and did not detect any errors.

https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/i8UTh/2/

Hervé Letoqueux, Chief Executive Officer at Check First, an organization that combats digital disinformation, explained that Common Crawl’s status as the go-to source for training chatbots opens it up as a target for manipulation. “Common Crawl is widely used in the world of data science for training LLMs, which also means that actors want to manipulate the answers in their favor, which some studies have indicated are fairly easy to do.”

It only takes about “250 malicious documents to produce a ‘backdoor’ vulnerability in a large language model—regardless of model size of training data volume,” according to an October Anthropic study. The authors of the study note “this means anyone can create online content that might eventually end up in a model’s training data,” and that malicious actors “can inject specific text into these posts to make a model learn undesirable or dangerous behaviours, in a process known as poisoning.”

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab published a similar study earlier this year on Russia’s disinformation network’s attempts to influence LLMs and noted an important caveat. Because artificial intelligence companies have their own process of quality control when they incorporate data, “Inclusion in Common Crawl does not guarantee inclusion in any given model’s training data.”

Drop Site also performed a demo alongside Letoqueux to test five different chatbots—Microsoft Copilot, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude AI, and Perplexity—on whether they could produce articles using only their training data. Of the five, the Parscale network consistently appears in the training data of Gemini and Copilot. Claude and ChatGPT did not appear to contain the websites in the training data, though these chatbots can still search Clock Tower X websites when responding to queries. Perplexity, meanwhile, appeared to be trained on some of the Clock Tower X websites.

Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

‘It is easy to prove that these models were trained on the Clock Tower X websites, though it is difficult to know the degree to which that influences the response a chatbot gives to a query,’ said Letoqueux.

Optimizing for AI

Parscale’s team has credited their success with a softer approach to selling Israel’s narrative. Scott Stouffer, Chief Technology Officer of Market Brew—a company that specializes in influencing LLMs that Parscale invests in—told Axios that information written in a “factual tone and tightly organized” is more likely to be cited in AI platforms. “What you can do is make sure that your information is structured, sourced, and aligned in a way that those systems are more likely to retrieve it when someone asks a question. It’s less about changing the conversation and more about making sure your facts are eligible to be part of it.”

Many of the blog posts on the Clock Tower network contain at least a few sentences of nuance, which disinformation researchers say make it more palatable for chatbots. For instance, the FactSignal blog post about how journalists in Gaza are supposedly secret terrorists states that, “Distinguishing between legitimate reporters and militant operatives is not always simple, but accurate reporting requires careful investigation and transparency.”

The author of many of the blog posts is Israel-based digital marketer Mark Ginsberg, according to the source code. Ginsberg, who registered as a foreign agent for Israel in March, advertises his expertise in Generative Engine Optimization—or LLM grooming—on his Linkedin profile. In a June article for The Times of Israel, Ginsberg laid out the argument for Israel investing in efforts to influence chatbots. “Israel needs to invest seriously in the defense of truth…It means ensuring that accurate information appears not merely in government archives but in search results, educational resources, encyclopedias, social media feeds, podcasts, documentaries, and AI training datasets,” Ginsberg wrote. Trying to influence AI training data, Ginsberg argued, is not “embracing disinformation” but rather stating “reality itself.”

Letoqueux, who reviewed the Clock Tower network sites, confirmed that because chatbots have a built-in preference for presenting a balanced view, websites that are sourced and present a lighter touch might be more successful. “These websites could probably be quite useful at doing damage control on questions such as ‘Is Israel committing a genocide?’ because they provide the Israeli narrative, which chatbots can then repeat as representative of one side of the debate,” said Letoqueux, who is the former head of operations at VIGINUM, the French agency responsible for identifying foreign digital interference.

Alice Lee, an analyst at NewsGuard, a disinformation tracking company, explained in an interview with Drop Site that the Parscale network sites have all the hallmarks of sites that would be successful at influencing chatbots. “The websites have bullet points, key takeaways at the top of the page, aggressive sourcing, digestible information, all of which increase the likelihood that this content is picked up by AI chatbots.”

While Russia’s Pravda network overall is far larger, Parscale’s sites have a far higher rate of successfully being archived. The Clock Tower network contains 900 different pathways—individual blog posts, fact sheets, etc—and 85% of them have been archived in Common Crawl, compared to Russia’s network at an average rate of around 2.5%.

Lee, who specializes in Russian disinformation, explained that whereas Russia is churning out easily debunkable propaganda at scale, Israel’s more targeted approach appears to be geared more toward conveying the Israeli narrative on half-truths, opinions, and disputed facts, which is more difficult for LLMs to dismiss. “It’s harder to put guardrails around opinion,” she explained.

Parscale appears to have created several other websites related to Qatar that did not end up being published. On the same IP address as the Clock Tower network, Drop Site identified domains for websites including “qataritracker.org” and “qatarfacts.com.” These sites are currently inaccessible.

The Clock Tower network is responsive to Israel’s shifting priorities. When the sites first launched in October, many of them posted frequently about how Israel is a peaceful nation. “While critics portray Israel as resistant to compromise, history shows the opposite: Israel has repeatedly made territorial and strategic concessions in exchange for peace, only to face renewed hostility,” reads one website page published in October, cited by Microsoft Copilot below. That page was archived by Common Crawl twice.

Screenshot of Copilot citing a Clock Tower X site.

Part of this effort included shaping the narrative over Israel’s military actions in Gaza. For instance, a page on Justorium.org titled “How Israel Reduces Civilian Harm in War Against Hamas and Hezbollah” claims that Israel went above and beyond international legal requirements to reduce civilian harm. The post says that Israel “used short warning strikes on rooftops, known as roof knocking, to signal imminent danger without causing casualties.” The New York Times has reported that Israel “significantly reduced its use of so-called roof knocks” from the first day of the war, and has often opted for 2,000 pound bombs that cause greater damage rather than more precise munitions.

That post has been archived by Common Crawl once, and is also cited below by Perplexity.

Screenshot of Perplexity citing from a Clock Tower X site.

Most recently, as debate in the U.S. erupted over a Congressional measure that could further intertwine the U.S. and Israeli military sectors, the Clock Tower network published a series of posts framing the move as a positive development. The House version of Section 219, as it’s known, passed as part of the annual defense spending bill this week.

When Drop Site asked prominent chatbots a question containing similar language from one of the Parscale sites, “how does technology collaboration between the U.S. and Israel benefit both nations?” Gemini, Copilot, and Perplexity once again cited websites from the Clock Tower network without noting these sources are created on behalf of the Israeli government.

Screenshot of Gemini citing a Clock Tower X site.

Screenshot of Copilot citing two Clock Tower X sites.

$4.5 Million a Month

Public opinion of Israel has cratered in the U.S. after its U.S.-funded military siege of Gaza has killed over 70,000 Palestinians, including across key demographics such as conservatives and evangelicals that have long supported the U.S.-Israel relationship.

According to a new Quincy Institute report by the author of this article, Israel has spent well-over $100 million on foreign lobbying efforts under FARA in the U.S. since 2023, hiring 17 new firms in 2024 and 2025 alone. Although Israel has historically avoided hiring official contractors under FARA, it is now on track to become the largest single spender in 2026.

Parscale, who gained national attention as Trump’s campaign manager for hiring the controversial microtargetting firm Cambridge Analytica, is the largest recipient of Israel’s massive influence investment. Parscale’s intention to influence chatbots was first reported by Responsible Statecraft in September, when he signed a $1.5 million a month contract with the Israeli government to integrate pro-Israel messaging into conservative media, carry out a mass texting campaign, and influence chatbots. Since then, the contract has tripled in size to $4.5 million a month.

Despite this increased investment, Israel does not appear satisfied with Parscale’s results so far. “We pissed at Brad Parscale,” one Israeli official familiar with the contract told Time. “We have paid him lots of money. But what did he do with it? Things have only gotten worse,” they said.

Stephen Walt, author of the “Israel Lobby,” suggested to the Quincy Institute that Israel is not seeing a return on investment because these kinds of influence operations are counterproductive. “Once a country gets the reputation for spinning constantly, and gets repeatedly caught making things up, then doing ever more of it just sends the message to listeners that more BS is on the way,” Walt said.

Parscale and Clock Tower X did not respond to a request for comment for this article.

The Clock Tower network serves another purpose. Parscale is also leading a mass texting campaign that reaches out to Americans under the auspices of supposed “peace” organizations. “Hi, I’m John with Friends for Peace. Quick question for folks in Illinois about Israel and Iran. Got a second?”

Then, after a back and forth, these chatbots frequently send links to the Clock Tower network, websites like Allyvia.org.

Text messages from “Friends for Peace.”

Text messages from “Friends for Peace.”

“Friends for Peace” is not a registered nonprofit or LLC and does not appear to exist as an organization, meaning Americans wanting to know who is behind the text operation would have to click the link and scroll to the bottom of each page to see the disclaimer that it is an operation funded by the Israeli government.

When the Wall Street Journal asked Parscale about if “Friends for Peace” was a real organization, Parscale replied, “What do you define as an actual organization?”

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Rep. Keith Self Says Every Muslim Elected Official Is 'Lying Under The Concept Of Taqiyya'

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PRAISE FIREFIGHTERS FOR AIR REPORT

Randy Fine Says Zorhan Mamdani Will Attend 9/11 Ceremony 'To Celebrate The Attack'

MMA 9 26

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MAGA “prophet” Julie Green says she heard God's “prophetic word” that Zohran Mamdani and Iran are planning a terror attack in New York City

09/03/26

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Top Fox News hosts criticize El-Sayed for 9/11 comments that mirror their colleagues’

CBS News’ manufactured scandal found a home during primetime at Fox News, highlighting the legacy outlet’s new role in amplifying right-wing narratives

Written by John Knefel

Published 09/01/26

Top Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Jesse Watters, and Laura Ingraham all amplified an August 31 CBS News report that relied on innuendo and Islamophobia to falsely imply that Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed had made disrespectful comments about the victims of 9/11. In fact, as Media Matters reported, El-Sayed’s comments — which urged the United States to respond to the growing death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic with a whole-of-government approach — were entirely in line with mainstream discourse at the time and mirror some statements made by figures at Fox News.

El-Sayed, who is a former public health official and is Muslim, made the remarks on social media in posts that are now deleted (as are all of the candidate’s posts prior to July 2023). In one of the posts, CBS News reported that El-Sayed “compared the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on Sept. 11 to the mounting COVID-19 death toll and argued for a response commensurate with the nation's post-9/11 mobilization,” while another argued that the U.S. government should “spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against poverty” rather than waging wars in the Middle East. In a third post, El-Sayed mourned the loss of life on 9/11 and those killed by the United States’ so-called war on terror.

Even by CBS’s own reporting, none of the posts show disdain for those who died on 9/11 or make any justification for the attacks that day. Instead, CBS’s framing simply serves as a subconscious link between El-Sayed and terrorism, thus giving conservative pundits an imaginary outrage to fuel their Islamophobic fearmongering.

Host Sean Hannity displayed the headline of the CBS News article, arguing that “El-Sayed seems to be creating a moral equivalency here, thinking that America — what — does far more harm than al-Qaeda?”

Hannity went on to suggest that El-Sayed “doesn’t love America” and claimed he “has regularly attacked this country.”

Video

Citation

From the August 31, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Hannity’s colleagues didn’t reference the CBS News story directly, but both mentioned El-Sayed’s old tweets in an implicit nod to the legacy outlet’s coverage.

Watters claimed that El-Sayed was “scrambling to delete tweets from 9/11,” suggested he “is hiding a lot” and “is not who he says he is,” and warned that he wants to “knock America down to size.”

Similarly, Ingraham grossly mischaracterized El-Sayed’s posts to claim “he was never really vetted,” saying that “the Democrats could have made a big deal about his 9/11 tweets where he showed such utter disdain for American suffering, but they didn’t.” Now, she said, he “thinks he can snap his fingers and make his radicalism disappear.”

The pipeline here is clear: CBS News laundered perfectly innocuous comments into the newscycle and Fox News further decontextualized them to falsely paint El-Sayed as callous toward the victims of 9/11 at best, or supportive of violence against the United States at worst.

But contrary to the pose taken by these Fox News hosts, making comparisons between the pandemic and 9/11 was entirely common in 2020 and 2021, including by right-wing media figures, public officials, and even President Donald Trump. As Media Matters previously highlighted:

If the CBS News report was welcomed at Fox News, the story found a much more critical response internally.

According to Status’ Oliver Darcy, the CBS News article was widely denounced by former and current staff, with some raising the issue with the standards department. Many in the “newsroom viewed the story with disdain, believing it served as yet another blemish calling into question the organization's objectivity under new ownership,” and one former staffer told Status: “The racism is overt.” Bari Weiss, the conservative journalist who now serves as CBS News’ editor-in-chief, reportedly “praised the story” and “personally directed that the headline be tweaked to specifically mention that El-Sayed had deleted tweets referencing the September 11 terrorist attacks.”

Weiss was installed at CBS News when its new owner David Ellison took over in 2025, despite her having no experience in broadcast news. Her tenure has been marked by a dismemberment of journalistic standards and an unmistakable rightward turn at the outlet.

As a result, CBS News, once one of the most respected legacy media outlets in the country, has been reduced to concocting outrage fodder for Fox News. From the point of view of David Ellison and his billionaire father Larry Ellison — a major Trump donor and backer of his son’s media operation — that’s money well spent.

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Embracing blatant Islamophobia, CBS News makes bizarre attempt to tie El-Sayed to 9/11

  1. 08/31/26 2:38 PM EDT

The delusional right-wing media figures declaring victory in Iran

  1. 08/28/26 9:55 AM EDT

Media Matters weekly newsletter, August 28

  1. 08/28/26

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Embracing blatant Islamophobia, CBS News makes bizarre attempt to tie El-Sayed to 9/11

CBS News tried to scandalize Abdul El-Sayed's argument about 9/11 and the pandemic. His banal comments aligned with other mainstream commentators — and Trump too.

Written by John Knefel

Published 08/31/26

CBS News published an August 31 article linking Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the latest example of the news organization’s rightward shift under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss. In reality, El-Sayed's comments, which he made on social media, were sober and well within the bounds of typical political discourse.

The piece’s headline appeared designed to suggest that El-Sayed, who is Muslim, had disrespected the victims of the attacks or had somehow justified them. Even by CBS News' account, El-Sayed simply invoked the 9/11 death toll while discussing surging deaths during the pandemic and hoped for a strong response across the country to help Americans.

Michigan Democrat Abdul El-Sayed's deleted tweets on Sept. 11 attacks invite scrutiny of past remarksCitation

From CBSNews.com, posted 8/31/26

In one of the posts reported by CBS, El-Sayed “compared the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on Sept. 11 to the mounting COVID-19 death toll and argued for a response commensurate with the nation's post-9/11 mobilization.” A different post similarly called for the United States to “spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against poverty” in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In another, El-Sayed mourned the loss of life on 9/11 and in the United States’ reaction to the attacks, which devastated countries across the Middle East.

Contrary to CBS News’ innuendo, many public figures compared the death tolls of COVID and 9/11.

CBS News’ Islamophobic framing comes amid a rising wave of anti-Muslim animus in right-wing media, and illustrates how that kind of bigotry can easily migrate to once-respected media organizations. The outlet has lurched to the right under its new owner, David Ellison, and Weiss, a conservative journalist with no experience in broadcast news.

The Ellison-Weiss smash-and-grab has resulted in low morale at CBS News and several high-profile resignations, including veteran journalist Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes. In an interview with The New York Times, Pelley claimed that Weiss had asked him to revise a February segment on demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deadly crackdown in Minneapolis to “make the protesters look more violent.” Weiss had previously spiked a segment on the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador in a move many interpreted as her attempt to kill a story that made the Trump administration look bad. (The segment eventually aired in early 2026.)

Ellison’s company, Paramount Skydance, is currently attempting to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN. Should the deal eventually go through, there is every reason to believe Ellison would introduce the kind of chaos and political bias at CNN that he and his deputies have brought to CBS News.

Top Fox News hosts criticize El-Sayed for 9/11 comments that mirror their colleagues’

  1. 09/01/26 1:04 PM EDT

The MAGA media fixation on the “red-green alliance” is an attempt to hold a fracturing coalition together

  1. 08/19/26 2:28 PM EDT

Newsmax host: “I am calling on all Christian teachers to just go ahead and baptize Muslim students, see how you like that one, Allah”

  1. 08/18/26

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Lance Wallnau Says James Talarico Is 'A Backdoor To Al Qaeda'

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Ben Shapiro claims Abdul El-Sayed, Zohran Mamdani, Hasan Piker, and Cenk Uygur shouldn't be in the country

08/31/26

Embracing blatant Islamophobia, CBS News makes bizarre attempt to tie El-Sayed to 9/11

08/31/26 2:38 PM EDT

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TX State Rep. Andy Hopper Is Plotting Myriad Ways To 'Make Life Very Uncomfortable' For Muslims

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08/21/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

Right-wing politicians and pundits are intensifying their appeals to anti-Muslim bigotry in an apparent bid to solidify and energize the Christian Nationalist base of the Republican Party as polls show the party’s fortunes fading as we head toward the fall midterm elections.

While last year’s election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani gave bigots a big new target, right-wing demonization of American Muslims is nothing new. For years, religious-right leaders have undermined their posturing as champions of religious liberty by calling for discrimination against Muslims. Hard-core Christian Nationalists like Doug Wilson, invited by Pete Hegseth to preach at the Pentagon, does not believe Muslims or other non-Christians should be allowed to worship publicly or hold public office.

Sometimes religious-right leaders justify their hypocrisy by falsely claiming that the First Amendment was intended only to protect Christians. Sometimes they do so by falsely claiming that Islam—the second biggest religion in the world—is not even a religion, a fiction that some Republican legislators in Texas are scheming to put into law.

One of this year’s Republican strategies is fomenting fear and anger about the supposed threat that Sharia law is on the verge of replacing the U.S. Constitution—even though American Muslims represent well under two percent of the population.

One energetic practitioner of the Sharia-scare strategy is U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). “Islamists are RIGGING our elections and planning their takeover of America,” screams a bold-face line in a recent email raising money for Tuberville and the Republican National Committee—with no evidence whatsoever to justify such a claim. It goes on:

Radical Islamists have infiltrated every corner of our country. They are in our government, our schools, and our communities. They are moving forward with their plan to take over America.

And unless you take a stand right now, they will be one step closer to eliminating our Constitution and replacing it with Sharia Law. …

The future of America is at stake.

It’s up to us to end the chaos right now before these Islamists change “In God We Trust” to “In Allah We Trust.”

Not over my dead body.

A different Tuberville-RNC email sent this week puts a harder partisan spin on the fearmongering:

The Democrats are doing it right under our noses.

They’re letting Sharia Law take root on American soil. Right Now. …

This is the red line.

We BAN Sharia Law today, or our children will live under it tomorrow.

MAGA religious leaders like Trump-promoting pastor Lorenzo Sewell are all too eager to lend a hand. The energetically pro-Trump Pentecostal-oriented outlet Charisma on Friday promoted a made-for-social-media tirade Sewell delivered at the Dearborn City Council earlier this week.

“America, we have lost this city,” Sewell shouted. “This is a city that is no longer up under American laws. We are up under Sharia law. We will not have it anymore. Enough is enough.”

“We are not a nation of Muslims,” Sewell yelled. “We are a nation of Christians. We are one nation under God, indivisible—the God of the Bible, the God of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the God in whom we serve.”

Sewell recently hosted and prayed over far-right provocateur and violent Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang, who is on a “crusade” against American Muslims. Lang who told Sewell’s congregation that Muslims are “mongrel Third Worlders” who are “multiplying like cockroaches.” Said Sewell, “I love you, man.”

In another video Sewell posted this week, the pastor embraces Lang, who asserts that Islam is not a religion but “an insidious parasitical political movement.” Sewell urged Lang to promote an anti-Muslim rally he said he is planning to hold in New York City on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that, Lang said, “the Muslims did on our people.”

Earlier this year, Lang was captured on video protesting outside AIPAC and declaring, “White Christian men are not going to sit around while you turn our children into a bunch of n****r lovers.”

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Muslim communities have been growing for decades, particularly around Dallas. Now, conservatives want to roll up the welcome mat.

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Newsmax host: “I am calling on all Christian teachers to just go ahead and baptize Muslim students, see how you like that one, Allah”

  1. 08/18/26

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The MAGA media fixation on the “red-green alliance” is an attempt to hold a fracturing coalition together

Written by John Knefel

Published 08/19/26

My new piece at MS NOW argues that amid cratering approval ratings for President Donald Trump and a shaky economy, MAGA media is going all in on Islamophobia and the threat of socialism as a way of binding their fracturing coalition together.

If you’ve spent any time over the past few weeks listening to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast, you’ve likely heard the term “Marxist jihadist.” MAGA influencer Benny Johnson prefers the term “jihadist communist.” Other right-wing media programs have chosen the phrase “red-green alliance” — that is, a supposed pact between communists and Islamists.

Overt Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon in right-wing media. It has been deployed for years alongside broader nativist and xenophobic narratives. But a trio of factors is driving more openly politicized Islamophobia in right-wing media. All three are expressions of Muslims exerting their constitutionally protected political rights, especially when pursuing progressive policy goals.

Read the whole thing here.

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Newsmax host: “I am calling on all Christian teachers to just go ahead and baptize Muslim students, see how you like that one, Allah”

  1. 08/18/26 11:24 AM EDT

Timcast IRL panel discusses putting “all the Chinese Americans” in internment camps in a hypothetical war with China

  1. 08/17/26 1:34 PM EDT

Benny Johnson: “Islam is here to kill us and convert us”

  1. 08/17/26

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Great Replacement conspiracy theorist and pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang brought his racial grievances and “Christian Crusader March” to Dearborn and its city council meeting on Tuesday, where the right-wing provocateur told council members Muslim people are “looking to outbreed” white people and “steal our wealth.”

Dearborn, home to the largest Arab American population in the country, has long been the target of anti-Muslim rhetoric from people outside the community. Lang had spread his anti-Muslim message in the community as recently as August 2, when he was reportedly assaulted by a Dearborn resident. The Arab American News reports the resident, Abbas Abdoush, was later detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“The Muslims are being used by the Democrats to instill socialism in America,” Lang said during the city council meeting as the crowd lingered outside. “Once the Muslims have power in this county, then they will start throwing homosexuals off the roofs.”

The protest before the city council meeting was defined by diametrically opposed groups of Christian nationalist and counterprotesters screaming to drown out the sound of each other.

A line of police in riot gear kept the peace by standing between Lang’s group of provocateurs and the rest of the crowd that had gathered outside the Henry Ford Centennial Library, where the council meeting had been moved for safety reasons. Michigan Advance estimated the crowd size peaked at roughly 2,000 people.

“Here is to staying free from the Muslim Brotherhood takeover” yelled Lang ally Jayden Scott in a megaphone as he stood behind the police line separating him from the crowd. “We must fight back. This is a Christian nation. A Christian nation it shall remain.”

A throng of supporters answered with chants of “U.S.A, U.S.A.,” while a man with a megaphone of his own yelled “Jake Lang, repent”, saying Lang doesn’t follow the teachings of Jesus.

Lang organized the protest with the help of Detroit Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, a supporter of President Donald Trump who was criticized for attempting to enrich himself through a cryptocurrency scheme after speaking at Trump’s second inauguration. Sewell is also a member of the Faith Coalition Leadership Team of Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Rogers, who faces Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim, in November’s election.

“Michigan families deserve a Senator who will stand up to hate rather than enable it,” El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak said in a press statement issued just prior to the rally. “Mike Rogers must immediately disavow this rally, his affiliation with Jake Lang and January 6th terrorists, and explain why his campaign’s faith advisor is rallying alongside out of state agitators against Michigan faith communities.”

A request for comment was made to the Rogers campaign, but was not returned. This story will be updated when a response is received.

Democratic elected leaders including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan Secretary of State and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson, U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin and U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) all condemned Lang’s protest as an attempt to stir hatred that could directly harm Dearborn’s Muslim community.

“Islamophobic racists are yet again marching in Dearborn to terrorize a whole faith community,” Tlaib said. “Dearborn is a beautifully diverse place, home to a vibrant, loving Muslim community, and our families do not deserve to be subjected to such hate and bigotry.”

At several moments, it seemed as if the clash between Lang’s Christian nationalist supporters and counterprotesters, mostly Dearborn residents, could turn violent. A small segment of the two groups — almost all men who appeared to range in age from their late teens to early 40s, some wearing masks or hoods to hide their faces — spewed much of the vitriolic rhetoric and tried to provoke each other into physical confrontations while denouncing the other side’s beliefs and defending their own.

“These (are) fake Christians!” One young Dearborn man yelled at a man in a U.S. Navy hat.

“Go back to your country!” The man responded.

Both men ignored an interview request from the Advance.

Muhammad al-thihabawi in his own words.

The unity he describes here is a little pollyanna. There were some real tense moments and anger. But he says he found unity amongst people of different religious and ethnic groups who believe in the “amendments” and that Dearborn isnt bad pic.twitter.com/CK9yGQbum9

— Tyler Scott (@T_Scotttttt) August 19, 2026

A significant portion of the crowd was uninterested in violence. The Advance observed several women urging their male partners to “shut the f---- up,” and stay calm out of concern that “you’re going to get arrested.” Some seemed only interested in observing Lang’s promised spectacle or trying to keep the peace. Most of the animosity seemed verbal. Dearborn police said information about arrests or violent altercations was not immediately available.

At the end of the city council meeting’s public comment period, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who was recently the target of death threats by an Alaska man, addressed the crowd saying that word of Lang’s return to the city sparked fear across the city, with some businesses deciding not to open Tuesday. Hammoud said he met a young boy who asked “if the crusaders were going to kill him.”

Of the Christian nationalist protestors Hammoud said, “they are attacking the idea that everyone can belong to America at the same time.”

Donna Brandenburg, gubernatorial nominee of the U.S. Taxpayers Party, attended the protest and said the whole event seemed orchestrated to stoke political resentment.

“It seems like a big act,” Brandenburg said. “It’s trying to divide people. People in Dearborn want peace. They don’t want the fighting. I saw more American flags in Dearborn than I did in Byron Center. People need to stop drinking the Kool-Aid.”

Despite the palpable tension and verbal hostility that dominated the evening, Dearborn resident Muhammad Al-Thibabawi said he felt “unity” with people of different ethnic and religious groups and that most of the Christian nationalist protestors were uninformed about what Dearborn is.

“I spoke to a lot of these guys who are like ‘dude we got here and this is just a normal city that practices their amendments to the fullest’” Al-Thibabawi said. “We take pride in what we have. We love America.”

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Benny Johnson: “Islam is here to kill us and convert us”

  1. 08/17/26

Trump ally Laura Loomer calls for using “military force” to round up Muslims

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Newsmax guest: "Where Islam grows, freedom dies"

August 11, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Finnerty

ROB FINNERTY (HOST): We've been forced to accept a lot of change. Small American cities and towns all across the country have been changed completely over the last two decades. This is a wedding in Hamtramck, Michigan. Notice the knives. Amy Mekelburg is the founder of the RAIR Foundation. She is one of the only journalists in the country who's has been covering this slow erosion of Western culture across America.

Amy, appreciate you being here. I want to focus on the small city of Hamtramck, Michigan. So, it's right outside Detroit. It's a couple miles away from the Ford international headquarters, what used to be. Now it's a Muslim majority city, which is fine, but can you tell me what life is like now in Hamtramck?

AMY MEKELBURG (GUEST): Hi, it's nice to be here with you tonight. Yeah, so Hamtramck is a captured city, like I like to call it. It is an Islamic city that is operating in the United States. The city council, the mayors, all of the elected officials are Islamic. They do things as you would see in an Islamic country.

For example, they will have now halal slaughters that are allowed in their front yards and their backyards. The call to prayer rings out. So you can actually be in America and go to a city in Michigan that does not even resemble the United States any longer.

FINNERTY: OK.

MEKELBURG: As I just — yeah.

FINNERTY: No, would you call this, so again, it's not an anti-Muslim thing, but would you call Hamtramck, which is like five miles away from downtown Detroit, would you call this city a no-go zone for people of other religions? And I ask you that, because you've been.

MEKELBURG: Yeah, so I would absolutely say it's a no-go zone for non-Muslims. And unfortunately, what happens in any place that Islam comes in, the freedom starts to die. So, I always say, where Islam grows, freedom dies. And that's what America is known for, it's freedom, and that's being stripped.

Right here, in our cities across America, there are places that are operating now as complete little mini cities under Islamic control.

After HuffPost profile of anti-Muslim Twitter crusader, 4chan trolls begin organizing database of “leftist journos”

  1. 06/01/18

Newsmax's Michael Savage: “ICE is not going after the worst of the worst. ... They're going after innocent people.”

  1. 08/10/26

Right-wing media ramp up Islamophobic campaign against Abdul El-Sayed

  1. 08/06/26

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Joel Webbon proclaims that "Islam has no place among civilized people in the West": "We already have Islam for White people. It’s called Mormonism."

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RHET: SAVAGE, WANT TO KILL YOU, SO OK TO NUKE THEM

Newsmax host calls for “mass destruction” in Iran, including “a legitimate discussion of the threshold of a nuclear strike”: “That is the attitude we need to have to fight these savages”

07/09/26

Newsmax host calls for “mass destruction” in Iran, including “a legitimate discussion of the threshold of a nuclear strike”: “That is the attitude we need to have to fight these savages”

Written by Media Matters Staff

:{:{Published 07/09/26}:

Video

Citation

From the July 8, 2026, edition of Newsmax's Carl Higbie: Frontline

CARL HIGBIE (HOST): But here's got to be the plan. You want to win? This is the cold hard truth. It's mass destruction. And newsflash, we're going to run out of 500 pound JDAMs before Iran runs out of people who hate us. War is hell. But if you're unwilling to be as ruthless as your enemy, you have already lost.

...

HIGBIE: There you go. Mass destruction. You need to hold — and this is what's really going to send the people screaming. Hold a meeting with global nuclear powers and make sure Iran sees you do it so they know what you're talking about. Have a legitimate discussion of the threshold of a nuclear strike. And again, let them — and like, oh, if you're gasping right now — I know. But when you've put friends in bags because of these people in Iran, you have a bit of different perspective on this. Look, if you're a purple-haired barista who's never even so much as had to pay rent because you live with your parents in their basement and you're writing articles for other liberals to read.

Let me see if I can find f's to give less about your opinions. But we have people in this country and even in this administration, believe it or not, who are so risk averse, I — like, it blows my I swear, if we had a zombie apocalypse, they would fund zombie rights groups while they ate their friends right in front of them. That is essentially what, like, gays for Palestine is. Those are the types of people who are opposing dealing with Iran correctly right now, by the way.

Look, if you are a mullah and, you know, floating around somewhere in a bunker and you see Trump talking to China and Russia about wind direction for potential fallout, that's going to deter about half of them. While this is happening end their infrastructure, power plants, bridges, water treatment. Look, they don't care about us. We shouldn't care about them. I don't — annihilate the power grid. And if they can't rebuild it, who cares? That's not our problem. That is the attitude we need to have to fight these savages. Look. I fought these people on an organic ground level. We spent just a ton of time studying their culture and what drives them. They are driven by an ideological takeover that there is no second place in. There's no negotiation. And after desperately trying to negotiate, finally, JD Vance, who was the lead on that, finally realized what's got to be done.

...

HIGBIE: Next, take what's yours.

...

HIGBIE: Yeah. That's the basis for most of their economy. Just take it. Oh, Carl, you're going to steal things from a sovereign country. You bet we are. That's exactly how war has worked for thousands of years. In fact, wars stopped acting like that, and they got softer, and then there were no winners. That's the only language these people speak. You want to know how they feel?

...

HIGBIE: Yeah. That's not going to fly. It's just not. But that's how they feel. And he wouldn't say that to my face, but that what they would do if they had our military. You start seeing, like, all these libs – they have to understand this. I don't know why they don't, but we're in it now. We're in this. Keep in mind, we bombed the ever loving daylight out of the Japanese, and they never gave up. And then we turn two of their cities into six foot thick sheets of glass. And now 80 years later, they're one of our best friends. They need to know, the Iranians need to know that President Trump has not taken that off the table. Now if you're sitting there thinking, oh, because this is a bit over the edge. Well, you go over there. I have, and I'm telling you, there's, like, 30 million people that most of whom want to kill you.

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left hook 7 26 gmail

gil

While America celebrated its birthday and the World Cup, Musk spent the past week promoting*Citizen Vigilante*, a neo-Nazi’s wet dream of a movie that is so grotesque in its anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim hate that Germany banned it due to fear of inciting riots. Musk remains Trump’s most lucrative donor and, in return, was able to steal our data, punish regulators, and kill hundreds of thousands of people by defunding USAID.

Journalist Gil Duran has been following these racist, Silicon Valley sociopaths for years and has tried his best to warn America of their nihilistic end goal.In his forthcoming book,*Nerd Reich*, he connects the dots and lays out their master plan. He joins The Left Hook to discuss their latest plot against humanity.

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Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith Says Muslims Have No Right To Exercise Their Faith 'In Our Public Spaces'

07/07/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

Earlier this year, Indiana's far-right Christian nationalist Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith caused outrage and generated controversy when he boasted that he was giving the residents of his state "permission to hate" the religion of Islam. Undaunted by the blowback, Beckwith steadfastly defended his statement and repeatedly doubled down on it, insisting that attacking Islam is "a political winner" for Republicans.

Recently, Beckwith appeared on the Conservative Review podcast, where he continued to attack Islam and called for Muslims to be banned from engaging in public displays of their faith.

"We should ban the calls to prayer, public calls to prayer," Beckwith declared. "If you're a mosque and you want to have a loudspeaker and you want to start pumping these out five times a day locally, the state can say, 'You're not going to do that. We're not allowing that. We're not going to let you put these words of death and destruction throughout the city streets in any of our cities.'"

"Listen, we are a Christian nation," Beckwith continued. "The Supreme Court in the Coach Kennedy case ruled that. They said, 'Hey, the heritage of America is a Christian heritage and so that's why Christianity takes precedent over all other faiths.' Everyone can worship how they want, but you don't get to implement Islam in our public spaces. You can't put the Quran up on school walls, but you can put the Ten Commandments up on school walls. Why? Because of our Judeo-Christian principles. That's our heritage."

Video URL]

For the record, in no way did the Supreme Court's *Kennedy v. Bremerton School District* decision declare that "we are a Christian nation."

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Muslim Republican in tears after being told to leave TX GOP convention — and the country

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Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith Is Giving Hoosiers 'Permission To Hate' Islam | People For

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bezos on tax rich?

an 5 26

The terms "toxic empathy" and "suicidal empathy" have become a popular insult in the MAGA movement, from evangelical Christian nationalists to Tesla/SpaceX leader Elon Musk. The idea is that "empathy" is a sign of weakness and is harmful to Christianity. But not everyone on the right embraces the "toxic empathy" concept, which Never Trump conservative David French is vehemently critical of. And in The Bulwark, libertarian/Never Trump conservative Cathy Young offers a biting critique of a new book she describes as a cliched litany of MAGA "grievances."

The book is "Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind" by psychologist Gad Saad, who is originally from Lebanon but has spent most of his life in a country where U.S. President Donald Trump is wildly unpopular: Canada. The 61-year-old Saad is known for his anti-Islam views, and his anti-empathy argument has made him a popular figure among MAGA Republicans in the United States.

Young argues that while "Suicidal Empathy" has some valid points, most of the book uses shallow "pop psychology" to promote "familiar" MAGA "grievances." And he makes some of his points "bizarrely," according to the libertarian journalist.

"The thing is, Saad's concept — empathy is a good and necessary trait, but can be bad and self-damaging when taken too far — is one few people would dispute," Young explains in the conservative Bulwark. "Obvious examples include being trapped in an abusive relationship or a toxic friendship because you're afraid to hurt the other person by ending it — a concern exploitative people can easily manipulate. On a larger scale, it is self-evidently true that empathy alone is usually not a reliable guide to policy or collective action: refusing, on compassionate grounds, to forcibly hospitalize people experiencing certain acute mental health crises can result in grave harm not only to other people, but to the patients themselves."

But according to Young, one of the book's main flaws is that it uses "suicidal empathy" as "strictly a culture-war concept." Moreover, Young stresses, Saad makes huge generalizations — for example, blaming Muslims in general for acts of Islamist terrorism.

"In his framework," Young argues, "the term refers to ostensibly compassionate political views he considers misguided: support for migrants and refugees, Muslim immigrants in particular; excessive concern with the rights and wellbeing of criminals and/or homeless people; high taxes to pay for social programs; defense of transgender identities; an #IBelieveHer stance toward women who accuse men of sexual misconduct — unless, of course, the alleged perps are migrants or Muslims or both, in which case insufficient support for the victims is a sign of suicidal empathy for those groups. This isn't to say that Saad is always wrong. Progressive policies on crime, homelessness, immigration, etc. sometimes really are flawed in ways that can be described as arising from misplaced empathy."

Young continues, "But much of the time, Saad can't help taking his argument to the other extreme: If progressives can downplay Islamist radicalism, he treats the Taliban as representative of Islam and asserts that Muslim public prayers in western countries are 'a signal of dominance.' When residents of a small Italian town insist that they have no problem with Muslim refugees despite one refugee man's arrest for the rape of an underage girl, Saad can only throw up his hands at what he sees as liberal brain rot; he's unwilling or unable to concede that the townsfolk might not wish to judge the whole group by the one case."

The book, Young writes, includes "some extremely shoddy analysis."

"If you're starting to suspect that much of 'Suicidal Empathy' boils down to a catalogue of familiar right-wing grievances," Young says, "you're not wrong."

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mma

Right-wing media figures are calling to strip away citizenship from large swaths of Americans, including Muslims and some elected officials

JD Vance told Fox News the administration is “absolutely” looking to denaturalize citizens

Written by Isabella Sherk & Torri Lonergan

:{:{Published 05/05/26}:

Right-wing media figures are pushing to revoke citizenship from some naturalized Americans, and the Trump administration is ramping up its denaturalization efforts.

According to the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, denaturalization has historically been rare. It is typically only used in cases in which there is proof that a person was naturalized when they were not eligible, for example if a person misrepresented or concealed information during the naturalization process that would disqualify them from U.S. citizenship.

But in June 2025, the Trump Department of Justice released a policy memo expanding the administration’s “priorities for denaturalization.” The memo not only outlines new categories of immigrants who could be prioritized for denaturalization, but specifically warns that “the Civil Division retains the discretion to pursue cases outside of these categories as it determines appropriate.”

:{:{Nick Sortor — whom The Guardian describes as a right-wing influencer “who confronts protesters and Democrats” for social media — claimed that people long for the America of the 1920s and argued, “We can get it back through mass deportations, mass denaturalizations.”}:

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh insisted that Americans need to “intensify our efforts to deport and denaturalize as many foreign-born residents as possible,” especially “foreigners who can't speak English or who cost taxpayers money.” Reacting to The New York Times article signaling the administration’s latest push for denaturalizations, podcaster Vince Coglianese declared, “This is cause for celebration. This is — we love this. We love it. I voted for this.”}:

:{:{Right-wing media figures have even called for elected officials to be denaturalized and deported. Streamer Zack Hoyt (known online as Asmongold), Harrison Smith (of the now-defunct Infowars), and podcasters Laura Loomer and Steve Bannon have all demanded that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) citizenship be revoked. Bannon insisted, for example, that Omar “ought to be deported this morning” or “denaturalized, put in prison, and then deported later.” Smith, Bannon, and Walsh have also called for Democratic New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to be denaturalized, with Walsh arguing that Mamdani should be “denaturalized, loaded on the first available aircraft, and deported to Uganda and banned from ever returning to the United States.” [}:

Coglianese](https://www.mediamatters.org/media/4040211) advocated for Democratic Texas state Rep. Gene Wu to be “denaturalized and thrown the hell out of the country” because Wu argued that white nationalism has driven a recent wave of anti-immigrant sentiment. Omar, Mamdani, and Wu are all U.S. citizens who immigrated to the United States as children.}:

:{:{Besides Omar and Mamdani, Muslim people as a whole have also been targeted for denaturalization by right-wing media figures. Loomer, who has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe,” previously argued that “Somalis and Muslims” who have immigrated to the United States “have no intent to assimilate in our society” and should be denaturalized. She singled out Mehdi Hasan, a journalist and Muslim immigrant from England, as someone who should have his citizenship revoked.}:

Streamer Nick Fuentes went even further, calling for left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker — who was born in New Jersey and is therefore a birthright citizen who cannot be denaturalized — to be deported. “Take his citizenship, this anti-American piece of shit,” Fuentes demanded, “Take his citizenship, send him back to his beloved Third World.”}:

The Trump administration’s latest denaturalization efforts could have been plucked straight from these right-wing media figures’ immigration wish list. In fact, in January, Hoyt reacted to reporting that the Trump administration was looking to denaturalize Somali-American citizens who’d committed fraud by joking that Trump might be watching his stream. Hoyt said, “I'm glad that it's at least being discussed, OK? Because this is what I want. This is exactly what I want.”

//

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

:{:{04/24/26}:

  1. ### The right-wing media campaign to denaturalize and deport American citizens

:{:{03/26/25}:

  1. ### MAGA media interviews suggest Trump’s denaturalization push is driven by pure Islamophobia

12/18/25

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THE SQUAD AI SLOP ~ MASSIE 5 26 HUFFPO

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04/23/2026 RWW

by

Kyle Mantyla

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Jenna Ellis Says Religious Freedom Only Applies To Christians

RWW

05/04/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

During Friday's episode of her "Jenna Ellis In The Morning" radio program, former Trump campaign attorney Jenna Ellis declared that only Christians are entitled to religious freedom in the United States.

In 2020, Ellis was plucked from obscurity to serve as an attorney for President Donald Trump as he fought to overturn the results of the presidential election. As a result of her efforts, Ellis found herself facing a variety of legal troubles and saw her law license suspended.

Now, Ellis hosts a morning radio program on American Family Radio, where she interviews antisemitic figures like British cleric Calvin Robinson, who was stripped of his license to serve as a priest in the Anglican Catholic Church after he closed out his remarks at the National Pro-Life Summit in 2025 by delivering a Nazi-like salute.

Ellis interviewed Robinson about his forthcoming book "The Silent Jihad: Exposing The Islamification Of The West," which is being published by an imprint run by racist, antisemitic, and deeply misogynistic theocratic fascist Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon. During the conversation, Ellis insisted that the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom only applies to Christians.

"If we're going to prefer a religion, we need to prefer the Christian faith," Ellis said. "More Christians need to stand up and actually say that and suggest that and say our laws need to be based on truth and the biblical Christian worldview. We say that in a policy context, kind of, but because the left has been so diligent, frankly, in trying to confine Christians to only uttering the Bible as authoritative within the four walls of the church, we often don't use the Bible as being authoritative in the public square. And that needs to change."

"The whole point of having a civil society that recognizes the principles of religious freedom is so that we can go and evangelize, so that we can practice our faith, so that we can train up our children in the way they should go," Ellis insisted. "It's so that we can preserve and protect the Christian way of life. We don't have all of these protections for our rights that our founders recognize come from God, our creator, so that we can go out and live in a pluralistic society and say, 'Well, let's recognize the dignity of Islam.' I mean, that's not the point. That's not the purpose whatsoever. We have a civil government that protects the right of Christians to be able to live and work. And we have this whole perverted notion that somehow our Constitution demands pluralism that just isn't there if you take the whole context of the Declaration, the Constitution, the founding, and everything we're celebrating in America 250."

Video URL

IFrame Content

Ellis’s position, while certainly extreme and unconstitutional, is not entirely a surprise, given that she was a fellow at Liberty University’s Christian nationalist Falkirk Center – since renamed the Standing for Liberty Center – and that she once wrote a book that declared “divine law” is “the only legitimate basis for constitutional authority.”

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RWW

04/21/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

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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,” Gorkatold the “Triggernometry” podcast.

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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RWW

03/30/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

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RWW

03/24/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

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MMA

As Iran war drags on, right-wing media lash out at NATO and Iranians who haven’t overthrown their government

When it comes to assigning blame for the Iran war spiraling out of control, MAGA media have found convenient scapegoats who aren’t named Trump

Written by John Knefel

Published 03/20/26

As the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran lurches into its fourth week without any clear endgame, signs of frustration are beginning to show among President Donald Trump’s right-wing media allies. These outside figures, some of whom function as kitchen Cabinet advisers both on- and off-air, still support the war, but as it continues to escalate across the Middle East they have started to find scapegoats for the elusive easy victory many were predicting.

Two primary targets are the United States’ NATO allies, which so far have refused to deploy their militaries to open the Strait of Hormuz, and the Iranian people, who have not overthrown their government. The nexus of these two seemingly distinct critiques is that ordinary Muslims are supposedly at fault in both cases, with some right-wing pundits specifically blaming European Muslims for NATO countries’ reticence to join Trump’s war. Fox News has been leading on both fronts, but former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and conservative pundit Ben Shapiro have weighed in as well.

Since March 15, Trump has criticized NATO countries for declining to join his war of aggression, saying they were “making a very foolish mistake” and claiming that the United States “will protect them, but they will do nothing for us.” (The only time NATO’s collective self-defense clause has been invoked was after the attacks against the U.S. on 9/11.) Trump has also acknowledged that Iranians looking to take to the streets would face serious danger even as he has urged protesters to “take over your government,” a call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made as well. (Israeli intelligence reportedly determined that in the event of a popular revolt, Iranians would be “slaughtered.”)

Whether or not the exasperation voiced by right-wing media about NATO and the lack of a popular Iranian uprising foreshadows broader concerns about Trump’s and Netanyahu’s war remains to be seen. But as civilian casualties mount — especially in Iran and Lebanon — and markets sink, some of Trump’s allies may continue searching for people to blame, just so long as they aren’t named Donald Trump.

Fox News leads anti-NATO charge

Trump’s criticisms of NATO countries’ refusal to open the Strait of Hormuz migrated to Fox almost immediately.

On March 16, speaking over a chyron that read “The ‘alliance’ that isn’t,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham latched onto the talking point.

“If anyone watching tonight is surprised when America stands alone, well, you haven't been paying attention,” Ingraham said. “Now, of course as usual, liberals claim that Trump is the reason that any alliances are frayed. That is a joke.”

Ingraham went on to blame Muslims for Britain’s reluctance to get involved militarily. “As usual, they don't need to take out their wallets or risk any political heat at home, especially with the burgeoning Muslim population in the U.K,” she said, before airing footage of Trump complaining about the longtime U.S. ally. “All this proves is that President Trump was right all along about these friends — well, they’re friends who took advantage of us for about 80 years.”

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From the March 16, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

The following morning, Fox & Friends picked up the baton. “It's pretty amazing that Germany goes no, I'm not going to do anything; U.K. says no, I'm not going to help; France says I've got some in the area, I'll see what I can do; Japan says no,” host Brian Kilmeade said. He then downplayed the scope of the energy crisis before taking another shot at U.S. allies.

“We're going to be fine. It's going to be just a little — a couple more weeks that maybe there's more shooting going on,” Kilmeade said. “In the big picture, this backs up what the president has been saying about our allies in times of crisis.”

Kilmeade’s co-host Lawrence Jones added: “Not a good look.”

The same day, Bannon took a shot at “our great allies in NATO telling Trump yeah, I don’t know, this Iran thing’s not really our deal — keeping the Red Sea open, the Suez Canal, Straits of Hormuz, that's not really NATO's problem.”

He added: “It’s outrageous what the allies have told us.”

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From the March 17, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro took aim at NATO countries “exorbitant regulatory and welfare structures,” adding: “We don't need different allies. We need our allies to be better.”

“President Trump was always right to force NATO countries to pay up for their own defense,” he continued. “But if NATO countries want America to help them out in times of common need, they need to step up as well when one of the world's chief shipping lanes is closed by an internationally recognized terrorist regime.”

Back at Fox & Friends, on March 18 Fox political analyst Guy Benson joined Ingraham in laying blame at the feet of Muslims in Europe. “In a lot of these countries, there is a growing Muslim population where there are sectarian politics that are increasingly driving decisions that are being made about not offending that group of people on a whole host of fronts,” Benson said. “I think that is inescapably part of the calculus here.”

Jones said of NATO countries, “I was always raised — no one likes a freeloader.”

Jones agreed and replied that the “radicalization that’s happening in a lot of these countries” is “inspired … by Iran, the No. 1 state sponsor of terror.”

Later that morning, Jones said of NATO countries, “I was always raised — no one likes a freeloader.”

On his Premiere Networks radio program, host Sean Hannity adopted his Fox colleagues’ rhetoric in targeting European Muslim communities. “Great Britain that has sharia courts. France has no-go zones — I am telling you, Europe is collapsing before your eyes,” Hannity said. “Unfettered immigration, they don't demand assimilation. It is now an unmitigated, out of control disaster.”

Hannity suggested punishing NATO countries for thus far staying out of the military campaign, telling his audience: “I can tell you right now, this is not going to end well for Europe. It just isn't. We'll just ignore their conflicts. We'll just ignore what they go through.”

Fox’s Mark Levin — who, along with Hannity, has been one of the network’s major Iran war boosters — praised Israel and lashed out at European countries.

“Israel is a great ally,” Levin said. “They're fighting alongside us. Look at the British. Look at the French. Look at the Spanish. They're doing nothing. Effectively nothing except undermining us.”

On his March 19 radio show, Hannity used even stronger language. “We were just speaking about how our NATO allies are pathetic, didn't I just say that?” he asked his producer, adding: “I'm frankly disgusted with Great Britain and France and Germany and even Italy. … On the issue of the Strait of Hormuz, we get 1% of our oil from going through that strait — not much — and all the president said is hey, you want to help us here?” Of the European countries which haven’t joined the U.S.-Israeli war, Hannity was blunt: “There will be a price to pay in the end. Just like they have had unfettered immigration without assimilation, they will pay a price for that.”

Fox blames Iranian citizens for the lack of an uprising: “Freedom is costly, right?”

It’s not just Muslims in European countries who have supposedly let down the war effort, according to right-wing media; the Iranians living under a repressive regime and suffering from U.S. and Israeli airstrikes have as well. For these conservative pundits, Trump’s war with Iran cannot fail, it can only be failed.

Responding to her guest’s discussion of a possible popular uprising in spite of the dangers posed, Ingraham said on March 10, “They’re going to have to do it, because freedom is costly, right?”

“Our soldiers are dying in this,” she continued. “We’re paying a big price, so the Iranian people need to stand up.”

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From the March 10, 2026, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

On March 16, Fox Business anchor David Asman lamented that “we haven’t seen the popular uprising that we were hoping for — that can take years to happen.”

Fox anchor Harris Faulkner responded by invoking a longstanding Orientalist trope, arguing that Iranians are consumed by an ancient, irrational hatred of the West. “Their grievance is that they hate us, and I don’t really think that there’s a date on the calendar,” Faulkner said. “They could literally go thousands of years and still be at the point where they are now — I mean, they have been.”

“So I’m not sure we can generationally change them, but we certainly can take some things out of their hands,” she continued. “Like oil, and other things we’re so dependent upon as a country.”

Faulkner returned to the topic on March 18, prior to Trump attending the dignified transfer of six U.S. service members killed in the Iran war. Faulkner described one of the war’s aims as “to perhaps win a space for the people of Iran to step up into their own freedom.”

“We cannot do it for them,” she continued. “But we can be part of the solution in terms of making it possible.” More than 1,348 Iranian civilians have been killed since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli campaign, according to an Iranian official.

The New York Times reported March 19 that “a small team of British military planners has been sent to the United States to help draw up options to reopen the Strait of Hormuz,” though the effort stops “short of the sort of major military action President Trump has demanded, such as sending warships to the waterway imminently.” Similarly, Axios reported that seven countries supported a vague coalition to open the strait, but that it was “largely a gesture to placate President Trump.”

Whether there is any appetite for deescalation among the parties to the conflict remains unclear. But what is glaringly obvious is that right-wing media are already seeking scapegoats for the cascading catastrophe set off by Trump's war with Iran.

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XIAN FUND = IZLM FUND?!

'Deeply alarming': Christian fundamentalists see Trump’s military policies as biblical war

After U.S. President Donald Trump ordered missile strikes against Iran and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the country's far-right Shiite fundamentalist leader since 1989 — was killed, a long list of other countries were drawn into the conflict. Iran launched retaliatory strikes against U.S. installations in Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was attacked by Iranian drones.

Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah (a pro-Iran Shiite militia in Lebanon) fired missiles at once another. From Riyadh to Beirut to Dubai, the Middle East is on pins and needles.

Trump is claiming that going to war with Iran is necessary from a national security standpoint. But MS NOW's Zeeshan Aleem, in an opinion column published on March 4, argues that Trump's Christian nationalist allies view the conflict as a holy war for evangelical fundamentalist Christianity.

"President Donald Trump can't get his story straight on why he launched a war against Iran," Aleem argues. "But some commanders in the U.S. military are apparently telling service members that they're on a mission to fulfill biblical prophecy. The independent journalist Jonathan Larsen reported that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has received more than 110 complaints from service members about their commanders' religious gloss on the war on Iran."

Aleem continues, "These complaints, according to Larsen's report, came from every branch of the military, across more than 40 different units, situated in at least 30 military installations…. MRFF President Michael Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints from service members shared a common feature: Commanders are describing the war as 'biblically sanctioned' and 'clearly the undeniable sign of the expeditious approach of the fundamentalist Christian End Times as vividly described in the New Testament Book of Revelation."

Weinstein told Larsen, "Many of their commanders are especially delighted with how graphic this battle will be, zeroing in on how bloody all of this must become in order to fulfill and be in 100 percent accordance with fundamentalist Christian end-of-the-world eschatology."

When military commanders "are reportedly selling American aggression on Iran as a holy war," Aleem warns, it is "deeply alarming."

"Weinstein told Larsen that the complaints violate the Constitution's separation of church and state," Aleem explains. "But regardless of its legality, telling American troops that they're fighting for a Christian god against a Muslim country is medieval madness. It isn't the role of the U.S., per the Constitution, to promote any religion over another. Furthermore, the reported remarks from these commanders is likely to prompt U.S. service members to dehumanize Iran's population, and help set the stage for viciousness in combat and human rights violations. The military is not supposed to be a crusading political-theological movement, but a professional defense force."

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People are growing increasingly uneasy as President Donald Trump's attacks on Iran are looking more and more like they could be part of a right-wing religious fanatic's fantasy for the apocalyptic.

The Cradle Media's Jonathan Larsen wrote that American soldiers were given a pep-talk about the war in Iran. A U.S. combat-unit commander told them that the attack is part of “God’s divine plan." He said that President Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus” for the specific purpose to ignite Armageddon.

“U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for 'Armageddon,' Return of Jesus Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military," Larsen wrote.

The comments come as part of a lawsuit brought by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation; however, it is only one of "110 lawsuits brought in 48 hours from over 40 units across 30 installations," the report said. The complaints came from Christians, a Muslim and a Jewish soldier.

The Christian nationalist theory that Israel has a God-given right to much of the Middle East is one espoused by U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. In a speech at a Christian Zionist church in Jerusalem in December, Huckabee conveyed his " purpose is to convert Israeli Jews to belief in Jesus in order to bring about the End Times," explained Religion Dispatches.

The concept is bad for anyone seeking peace in the Middle East, one 2024 report by Forward explained.

The sect of Christianity that Huckabee believes in holds that if they are able to remove Palestinians from the Holy Land, then Jesus Christ will return. He believes in “dispensational premillennialism,” which Forward describes as a belief that “the Rapture will come,” and deliver all evangelicals to Heaven as Israel is invaded by the armies of the world. It will cause Armageddon and prompt the return of Jesus Christ.

The language is making some fearful that the war waged wasn't really about Iran never obtaining nuclear weapons, which Trump claimed he destroyed last summer. It's a holy war, desperate to force Armageddon.

"Maybe it’s a bad idea to put people in charge of government who are eager for the rapture," lawyer and self-described nerd John Collins commented.

"Love when I'm in the military and my boss is, like, 'Time for Armageddon!'" commented author and journalist Emily St. James.

Writer and former Cato Institute policy analyst Will Wilkinson wrote, "Personally, I don’t think we should bring about Armageddon."

"One thing about the U.S., we definitely do not have insane religious zealots in charge,"said Heidi N. Moore, previously of the Wall Street Journal business side.

Writer and elections lawyer at the Cato Institute, Walter Olson, quoteda line from the 1965 song "So Long, Mom (A Song for World War III)" with lyrics by Tom Lehrer: "And this is what he said on/ His way to Armageddon.”

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Feucht, Muslim Prayer, And A Case Study In Christian Nationalism

02/24/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

On Saturday, Christian nationalist worship leader and right-wing political activist Sean Feucht posted a video on social media expressing his outrage that several hundred Muslims had gathered in Times Square the day before to pray.

"Thousands of Muslims have blocked off Times Square in New York City, shouting 'Allahu Akbar,' releasing demonic prayers and decrees over the city," Feucht fumed. "Are you kidding me? In America!"

"You have Muslims taking over the streets of Times Square [in] New York City 25 years after 9/11," he continued. "The streets are being completely hijacked with prayers to a foreign god in America's greatest city. How did we get here? How in the world is this happening?"

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This is happening because Muslims have religious freedom in this country, much to the dismay of Christian nationalists like Feucht, who apparently believes that only Christian worship services should be held in Times Square, like the ones he has organized in recent years.

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On top of that, Feucht has also held events in New York City where he used public fountains to perform baptisms.

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The greatest irony, of course, is that Feucht partnered with the federal government last year to host a Christian worship service on the National Mall and is partnering with the government once again to host a series of such worship events across the nation throughout 2026.

Feucht's outrage perfectly demonstrates the central tenet of the Christian nationalist worldview, which is that only Christians should be allowed to exercise their faith in public and influence society, culture, or politics.

Calling the Muslim prayer "a forceful display of dominance," Feucht announced that he will be returning to Times Square this summer.

"We're gonna dethrone all that mess and all that stuff that has been released over the last few days," he said. "We're gonna raise up a sound to King Jesus and we're gonna declare his rulership over that city."

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MAGA Christian Nationalists Warn of Islam’s ‘Increasing Dominance’ in U.S. | People For

02/20/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

The New York Times reported this month that Texas Republicans, needing a new “threat” around which to inflame voters’ fears, have settled on Muslims, who make up about two percent of the state’s population. GOP politicians are claiming that urgent action is needed to prevent Texans from being crushed “under the heel of ‘Sharia law.’”

Politico has also reported that vehemently anti-Muslim fearmongering is playing a prominent role in Republican campaigns in the run-up to the state’s March 3 primary, during which Republican voters will also be asked to vote yes or no on the nonbinding proposition that “Texas should prohibit Sharia law.”

Religious-right activist Rick Green held a "What To Do About Sharia" event at his Patriot Academy headquarters in Texas last week, during which anti-Muslim activist Frank Gaffney declared that banning sharia law must become a “voting issue” in every race in the country the 2026 elections.

The Times' recent story noted that the surge in anti-Muslim rhetoric from Texas Republicans is also sending a signal to those nationwide “searching for rhetorical targets now that the nation’s southwestern border has grown quiet.”

Right on cue, the MAGA mouthpieces at Intercessors for America, a network of pro-Trump “prayer warriors,” is distributing a report warning about “the increasing dominance of Islam in the laws and culture of our nation” and rallying “strategic” prayer against the “demonic power” of Islam and the “evil phenomenon” they call the “Islamification of America.” It’s worth noting that while Islam is growing in the U.S., Muslims make up significantly less than two percent of the country’s population today. The IFA’s report highlights “the anti-Christ spirit” of Islam, though its definition would apply equally to any non-Christian religion.

Christian nationalists’ deep hostility toward Islam has often undermined their declared commitment to religious freedom. Family Research Council Executive Vice President Jerry Boykin once declared, “No mosques in America” and has said the First Amendment should not apply to Islam, while FRC President Tony Perkins claimed that Islam doesn’t merit the same constitutional protections as Christianity because only 16 percent of Islam counts as religion. Perkins was beating the Sharia drum a decade ago when he was defending then-candidate Donald Trump’s vow to ban Muslims from entering the country.

Given how relentlessly religious-right groups have fought for broad religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws and other accommodations, it’s remarkable to see IFA complaining about religious accommodations being made for Muslim students, prisoners, and others. While Christian nationalists want to turn public schools into mission fields for evangelical Christianity, IFA is complaining about students learning about Islam as part of classes on world cultures.

The IFA report quotes a conservative pundit warning that Sharia violates the Constitution by imposing religious laws on those outside the faith. Of course, Christian nationalists seek to use the power of the government to force Americans of all faiths and none to live according to their own interpretation of the Bible and God’s will. IFA urges people to pray that God would “enable the government to be an instrument of protection against Islam which is counter to our Constitution.”

Extreme Christian nationalists like Doug Wilson, who recently led an official worship service at the Pentagon, believe Muslims and other non-Christians should not be permitted to worship publicly or hold public office—clear violations of the U.S. Constitution’s protections for religious freedom.

The IFA report complains about Keith Ellison using a Quran during his ceremonial swearing in as the first Muslim elected to Congress two decades ago as well as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani doing the same this year. Of course, both swore the same oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution as every leader who placed their hand on a Bible.

Speaking of Mayor Mamdani, whose election has set off sputtering rage among religious-right activists who see it as a step in Muslim leaders’ plan for world conquest and domination, here’s part of what the mayor had to say during his remarks at an interfaith prayer gathering earlier this month:

I was raised in New York City as a Muslim kid with a Hindu mother. I celebrated Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha with my family, lit diyas in Riverside Park for Diwali, and like any New Yorker, encountered faiths different from my own. I still remember coming home from a friend's Bar Mitzvah one night and demanding an explanation from my father. "Baba," I asked, "Why don't Muslim kids have Bar Mitzvahs too?"

And over the past fifteen months, as I ran to become Mayor of our incredible city, that encounter only deepened as I came face-to-face with the living tapestry of faith that is New York.

…

My friends — for as long as people have called New York home, a question has been contested: who is a New Yorker? At each juncture, many have sought to narrow the answer. The stranger has been ostracized on job postings, on placards denying entry to restaurants and shops, in neighborhoods where only some New Yorkers were allowed to live. Every conceivable crack has been exploited into a chasm of division.

On every occasion where the forces of darkness have raised the question, "Who is a New Yorker?" The people of this city have offered our own answer. All of us.

And yet we know that that answer is not permanent, nor is it predetermined. Each generation must assert what we know to be true, because New York serves as living proof—we are stronger when we welcome the stranger.

This will not be an easy contest. Those on the other side, the ICE agents of the world, hold power and weaponry and a sense of impunity. And yet, we hold one advantage over them, one advantage that no matter how hard they try, they cannot overcome, as they mask their faces to attack and murder: we are not ashamed of our answer.

So let us answer the question — who is a New Yorker?— once more, with conviction, and without shame. It is all of us.

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// TEX BS YT 2 17 26 republicans-go-all-in-on-sharia-law-attacks-ahead-of-texas-primary-00745647

Liz Crampton and Jessica Piper: 01/26/2026

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Anti-Muslim rhetoric has emerged as a potent ingredient in the looming Texas Republican primary while candidates compete to raise fears about the spread of Sharia law in the state and portray themselves as the toughest option to stand against it.

From the state’s white-hot GOP Senate primary down to local races, Republican candidates are pledging to fight the hardest against a proposed residential development of 1,000 homes centered around a Mosque north of Dallas, while issuing dire warnings about the supposed threat of Islam and questioning their opponents’ commitment to the cause.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and his top primary opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, have sparred in attack ads and on the trail over that project and Afghan refugee resettlement program, at times veering into inflammatory anti-Islamic rhetoric. Cornyn called for a federal investigation into the project; Paxton launched several probes and in December sued the development over alleged securities fraud.

Texas is a heavily diverse state, with non-Hispanic whites representing less than two fifths of its total population — a flashpoint for years on the right. The state’s relatively small but fast-growing Muslim population has become a charged issue for Republicans seeking to distinguish themselves in competitive races. This year’s GOP ads – which vary from condemning terror attacks to burning the Quran – represent an escalation of rhetoric the party has long used to rally its voters.

“The Muslim community is the boogeyman for this cycle,” said Texas GOP consultant Vinny Minchillo. “One hundred percent this message works — there’s no question about it. This has been polled up one side and down the other, and with Texas Republican primary voters, it works. It is a thing they are legitimately scared of.”

Muslim advocacy organizations and Democrats decry the ads as racist and grossly inaccurate characterizations of those communities.

“The Texas GOP has declared war on Islam in Texas, claiming that Islamic leaders in the state are implementing Sharia law and using it in court,” said Joel Montfort, a north Texas-based Democratic strategist. “None of it is true, it is just fearmongering and racism to stir up the GOP base and get them to vote.”

A POLITICO review identified ads in half a dozen races since the start of 2025 that highlighted “Sharia law,” according to data from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising. All were from or backing Republican candidates touting their fights against it, and most were common in Texas.

Last week, Cornyn launched a seven-figure_{ad}_ buy titled “Evil Face” that declares “radical Islam is a bloodthirsty ideology,” referencing the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and December Bondi Beach shooting in Australia. The ad also references his bill to revoke the tax-exempt status of Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy organization.

Paxton has gone after Cornyn’s past support of an Afghan refugee resettlement program. And in his capacity as attorney general, Paxton said the project is an “illegal land development scheme” and its leaders are “engaged in a radical plot to destroy hundreds of acres of beautiful Texas land and line their own pockets.”

In the four-way GOP race for Texas attorney general, candidate Aaron Reitz says in an ad out this week that “Islam is not compatible with Western civilization” and vows to “stop the invasion” of Muslims. Reitz served less than a year in the Justice Department before launching his bid for attorney general. His opponent, state Sen. Mayes Middleton, also has an ad boasting that he’s running to “stop Sharia law” in Texas.

And, most provocatively, Valentina Gomez launched her candidacy in Texas’ 31st Congressional District last year with a video showing her burning a Quran and declaring that “your daughters will be raped and your sons beheaded, unless we stop Islam once and for all.” Gomez, who is challenging President Donald Trump-endorsed Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), is a known conservative activist and provocateur who won just 8 percent of the primary vote when she ran for Missouri secretary of state last year.

Anti-muslim sentiment in the U.S. grew out of the 9/11 terror attacks, which some Republicans used to rally their base for political gain. False rumors on the right that Barack Hussein Obama was a secret Muslim persisted from his rise to the White House and for years after. The planned construction of a mosque blocks from Ground Zero became a right-wing cause celebre early in his presidency, with multiple national Republican figures rallying against it.

Trump intensified those feelings, first by elevating conspiracy theories that Obama wasn’t born in the U.S., then by repeatedly disparaging Muslims, pledging in his 2016 campaign to ban Muslims from entering the country and once he became president implementing travel bans against majority-Muslim countries. On Tuesday, Trump reposted a comment calling Islam a “cult.”

But in recent years Islam hasn’t been as much of a focus within GOP campaigns — until now.

The Texas ads come as Republicans nationwide have placed heightened scrutiny on CAIR, the largest Muslim advocacy group in the U.S. Sameeha Rizvi, CAIR Action Texas Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, called Cornyn’s ad “defamatory and despicable” and borne out of “desperation to compete with Ken Paxton’s anti-Muslim bigotry.”

“CAIR is not going anywhere, American Muslims are not going anywhere, and our community will show its strength at the ballot box, God willing,” Rizvi said in a statement.

Cornyn has introduced legislation seeking to revoke CAIR’s tax-exempt status. U.S. Rep Chip Roy, who is also in the Texas attorney general race, introduced a similar bill last year.

When a super PAC on behalf of Cornyn launched an attack against Paxton on Thursday, calling him “weird” and highlighting his divorce and alleged extramarital affairs, Paxton shot back on X : “This desperate hail mary can’t erase the fact that he [Cornyn] helped radical Islamic Afghans invade Texas and that his family’s making a fortune securing visas for foreigners.”

Paxton was referencing Cornyn’s past support for increasing the number of Special Immigrant Visas available to Afghans following the Taliban’s 2021 takeover of the country. Cornyn, who had once been supportive of the program, reversed course along with other Republicans late last year following the shooting of two National Guard members by an Afghan who’d been granted asylum in the U.S., on the basis that the vetting of applicants was inadequate.

Cornyn has responded to Paxton’s attacks with a_{digital ad}_ stating that Paxton talks tough but he’s actually “soft on radical Islam,” claiming that Paxton directed $2.5 million to resettle Afghan refugees in Texas, and his former attorney who defended him during impeachment proceedings now represents the East Plano Islamic Center.

Several ads from different candidates in Texas use footage of the project from the East Plano Islamic Center, which would also feature a K-12 school and retail. Texas leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, have said that the presence of the planned Muslim community raises national security concerns. The East Plano Islamic Center did not respond to a request for comment.

“Texans overwhelmingly care about this – they’re looking at their communities transform in radical ways,” said Reitz, the attorney general candidate.

“You look at the number of mosques that have been built in Texas in just the last 10 to 20 years, and it’s explosive,” he said. “It’s alarming for good reason, and I think that Republican voters in particular are looking for their public office holders to address it, and so it’s such a pressing issue that I chose to really lean into this.”

Cornyn’s ad declares that “Sharia law has no place in American courts or communities,” a reference to the development. Trump’s Justice Department also launched a civil rights investigation into the project last year after Cornyn requested the federal government to investigate “religious discrimination.”

The project was already on the radar of Paxton, who had opened his first of several probes into its construction. In December, Paxton — whose candidacy is boosted by his reputation as an aggressive attorney general who frequently files lawsuits on behalf of MAGA causes — sued the development for alleged securities fraud.

The Justice Department quietly closed its investigation last summer without filing any charges. But Abbott still went forward and signed multiple laws last year that banned “Sharia compounds” and designating CAIR and Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations. CAIR sued Texas in response, arguing the action was unconstitutional and defamatory.

Paxton, in his official capacity as attorney general, said last week that the state comptroller can exclude private schools from the school voucher program if they violate the recently signed anti-terror laws, declaring that “Texans’ tax dollars should never fund Islamic terrorists or America’s enemies.”

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Firestorm over Republican's social media posts ignites calls for his ouster - Alternet.org

Critics are demanding the censure and even expulsion of a Republican US congressman after his latest bigoted remarks against Muslims.

The firestorm began on Sunday when Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) responded to a sarcastic social media post by Palestinian American activist Nerdeen Kiswani, who jokingly suggested that New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election meant that “NYC is coming to Islam,” and it was time to consider banning dogs as pets because “like we’ve said all along, they are unclean.”

“If they force us to choose,” Fine wrote, “the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.”

Kiswani insisted that her post was not meant to be taken at all seriously, and was rather her attempt to satirize some Americans’ fears about having a Muslim elected to lead the largest US city.

“If Americans cared as much about abused children as they do about posts joking about dogs,” she wrote, “we might actually be facing a national reckoning. Instead watching some of the same politicians who resisted transparency around the Epstein files discover their outrage over this is telling.”

Many Democratic lawmakers were quick to condemn Fine for suggesting that the US expel Muslims.

“We must call this what it is. Disgusting bigotry,” wrote Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.). “Fine must be censured. It’s about morality and decency, not politics.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) joined Khanna’s call to censure Fine.

“This is genuinely one of the most disgusting statements I have ever seen issued by an American official,” she wrote. “It should not stop shocking us that the Republican Party openly embraces this. Fine should be censured and stripped of committees. To ignore this is to accept and normalize it.”

Rep. Rob Menendez (D-NJ) argued that Fine’s statement “is what it looks like when Islamophobia and outrage are the only two items on your political agenda,” and demanded that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) issue a formal condemnation.

Jennifer Jenkins, a Democrat running against Fine in Florida’s 6th Congressional District, said that censuring the Republican lawmaker was not enough.

“Randy Fine has spent years spewing hate: attacking entire faiths, calling for violence, targeting kids and families, and dehumanizing Americans,” she wrote. “He’s only escalated. Congress must act now and expel Randy Fine immediately.”

Fine appears undeterred by the condemnation he’s received, appearing on Newsmax Tuesday morning to push false claims about Democrats wanting to ban pet dogs.

“People should know Democrats like [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] are saying ‘we are going to get rid of your dogs,’” Fine falsely claimed. “Americans need to keep that in mind when they go and vote in November.”

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02/10/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

After Ryan Walters’ failed ideological crusade, Oklahoma is restoring evidence-based history and bringing basic sanity back to public schools.

Trump’s spymaster is a hero to the MAGA fringe after extraordinary ballot seizure that followed up on their longtime fixations.

The right-wing congressman made Trump’s criticism look tame.

The former Fox News is still fuming about the Super Bowl.

He lives in a roided-out hell of his own devising. Now we’re stuck in it with him.

Republican politicians and strategists in Texas are amping up anti-Muslim rhetoric as a way to energize Republican voters after several elections when the border was the animating force.

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Right-wing media attempt to justify baseless conspiracy theories that the attack on Ilhan Omar was staged

Podcaster Tim Pool admitted it “doesn't matter” if it wasn't staged because "the right would never believe her”

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Reed McMaster

Published 01/29/26

Right-wing media reacted to an attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) by a man who sprayed a liquid at her during a January 27 town hall event by suggesting the attack was “suspicious” and “staged.”

President Donald Trump stoked conspiracy theories about the attack, telling ABC News that Omar “probably had herself sprayed, knowing her.” Right-wing media figures spread similar claims, suggesting it is “perfectly reasonable” to question whether Omar's assault was “fake” or “staged.”

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  1. ### Right-wing media are launching attacks at the women protesting in Minnesota

:{:{01/28/26}:

  1. ### Newsmax's Greg Kelly on assault against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN): “Let's not overdo it there. Ilhan Omar, she's a survivor. It looked to me like silly string, which we used to play with back in the day.”

:{:{01/28/26}:

  1. ### “Looks like a surrender”: Right-wing media figures are disappointed by Trump’s demotion of Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino

01/27/2

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RWW

01/13/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

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viral minnesota 12 25 islaophobe // welfare queen?

intercept

the day after Christmas, far-right YouTuber Nick Shirley posted a video claiming to have exposed fraud at Somali-owned day care centers in Minnesota. Portions of the 42-minute video — mostly scenes where Shirley is turned away at the day cares — went viral in conservative circles, catching the attention of the Trump administration, which was already at work targeting Minnesota’s Somali community amid its broader war on immigrants.

Thevideo, which has been viewed more than 2.2 million times on YouTube and millions more on other platforms, sparked a renewed crackdown in Minneapolis, with the Department of Homeland Security announcing on Monday it would visit 30 sites suspected of fraud across the city. A DHS official told CBS News Minnesota its agents would focus on a “little of everything,” when asked whether immigration enforcement would be a part of the crackdown. Threatening arrests, the agency posted a video to X in which agents enter a smoke shop and question an employee about a nearby day care center.

This isn’t the first time the conservative YouTuber has gotten the attention of the Trump administration. Shirley participated in President Donald Trump’s “Roundtable on Antifa” in October after an altercation at an anti-ICE protest. At age 23, his videos aren’t merely influencing his audiences — they’re also influencing government action.

This worries immigrant rights advocates, who fear that the fallout from Shirley’s video will only worsen the harm already being done to Minnesota’s immigrant communities at a time when Trump has taken to calling Somali people “garbage” at his rallies.

“The very real-world consequence is that it’s going to exacerbate the situation that we have in Minnesota right now where we have a lot of people, including U.S. citizens or people with lawful status being arrested and detained by ICE,” said Ana Pottratz Acosta, who leads the Immigration and Human Rights Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School.

The video, she said, reinforces xenophobic tropes about the Somali community, specifically tying the community to fraud. Pottratz Acosta said she was worried the increase in DHS visits to day cares could be a pretext to simultaneously conduct immigration detentions.

“They’re doing these visits at day care sites under the auspices of conducting a fraud investigation, but if they happen to see anyone who fits a profile, they might be arrested,” Pottratz Acosta said.

[

Related

U.S. Citizens With Somali Roots Are Carrying Their Passports Amid Minnesota ICE Crackdown](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/06/trump-ice-minnesota-somali/)

Shirley’s video builds off of the growing interest in a nonprofit fraud scandal in Minnesota involving a pandemic-era program focused on child hunger, which has resulted in dozens of guilty pleas. The Trump administration claims Minnesota’s fraud issue is much larger, to the sum of $9 billion worth of government funds being fraudulently funneled from social services. Republicans have painted Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, both Democrats up for reelection, as responsible for an alleged lack of oversight. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who is Somali American and Muslim, has also been the target of right-wing and xenophobic attacks. Among other racist stereotypes and false claims, Trump said, “We gotta get her the hell out” of the country at a Pennsylvania rally earlier this month.

State regulators said Monday that inspectors had visited the day cares mentioned in the video in the past six months, according to theMinnesota Star Tribune, that there was no evidence of fraud at the sites during those unannounced visits, and some of the centers have already been closed or suspended. According to Minnesota Public Radio, state Republican lawmakers had steered Shirley toward the day care centers he visited in the video.

Shirley defended his video and said people have been silent about “Somalians committing this fraud” because “people are scared to be called Islamophobic, racist.”

“Fraud is fraud — it doesn’t matter if it’s a Black person, white person, Asian person, Mexican,” Shirley told Fox News. “And we work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening.”

Despite Shirley’s insistence that race and religion have nothing to do with his investigation, the YouTuber has a long track record of using his man-on-the-street videos to target immigrants in the U.S., platforming individuals who spreadxenophobic andIslamophobic beliefsandconspiracy theories. While Shirley’s videos include interviews with those protesting against such hate, he often presents immigration and Islam as agrowing threat takingover the country. Combined with sensationalized headlines — “Exposing Dangerous Illegal Migrant Scammers” or “The UK’s Insane Migrant Invasion” — the end result is often a portrait of immigrants as lawbreakers, a societal threat, and a strain on government resources.

Shirley did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

Nick Shirley speaks during a roundtable meeting with President Donald Trump on “antifa” in the State Dining Room at the White House, on Oct. 8, 2025, in Washington. Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

In 2019, Shirley began to post prank videos with friends on YouTube while attending a public high school in Farmington, Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City. At first, his focus wasn’t especially political. He garnered a large number of his 1 million subscribers after sneaking into influencer Jake Paul’s wedding in Las Vegas.

But amid his comedic stunts, he documented theJanuary 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in 2021, where he interviewed far-right commentator and InfoWars founder Alex Jones and infamous rioter Richard Barnett. Shirley said he did not take part in the violence and filmed himself leaving without entering the building. Later that year, Shirley took a two-year hiatus from YouTube to go on a mission in Santiago, Chile, as part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In late 2023, after his return to the United States, Shirley shifted from prank videos to focus on political topics, such as immigration and crime. In May 2024, he orchestrateda stunt in which he paid day laborers $20 to jump into the back of a U-Haul van, drove them to the White House, and gave them signs demanding a meeting with Biden.

Shirley’s mother, Brooke — herself a right-wing influencer who goes by Brooker Tee Jones on TikTok, where she has more than 250,000 followers — occasionally joins her son in the videos. It was Brooke who pushed her son to start covering immigration at the southern border after his mission trip, according to an interview with Columbia Journalism Review. Early on, she’d feed him questions to ask and lines to say in the videos, she recalled. Her content has similarly focused on immigration in recent years, including other videos that accuse Somali residents in Minnesota of health care fraud without providing evidence.

Reached by The Intercept, Brooke did not answer questions about her work or the work of her son.

Shirley has made a habit of visiting cities and countries that are settings for right-wing, anti-immigrant conspiracies, such as Aurora, Colorado, amid the manufactured crisis around the Tren de Aragua gang.

During a visit to El Salvador in 2024, Shirley filmed a series of videos sympathetic to President Nayib Bukele’s violent anti-crime crackdown on his citizens, including a video from the notorious CECOT prison. It’s his most-viewed video to date, with 6.6 million views. In another video from El Salvador, Shirley recorded from the Centro Industrial prison, which has become a manufacturing hub where incarcerated men build school desks and vegetable market display racks, a form of forced labor. “It’s pretty amazing if you think about what Nayib Bukele has been able to do with this country — the streets are as safe as they’ve ever been, because all these guys are out,” Shirley said while inside a CECOT cell block, gesturing to the incarcerated men. At no point in the video does he mention the stories of torture and abuse within the country’s prison system.

Shirley was recently awarded a “citizen journalist of the year” prize by far-right media figure andProject Veritas founder, James O’Keefe, in large part because of his CECOT video.

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CIA Was Behind Venezuela Drone Strike, Source Says

Nick Turse](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/30/cia-venezuela-drone-strike-dock-tren-de-aragua/)

[

AIPAC Is Retreating From Endorsements and Election Spending. It Won’t Give Up Its Influence.

Akela Lacy](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/30/aipac-campaigns-elections-israel-congress/)

[

Dan Goldman Supported Warrantless Spying on Americans. Now His Primary Opponent Is Hitting Him for It.

Matt Sledge](https://theintercept.com/2025/12/28/fisa-warrant-surveillance-dan-goldman-primary/)

In other videos, Shirley himself has become a part of the story.

In September, Shirley and a small crew filmed a videoantagonizing street vendors in New York City’s Chinatown, referring to them as “Dangerous Migrant Scammers.” Vendors could be seen scrambling away while Shirley strolls down Canal Street. At one point, one man tells Shirley to leave and asks why he’s filming, leading to a physicalconfrontation with Shirley’s cameraman.

Several weeks later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents raided the street, detaining nine individuals. Shirley praised ICE for the raid that left the street “completely clean of illegal activity” andtaunted an individual who was detained as a “scammer [who] got ICED.”

Shirley hasaccompanied federal agents during immigrationraids in Chicago, interviewing a detained man in the backseat of a federal vehicle. Since Trump’s election, media access at raids has largely been given only to outlets or individuals sympathetic to the administration’s mass deportation campaign.

[

Related

Meet the Riot Squad: Right-Wing Reporters Whose Viral Videos Are Used to Smear BLM](https://theintercept.com/2021/05/13/riot-squad-right-wing-video-journalists-black-lives-matter-antifa/)

Alongside other far-right influencers such as Andy Ngo and Cam Higby, Shirley landed an invite to participate in Trump’s “Roundtable on Antifa,” a White House event where the administration advanced its campaignagainst antifascist activists. “People may wonder, ‘What’s the threat to us as Americans?’ You’ll be labeled as a fascist, you’ll be labeled a Nazi, and they’ll wish death upon you as they wished death upon me,” Shirley said of the decentralized protest group at the event.

Leading up to the Minnesota day care video, Shirley released a video about “the rise of Islam” in the U.S. and what he called “Minnesota’s Somali Takeover.” The July video makes a spectacle of the call to prayer and individuals praying inside a mosque and singles out Omar, as well as an Islamic center that converted from a Lutheran church to illustrate his point of the apparent takeover.

:{:{In October, Shirley published an hour-and-a-half sitdown interview with British far-right anti-immigrant and anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson, during which he repeated the false claim that there are “40,000 British Muslims” on the United Kingdom’s terror watchlist living in Britain.}: The figure is a misreading of a real list by British intelligence agency MI5, which does not include religious identifiers and contains the names of many people who have never traveled to the U.K. “At what point does this break out from a revolution to a civil war?” Shirley asked.

Shirley’s recent viral video in Minnesota was a continuation of this narrative.

In an attempt to lure people into gotcha situations, Shirley visited day care centers and health care facilities that he claims are operated by Somali Americans. Taking a page out of his prank days, he poses as a parent looking for child care for his fictitious son, “Joey.” Throughout the video, Shirley approaches individuals with dark skin or women wearing hijabs, peppering them with questions about supposed “missing” children and whether they were aware of fraud.

Police are called on Shirley and his team twice in the video, including while at one health care complex where a woman explains to a responding officer, “He’s trying to assume because they’re Somalian providers everyone here is fraudulent — he’s here with some kind of propaganda.” He claimed to be “checking rates” for health and child care. Police eventuallyescorted him out of the building.

The video’s claims of fraud rely heavily on a Minnesota resident and apparent whistleblower who is identified in the video as David. Toward the end of the video, David claims he was attacked by Somali men who he had confronted about the alleged fraud, describing the men as “very, very violent people.”

Since early December, federal agents have increased their presence in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, profiling and detaining individuals who appear to be Somali, including individuals who are U.S. citizens. The crackdown has also led to the targeting of Latin American immigrant communities in search of undocumented residents. Trump and other right-wing figures have propped up their campaign by falsely depicting “Somalian gangs” who are “roving the streets” of Minneapolis and St. Paul, “looking for prey,” the president said on social media.

Even though Shirley’s video claims to have exposed new truths about fraud in Minnesota, the day care facilities highlighted in the video have previously been spotlighted as problematic by local ABC News affiliate, KSTP, as well as the state government, which earlier this year began to increase oversight of funding to day care facilities over similar fraud concerns.

The most effective way to combat fraud is increased oversight, said Pottraz Acosta. The recent crackdown in Minnesota, which has been exacerbated by Shirley’s video, she said, is not the kind of oversight that will prevent bad actors from exploiting public funds. The issue of anti-Somali sentiments is also a problem within Minnesota, she said, with residents facing demeaning stereotypes and unsubstantiated speculation that they are sending money to al-Shabab, the Somali militant group on the U.S foreign terror list.

This narrative, perpetuated locally and nationally, “feeds into larger narratives around certain immigrant communities,” Pottraz Acosta said. “There are bad actors in every community and just because certain people commit fraud, it doesn’t mean that every person who fits that same demographic profile is a bad actor.”

---

VID CANAL STR NICK SHIRLEY--> SAVANAH --> ICE?

Laura Ingraham claims that Democrats are "signaling very clear that it's war time" | Media Matters for America

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RWW

12/18/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

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mma

MAGA media interviews suggest Trump’s denaturalization push is driven by pure Islamophobia

Recent guests on Steve Bannon and Jack Posobiec’s podcasts aren’t hiding who they want to target

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Sophie Lawton

Published 12/18/25

Two recent clips from high-profile MAGA media podcasters suggest that a new effort by President Donald Trump to ramp up denaturalizations is driven largely by anti-Muslim bigotry.

According to The New York Times, the Trump administration is setting a goal of bringing 100-200 denaturalization cases per month in fiscal year 2026, up from just over 120 cases in total brought between 2017 and the present.

In segments on War Room, hosted by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and Human Events Daily, hosted by Pizzagate promoter Jack Posobiec, guests with close ties to the White House made it clear that they would want Trump’s denaturalization ramp-up to target Muslims specifically.

On December 15, Posobiec interviewed the Article III Project’s Will Chamberlain about immigration in general. Article III is headed by Mike Davis, a close ally of Trump’s who presents himself as the administration’s outside enforcer.

“Islam is not compatible with Western civilization, and mass Muslim migration is not compatible with Western societies, and it’s time to say this experiment has run its course and it needs to stop,” Chamberlain said.

Chamberlain added that “we're not going to, you know, denaturalize unless we have legal reason to do so” but that “we want there to be net-negative Muslim migration to the United States.”

Chamberlain’s legalistic caveat aside, achieving “net-negative Muslim migration” would likely require finding a “legal reason” to bring many more denaturalization cases. Chamberlain, for example, called for journalist Mehdi Hasan to be denaturalized and deported in response to Hasan posting “Abolish ICE” on social media.

Video file

Video

Citation

From the December 15, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's Human Events Daily

Days earlier, Bannon interviewed Wade Miller of the Center for Renewing America, a MAGA-affiliated think tank. CRA was founded by Russ Vought, a Christian nationalist currently reprising his role as the head of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget.

“I'm not saying that there's no such thing as a nice and decent Muslim — those exist in our country,” Miller said. “But nowhere in the world do those people manifest themselves in majorities. And there's a reason for that, and at the center of it is radical Islam.”

Miller added, “We want to get ahead of this before it becomes the problem that it is in Europe and start denaturalizing, start moving, taking away people's legal status for immigration fraud, whatever we need to do.”

“Well, now that we're past the screening and that, when you talk about denaturalization, what then is to be done?” Bannon prompted.

“If someone raised their hands and took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and became a citizen, and now they're out there advocating for sharia courts and the undermining of our entire constitutional order, then those should be grounds to denaturalize,” Miller responded.

Video file

Video

Citation

From the December 11, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

As Media Matters reported in March, right-wing media figures were already waging a campaign to denaturalize and deport their political opponents, many of whom are Muslim. That effort has only increased over the course of the year, and whatever taboos may have previously constrained open Islamophobia in conservative media seem to have all but been destroyed. As Chamberlain’s comments make clear, his aim is “net-negative Muslim migration,” part of a larger right-wing media embrace of “remigration,” a term for ethnic cleansing.

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DC NAT GD AFGHAN? //

I was pushing my 4-year-old on the swing at our neighborhood playground in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday, less than a mile from my alma mater, Brown University, when my wife texted me about a mass shooting. I would eventually learn that two people had been killed and many were injured. Three days later, we still don’t know the shooter’s identity, and thus don’t know anything about his motives—but that has not stopped influential right-wing figures, including Elon Musk, from amplifying disinformation that portrays the shooting as a political attack on Republicans. Meanwhile, voices of reason in the center and on the left have appeared helpless to counter this dangerous false narrative, which is further evidence of how badly we are losing the information war.

What we know is that a man dressed in black walked into a classroom in Brown’s Barus & Holley building, just as a study session for Brown’s introductory economics course—the most widely taken course at the university—was wrapping up. The gunman shouted something (students who were presenthave reported that they don’t know what he said), and then fired more than 40 rounds at the assembled group, injuring nine students and killing two people: Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old immigrant from Uzbekistan who grew up in Virginia, and Ella Cook, a 19-year-old Alabaman who was vice president of the Brown College Republicans. This is more or less all we know.

Right-wingers have filled this void with a baseless narrative that Cook was, as the chairman of the College Republicans put it in a post on X with nearly two million views, “targeted for her conservative beliefs, hunted, and killed in cold blood.” To be clear, there is zero evidence, as of this writing, that Cook was targeted for her conservative beliefs. It’s not impossible, but it’s just as likely—or significantly more likely, considering that most extremist-related murders are committed by white supremacists—that the shooter targeted Umurzokov for being an immigrant. By farthe most logical possibility, given that the shooter fired 40 rounds into a crowded classroom and hit 11 students in total, is that this shooting was not targeted at any one individual—that he wanted to kill as many people as possible at Brown, regardless of what they believed.

And yet, the right’s declarations of victimization, honed after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, have been immediate and relentless. One right-wing influencer wrote, “The left is going to target and kill every effective Republican they can find.” A fellow at the Heritage Foundation with almost a million followers on X wrote, “If you don’t absolutely destroy left wing extremists, they WILL be emboldened.” Republican elected officials joined in, with New York City Council Member Vickie Paladino writing that the attack “was perpetrated by the leftist activist and targeted Republicans.” Another post read, “This happened because Antifa (and all the like groups) wasn’t liquidated after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.… The time to respond harshly was months ago, but now is better than never.” Musk shared that last post, which has more than 30 million views.

At one point, my timeline on X was full—literally full—of nothing but these false claims, all from accounts I have never followed. Others have reported similar experiences. It’s hard to imagine such informational dominance not being the result, among other dynamics, of a clear algorithmic push (Musk runs X, after all). And the goal is to exploit this tragedy toward political ends, namely the repression of MAGA’s political opponents. This repression is the explicit aim of President Donald Trump’s NSPM-7 directive and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent memo ordering the FBI to “compile a list of groups or entities engaging in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism,” which is targeted toward those expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity,” as well as “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality.”

Of course, this isn’t an isolated example of the MAGA conspiracy machine whirring into action. Increasingly, it seems like every high-profile event with potential political ramifications—certainly shootings but also climate disasters, elections, and more—gets poisoned by the right’s toxically mendacious content amplification system. This week it’s been occurring on multiple fronts simultaneously, with Grok spreading the lie that the hero in the antisemitic mass shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach was Christian, despite media confirmation that the man, Ahmed Al Ahmed, was a Muslim immigrant originally from Syria.

American politics today are defined by a profound informational asymmetry. The right now controls most of the traditional media institutions, the social media platforms, and the algorithms that shape our attentional ecosystem. They have also built up a far larger network of creators than anything the left has at its disposal. How do you beat opponents who have the informational and attentional firepower to impose deceptive conspiracies on the public and, in many cases, make their lies an accepted common truth? How can we win back the narrative on climate change when they can ascribe every climate-induced hurricane or wildfire to DEI initiatives or weather control technology? How can we address far-right political violence when they can turn an evangelical Trump supporter’s assassination of a Democratic lawmaker into a plot by radical Marxists? How can we protect free and fair elections when they can just deny the results?

I don’t have the solutions to these problems. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few days—watching the buzz saw of MAGA disinformation tear through the factual reality of this mass shooting not far from my home—it’s that we need to figure them out, and quickly. It’s not about finding that oft-discussed “liberal Joe Rogan.” What’s required is the buildout of a media ecosystem that can challenge the right’s extensive informational infrastructure with the full panoply of content creators, revenue structures, cross-platform coordination, amplification systems, and attention-getting strategies necessary to win this narrative war.

Our reality is just what we see in front of us. It can be defined by truth or by lies, by information or disinformation. Ensuring that people start receiving more of the former, and less of the latter, is an incredibly difficult and expensive challenge. But there may not be a way around it. And we’ve got to start building fast, before MAGA’s attentional stranglehold becomes our permanent reality.

Aaron Regunberg

Aaron Regunberg is a contributing editor at The New Republic, a climate lawyer, and a progressive organizer.

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RWW

12/15/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

In addition to being a racist and deeply misogynistic far-right pastor, Joel Webbon is theocratic fascist Christian nationalist who has become more virulently antisemitic in recent months, which is saying something given that Webbon has openly proclaimed that he hopes the world will one day learn to "humanize Hitler."

Predictably, Webbon is a big fan of Hitler-loving racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, homophobic,Christian nationalist, fascist, white nationalist Nick Fuentes and recently dedicated an episode of his own "Right Response Ministries" podcast to praising Fuentes' recent appearance on "Piers Morgan Uncensored."

During that interview, Morgan grilled Fuentes about his admiration for Hitler and his Holocaust denialism, which Fuentes' smugly and vociferously defended.

On his program, Webbon applauded Fuentes' performance, particularly regarding the Holocaust, which Webbon fumed has been turned into a "false, wicked, satanic religion" that is used to oppress young white men in America.

"That historical event is no mere historical event," Webbon seethed. "It is a religion. It is an ideology. It is a worldview. It is a weaponized bludgeon that has beat generation after generation after generation of white young men into believing they're not allowed to have a future."

"It is time for Holocaustianity—that false, wicked, satanic religion of Holocaustianity—to fall and crumble like the idol that it is," he bellowed. "[When] somebody raises an Islamic 90-foot statue in my state, which they have outside of Houston, my prayer is that statue would be ground into dust. Let no false god be worshiped on American soil. This is a Christian nation and Christ is king."

"The same principle applies to a more powerful false religion that has had America, my nation, in a stranglehold a lot longer and a lot tighter than Islam ever has or likely ever will," Webbon continued. "That is the false religion, not of Islam, but Holocaustianity and all its idols, and all its high priests, and all of its altars, and all of its sacraments must be ground into dust!"

"If that requires some young men to use language that makes you feel a little icky, God bless it," Webbon proclaimed.

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12/08/2025 rww

by

Kyle Mantyla

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zeteo 11 25

How would you react if you heard that a journalist visiting another country was arrested just hours after criticizing that country’s leader and foreign policy? Perhaps you would think that the journalist was visiting some authoritarian or tyrannical country, right?

Well, that was not the case last month, when British Muslim journalist Sami Hamdi was arrested by ICE agents at the San Francisco International Airport, after far-right influencers Laura Loomer and Amy Mekelburg went on an Islamophobic social media campaign against Hamdi. He was in the US on a visa and had come to speak at scheduled events but detained without much explanation and held for two weeks.

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rww

Nate Schatzline Claims Muslim Elected Officials Are Plotting To Subjugate Christians

11/04/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Last week, Christian nationalist Texas state Rep. Nate Schatzline announced that he would not be seeking reelection and, instead, will be taking a position with National Faith Advisory Board "to equip pastors to step up and speak out about religious freedom."

IFrame Content

The National Faith Advisory Board was created by White House faith advisor Paula White and claims that its mission is to, among other things, "fight religious discrimination," which makes the decision to hire Schatzline somewhat questionable, given his views on Islam.

Two days after he announced his new position with the NFAB, Schatzline posted the latest episode of his "Wake Up Church" podcast, which was largely dedicated to declaring that Islam is "a death cult" and "is not compatible with Western society."

"One of the greatest threats to America's national security is the Islamification of the United States," Schatzline said, warning that "the Muslim false god of Allah commands Muslims to lie."

As such, Schatzline claimed that Muslim elected officials are engaged in a coordinated campaign of deception designed to take over the government and subjugate Christians.

"We have to apply it to the public policy positions of the elected Muslims that we see," he said. "When you look at a Muslim who is currently elected in the United States of America; Rep. Ilhan Omar is a great example—openly Muslim—and she will actively, actively vote for pro-abortion policies. However, she herself will never have an abortion, and the reason is because she's never going to kill a Muslim child, but she definitely wants Christians and infidels, Jews, to kill their children."

"We look at these Muslims that are elected to office," Schatzline continued, "and they will continuously advocate for social welfare programs that take away from the taxpayer and replace God with government and local church with government. And you wonder, 'Are you advocating for Muslims to take part in these programs?' Of course not. This is why their mosques and their Islamic communities take care of their communities. So what they're advocating for is not that Muslims would join social welfare programs; what they're advocating for is that Christians, Jews, infidels would join those social welfare programs and then in 50 to 100 years, maybe sooner, when Islam rules as the prime law of the land and we see things like the Ten Commandments and our biblical foundation thrown out the window, then Christians and Jews are in complete submission to the Muslims in power because they control our social welfare programs."

"People, it's not a conspiracy theory," Schatzline insisted. "I'm trying to expose the evil and the darkness that is surrounding this."

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rww

11/07/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

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rww

11/12/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

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OMG

mma

Laura Loomer pitches banning Muslims from running for office to members of Congress

Loomer also pressed representatives on her show about stripping Muslims of religious protections

Written by Reed McMaster

Published 11/07/25

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer has had an unusual amount of power over staffing and foreign policy decisions in the current Trump administration. Now, she is promoting anti-Muslim bills and pressuring congresspeople to strip Muslim people of their civil rights including the ability to hold office and religious protections.

Loomer has directly influenced the Trump administration's staffing and foreign policy decisions — now, she’s trying to do the same with Congress

//

  1. ### As the NYC mayoral election approaches, right-wing media back GOP push to denaturalize and deport Zohran Mamdani

11/03/25 3:57 PM EST

  1. ### Laura Loomer: It was a “very grave mistake” when President Bush said “Islam is a religion of peace. We are not at war with Islam.”

10/24/25 1:56 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media ramp up anti-Muslim attacks on Zohran Mamdani in the final days of the NYC mayoral election

10/23/25

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  1. ### Newsmax host: “The people of New York City just elected the most radical politician in American history, right up there with Jefferson Davis”

11/06/25

November 5, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Finnerty

ROB FINNERTY (HOST): Republicans did not win last night, but Democrats really didn't win either. Democrat socialists had their biggest night ever last night after a communist was elected mayor of New York City, the Democrat Socialist Party of America. Ilhan Omar tweeting last night praise be to Allah in Arabic because that's a normal thing for a United States congresswoman to do, isn't it? Tweet something out in Arabic. Tweet in the language of the country that you immigrated from, not the country that you immigrated to, a country that's so amazing that it made you a member of Congress and you're tweeting in a foreign language.

And after eight years of Bill de Blasio and four of Eric Adams, the people of New York City just elected the most radical politician in American history, right up there with Jefferson Davis. He was the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

And if you've ever been to New York City — maybe you haven't, but if you have been to New York City, hold on to those memories, because the city will never be the same again. Which is exactly what Zohran Mamdani wants to happen. Zohran never lied to us from the very beginning. He told us who he was — a man who spends his free time with terrorists. Remember this little number right here? The guy in the white, an unindicted coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. That photo was taken 19 days ago. Zohran never lied to us. And Zohran told us what he wanted to do to New York City and to America.

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MMA

As the NYC mayoral election approaches, right-wing media back GOP push to denaturalize and deport Zohran Mamdani

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Published 11/03/25

In the week before the New York City mayoral election, some in right-wing media have increasingly advocated for frontrunner Zohran Mamdani to be “denaturalized” and “deported.” Following House Republicans' lead, several right-wing media personalities have claimed Mamdani, who moved to the United States at 8 years old, is not a legal citizen and should have his citizenship revoked.

This latest line of attack follows right-wing media’s delegitimization of foreign-born U.S. citizens and immigrants. Right-wing media have specifically targeted Muslim Americans and have deployed a variety of Islamophobic attacks to suggest they are anti-American or are “pro-terror.”

Right-wing politicians are attempting to revoke Mamdani’s citizenship and questioning his naturalization

//

  1. ### Right-wing media ramp up anti-Muslim attacks on Zohran Mamdani in the final days of the NYC mayoral election

10/23/25 4:21 PM EDT

  1. ### MAGA media figures argue some Americans are not really American

08/27/25 2:19 PM EDT

  1. ### After Mamdani won the NYC Democratic mayoral nomination, right-wing media resorted to predictable racist and Islamophobic attacks

07/03/25

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MMA

Right-wing media ramp up anti-Muslim attacks on Zohran Mamdani in the final days of the NYC mayoral election](https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/right-wing-media-ramp-anti-muslim-attacks-zohran-mamdani-final-days-nyc)

10/23/25 4:21 PM EDT

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RWW

Jesse Leon Rodgers Calls For Muslims To Be Banned From Holding Public Office

10/24/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Earlier this week, right-wing pastorJesse Leon Rodgers released a promotional video for his City Elders organization, which is a Christian nationalist group that seeks to "establish divine order in spiritual and civil governance" by bringing local pastors together with elected officials and religious-right activists.

In the video, Rodgers proclaimed that the Democratic Party is quite possibly "the most wicked institution" in world history, while also calling for Muslims to be banned from holding public office.

"We almost lost our country, our nation, our republic: the United States of America," Rodgers proclaimed. "Had the wicked won the election in 2024, this nation would have gone to Hell so rapidly you would not be able to recognize it today. They would have kept the border open, granted amnesty to 20 million illegals, stacked the Supreme Court, and gotten rid of the Electoral College. They would have continued their evil agenda to destroy the family, morality, marriage, children, and the unborn. Truly, the Democrat Party has become the most wicked institution in the history of the United States and possibly the world."

Later in the video, Rodgers repeated his warning that Muslims are running for office, which is something he falsely claimed had once been illegal.

"In this last election cycle, more than 800 Muslims ran for public office in the United States," he said. "Before Joe Biden was in the Senate, we had a law on the books in the United States prohibiting a Muslim from holding public office in this nation. And short of a divine miracle, New York City, America's largest city, in this next election cycle will have a Muslim mayor. We said we would never forget September 11, 2001, but 24 years later, the largest city in America is electing a socialist, communist, Muslim mayor. The United States of America must once again put a law on the books prohibiting a Muslim from holding public office, and the rest of the nation must do what the state of Texas has done, making Sharia illegal in this nation."

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mma

Right-wing media ramp up anti-Muslim attacks on Zohran Mamdani in the final days of the NYC mayoral election

Conservative media have claimed Mamdani “doesn’t give a shit that we were attacked by Muslim terrorists on 9/11,” and would be “cheering” on the attacks if they happened while he was mayor

Written by Gideon Taaffe & Reed McMaster

Published 10/23/25 mma

With less than two weeks until the New York City mayoral election, right-wing media have been lobbing anti-Muslim attacks at New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, baselessly saying his ideology is not socialism but “radical jihadist sharia supremacism,” accusing him of not giving a “shit that we were attacked by Muslim terrorists on 9/11,” and saying he would be “cheering” on the attacks if they happened while he was mayor.

If elected, Mamdani would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City. He won the Democratic primary with an agenda promising a rent freeze, free buses, universal childcare, and other progressive policies. However, some in right-wing media have continued to focus on Mamdani’s religion and ethnicity as main lines of attack.

For months, right-wing media have lobbed anti-Muslim attacks against Mamdani, who could become New York City’s first Muslim mayor

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mma

Laura Loomer: It was a “very grave mistake” when President Bush said “Islam is a religion of peace. We are not at war with Islam.”

10/24/25

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prompted by no kings fail? mamdami?

mma

10/23/2025

by

Peter Montgomery

President Donald Trump has launched a new “Anti Communist Club,” a fundraising gimmick that doubles as a smear campaign against his political opponents, who he calls communists and the “radical left.”

The message sent to Trump supporters makes a mockery of MAGA leaders’ recent disingenuous warnings about the dangers of divisive rhetoric:

After careful consideration, I want to present you with the ANTI-COMMUNIST CLUB Membership! It’s the highest honor I can bestow upon such an important supporter who DESPISES the radical left!

This membership is not just for anyone; YOU qualified because your profile showed you HEAVILY DESPISE known Communists like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and AOC!

Trump’s message says that would-be members must “PROVE you’re a TOP MAGA PATRIOT, and not a slimeball communist” by answering a few questions. The questions in Trump’s quiz lay the groundwork for justifying attacks on freedom of speech and academic freedom in pursuit of his “anti communist” mission. In addition to a couple questions about China, the quiz includes these:

Do you AGREE that Communism has NO PLACE in the United States of America?

YES – It’s evil and un-American

NO – I side with the Radical Left (disqualifies membership)

Do you SUPPORT President Trump’s plan to BAN Marxist indoctrination in schools and universities?

YES – Save our children

NO – Let the Left brainwash them

Should anyone caught BURNING the American flag be PUNISHED?

YES – 100%

NO – Free speech for Communists

Do you AGREE that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris pushed a SOFT COMMUNIST AGENDA on our country?

Absolutely

Not sure

No – I trusted them (disqualifies membership)

Would you SUPPORT President Trump declaring a National Anti-Communist Day to honor those who fought tyranny?

YES

NO

Which slogan BEST represents YOU?

GOD, GUNS, FREEDOM

COMMUNISM, CHAOS, CONTROL

Donations sent by MAGA supporters who want to join Trump’s new “club” go to Never Surrender Inc., Trump’s leadership PAC, which reported nearly $40 million cash on hand at the end of June.

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AN 10 25

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Republican then-President George W. Bush made it clear that he didn't blame Islam in general for al-Qaeda's violence. Bush described Islam as a "great religion," drawing a clear distinction between non-violent Muslims and Islamist terrorism.

But fear-mongering over Islamist "Shariah law" is common on the far right. Former Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minnesota) was obsessed with "Shariah law" during Barack Obama's presidency, and according to MSNBC's Steve Benen, this obsession persists among MAGA Republicans in 2025.

In his October 14 column, Benen explains, "Younger readers might not be aware of this, but between 2011 and 2015, the threat of 'creeping Sharia law' became quite common in far-right circles, before eventually getting picked up by some Republicans eager to score points with the most rabid elements of the GOP base. Newt Gingrich, for example, included an anti-Sharia provisions in his 2012 presidential platform."

Benen continues, "The basic idea behind this paranoid nonsense was that Americans needed to fear the demise of the separation of church and state, which would give way to the imposition of Islamic rules on the public against Americans’ will. State-sanctioned Sharia law did not and does not exist — at least not in this country — and the idea that government officials would impose Sharia on the populace was obviously silly. But at the time, too many Republicans and their allies took all of this quite seriously, as part of a bizarre campaign to scare people and turn Muslim Americans into a threat in need of government action."

The "Rachel Maddow Show" producer cites Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama), and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) as some of the MAGA Republicans who are trying to scare their voters by claiming, without evidence, that "Shariah law" is making inroads in the United States.

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"The fact that this anti-Sharia nonsense is apparently back suggests that the GOP's existing list of boogeymen isn't delivering the kind of results the party wants to see," Benen argues. "So at least some Republicans are turning back the clock, pointing anew to an old threat that still does not exist."

*Steve Benen's full MSNBC column is available at this link.*

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yahoo actually nyp

Mamdani mayoral campaign took in $13,000 in illegal foreign donations, records show

Isabel Vincent, Rich Calder

Sun, October 12, 2025

An image collage containing 3 images, Image 1 shows mamdani in a suit smiling outside the ny athletic club , Image 2 shows Dr. Bariah Dardari, Image 3 shows graphic showing the foreign sdonations

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.Generate Key Takeaways

Lefty socialist and mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani’s campaign quietly took in nearly $13,000 in potentially illegal foreign donations — including one from his mother-in-law in Dubai, The Post has learned.

At least 170 of the nearly 54,000 contributions to the leading Democratic candidate’s campaign came from donors with addresses outside the United States, an examination of NYC Campaign Finance Board records found.

Only US citizens or permanent legal residents are allowed to contribute to political campaigns and political action committees under federal, state and city law, and candidates are expected to return any of the illegal donations. Violators who knowingly accept foreign donations could face hefty fines and imprisonment.

Mamdani’s mother-in-law, Dr. Bariah Dardari, donated to his campaign — but the funds were quickly returned. doctor_bariah/instagram

But so far, the campaign has failed to return 88 of the foreign donations worth a total of $7,190, records showed.

Mamdani’s campaign has brought in $4 million in private donations, scored another $12.7 million in public matching funds, and with less than a month to go before election day, has nearly $6.1 million in hand.

His campaign issued a statement Saturday saying “we will of course return any donations that are not in compliance with CFB law” after being provided a detailed breakdown of the 88 donations yet to be returned.

A campaign spokesperson, however, declined to clarify why so many foreign donations are still in Mamdani’s war chest.

The foreign donations have sparked criticism.

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, so I would be very concerned,” said Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa, upon learning of the foreign money coming into Mamdani’s campaign. “There is probably a lot more in terms of foreign money.”

Two months ago, Sliwa, during an interview with Fox Business, called on the US Department of Justice to investigate his suspicions that Mamdani is being aided by difficult-to-trace “dark money” illegally being funneled into super PACs through foreign nationals.

pix

Mamdani’s campaign has so far failed to return 88 foreign donations. Robert Miller

“It’s very problematic, not just for Zohran Mamdani, but anybody who has these kinds of PACs, because it’s a license to illegally funnel money,” Sliwa told The Post. “And foreign countries know you don’t have to go to war against America. All you gotta do is manipulate the election.”

The Mamdani campaign has given back a paltry $5,608 — including a contribution from Bariah Dardari, the mother of Mamdani’s new bride Rama Duwaji.

Dardari gave $500 in January, listing an address of the hospital in Dubai where she works as a pediatrician, filings showed. The money was reported returned the same day.

Dardari did not return requests for comment.

Most of the foreign donationsstarted coming in June in the lead-up to the Democratic primary, in which Mamdani scored an upset victory over New York City Mayor Eric Adams and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

A list of some of the foreign donations Mamdani has received. Rob Jejenich / NY Post Design

Tech professionals, doctors, university professors, students and retired teachers made up the bulk of the foreign contributions, with some pledging as little as $1 to the campaign of the Democratic socialist, and as much as $2,100, records showed.

Among the biggest donors was James Furlaud, an environmental scientist at Australia’s University of Tasmania, who pledged $2,100 to the campaign. Furlaud studies the effects of climate change on forests and how it could lead to fires, according to his published academic work. He did not return a request for comment.

pix banjo flannel

James Furlaud gave $2,100 to Mamdani’s campaign. James Furlaud/ Facebook

Ada Diaz Ahmed, who is described as a Dubai-based investor, donated $2,100 to the campaign in September, records show.

Jun-Dai Bates Kobashigawa, a software developer who lives in Montreal, Canada, donated $250 to the campaign in July. Kobashigawa, who works for GoDaddy, grew up in San Francisco, and attended Bard College in Dutchess County. He did not return a request for comment.

Ugur Macit, who lives in the town of Muhlheim am Main in Germany, also donated $250 to the Mamdani campaign in August. Macit is a software engineer who studied computer science at the University of Dusseldorf, according to public records. He could not be reached for comment.

Ahmed Enbya, a physician in Calgary, Canada, donated $100 to the campaign in September, filings show. He could not be reached for comment.

pix

Nupur Amin Marquardt’s donation is allowed under the Federal Election Commission’s rules because she is an American citizen. Nupur Amin/ Linkedin

Nupur Amin Marquardt, a US citizen who works as a consultant in Hamburg, Germany, donated $50 to Mamdani’s campaign in August. As a US citizen, her donation is permitted, according to the Federal Election Commission’s rules.

Even though she has no connection to New York City, she felt inspired to support the candidate, Marquardt said.

“It’s the only campaign I’ve seen that’s not trying to win by convincing a group of people to hate another group of people,” she told The Post Wednesday.

Most of the contributions to the socialist’s campaignhave come from outside New York City, city filings revealed last month. The frontrunner took in a total of $1.05 million over the last several weeks — more than double the $507,000 raised by Cuomo.

The city’s Campaign Finance Board declined comment, saying it is in the process of auditing all campaigns this election cycle citywide.

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mid east forum

mamdani’s Money Trail: Terror-Linked Donors Bankroll NYC Mayor’s Race

Some of America’s Most Controversial Extremist Organizations Are Backing Mamdani, Starting with the Islamic Circle of North America

October 10, 2025

Benjamin Baird

The New York Post

...

New York State Assembly member and New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks at a Malikah’s Iftar Ramadan event at the Museum of the Moving Image on March 07, 2025 in the Queens Borough of NYC. Mamdani is raking in taxpayer-amplified contributions from dangerous sources: terror-linked Islamists, anti-Israel activists, and campus extremists.

Thanks to New York City’s generous matching-funds program, local taxpayers are bankrolling Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign.

With close to $16 million received and $5 million cash on hand, the political newcomer has far outraised his opponents in private donations, amassing an impressive war chest heading into November’s general election.

It’s a system that’s prone to abuse — and in Mamdani’s case, it means that municipal funds are undoubtedly amplifying voices of bigotry and extremism.

The city’s public-financing system is intended to give little-known candidates who fail to attract corporate or special-interest donors a shot at victory.

But Mamdani is raking in taxpayer-amplified contributions from dangerous sources: terror-linked Islamists, anti-Israel activists and campus extremists.

For every local check written out to a mayoral campaign, the city kicks in up to eight times the amount of the first $250, ensuring that small-dollar contributors disproportionately impact local elections.

It’s a system that’s prone to abuse — and in Mamdani’s case, it means that municipal funds are undoubtedly amplifying voices of bigotry and extremism.

Some of America’s most controversial extremist organizations are backing Mamdani, starting with the Islamic Circle of North America, a Muslim nonprofit that terror experts identify as the North American branch of Jamaat-e-Islami, a violent South Asian Islamist group.

Ashrafuzzaman Khan, the former head of ICNA’s New York chapter, was convicted by a Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal and sentenced to death in absentia for his role in the torture and murder of 18 Bangladeshi intellectuals.

Five ICNA staff members kicked in a total of $1,300 in individual contributions to Mamdani — meaning that, including matching funds, his campaign received $7,700 thanks to ICNA generosity.

The Hamas-aligned Council on American-Islamic Relations boosted a Mamdani-affiliated political action committee with a $100,000 donation, The Post has reported.

On top of that, at least five CAIR officials gave independent small-dollar gifts to the Democratic Socialist’s campaign, helping him scoop up taxpayer funds.

They work for an organization that was listed as an unindicted conspirator in a scheme to finance Hamas — a trial that ended in a 65-year sentence for a CAIR board member.

Other Islamists from outside NYC have contributed to Mamdani’s campaign through his superPAC, New Yorkers for Lower Costs.

The Illinois Muslim Political Action Committee, which gave $10,500 to the PAC, includes as members Ousamma Jamal and Zaher Sahloul.

Altogether, New York academics at hard-left institutions contributed just over $105,000 to Mamdani — or up to $690,000 when boosted by matching funds.

Both have served as presidents of the Mosque Foundation, a suburban Chicago organization with links to Hamas that has funded at least four charities that were subsequently shut down for financing terrorism.

Mamdani, who has refused to condemn calls for violence against Israel and who used this week’s Oct. 7 anniversary to again accuse it of “genocide,” also enjoys financing from professional activists who work to demonize the Jewish state.

Seven paid agitators from Jewish Voice for Peace— widely denounced for its abusive tactics and its ties to Palestinian terrorists — made small-dollar contributions that were matched with city funds.

And a huge sources of Mamdani’s matched campaign cash comes from academics and higher-education administrators employed by schools hat have been embroiled in federal antisemitism probes.

College and university workers have provided more than 2,000 individual donations to the candidate, with the majority coming from local faculty.

Altogether, New York academics at hard-left institutions contributed just over $105,000 to Mamdani — or up to $690,000 when boosted by matching funds.

Staff from Columbia University — where Mamdani’s professor father Mahmood teaches that Israel should not exist as a state and Oct. 7 was merely a “military action” — have donated at least 389 times to his mayoral campaign.

Employees of New York University, which admitted it failed to address campus antisemitism last year after Jewish students filed a blockbuster lawsuit, gave 508 times to Mamdani.

These donors may not organize as an official superPAC, but they function as a powerful special-interest group.

They include scholars and activists who champion radical Marxist, anti-American and intersectional ideologies.

The list of Mamdani donors includes education professionals like Lila Abu-Lughod, a professor at Columbia who believes gender violence is a matter of cultural relativism and blames Islamist honor killings on Western colonialism.

RetiredColumbia prof Rashid Khalidi, another Mamdani supporter, was a press officer for the Palestine Liberation Organization during its heyday as a designated terrorist group.

Still, Mamdani’s supporters reject accusations that their pick for mayor is an extremist.

Zohran Mamdani represents a marriage between Islamism and hard-left politics that should concern all New Yorkers.

Vox recently gushed over Mamdani’s “not-so-radical agenda,” depicting the candidate as a plucky neighborhood activist and champion of the working class.

Even Jewish media outlets like the Forward have claimed that suspicions of his antisemitism were merely “bad faith smears.”

Follow the money, though, and Mamdani’s alliances begin to crystallize.

Zohran Mamdani represents a marriage between Islamism and hard-left politics that should concern all New Yorkers.

Extremists are financing his road to Gracie Mansion — and come November, we may send a mouthpiece for these destructive interests to City Hall.

*Published originally on October 9, 2025, under the title “Dangerous Funders Fill Zohran Mamdani’s Coffers — Multiplied by Taxpayer $.”

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news allegedly

Oct 13, 2025jduffusNews From GAI. News About GAIAntifa, Arabella Advisors, George Soros, Neville Roy Singham, Peter Schweizer, Riot Inc., Tides Foundation

GAI President Peter Schweizer joined Mark Levin on Oct. 12, 2025 to expose deep links between radical ideologies, terrorism, and political movements inside the United States.

Appearing on the Fox News show “Life, Liberty, and Levin,” Schweizer detailed how New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has financial and ideological ties to Qatar’s royal family, which once harbored 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Schweizer warned of foreign influence and Islamist infiltration in American politics. In the second half, Schweizer and Levin uncover how billionaire Roy Singham funds Marxist and pro-CCP movements like Antifa through U.S.-based nonprofits. Together, they connect Islamist and Marxist networks working to destabilize America — both financially and ideologically.

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Peter Schweizer EXPOSES the Islamist–Marxist Alliance Threatening America - YouTube

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Peter Schweizer EXPOSES the Islamist–Marxist Alliance Threatening America

Oct 13, 2025 #thedrilldown #drilldown #gai

:{‪@Govt_Acct_Inst‬ President Peter Schweizer joins Mark Levin (Oct. 12, 2025) to expose deep links between radical ideologies, terrorism, and political movements inside the United States. Schweizer details how New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has financial and ideological ties to Qatar’s royal family, which once harbored 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He warns of foreign influence and Islamist infiltration in American politics. In the second half, Schweizer and Levin uncover how billionaire Roy Singham funds Marxist and pro-CCP movements like Antifa through U.S.-based nonprofits. Together, they connect Islamist and Marxist networks working to destabilize America — both financially and ideologically. Chap:{ters /maxresdefault.jpg)) Levin Introduces Schweizer’s Explosive Findings /maxresdefault.jpg)) Qatar’s Royal Family and the 9/11 Connection /maxresdefault.jpg)) Mamdani’s Foreign Backers Revealed /maxresdefault.jpg)) Hezbollah, Iran, and Islamist Cheerleaders /maxresdefault.jpg)) Terror Ties Hidden by U.S. Media /maxresdefault.jpg)) Why Islamist Power Grabs Threaten All Americans /maxresdefault.jpg)) Inside the Antifa Roundtable at the White House /maxresdefault.jpg)) Dark Money, Marxism, and the Arabella Network /maxresdefault.jpg)) The Billionaire Roy Singham’s Pro-China Machine /maxresdefault.jpg)) Foreign Funding and Domestic Terrorism Links /maxresdefault.jpg)) Federal Task Force Needed to Stop the Flow /maxresdefault.jpg)) Levin Calls for Action Against Enemy Within /maxresdefault.jpg)) Trump Administration’s Pushback on Radical Networks maxresdefault.jpg)) Schweizer’s Final Warning: The Enemy Within}:

== 🟡g-a-i.org🔵 Instagram: [ / govt_acct_inst](https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbWFkNEFpYXFhUzhxdjU5Q1U2eUJkQVBQQ00xUXxBQ3Jtc0trck1URjMwTzAxWmxhWEgtNEdoX2RlajM1QjVmS3MtTVdnNEE4QnowejU4TGxoSWp1RG1VZHlmM1FkX0swaDVqUk5JNmpicDgtd3N1cVZmRGRxdEtQYmdQZ2R5Q21LXzA3ZmpHNVU1M3V2NXgwZDE0NA&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Fgovt_acct_inst%2F&v=_IdY4rxZVDY)Twitter: https://x.com/Govt_Acct_InstYouTube: / @govt_acct_instRumble: https://rumble.com/c/Govt_Acct_Inst}:

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transcript

Levin Introduces Schweizer’s Explosive Findings

0:00

Welcome back, America. We're here with

0:01

our dear friend Peter Schweitzer. He

0:03

really is a great investigative

0:05

reporter. He's president of the

0:07

Government Accountability Institute, a

0:09

fantastic group, GI,

0:12

uh you write great books, you write

0:14

great pieces over at Breitbart. Just

0:16

fantastic. Peter, I wanted to get into

0:18

this. You have put out new information,

0:21

you and your group, about who he is,

0:24

what he's doing, who is funding him. And

0:26

before people finish voting in New York,

0:29

and people around the country, you need

0:31

to know exactly who this man is, his

Qatar’s Royal Family and the 9/11 Connection

0:34

family, who's funding him, what he's all

0:36

about. It is pure evil. Peter

0:39

Schweitzer, go. Yeah, Mark, what people

0:42

have to understand is that this election

0:44

for mayor in New York is really a dark

0:47

echo of the 911 terrorist attack. Uh,

0:50

and you wonder what do I mean by that?

0:52

Well, look at the family itself, the

0:55

Mondami family itself. They are joined

0:57

at the hip with the royal family of

1:00

Qatar, the Althani family. Um, they have

1:03

sent them millions of dollars. They have

1:05

funded their projects. So, why does this

1:08

family matter? It matters because uh

1:11

back in 1996, Khaled Shik Muhammad who

1:15

was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks

1:18

was granted sanctuary by this very royal

1:22

family. He was given a no-show job at

1:25

the Ministry of Water in Qatar. And it

1:28

was there that he started planning the

1:30

911 attacks. The FBI was looking for

1:33

him, Mark, because he had been involved

1:35

in in the 1993 World Trade Center

1:39

attack, uh, as well as other terrorist

1:41

attacks. So, the FBI went to the royal

1:44

family and said, "We want this man for

1:46

his involvement in terrorism." What did

1:49

the family do? They hid him and helped

1:51

him to escape. They tipped him off. And

1:54

I would encourage a lot of people to go

1:56

back and look at the statements that

1:57

Louisie Free made back in the day saying

2:00

had they gotten uh Khaled Shake Muhammad

2:04

uh that would have pre prevented future

2:06

terrorist attacks like 911. So this is

2:10

the royal family of Qatar. Why do we

2:13

care about them in the context of

Mamdani’s Foreign Backers Revealed

2:15

Mandami? Well, first of all, there's the

2:17

financial connection that we talked

2:19

about. Millions of dollars bankrolling

2:22

the Mandani family. Second of all, this

2:25

same family is now on social media

2:27

around the world. And what are they

2:29

doing, Mark? They're pushing Mandami's

2:31

campaign. They're pushing his policy

2:34

positions. They're pushing his poll

2:35

numbers. They're encouraging people to

2:37

vote for him to financially support him.

2:40

So, they're cheerleading for him. And

2:42

what did Mumani do in September? Just a

2:45

few weeks ago, he was on Qatari TV. Now,

2:49

what American uh politician running to

2:52

be a mayor of a city goes on Qatari TV?

2:56

Mumani goes on Qatari TV and what does

2:58

he do? He talks about the jihad, the

3:02

verbal jihad as it were. He talks about

3:04

the fact that the United States is under

3:07

uh writing genocide in Israel. This is

3:10

the same family, the Mumamis, by the

3:12

way, who say that Darfur, where 400,000

3:16

Christians were slaughtered by

3:17

Islamists, that was not jihad. This is

3:20

the same family that says that terrorism

3:22

is a western invention. It's not an

3:24

Islamist invention. So you have this

3:27

bizarre situation where a political

3:30

candidate in New York speaks the

3:32

language of jihad uh is financially

3:36

connected to the family that helped the

3:39

911 plotters get away so they could

3:41

bring down the Twin Towers. And it would

Hezbollah, Iran, and Islamist Cheerleaders

3:44

be a tragedy if the Qataris would see a

3:48

occupant of city hall um when they were

3:51

the same people that were involved in

3:53

what happened in 9/11 and bringing down

3:55

the twin towers.

3:56

1993 World Trade Center bombing.

4:00

What's that connection?

4:01

Yeah. So um Kaid Shake Muhammad was one

4:05

of the people that plotted and was

4:06

involved in that. It's when he was on

4:08

the run from that attack that he ended

4:11

up in Qatar. And so the Qatar

4:13

relationship uh has been long with

4:16

terrorism. You've talked about of course

4:18

their ties to Hamas, their ties to

4:20

Hezbollah. I should point out, Mark,

4:22

that in addition to the Qatari

4:24

connection, there are also a lot of

4:26

other uh uh international enemies of the

4:29

United States that are cheering on

4:30

Mandani. Uh for example, the

4:33

international Quran news agency uh which

4:36

is based out of Iran has run glowing

4:39

profiles on Mandami talking about the

4:41

fact that he can win in New York, that

4:44

his policy positions and that his values

4:47

are Islamic in their words. They talk

4:50

about how his strategy is to cultivate

4:52

Muslim votes. So the Iranian news

4:55

agencies are cheering them on. In

4:57

addition to that, there's a news

4:59

publication in Lebanon linked to

5:01

Hezbollah, uh, the terrorist

5:03

organization. They ran a story talking

5:06

about Mumani's rise after he won the

5:08

Democratic nomination in New York. And

5:11

they were thrilled. And it's very

5:13

interesting, Mark, to point out in that

5:15

article, they said if Mandami wins in

5:18

New York and becomes mayor of New York,

5:20

he has a future political career on the

5:22

national stage. among the positions they

Terror Ties Hidden by U.S. Media

5:25

mention he might get to assume is head

5:29

of homeland security. Now, why would a

5:32

terrorist organization like Hezbollah

5:34

want Mani to be head of the Department

5:36

of Homeland Security? Uh I I think the

5:39

evidence is pretty clear.

5:41

You're putting this information out.

5:42

You're now putting it out to millions of

5:44

people nationally. What do you want to

5:45

bet? It's ignored by the New York Times

5:47

in New York, by the New York Daily News

5:50

in New York, by the Associated Press, by

5:53

Reuters and all the rest. You do all the

5:55

footwork, you pull all the the

5:56

investigative data together. What do you

5:59

want to bet this is ignored because they

6:01

want this guy elected?

6:02

Yeah, I think it is going to be ignored.

6:04

And look, there are other financial

6:06

connections. Uh there's an imam wah that

6:09

we talk about. This imam, by the way,

6:11

has three children that last year were

6:15

sentenced to life in prison for their

6:17

involvement in a terrorist attack. He is

6:19

supporting Mum Donnie's campaign in New

6:22

York. Uh, and in 2021, in a interview,

6:25

he actually predicted the rise of a

6:28

Muslim candidate in New York and said

6:30

the time was ready and the time was

6:32

ready for Muslims to seize political

6:34

power in New York. So, uh, they are

6:36

ignoring this. Um the the stakes could

6:39

not be higher. Uh it's not just an issue

Why Islamist Power Grabs Threaten All Americans

6:41

for New Yorkers. It should be an issue

6:43

for all Americans that are concerned

6:45

about our security. We have a candidate

6:47

who speaks the language of jihad and we

6:50

have a candidate whose family is tied to

6:53

individuals or or a family in Qatar uh

6:56

that has been linked to international

6:58

terrorist networks. You know, I get very

7:01

frustrated by hearing people

7:03

in the media, conservatives,

7:06

Republicans, what have you, say things

7:07

like, "Okay, he'll win in New York and

7:10

then they'll never win anywhere else in

7:11

the United States because we'll see how

7:13

he destroys New York." They don't

7:15

understand the thinking of these

7:17

Islamists. That's not the plan. The plan

7:20

is to run people for city council, to

7:22

run people for mayors, to pick off one

7:24

area after another after another. They

7:27

changed the voting system in order to

7:28

get him nominated as a Democrat, even

7:30

though he's a democratic socialist, aka

7:33

Marxist Islamist who hates America and

7:35

hates Jews. This is a dire threat to the

7:38

country and we better wake the hell up

7:40

to this. Welcome back, America. We're

7:42

here with Peter Schwitzer, the president

7:44

of the Government Accountability

7:45

Institute, really a national treasure.

7:48

Uh Peter, your folks were at the round

7:51

table on Antifa and the Antifa movement

7:54

uh that the president held at the White

7:56

House. So important what he's doing

7:58

trying to get to the bottom of these

Inside the Antifa Roundtable at the White House

8:00

radical organizations because they are

8:02

nefarious. They're evil. They're funded

8:04

by dark money, by billionaires, by

8:06

foreign governments.

8:08

And here's Antifa. I talk about the

8:10

fusion of Marxism and Islamism. You just

8:14

spoke about Islamism. Now let's move to

8:16

Marxism. And that would be Antifa. What

8:19

do you know about Antifa?

8:21

Yeah. So, I mean, Antifa, there's not an

8:23

organization per se named Antifa. It's a

8:26

network of radical organizations um that

Dark Money, Marxism, and the Arabella Network

8:30

as you pointed out are Marxist. They're

8:33

often times sympathetic to Islamist

8:35

causes. Uh and as we uh demonstrated in

8:38

our research that we presented to the

8:40

president, uh they are heavily funded.

8:43

Um, some of that funding comes from

8:45

sources in the United States. You have

8:47

advisory firms like Arabella that are

8:49

advising groups like the Tides

8:51

Foundation uh that we point out um have

8:54

sent money to organizations that are

8:57

involved in violent protests. Uh there

8:59

were violent protests down in in

9:02

Atlanta, Georgia around something called

9:04

Cop City uh where the police were trying

9:06

to create a training facility for uh law

9:09

enforcements. Uh the radicals didn't

9:12

want that. So they violently protested.

9:14

They threw Molotov cocktails. Uh they

9:16

engaged in other violent acts. Members

The Billionaire Roy Singham’s Pro-China Machine

9:19

of those organizations um were charged

9:22

uh uh under law for domestic terrorism

9:25

or domestic terrorism related charges.

9:28

Well, those organizations, some of those

9:30

organizations were funded by the Tides

9:32

Foundation. So you have these radical

9:36

progressive groups in the United States

9:38

that are funding in some instances

9:40

violent organizations. And to be clear

9:43

here, Mark, I'm not talking about groups

9:45

that just talk about radical things. I'm

9:47

talking about groups that are actually

9:49

involved in violence in our streets. So

9:52

you have the domestic side. You also

9:54

have the foreign side. Uh Mark, um

9:57

there's a uh American billionaire uh

9:59

named Roy Singum uh who sold his

10:02

business, it was called Thought Works

10:04

for about a billion dollars, moved to

10:07

Beijing, China, which is where he lives

10:09

now. He's very close to the CCP. He

10:13

counts them amongst his friends. He goes

10:15

to Chinese Communist Party events. He's

Foreign Funding and Domestic Terrorism Links

10:18

friends with their propagandists. uh and

10:20

he funds groups in the United States um

10:24

through the so-called people's forum in

10:26

New York. Uh and these are groups like

10:28

the Freedom Road Socialist Organization,

10:30

the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

10:33

And these are pro-Chinese,

10:36

anti-American, and they lead violent

10:38

protests. Uh it could be over Black

10:40

Lives Matter, it could be over uh the

10:43

issues in the Middle East, it could be

10:45

over law enforcement issues, it doesn't

10:47

matter. And so you have these

10:50

organizations that are not organic per

10:52

se. They are funded and they are

10:54

organized. Uh and we think it's

10:57

important not only for the

10:58

administration to know, but to

11:00

investigate them for possible criminal

11:02

conduct because you're an attorney

11:05

better than I am. I'm not an attorney.

11:07

Uh you if you are involved in funding

11:10

entities that you know are engaged in

11:12

criminal conduct, you could potentially

11:15

be charged with a crime for doing that.

Federal Task Force Needed to Stop the Flow

11:17

I don't know if there is, probably is,

11:19

but there ought to be a task force

11:21

looking at all this with Treasury,

11:22

state, the FBI, the IRS, among others.

11:27

Uh, pulling together uh all the uh

11:30

possible legal issues, pulling together

11:33

all the investigative issues, trying to

11:36

attack it from every angle. It's a big

11:38

federal government. It's been used

11:40

against us. It's been used against

11:42

conservative groups. It's been used

11:43

against our president. It's been used

11:45

against Republican members of the

11:46

Senate. How about we put it to good use?

11:49

Um, if we have foreign countries along

11:52

with these billionaires and others who

11:53

are pouring money into this country to

11:55

overthrow us, if we have people dark

11:58

money in the shadows in our country

11:59

doing the same thing and we have uh and

12:02

we know this is going on, we better put

12:04

an end to it or we will cease to exist.

Levin Calls for Action Against Enemy Within

12:06

There's no reason for this. There's

12:07

absolutely no reason. Which is why I'm

12:09

so proud that the president obviously is

12:12

on the ball. what he's saying. He pulls

12:13

it together. He had your group there and

12:15

many others. And you had independent

12:17

journalists who were beaten to a pulp by

12:18

Antifa and so forth. And the mainstream

12:21

media, which isn't mainstream, it's

12:23

leftwing. It's Democrat. It's hostile to

12:25

the country, has essentially covered it

12:27

up. You had Antifa attacking the

12:30

Portland, Oregon

12:33

courthouse, the federal courthouse month

12:36

after month in 2020, still using it for

12:40

target practice. And then you have a

12:41

federal judge out there

12:44

a real whack job in what she wrote

12:46

talking about well you know this kind of

12:48

free speech and so forth and so on this

Trump Administration’s Pushback on Radical Networks

12:51

is this is normal in our country and so

12:53

forth. So we got a big problem here. Any

12:56

final words Peter?

12:57

Yeah we were uh happy to participate in

12:59

the round table. President Trump asked

13:01

us to share our findings with the

13:03

attorney general and with the director

13:04

of the FBI. We are glad to do so and we

13:07

hope that they will put it to good use.

Schweizer’s Final Warning: The Enemy Within

13:09

And I'll just say again, I don't know of

13:10

another president who would be doing

13:12

this, who really gets into the weeds and

13:14

says, "I love our country, Mr. and Mrs.

13:17

America. I got to do what I can to

13:19

protect you." Whether it's law

13:20

enforcement, whether it's ICE, whether

13:22

it's securing the border, whether it's

13:23

building up the military, and here, the

13:26

enemy within. Peter Schweitzer, great

13:29

group, great guy. Thank you for

13:31

everything. Appreciate it. Thank you,

13:33

Mark.

---

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FUENTES WINS PHOBES?

MMA

  1. ### Nick Fuentes: “Let's get all the towel heads on one side. We'll get all the tiny hats on the other. ... And we can send them all right back to the Middle East.”

10/06/25

AN 9 25

HIS 2ND TIME; AUD PRETTY APPALED?

On Tuesday, September 23, U.S. President Donald Trump gave a rambling speech before the United Nations General Assembly. And at times, he was vehemently critical of the UN for a variety of reasons, from their immigration policies to green energy.

Here are six of the wildest moments from Trump's UN speech.

1. Trump claimed that 'inflation has been defeated'

Trump aggressively attacked then-President Joe Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris on inflation during the United States' 2024 election. But during his UN speech eight months into his second presidency, Trump claimed that "inflation has been defeated" in the U.S. Many economists, however, are warning that Trump's steep new tariffs will cause much worse inflation than what the U.S. experienced during the Biden Administration.

2. Trump slammed UN for not living up to its potential

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Trump told UN officials, "All I got from the United Nations was an escalator that stopped in the middle…. Those are the things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter…. The United Nations has tremendous, tremendous potential…. But it's not even coming close to that potential."

3. Trump attacked UN members for immigration policies

During his speech, Trump was highly critical of Biden's immigration policies, saying, "We were the laughing stock all over the world." But he also attacked UN members for their immigration policies and declared, "Immigration is destroying your country, and you have to do something about it…. Your countries are being ruined…. The UN is supposed to stop invasions, not create them…. Europe is in serious trouble. They've been invaded by a force of illegal aliens like no one has ever seen before…. Your countries are going to hell."

Trump also claimed European countries are in danger from Islamist "Shariah law," attacking London for having a "terrible, terrible mayor."

4. Trump insisted he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

Trump told UN officials, "Everyone says I deserve the Nobel Peace Prize….. We've saved millions and millions of lives…. I'm going to give you the best of everything."

5. Trump chastised EU members for not imposing more tariffs

Trump promoted his trade policies during his UN speech, attacking European countries for having similar trade policies. The U.S. president told UN officials, "Join us in adopting the exact same measures…. Europe has to step it up…. They're buying oil and gas from Russia while they're fighting Russia…. Cease all energy purchases from Russia."

6. Trump ripped European countries for not using more fossil fuels

Trump expressed his disdain for green energy and "the global warming hoax," telling UN members, "Those windmills are so big and so bad…. Many European countries are on the brink of destruction because of the green agenda…. This is a disaster."

Trump praised "clean, beautiful coal" and denied the reality of climate change, claiming, "It's the greatest con job every perpetrated on the world, in my opinion…. If you don't get away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail."

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10/09/2025 rww

by

Kyle Mantyla

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an 9 25

These 2 Republicans in 'escalating personal clash' over failed effort to censure Democrat - Alternet.org

//

An effort by Rep. Nancy Mace (R‑S.C.) to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D‑Minn.) failed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday night.

The resolution, which was introduced in response to Omar reposting a video and making remarks related to right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s murder last week, was tabled by a vote of 214‑213. Four Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the resolution.

The Republicans who opposed the resolution were Reps. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) and Mike Flood (R-Neb.)

If passed, the resolution would have formally censured Omar and removed her from some committee assignments.

Following the failure of her censure motion, Mace took to social mediato attack her Republican colleagues who opposed the move.

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In a series of post on the social platform X, she wrote: "4 Republicans sold out tonight. They sided with Democrats to protect Ilhan Omar. A woman who mocked the assassination of an innocent American husband and father."

She added: "In 210 Democrats and 4 Republicans (Mike Flood, Jeff Hurd, Tom McClintock, and Cory Mills) just sided with Ilhan Omar over Charlie Kirk. They voted to shield a woman who mocked the cold-blooded assassination of Charlie Kirk… A woman who belittled his grieving family…"

"They showed us exactly who they are. Never forget it," Mace wrote.

Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., welcomed the development.

In a statement released to media, it declared the outcome "a victory against racism and political repression," but added that "the fight is not over."

"Rep. Mace and her allies may seek to bring the measure back to the floor in the future. Earlier today, CAIR sent a formal letter to all members of the House urging them to oppose the resolution, which falsely accused Rep. Omar of celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk - despite her repeatedly condemning his murder and offering sympathy to his family," CAIR stated.

“Instead of targeting Rep. Omar, Republican and Democratic leaders should consider holding accountable bigots like Rep. Randy Fine and Rep. Brian Mast, and even Rep. Mace herself - who in recent days said Rep. Omar should go back to Somalia and told a Jewish colleague they should see a plastic surgeon for their nose," the statement read.

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an 9 25

*These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

In the weeks leading up to July 9, Ayman Soliman told friends he was terrified of losing the sanctuary he’d found after fleeing Egypt in 2014 and building a new life as a Muslim chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Soliman, 51, was to show up at 9 a.m. on that date for his first check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since losing his asylum status. He’d been granted the protections in 2018 under the first Trump administration. Then, in the last month of the Biden presidency, immigration authorities moved to revoke them based on sharply disputed claims of fraud and aid to a terrorist group. Once President Donald Trump returned to office weeks later, court records show, immigration officials bumped up the terrorism claims and formalized the asylum termination June 3.

By the time of Soliman’s ICE appointment, friends said, he was distraught over the prospect of being returned to the regime that had jailed him for documenting protests as a journalist. He arrived at the agency’s field office in Blue Ash, Ohio, accompanied by fellow clergy and a couple of Democratic state lawmakers.

“I didn’t come to America seeking a better life. I was escaping death,” he said in a video filmed just before he entered.

Inside, Soliman’s attorneys said, he was shocked to find FBI agents waiting for him. They interrogated him for three hours about his charity work more than a decade ago in Egypt, the basis for the Department of Homeland Security accusations of illegal aid, or “material support,” to Islamist militants.

His lawyer eventually emerged from the ICE office holding a belt and a wallet. Soliman had been swept into custody, joining a record 61,000 people now in ICE detention. As he awaits an immigration court trial Sept. 25, he is being held in a county jail run by a sheriff who posted a sign outside reading, “Illegal Aliens Here.”

Legal observers are watching the chaplain’s case as a bellwether of the Trump administration’s ability to merge the vast federal powers of immigration and counterterrorism. The case is also a reminder, they say, of sweeping post-9/11 statutes that both Republican and Democratic administrations have been accused of abusing, especially in cases involving Muslims.

Material support laws ban almost any type of aid to U.S.-designated foreign terrorist groups, extending far beyond the basics of weapons, personnel and money. Prosecutors describe the laws as an invaluable tool against would-be attackers, but civil liberties groups have long complained of overreach.

Over the years, successive administrations have faced legal challenges over how they wield the power; a milestone Supreme Court decision during the Obama administration upheld the laws as constitutional. Now, however, there are particular fears about the material support “sledgehammer,” as one legal scholar put it, in the hands of Trump, who has been openly hostile toward Muslims and determined to deport a million people who are in the United States without permission.

“These statutes are written extraordinarily broadly with the unstated premise that discretion will be exercised responsibly. And one thing this administration has shown is that it doesn’t understand what it means to exercise discretion responsibly,” said David Cole, a Georgetown Law professor who argued high-profile material support cases and served as national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

At issue are DHS allegations that Soliman’s involvement with an Islamic charity provided material support to the Muslim Brotherhood. But neither the charity nor the Brotherhood is a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, and an Egyptian court found no official ties between the groups.

The Biden-era DHS, which first flagged the issue, said it would revoke Soliman’s asylum if “a preponderance of the evidence supports termination” after a hearing, according to the December notice. At the time, court records show, the material support allegation was listed as a secondary concern after more common asylum questions about the veracity of official documents and his claims of persecution in Egypt.

Once Trump came to power weeks later, Soliman’s attorneys said, the material support claims metastasized, with U.S. authorities declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a Tier III, or undesignated, terrorist group and adding new arguments about ties to Hamas. The Brotherhood, a nearly century-old Islamist political movement, renounced violence in the 1970s, though Hamas and other spinoffs are on the U.S. blacklist. In addition to the Egypt-related concerns, DHS filings about Soliman had noted warrants for “murder and terrorism” in Iraq — a country Soliman says he’s never visited.

By elevating the national security argument, Soliman’s lawyers said, DHS was able to bypass an immigration judge and order the chaplain held without bond as “potentially dangerous.” An established terrorism nexus means less transparency for immigrants — and more power for the authorities.

“DHS is judge, jury and executioner,” said Robert Ratliff, one of Soliman’s attorneys.

The idea of Soliman as a secret militant has outraged residents who know him locally as “the interfaith imam” and the first Muslim on the pastoral care team at Cincinnati Children’s, a top-ranked pediatric hospital. Colleagues described a popular chaplain with nicknames for the tiny patients and soothing words for their bleary-eyed parents.

Judy Ragsdale, the former pastoral care director who hired Soliman in 2021 shortly before retiring, said she wrote a letter to hospital leaders imploring them to speak out against the allegations that could return him to certain persecution in Egypt. He lost authorization to work in June, when his asylum was terminated.

“This is a ‘Schindler’s List’ moment,” Ragsdale said she told hospital leaders. “And if you don’t stand up for Ayman, you’re complicit in what’s happening to him.”

Some fear DHS is parlaying the scope and secrecy of counterterrorism laws into a weapon to boost the president’s mass-deportation mission.

Immigrant rights groups say a sped-up campaign with fewer guardrails for due process is already leading to removals based on evidence that hasn’t been fully vetted. If DHS is successful in test cases like Soliman’s, they say, material support claims could be more easily applied to immigration cases with even tenuous links to militant factions, including newly designated cartels.

The White House referred questions to Homeland Security, which routed a request for comment to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; a spokesperson there said in a statement that the agency generally “does not discuss the details of individual immigration cases and adjudication decisions.”

“An alien — even with a pending application or lawful status — is not shielded from immigration enforcement action,” the statement said. The FBI declined to comment.

Jeffrey Breinholt, an architect of the material support statutes who spent three decades as a federal terrorism prosecutor, defends the laws as crucial to closing loopholes that were exploited by foreign militant groups and their domestic sympathizers.

Breinholt, who retired in 2024, said he has no concerns about the widening scope as it converges with Trump’s deportation push. The designation of cartels, he said, “is a natural outgrowth of the success we have had with ‘material support’ crime.”

To Cole and other critics, however, the Soliman case could be “the canary in the coal mine.”

More Than a Chaplain

Within a few hours of Soliman’s detention, dozens showed up for an impromptu rally and news conference in the ICE center parking lot. That backup has since grown into a hundreds-strong campaign to refute the DHS allegations, which supporters call a resurgence of anti-Muslim fearmongering that has persisted across party lines since the 9/11 attacks 24 years ago this month.

“Any time you have a brown man or a Muslim man and you use the words ‘FBI’ and ‘red flag,’ you don’t have to say any more,” said Tala Ali, a friend of Soliman’s who heads the board of a Cincinnati mosque where he sometimes led prayers.

Voices calling for Soliman’s release include parents who met him in the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit. The families are in disbelief that the chaplain they’d grown close to is now jailed in a high-stakes international case. They knew he’d fled Egypt but said they were learning details of his ordeal through the campaign to free him.

“It would be very easy to be resentful and be angry with the world when you have to live through that kind of trauma, and he’s not like that at all. He’s taking on other peoples’ trauma,” said Heather Barrow, whose infant daughter, Mya, died in the NICU last year.

She said Soliman stepped in to spare her grieving family the heartache of making funeral arrangements for a 5-month-old. He attended Mya’s celebration of life and, later, a butterfly release on June 7, which would’ve been her first birthday. A month later, he was in an ICE cell.

“I was like, how is this happening? He was just at our house,” Barrow said.

Another couple, Taylor and Bryan McClain, also came to rely on Soliman when their newborn, Violette, arrived at Cincinnati Children’s last year with life-threatening complications. The chaplain steadied them during their 271 days in the NICU, which Taylor said felt like “a roller coaster in a tornado and it’s on fire.” The McClains call him “family.”

“I say with full confidence: Violette is alive because of the advocacy that Ayman gave us,” Taylor said one recent afternoon as she held her daughter, now just over a year old.

Clergy members make up another bloc of support — so many that they built a spreadsheet to divide visiting hours among imams, rabbis and pastors. Immigration advocates and Ohio civil rights leaders have added their names to petitions. So have University of Cincinnati student groups including the Ornithology Club and the Harry Potter Appreciation Club.

More than a dozen people faced criminal charges stemming from a melee after a rally in Soliman’s support; demonstrators and police blame each other for the violence July 17.

Two of Soliman’s fellow chaplains at Cincinnati Children’s, Adam Allen and Elizabeth Diop, said they lost their jobs for refusing to keep quiet about their jailed colleague. Meanwhile, the hospital, a cherished local institution, is taking heat for its silence. Soliman’s supporters launched a letter-writing campaign demanding a response from the hospital, which has said it does not discuss personnel issues.

Signs appeared outside the hospital. “Missing Chaplain,” they said. “Abducted By ICE.”

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital did not return messages seeking comment. In an internal memo published by The Cincinnati Enquirer, hospital CEO Dr. Steve Davis told employees that the lack of response “should not be mistaken for a lack of caring or action.” As a nonprofit, Davis stressed, the hospital has strict rules about “activities that could be characterized as political.”

Soliman’s supporters press on. One recent Sunday evening, about 200 filled a Cincinnati church where preachers from several faith backgrounds urged them to demand his freedom.

“The trial that Imam Ayman is going through is our trial,” Abdulhakim Mohamed, head of the North American Imams Fellowship, told the crowd. “His justice is ours to own. The injustice is also ours to bear.”

Escape From Egypt

Soliman’s entanglement with the Egyptian security apparatus began in 2000 when he joined fellow college students to protest repressive laws, he said in asylum papers.

He was periodically locked up and intimidated after that, he said. The persecution worsened more than a decade ago during uprisings that remade the Middle East by toppling dictators — including Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak — but in some places spiraled into civil war.

Soliman worked as a freelance journalist covering pro-democracy revolts in Egypt and neighboring Libya. Friends say he was also studying to become an imam and served on the board of a local chapter of the Islamic charity Al-Gameya al-Shareya, which is known for its network of hospitals and orphan programs throughout Egypt.

The charity, whose name has multiple English spellings, launched in 1912 and is often described as “one of the most established national Islamic organizations.” Scholars have written that early leaders came from the Muslim Brotherhood, archenemy of Egypt’s current military leadership, but that ties ended around 1990 under government pressure.

In the years since, researchers found, the group maintained smooth relations with the government as its more than 1,000 chapters nationwide encompass Egyptians of all political leanings. That delicate balance faltered briefly in 2013 when a military-led counterrevolution quashed the nascent democratic movement and deposed elected leaders who were part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Egypt’s military rulers declared the Brotherhood a terrorist organization and shuttered any organization it suspected of ties. Al-Gameya Al-Shareya was among more than 1,000 civil society groups blacklisted in the crackdown, court filings say, and chapters suspected of helping the Brotherhood during elections were dissolved. The group resumed operations the next year, when an Egyptian court lifted the ban, ruling that the charity “has no ties to the Muslim Brotherhood,” according to news reports.

Egypt’s return to zero tolerance for dissidents made Soliman’s activism dangerous, he said in court papers. As a journalist and Islamic scholar, he represented two fields the Egyptian government views as existential threats: a free press and religious organizing.

Soliman fled to the United States in 2014 on a visitor visa and later filed a petition for asylum, describing how security forces over the years had locked him up on false charges and tortured him with electrical shocks. In one incident, his attorney said, Egyptian forces with machine guns stormed into an apartment where Soliman was asleep with his wife and young child. (Through attorneys, Soliman asked to withhold details about his family because they remain in Egypt.)

“For me, it’s life or death,” Soliman later told a U.S. immigration officer of his need to escape.

Officials in Cairo referred questions to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, which did not respond to requests for comment.

The asylum application asked whether Soliman had belonged to political parties or other associations in his home country. Ratliff, the attorney, said Soliman marked “yes” and attached a statement that mentioned Al-Gameya Al-Shareya and his role in fundraising for the local chapter.

Friends said Soliman rejoiced when he was granted asylum in 2018, under the first Trump administration, and sought permanent residency as the next step toward reuniting with his family. But the process stalled. “Bureaucratic hurdle after bureaucratic hurdle,” Ratliff said.

Then came a more serious snag. In 2021, Soliman learned he was on a federal watchlist when a background check for a chaplain job at an Oregon prison showed that the FBI had flagged him, court papers show.

His attorneys said they have no idea why. It could’ve been about a specific piece of intelligence. It could’ve been a misspelling or mistaken identity, simple errors that have landed ordinary Muslims on opaque “war on terror” watchlists that are nearly impossible to get off.

Soliman, friends say, insisted on trying to clear his name. With the help of the Muslim Legal Fund of America, he sued government agencies including the FBI and the Transportation Security Administration. That route led to open-ended legal battles that yielded no clear answers and no green card.

Instead, his place in the country became more vulnerable. In December, the final stretch of the Biden administration, Soliman received notice that the government intended to terminate his asylum based on “inconsistencies” in his claims of persecution and concern that his charity work made him inadmissible based on “possible membership in a terrorist organization.”

Some of his friends are convinced it was payback for the lawsuits, but attorneys say there’s no telling what triggered a review.

“What Ayman has experienced is something that, post-9/11, has been the reality of Muslims in this country,” said Ali, his friend and advocate. “All he did was try to get answers and accountability for what he’d been put through.”

Big Claims, Little Transparency

Contested asylum cases like Soliman’s were prime targets when Trump took office the next month and supercharged deportations, a top campaign pledge. Since his return to office, ICE arrests have doubled.

Soliman was called to an asylum hearing in February, a month into the new administration, for a last shot at defending his eligibility. A DHS officer asked about claims in the Biden-era notice alleging “discrepancies in date and number of times he suffered harm” and raising doubts about a handwritten Egyptian police report and letters authenticating his journalistic work.

A transcript shows Soliman explaining that he sometimes got confused when describing traumatic incidents from years ago in English, his second language. He said the police report was a rough translation included by mistake and submitted statements verifying his journalism.

Then the DHS officer’s questioning took a turn: “When did you start supporting Al-Jameya Al-Shareya?”

For the rest of the meeting, the transcript shows, the officer drilled down on Soliman’s knowledge of the charity: fundraising, chapter size, support for violence and whether he had been aware of a Brotherhood link.

Another of Soliman’s attorneys interrupted when the immigration officer said the Brotherhood had been a Tier III group since 2012. That’s not how it works, the attorney countered — only top-tier terrorist organizations like al-Qaida or the Islamic State are given dates of designation. Tier III, she said, is for undesignated groups and is determined on a case-by-case basis, with the burden of proof on the government.

“Counsel, I’ll give you an opportunity at the end to make a closing,” the DHS officer said.

“I understand,” the attorney replied, “but we’re talking about something factual.”

The next time Soliman heard from DHS was the official termination of his asylum, effective June 3. This time, there was no hedging in language that declared he was ineligible based on “evidence that indicated you provided material support to a Tier III terrorist organization.” A few weeks later, he was taken into custody and notified of his pending removal.

Soliman’s legal team sued, arguing that he was stripped of asylum on illegal grounds because the designations had been made “without proper findings” and based on no new evidence.

Court filings show DHS attorneys introducing, then withdrawing or amending, materials to build a case linking Soliman to the Brotherhood through the charity.

“It looked like, ‘What can we put here to get to there?’” said Ratliff, a former immigration judge.

Among the supporting evidence filed by the government are three academic reports by scholars with deep knowledge of Islamic charities in Egypt. Soliman’s legal team filed statements from all three balking at how DHS had cherry-picked their research.

Steven Brooke at the University of Wisconsin-Madison detailed “important mistakes of fact and interpretation.” Neil Russell, an academic in Scotland, called the U.S. conclusions “a mischaracterization of my findings.” Marie Vannetzel, a French scholar who has conducted field research with Al-Gameya Al-Shareya, rebutted what she called “a dishonest manipulation of my text and my work.”

Vannetzel wrote that she rejects the idea that Soliman, “simply by virtue of his activity in the association, could be accused of providing material support to the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Observers of Cairo’s unsparing campaign to uproot Islamist opposition say the matter is clear-cut: If the charity survived the scrutiny of Egyptian intelligence, then it’s not Muslim Brotherhood. “It’s really striking that this group is not proscribed,” said Michael Hanna, an Egypt specialist and U.S. program director of the nonprofit International Crisis Group.

Soliman’s attorneys also criticized the government’s assertion in court filings that he, as a board member of one local branch, would’ve been aware of any Brotherhood affiliation of chapters nationwide. “If a Rotarian in Seattle commits murder, we don’t go charging Rotarians in Des Moines with conspiracy,” Ratliff said.

Separate from U.S. attempts to tie Soliman to the Brotherhood was a puzzling footnote about Iraq that appeared in a later filing. Without detail, DHS attorneys alluded to warrants for “murder and terrorism activities.” Ratliff said a DHS attorney later confirmed to him in a phone call that it wasn’t about Soliman, but didn’t explain why it was there.

The error remained uncorrected in filings until Sept. 3, when DHS attorney Cheryl Gutridge acknowledged in court that it was an “inadvertent” reference to another case, Ohio news outlets reported. The original wording suggesting that Soliman faced murder charges in Iraq had been included in the government’s successful argument for keeping him in custody.

DHS did not address questions about the Iraq reference.

A close friend, Ahmed Elkady, said Soliman told him on a jail visit he was stunned to be linked to Iraq, a place he’s never been: “He said, ‘How can I become a virtual terrorist?”

A Sheriff’s ICE Fiefdom

As he awaits trial in immigration court, Soliman is in custody at the Butler County Jail, about 30 miles outside of Cincinnati, past cornfields and a German social club and the Town and Country Mobile Home Park.

For more than 20 years, this outpost has been the domain of Sheriff Richard Jones, a cowboy hat-wearing firebrand who keeps a framed photo of Trump in his office. In the run-up to the 2024 election, Jones mused that a Trump victory might put him “back in the deportation business.”

From 2003 to 2021, the jail had been contracted to house immigration detainees until the arrangement dissolved in the Biden era. As predicted, the county entered into a new agreement with ICE in February, after Trump returned to power, to hold around 400 detainees: $68 a day per person, plus $36 an hour for the sheriff’s office toward transportation.

Jones celebrated the restored partnership by posting a fake image showing inflatable gators outside the jail, a nod to ICE’s “Alligator Alcatraz” detention center in Florida. A Black Lives Matter group in Dayton issued a statement calling the sheriff’s post an “egregious act of cruelty and historical mockery.”

As it returns to deportation work, the jail still faces a federal civil rights lawsuit filed in 2020 by two ICE prisoners who said they endured beatings and discrimination. One plaintiff, a Muslim, said a jailer called him a “fucking terrorist” and threatened to throw his prayer rug in the toilet. Jones has disputed the claims.

The sheriff is in the news again because of Soliman. In court filings, the Muslim chaplain says he was denied access to a space where he could lead communal prayers and then placed in “isolation” for nearly a week with only an hour of phone access between midnight and 1 a.m.

Soliman’s attorneys say in court papers that the episode was related to “targeted harassment” over his religion. The sheriff’s office told local outlets that it respects religious freedom and said Soliman was placed in isolation because he was “argumentative” and “threatening.”

After agreeing to an interview with ProPublica, Jones later decided he was “no longer interested,” the sheriff’s spokesperson, Deputy Kim Peters, wrote in a text message.

As he languishes in jail, Soliman’s empty apartment in Cincinnati has become a way station for an inner circle of supporters, who said they felt like “intruders” when they first gathered there. Soliman is known as an elegant dresser, but his apartment was in bachelor-pad disarray, a reflection of his long hours at the hospital and the abruptness of his detention, said his friends, also clerics. The imams laughed when one confessed that he first thought the FBI had ransacked the place.

Over water bottles and energy drinks scavenged from Soliman’s fridge, they talked about the deportation threat. In Egypt, pro-government news outlets already have trumpeted the case as proof that Soliman was leading a secret Brotherhood cell in America.

Despite Soliman’s predicament, they said, being in limbo here is preferable to the alternative.

“You think I’m afraid of being here in jail?” Soliman told fellow imam Ihab Alsaghier during a recent visit. “Every moment I’m alone, I imagine I’m on a flight back to Egypt.”

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MMA

September 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five

JESSE WATTERS (HOST): The problem is, you know, this is Western civilization. This is Europe here. We have lost the connective tissue between the United States and Europe. We are now the true beacon of freedom, and we can't lose what we have in Europe. We have to cradle it. We have to nurture it, because if it dies and that flame is extinguished, that's a huge problem for the West, when you see China coming up, when you see the Muslims start to rise up. This culture and this tradition of freedom and liberty and property has to be maintained, and if it's not, bad things are going to happen not just here, to the entire world.

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mma

Trump ally Laura Loomer on Palestinian children seeking medical care in US: “You think these kids are so innocent?”

09/03/25

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As mass deportation intensifies, right-wing media expand their aim to include American citizens

MAGA volk: Right-wing media personalities are expanding their hostility toward undocumented immigrants and now are targeting naturalized and native-born citizens in an assault on American identity

Written by Jason Campbell

Research contributions from John Whitehouse

Published 08/25/25

Since its inception, the MAGA movement has focused energy on trying to purge the United States of people who do not have legal status in the country. The Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts accelerated this summer after passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, alongside the opening of new migrant detention centers. Now, MAGA media are extending that hostility toward immigrants to take aim at naturalized and native-born citizens in an assault on American identity itself.

This weekend, MAGA personality Jack Posobiec shared a meme asking Americans what kind of “stock” they are, and suggested that new citizens are somehow less “American” than others. Lest anyone doubt his intent, on Monday morning, he shared it again. (“Foundation stock” is a term used for animal breeding, for what it’s worth.)

Citation

Via @JackPosobiec

The notion of certain Americans being less “American” has escalated in right-wing media in recent months.

In July, The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh launched an attack on Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) for proposing legislation, The Dignity Act, to allow certain undocumented immigrants to apply for legal status. During his tirade, Walsh said Salazar is “not American” and should “go back to Cuba” — a startling claim given that Salazar is an American citizen who was born in the United States.

In a follow-up rant, Walsh doubled down on his attacks and argued that citizenship does not give a person equal claim to American identity “as someone who's lived in the country their entire life, who speaks the language, respects the culture, has ancestral ties to the country and its history."

Salazar is not the first U.S. citizen to have their national identity come under assault in recent months. After winning the Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, Zohran Mamdani was attacked across the right-wing media ecosystem. Many of these smears focused on his Islamic faith or his political views, but some targeted his status as a naturalized citizen. Right-wing pundit Jack Posobiec said Mamdani is “not an American,” and the Article III Project’s Will Chamberlain wrote: “Denaturalize and deport Zohran Mamdani."

Minneapolis mayoral candidate Omar Fateh has received similar attacks. Posobiec also claimed Fateh is “not an American,” while Walsh acknowledged that Fateh “was born in America, but he’s not actually an American."

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) has long been a target of right-wing media. In April, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk said Omar has not “assimilated to America” and is instead trying “to infect the United States of America with her radical, anti-American Mohammadism, amongst her extreme leftist beliefs."

On Newsmax, Mercedes Schlapp attacked another common target for right-wing media, saying “I’m thinking that maybe they should deport Rashida Tlaib."

To put a fine point on the issue, there is a demographic thread that unites Salazar, Mamdani, Fateh, Omar, and Tlaib — they are all non-white citizens. As Kirk’s executive producer and co-host, Andrew Kolvet, declared last month: “Just by stats, by history, yeah, [being] white probably helps be an American.” He then called for an “immigration moratorium” in the United States.

While hostility to undocumented immigrants also characterized President Donald Trump’s first administration, the current racially focused rhetoric on the right has been building for years.

In 2022, an 18-year-old gunman killed 10 people in Buffalo, New York. He left behind a 180-page racist manifesto filled with hateful rants about the “great replacement” conspiracy theory — once relegated to the fringe of online discourse — which argues that white people in the U.S. are being intentionally replaced with non-white foreigners. Three years after the Buffalo attack, claiming “the great replacement is real” is no longer a fringe idea; it’s a bedrock talking point in right-wing media.

This mentality is linked with growing suggestions that the United States is not “a nation of immigrants,” as Fox host Rachel Campos-Duffy argued in July, but “a nation of settlers.” Some personalities are even attacking the Statue of Liberty; Walsh claimed the famous poem at its base, which offered haven to “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” “in no way represents any kind of core American value."

MAGA attacks on Americans’ identities also extend to religion. Kirk said that Islam is “not compatible with Western civilization” and “fundamentally is at odds with the fiber and the DNA of our existence, of our birthright” under the U.S. Constitution, which “cannot coexist with Islam.” Muslims are dangerous, according to Kirk, plotting to “conquer” the United States “whether by sword” or “having a lot of babies.” And this view seemingly extends into the Trump administration, where Christian nationalist figures fill Trump’s religious liberty commission.

In the MAGA consciousness, America is not a melting pot but a homogenous identity, a MAGA “Volk,” and anyone else’s protections of legal immigration status or even citizenship can be removed at any point. This is why we see growing calls from the right for curtailing dual citizenship and demands to end all immigration into the United States. Kirk recently said that “America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that."

It’s not only immigrants and Muslim Americans who right-wing media are seeking to target. For MAGA, Democrats and the left are also incompatible with American identity. Kirk claimed that Democrats “don’t love the United States of America. They are at war with the American republic. There is no appealing to their higher angels. … There’s only the lower demons of the Democrat Party.” Fox’s Jesse Watters accused Democrats of “straight-up treason” over immigration policy. Laura Ingraham suggested Democrats opposing the Trump administration are trying to start an “armed rebellion,” and Newsmax’s Chris Plante asked, “At what point are they to be declared a terrorist organization?"

Manufacturing the friend-enemy distinction through political rhetoric and then enforcing that divide throughout society is an integral aspect of fascism: Those loyal to the regime are considered friends while those opposed are cast into the outer darkness, treated as enemies of the state, traitors, or parasites on the body politic. By calling into question the citizenship of immigrants, Muslims, and anyone who opposes the MAGA ideology, the right’s assault on American identity under the Trump administration is shaping a chilling new reality for our country.

And the MAGA assault on American identity is not just rhetorical — the angry rants on podcasts and social media platforms today could become White House policy tomorrow. Trump has mused about deporting U.S. citizens found guilty of a crime. Right-wing media have likewise campaigned to denaturalize and deport citizens.

“Not everyone in this country is an American,” said Walsh, “even the ones with legal status."

We’re seeing the end result of that mentality now: MAGA media want the Trump administration to target those with legal status next. Charlie Kirk made that clear, connecting all of these threads when he said, “If you're not an American, that's fine. Go back to your place of origin. … Just go back. Hasta la vista. But we have a culture to protect. We have a country to love. No man can serve two masters. Christ our Lord said that. We have a heritage to preserve."

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  1. ### The right-wing media campaign to denaturalize and deport American citizens

:{:{03/26/25}:

  1. ### Fox's Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters on the FBI raid of John Bolton: “Some people say it's retribution. I say, who cares?”

:{:{08/22/25}:

  1. ### Charlie Kirk says he can’t find “Christ-like compassion” for long-term immigrants who don’t speak English

08/22/25

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MMA

August 22, 2025, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show,streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): Here's what he can do lawfully. He can surge federal agents, expand ATF, FBI, and USMS task forces, go after carjacking, gang cases, and route them all up to federal cases where appropriate. Project safe neighborhoods and enforcement zones. Also, go down on this fugitive carjacking crackdowns. US Marshals -- flood the zone with US Marshals. An emergency backstop, if necessary, declare the Insurrection Act. Insurrection Act 10 U.S.C. (251–253) allows limited federal troop deployment as extreme last resort, but I don't think that should be off the table. Chicago has become more dangerous than third world cities.

And it's working in DC. Could you imagine if you're able to say in one week in Chicago, there's not a single murder? It's unheard of. Not a single murder in DC for a week. The DC template can now be scaled. Making America great again means making our Midwestern cities great again. Revive Chicago. Revive Detroit. Revive Minneapolis -- okay, that might be tough. That's a third world Somali slum. The city has a death wish.

...

I want President Trump to do everything he possibly can. I'm going to talk to him. I'm going to say, "Man, Mr. President, I'm 100 percent behind you. Whatever you need to do a federal takeover of Chicago and make this a test case, I will do whatever I possibly can, Mr. President." I'm going to probably shoot him a message later on.

Black men have a cumulative incidence of being shot in Chicago of 11 percent by age 40. That means one out of ten Black men have been shot by the time they reach 40 in Chicago. In Chicago, one out of ten Black men have been shot by the age of 40. That's in Chicago.

...

Declare a national emergency, flood the zone with ATF, FBI, take -- have an entire task force, make Chicago another test case.

One -- hold on. If anyone, like, thinks I'm wrong here, if one in ten Black men have been shot by the age of 40, how is that not an emergency? Seriously, what is your argument? If one in ten Black men are shot by the age of 40, how is that not an emergency? That means if you have a basketball team -- if you have a basketball team at Simeon High School where Derrick Rose went, and it's 20 people on the basketball team, that means two of the people on that basketball team will be shot by the age of 40. Email us as always freedom@charliekirk.com.

Sweet home Chicago, take it over. Seize it. Roll in the tanks just like we said in DC. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pritzker, you are next, and you are woefully unprepared for what is coming. Law and order is coming, and we will liberate my favorite city, Chicago.

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OMG

8 25 LOOMER GETS WOUNDED GAZA KIDS BLOCKED FROM US

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the conv an 8 25

When people use the term “Orwellian,” it’s not a good sign.

It usually characterizes an action, an individual or a society that is suppressing freedom, particularly the freedom of expression. It can also describe something perverted by tyrannical power.

It’s a term used primarily to describe the present, but whose implications inevitably connect to both the future and the past.

In his second term, President Donald Trump has revealed his ambitions to rewrite America’s official history to, in the words of the Organization of American Historians, “reflect a glorified narrative … while suppressing the voices of historically excluded groups.”

This ambition was manifested in efforts by the Department of Education to eradicate a “DEI agenda” from school curricula. It also included a high-profile assault on what detractors saw as “woke” universities, which culminated in Columbia University’s agreement to submit to a review of the faculty and curriculum of its Middle Eastern Studies department, with the aim of eradicating alleged pro-Palestinian bias.

Now, the administration has shifted its sights from formal educational institutions to one of the key sites of public history-making: the Smithsonian, a collection of 21 museums, the National Zoo and associated research centers, principally centered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C....

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mma 7 25

On July 28, a shooter opened fire in a Manhattan office building that houses the NFL headquarters, killing four individuals including New York Police Department officer and Muslim immigrant Didarul Islam. Laura Loomer, an extremist with close ties to the Trump administration, immediately began pushing anti-Muslim lies about the suspected shooter, later identified as a former high school football player from Las Vegas who reportedly had a note mentioning the NFL and claiming he had a degenerative brain disease linked to concussions.

Loomer initially claimed the shooter was “described by witnesses as a Middle Eastern man with an AR-15 rifle.” She also claimed the shooter supported the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, and the “Free Palestine movement.”

After the identity of the suspected shooter was released, Loomer doubled down on claims that he was a “Free Palestine” activist, writing, “So let me get this straight. A Free Palestine low IQ black jihadi killed a Muslim police officer in his rampage on a building in NYC with a Jewish CEO while he was screaming Free Palestine?”

Loomer then lashed out against the media for not pushing baseless claims about the shooter’s motives: “Now the media is running to cover up another act of Islamic terrorism by the FREE PALESTINE crowd.”

IFrame Content

There appears to be no evidence that the shooter is connected to protests about Palestinians, but the New York Post did report that a protester outside the building yelled, “Free Palestine, I’m not the shooter,” and was arrested. Witness testimony Loomer cited included a witness saying police arrested the man saying “free Palestine.” The suspected shooter reportedly took his life in the building.

Loomer used her claims to push an Islamophobic agenda, repeatedly calling for Mamdani, who has been visiting Uganda, to be refused reentry to the country. She framed Mamdani as an “Islamic immigrant invader” and attacked Muslim politicians broadly, writing, “We need to have a serious conversation about banning Islamic immigrants from running for office in America.” Loomer also repeated her Islamophobic attacks while attempting to tie them to the shooter, writing: “I don’t feel safe with Muslims holding office in America. Mamdani inspires cop killers and Islamic terrorists to wage war on the streets of America while screaming ‘Free Palestine,’” and “This is why I will never care about Gaza.”

This is not Loomer’s first time pushing baseless claims in the aftermath of a shooting. Following the shooting of two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers, Loomer claimed the shooter was an “ally” of Minnesota Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and suggested Walz may have known about the shooting ahead of time.

Loomer is a self-described “proud Islamophobe” with a long history of making bigoted remarks about Muslims. Infamously in 2017, rideshare apps Uber and Lyft banned Loomer after she made multiple bigoted complaints that they hire Muslim drivers. During the 2024 election, Loomer argued that a Kamala Harris win would create an “Islamic caliphate in this country.” She also said China detains Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim group, because the country recognizes “the threat of Islam.”

Loomer is an influential figure in the MAGA world. She has repeatedly boasted that she has influence over the administration and often claims Trump “hired” her four times but his staff “did not listen to him.” She regularly brings up her communications with Trump, even noting that she spoke with the president shortly after he signed the “Big Beautiful Bill” into law. In April, Trump fired six national security officials after a meeting with Loomer. She also took credit for the firing of Mike Waltz from the National Security Council in early May and boasted that Trump “took my advice” on Panama Canal policies during the 2024 election.

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  1. ### After the killing of a leading Minnesota politician, Laura Loomer pushed baseless claims

06/20/25 9:35 AM EDT

  1. ### Laura Loomer says she spoke with Trump following the signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill

07/08/25 1:11 PM EDT

  1. ### Laura Loomer on the Epstein files: “Let's move on and talk about other things”

07/17/25

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7 25 R WW

Right-wing pastor Lorenzo Sewell, who delivered the benediction at Trump's inauguration, says a "demonic spirit" is at work behind Zohran Mamdani's campaign for mayor of New York City: "Just as in the natural, we bombed Iran, in the spiritual, we need to bomb the spirit of Islam that's trying to take over our country."

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[## Charlie Kirk condemns Zohran Mamdani for how he “disgustingly” eats rice: “We in the West value cleanliness. We have utensils.” 07/01/25

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MMA

After Mamdani won the NYC Democratic mayoral nomination, right-wing media resorted to predictable racist and Islamophobic attacks

Written by Gideon Taaffe, Chloe Simon & Torri Lonergan

Published 07/03/25

After Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim New York State Assembly member, won the Democratic nomination in the New York City mayoral race, right-wing media predictably resorted to racist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic attacks against him.

Right-wing host Mike Crispi called Mamdani a “pig” for eating with his hands, Newsmax host Greg Kelly attacked him over his clothes, saying he should assimilate, and Newsmax host Michael Savage labeled him a “jihadist sympathizer.”

Right-wing media figures also attacked Mamdani for being Muslim, with Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk claiming that Mamdani’s win means Islam gets the “last laugh” for 9/11 and right-wing podcaster Dave Rubin speculating that “of course he’ll be for Sharia law.”

President Donald Trump has threatened to have Mamdani arrested or deported if he interferes with federal immigration enforcement, and Wayne Allyn Root wrote at The Gateway Pundit, “Say it with me, ‘DEPORT MAMDANI!”

Right-wing media’s racist commentary about Mamdani follows a long history of racist, Islamophobic, and xenophobic attacks on Muslim and immigrant politicians including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Mamdani gained national attention after winning the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City

//

  1. ### Benny Johnson on Zohran Mamdani: “Trump told me yesterday he's just gonna put him in jail”

:{:{07/02/25}:

  1. ### After the killing of a leading Minnesota politician, Laura Loomer pushed baseless claims

:{:{06/20/25}:

  1. ### Fox News encouraged the US to directly attack inside Iran — and then praised Trump when he listened

06/27/25

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mma

June 29, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Savage Nation

MICHAEL SAVAGE (HOST): I also want to talk today about the bombing, the most successful bombing of — the most successful bombing mission in history, which was immediately debunked by the vermin at CNN, which to me is sedition. I looked up what sedition is.

If it was up to me and I was president, I'd rip them out by the hair and I'd arrest them for what they did. Right after the most successful bombing campaign of our life with the B-2 bombers, took out the nuclear facilities in Iran, they leak a fake report. The bombs did nothing. You hear this? Do you have any idea what the force and power is of these bombs that were dropped? Each bomb? Do you know what the TNT level is? What it does? One bomb went into the Earth, burrowed a hole. The other one went into the tunnel that was dug by the first bomb and exploded. And they're saying it had no effect on Iran's nuclear capacities.

Look, I studied what sedition is. If it was up to me, I would arrest the — excuse me, the ownership of CNN for letting this go out on the air. They've undermined America in a time of war against radical Islamic terrorists who would kill all of us.

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MMA June 19, 2025, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House

ALICIA MENENDEZ (ANCHOR): As Donald Trump flirts with the greater American involvement in the conflict, it's caused deep division in the MAGA movement, upsetting some of his most influential America first figures, the likes of Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, who was spotted today outside the White House. Bannon has warned against any American involvement in the conflict. Joining the conversation, president of Media Matters for America, Angelo Carusone, Claire McCaskill, is still with us. Angelo, describe this division between the two factions of MAGA here.

ANGELO CARUSONE (PRESIDENT, MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA): Yeah, I think it's so big that it then — it even expands out to the larger sort of right wing media echo chamber because, as you noted, Fox is pretty heavily in the, you go to war with Iran camp. They've been pushing this for a very long time. This they see as an opportunity, and they know know that they have Trump's ear. I mean, even though the last election, there's much to be made about the podcast and the inner, you know, these online shows that Trump deployed and used, that's not his go-to day to day. The lens through which he sees the world, even still as president, is cable news, and Fox News is the main vehicle for that. That's why when he was criticizing Carlson, he said, look, tell him to get a TV network, and then maybe people will listen to what he has to say because that's still the mindset. And so Fox is all in on this, and they are reflective of a part of the MAGA base.

MENENDEZ: But why? Why, Angelo? Why are they all in on this?

CARUSONE: I mean, look. Part of it is straight bigotry. I mean, they really — they have really spun this narrative, we shouldn't forget about that, that Islam is a fundamental problem, that we are in a battle for good and evil. And even though has been a little bit sidelined in terms of his day-to-day involvement in this particular decision, let's not forget that Pete Hegseth, who is very reflective of the Fox News worldview, was somebody that described the great conflict, not as one between the United States and China or other great powers, but as between Christianity and Islam, and that we had to go out there and do everything we can, including using our military, to put that back in check.

So they see this larger geopolitical world through that framework, and that is something that they've been pushing for a very long time aside from just having — that is also part of their their foreign policy. They don't believe that you should democratize other countries. They're just — they're warmongers.

They believe in might makes right. And even though they are repeating Trump's line of peace through strength, they actually don't mean peace through strength. They mean, strength first and then, you know, have peace because you have nothing left after that. I mean, that's honestly what they're actually saying, and it's core to the Fox News base. It also plays really well on TV. Like, we shouldn't lose the sight of that.

Rupert Murdoch cut his teeth in the tabloids, and one of the big things that he always did was find the most horrible, horrific things that he could tell stories about crimes, violent things, and exaggerate them, but also lay them into a demographic fight. That's part of how he came to be. He sees news through that storytelling perspective. And then you have people like Carlson and Bannon who have their own world view, and a lot of it is hyper nationalist, and we shouldn't be celebrating that in that even though they are taking a position here that seems more reasonable, it's coming from a really scary place. It is coming from either straight up bigotry, you know, antisemitism, or a real deep intense nationalism, that is — even if they get to a destination there that seems peaceful, it's because they want to turn their energy internally on what they see as domestic enemy.

That's the part that doesn't get sort of carried through here is that they see the real threat not as foreign entities, not as these foreign entanglements, but as you and me, as members of the media and as advocates and people that are participating in civic spaces. That's who they see as the real target right now as enemy number one. So we shouldn't lose sight of why they're advocating for peace, but the net effect of all of this, though, and this I think Claire McCaskill really illustrated this well in the first segment is that this is the confusion. This is why Trump is on the sidelines.

If Bannon and Tucker were either quiet or were in uniform with this idea that he should be bombing Iran, it would have happened already. And because part of how he sees the world is through these stories, he's trying to see how this particular chronicle plays out a little bit. You know, who wins in this narrative for hearts and minds for audience share. And that's a big part of this, is seeing how the story plays out, because he honestly isn't sure there's something grounding him. And now it's just what's going to end up capturing the imagination of his base, of his audience, and where is he going to get the best ratings for himself.

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mma

After Israel launched airstrikes at Iranian nuclear and residential infrastructure on June 12, right-wing media figures rushed to fearmonger that supposed Democratic “open border” policies allowed Iranian “sleeper cells” into the country that might now execute terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

Israel announced it had initiated a series of strikes aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities and missile factories which have reportedly killed top Iranian military commanders and civilian scientists. In response, Iran vowed retaliation against what it called the country’s “foolish act.” President Donald Trump called the attack “excellent” and warned that there would be “more to come.”

Some right-wing media figures have already started fearmongering about the possibility of Iranian sleeper cells committing terrorism on U.S. soil in response to the Israeli strikes. Several have also blamed former President Joe Biden for this threat due to his alleged “open border” policies.

Right-wing figures fearmonger about the possibility of “terror attacks” from Iranian sleeper cells supposedly let into the U.S. under Biden

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk warned his followers: “Keep your head on a swivel. Biden let millions of people into America. Iran might activate some sleeper cells against Americans. Stay armed.”

IFrame Content

Trump ally and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer urged people to be “very careful today and this weekend in American cities and tourist locations” because “Iran has many sleeper cells in the US. Iranian proxies from HAMAS and Hezbollah will likely retaliate on US soil to kill Americans in acts of Islamic terror as a form of retaliation to the Israeli air strikes.” She also claimed “there are millions of jihadi sleeper cells in our country thanks to the Democrats open border polices.”

IFrame Content

On former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room, MAGA media influencer Jack Posobiec also suggested that the U.S. is “very vulnerable” to attacks planned inside the country because “under four years of the Biden administration, … the border was completely open,” adding later that the U.S. is “vulnerable to this type of attack from sleeper cells from any of our adversaries or potential sabotage teams around the world.”

Video

Citation

From the June 13, 2025, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

On The National Report, Newsmax host Jon Glasgow said, “We’ve had millions of people pour in over the borders. Is there a possibility of some sleeper cells here in the United States that Iran might try to activate?” Newsmax host Rob Astorino replied, “There's no question. I mean, that's been their plan the whole time.”

Appearing on Newsmax’s Rob Schmitt Tonight, retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer claimed that Israel “could well have essentially limited all options that the Iranians have, except for potentially some sleeper cells, which we are definitely still worried about here in the United States.” Newsmax host Bianca de la Garza responded, “As we have to be. Joe Biden opened borders for four years.”

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rww

06/04/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

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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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see ozturk for anno

again worse than fox

Right-wing media baselessly promoted claim that Tufts student was associated with Hamas — an internal State Department memo said otherwise

In the weeks after a video of Rumeysa Ozturk’s arrest was released, figures across the right-wing media landscape parroted the administration's false claims, frequently accusing Ozturk of being “pro-Hamas”

Written by Harrison Ray & Noah Dowe

Published 04/16/25 11:20 AM EDT

Following the arrest of Tufts graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk, right-wing media were quick to cast her as a “pro-Hamas radical.” According to new reporting, however, the State Department had determined ahead of her arrest “that the Trump administration had not produced any evidence showing that she engaged in antisemitic activities or made public statements supporting a terrorist organization,” despite the Department of Homeland Security’s claims that Ozturk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas.”

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rww

02/14/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

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// nola attack by vet citizen

mma

As media figures, Trump picks Homan, Waltz, and Bondi have repeatedly spread fear about ISIS crossing the southern border

01/06/25

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January 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

LAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): We know what was happening with ISIS when he was in office, they were on the run, he destroyed them. Right now, it looks like they are emerging stronger and we have no response right now, Rachel.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (FOX NEWS HOST): Yeah, our foreign policy is also dysfunctional. Just think about it, we are still funding the Taliban through NGOs in Afghanistan. We are funding Islamist rebels in Syria, and what we need to do is focus on security here at home. For me Lawrence, it's really personal. Donald Trump is about to assume office January 20. I am bringing my family, my children, over to the inauguration because as you know, Sean is nominated to be Secretary of Transportation. And we have an FBI, a DOD, and a Homeland Security that has given us zero confidence. They've said nothing with a border open and terrorists flowing over the borders. They've been directing agents to go after political dissidents from J6, from January 6, instead of going after terrorists. We know that within the military, they were flagging Pete Hegseth as a white supremacist because of a tattoo.

JONES: The ultimate patriot.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: And meanwhile, we have this guy who was a veteran who turned to ISIS. So, this so dysfunctional. And right now, you know Lawrence, Donald Trump and senators are calling for Donald Trump's national security team, Tulsi, Pete Hegseth -- Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, and Kash Patel to be confirmed immediately because they don't trust this current administration's FBI, DOD, and Homeland Security, and I don't blame them. Lawrence, we still don't know about the two people that tried to assassinate Donald Trump this summer. We know nothing about this situation. These are not crimes that have been solved. And yet I'm supposed to feel OK taking my kids to an inauguration on January 20 with this team in place for national security? It is a joke.

MMA

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rww

01/02/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

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rww

01/02/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Within hours of the New Year’s attack in New Orleans, the president-elect simultaneously flunked tests of accuracy, decency and credibility.

David Brody, a Christian pro-MAGA TV host on Real America's Voice, called for a "blanket crackdown on mosques" by the government after two potential attacks on New Year's Day.

As part of his ongoing efforts to brainwash children into Christianity, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters just released the new standards for public school social studies classes. (These are the required topics teachers must incorporate into their lessons.) And, as expected, the standards include all kinds of religious indoctrination.

Trump isn't going after gray areas. If the Journal is right, he plans to enact policies that he flat out knows to be illegal. He's just hoping that his hand-picked Supreme Court will let him do it.

H.W. Crocker III thinks Western civilization is in trouble. He supports conservative Christian moral values and has decried the rise of a new, secular America where a growing number of people answer “none” to surveys asking which religion they practice. He’s lauded the Confederacy and its soldiers and generals in books like the “Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War” and “Robert E. Lee on Leadership.” And, this year, he picked up a new job: communications consultant for Sen. Josh Hawley’s Senate campaign.

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mma January 3, 2025, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends

LAWRENCE JONES (CO-HOST): We know what was happening with ISIS when he was in office, they were on the run, he destroyed them. Right now, it looks like they are emerging stronger and we have no response right now, Rachel.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY (FOX NEWS HOST): Yeah, our foreign policy is also dysfunctional. Just think about it, we are still funding the Taliban through NGOs in Afghanistan. We are funding Islamist rebels in Syria, and what we need to do is focus on security here at home. For me Lawrence, it's really personal. Donald Trump is about to assume office January 20. I am bringing my family, my children, over to the inauguration because as you know, Sean is nominated to be Secretary of Transportation. And we have an FBI, a DOD, and a Homeland Security that has given us zero confidence. They've said nothing with a border open and terrorists flowing over the borders. They've been directing agents to go after political dissidents from J6, from January 6, instead of going after terrorists. We know that within the military, they were flagging Pete Hegseth as a white supremacist because of a tattoo.

JONES: The ultimate patriot.

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: And meanwhile, we have this guy who was a veteran who turned to ISIS. So, this so dysfunctional. And right now, you know Lawrence, Donald Trump and senators are calling for Donald Trump's national security team, Tulsi, Pete Hegseth -- Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, and Kash Patel to be confirmed immediately because they don't trust this current administration's FBI, DOD, and Homeland Security, and I don't blame them. Lawrence, we still don't know about the two people that tried to assassinate Donald Trump this summer. We know nothing about this situation. These are not crimes that have been solved. And yet I'm supposed to feel OK taking my kids to an inauguration on January 20 with this team in place for national security? It is a joke.

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vet divroced? biz fail sis flag IED

mma 1 25

New Orleans truck attack restarts the Fox-Trump feedback loop

Minutes after Fox falsely reported the suspect had just crossed the border, Trump claimed he was an immigrant

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 01/02/25 1:08 PM ESTmma

President-elect Donald Trump keeps falsely suggesting that the native-born U.S. Army veteran who rammed a pickup truck into a crowd in New Orleans on New Year’s Day was an immigrant. He appears to have been misled by a Fox News report — subsequently retracted — alleging that the assailant crossed the border from Mexico two days before the attack.

The falsehoods mark a resumption of the Trump-Fox feedback loop that powered his communications during his first term in the White House. The then-president, an obsessive consumer of Fox programming, sent nearly 1,300 tweets in response to coverage he saw on Fox News and Fox Business over the last 29 months of his tenure.

At around 3:15 a.m., the driver of a pickup truck sped through a crowd of revelers on New Orleans’ Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more before being killed in a shoot-out with police. The driver was later identified as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, a U.S. citizen and Army veteran born and raised in Texas who claimed to have joined ISIS.

But at 10:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday — before authorities had confirmed the suspect’s name — Fox aired an anonymously-sourced bombshell report claiming that he had crossed the border from Mexico earlier that week.

“According to federal sources, the suspect drove a truck with that Texas license plate, OK — so this is just coming into our newsroom now. This is from Griff Jenkins and David Spunt working their federal sources on this,” anchor Molly Line said. “According to their sources, this person came through Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago.”

Video

From the 10 a.m. ET hour of Fox News' live coverage on January 1, 2025

Within minutes, Trump amplified Fox’s incendiary claim, arguing that the New Orleans attack showed he had been correct about “criminals coming in” to the U.S.

“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” he posted to his Truth Social platform at 10:48 a.m. “The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before. Our hearts are with all of the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”

But as Trump parroted Fox’s reporting, the network’s reporters were walking it back, saying that the sources only confirmed that the truck, and not the suspect, had crossed the border earlier in the week.

“We’re hearing that the vehicle was traced to coming across from Mexico into the United States at Eagle Pass, Texas, two days ago,” Spunt told Fox’s audience at around the same time Trump posted.

“To be clear, we don’t 100% know that this man — and we do know the suspect is a man — was the person driving that crossed the border,” he continued. “That is unclear at this point. We just know that the actual license plate was picked up by a reader at a border crossing. This is per two federal law enforcement sources to Fox News."

“I know that raises more questions than answers, but we are providing information to our viewers as we get it, the most accurate information,” Spunt added.

Video

From the 10 a.m. ET hour of Fox News' January 1, 2025, live coverage.

But Fox had not carefully provided its viewers — including the former president — with “the most accurate information."

Roughly an hour later, a Fox anchor reported that the network’s sources had confirmed that the pickup truck actually crossed the border at Eagle Pass on November 16 — nearly two months ago, not two days — and that the driver at the time had not been the suspect. The car-sharing company Turo later confirmed that the suspect had rented the truck used in the attack.

A few hours after that, as more information about the suspect came out, Spunt ended up in the curious position of correcting the false Trump claim that his own reporting had seemingly spurred. Spunt read the Truth Social statement during the 4 p.m. ET hour and commented, “Now, the former president said ‘criminals coming in’ in his statement, meaning into our country, but to be clear, Molly and Brian, the suspect was born in the United States.”

The correction did nothing to deter Trump, who posted overnight that “this is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS” and blamed Democrats “for allowing this to happen to our Country.”

By the following morning, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Michael Waltz, was on Fox & Friends explaining that the attack demonstrated the need to “close the border, secure our sovereignty.”

Minutes after that, Trump posted that the attack by a native-born citizen had proven him correct about the border. “With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined,” he wrote.

Trump appears to be starting his second term the same way he spent his first one — by riffing on what he sees on his television.

Fox News keeps linking the New Orleans truck attack to border security despite no apparent link

The network featured future Trump officials who emphasized border security, even when they noted the suspect was American

Written by Gideon Taaffe, Jack Winstanley, Jane Lee & Helena Hind

Published 01/02/25 mma

Updated 01/03/25 10:15 AM EST

After a truck-ramming attack killed at least 14 people at a New Year's celebration in New Orleans, Fox News misreported that the vehicle used came across the southern border two days earlier, implying that the suspected perpetrator — later identified as an Army veteran born in the U.S. — had also crossed the border.

Although the network has seemingly attempted to quietly walk back the false information, Fox personalities and guests — including some former and incoming Trump administration picks — have continued to baselessly connect an act of terror reportedly committed by a U.S. citizen to the southern border in order to fearmonger about terrorists entering the country.

After a deadly truck attack in New Orleans, Fox News quickly sought to tie the attack to the southern border

{ After reporting that the suspect was a U.S. citizen who drove from Texas, Fox’s Todd Piro asked his guest, “Would you say we are at pre-9/11 threat level specifically because of Joe Biden's border policies — in other words, is there an extensive ISIS threat in our homeland?” His guest, former Trump Homeland Security Deputy Assistant Secretary Jonathan Fahey, responded: “We don't really know what that threat is but I do think Biden's border policies — whether or not it had anything to do with this, where it doesn't seem like it did — but it does create the perception we do not have a secure border and a secure country, and that this administration is more concerned about advancing their political agenda than they are about protecting public safety and national security.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends First*, [1/2/25]}:

During a segment discussing the attack,The Fiveco-host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery mentioned “hundreds, maybe thousands of people associated with, you know, groups from ISIS-K to Al-Shabaab in this country illegally, potentially gotaways we don't even know about.” Co-host Jessica Tarlov noted that “there are two stories being told about this perpetrator, one that ... this was a home-grown American terrorist" and “then there is another narrative that is being boosted by people who want to make a case about open borders, that this is someone who, you know, flew through Eagle Pass, drove to New Orleans and tried to kill a bunch of people. That's obviously not what happened here.” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/2/25]|}:

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed the New Orleans attack on soft-on-crime and open border policies.Pompeo claimed, “When America fails to lead, when you don't engage in solid law enforcement and enforcing criminal laws, when you can't secure your borders, when you refuse to call out radical Islamic terrorism and punish it, you get the events of October 7, you get the events of just this past week in New Orleans.” Pompeo later fearmongered about migrants crossing the southern border, saying, “We’ve also seen a couple of hundred folks that are on the terror watch list come across our southern border. We don't have any earthly idea where many of these folks are.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/2/25]

New Orleans truck attack restarts the Fox-Trump feedback loop

01/02/25 1:08 PM EST

  1. ### CNN's Jim Acosta calls out Republican strategist for defending Trump falsely blaming immigration for New Orleans terror attack

01/02/25 1:29 PM EST

Newsmax guest calls on Trump to deport imams and shut down mosques

01/02/25

//

mma

[## Benny Johnson on the New Orleans attack: “Was this an inside job?”

01/02/25 9:30 AM EST](https://www.mediamatters.org/benny-johnson/benny-johnson-new-orleans-attack-was-inside-job)

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an 11 24

Democrats suffered their share of disappointments in the 2024 election when President-elect Donald Trump narrowly defeated Vice President Kamala Harris and Republicans flipped the U.S. Senate while holding their small majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Yet the Democratic Party's progressive wing was happy to see members of The Squad reelected, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York), Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts), Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota).

Tlaib and Omar are both Muslims, and Randy Fine — a far-right MAGA Republican who is running in a special election in Florida's 6th U.S. Congressional District — singled them out in a threatening November 26 post on X, formerly Twitter.

READ MORE:'Gaslighting': Mehdi Hasan unleashes on 'centrists' who say Harris was too 'left-wing'

Fine posted, "The 'Hebrew Hammer' is coming. @RashidaTlaib and @IlhanMN might consider leaving before I get there. #BombsAway."

The New Republic's Robert McCoy notes that attacking Muslims is nothing new for Fine.

McCoy explains, "Tlaib and Omar are two of just three Muslim members of Congress, and the only two Muslim women. Fine has a history of using demeaning rhetoric against Muslims and Palestinians and trafficking in Islamophobic tropes. In the past, he has said that 'we have a Muslim problem in America' and that 'while many Muslims are not terrorists, they are the radicals, not the mainstream.'"

The New Republic reporter adds, "In August 2021, when Fine was a representative in Florida's state House, the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a complaint against him with the House Public Integrity and Ethics Committee, alleging that Fine 'violated his duty as an elected official' by 'encouraging his constituents to run over people at Palestinian advocacy protests,' 'call(ing) for the annihilation of the Palestinian people,' and direct-messaging a Floridian to 'blow yourself up,' among other instances of 'egregious conduct.'"

READ MORE:Robert Reich: The last tariff increase 'ended up worsening the Great Depression'

Fine is running for the U.S. House seat being vacated by Michael Waltz, who Trump has nominated for national security adviser.

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mma

Pete Hegseth's book includes complaints about “Muslims’ birth rates,” praise for “crusaders who pushed back the Muslim hordes” 11/12/24

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September 18, 2024 4:50 pm

According to the city manager in Springfield, Ohio, JD Vance knew the truth about Haitian immigrants. The senator and Donald Trump kept lying anyway.

During an appearance on The Auron MacIntyre Show, Claremont Institute senior fellow Jeremy Carl not only celebrated the spread of these false claims, he predicted that it will be a “winning issue” for the Republican Party.

Quickly debunked claims spread like wildfire on X on Wednesday that explosives were found in a car near the site of former President Donald Trump’s upcoming rally on Long Island, New York.

Republican Senator John Neely Kennedy accused an Arab American activist of being a member of Hamas, in an incredibly racist tangent during a congressional hearing.

“My kids keep me humble,” Ms. Sanders said at an event with former President Donald J. Trump. “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.” The remark quickly drew backlash.

It’s no surprise that another clip of Robinson being the worst has emerged. This time Robinson is caught on camera in a 2022 church appearance, going on a tirade about how women don’t need birth control because — as he gestures to his crotch for emphasis — they need to “get this under control” instead.

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August 12, 2024 rww

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War Room guest: “Minnesota has been conquered. It is now Islamist.”

05/15/24

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mma 5 24

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Well, those types of slogans, of course, have been chanted and posted since after October 7th. Huh. What took him so long? Joining us now is Dennis Prager, radio host, founder of Prager U, one of my absolute favorite people in America. Dennis, you do such a great job every day. I'm so excited to talk to you. What about his approach today and should we assume it's heartfelt and he's standing strongly with Jewish Americans?

DENNIS PRAGER (GUEST): So I'll have an answer for you that you probably won't expect. I don't care about heartfelt in almost anything except perhaps, you know, my children and my wife and my closest friends. In life, what people do is much more important than what their heart feels. So, I am happy if he says these things whether or not they're heartfelt. All I can tell you is what he won't say and I want to salute him for what he did say, okay? I'm not a fan of his. But it's critical to give credit where it is due.

But, what he won't say is where all of this Jew hatred comes from. And it comes from only two sources, the left, not liberals, the left, I always make a distinction and the newest generation of immigrants from Muslim countries, not long-time Muslim residents of the United States who go back many generations like neighbors of mine who are terrific human beings. But, this newest wave of Jew-hating Muslims, and there are Muslims who don't hate Jews, but they're a minority. And he won't say that. He won't say where it's from.

So, it's like -- isn't one of the first things we want to know when somebody is murdered who did it? Isn't who did it a very important consideration? The who did it has not been addressed here. It's the people who have taken over his party, the left and this new Ilhan Omar type Muslim immigrant to the United States who brought with them from the Middle East a hatred of Jews that we have not known since the Holocaust and the Middle Ages.

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Chris Reed Says Muslims Cannot Be Americans

April 25, 2024 RWW

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an 3 24 note phobes

more eyebrow-raising details are emerging about Michele Morrow, the Republican nominee in North Carolina's K-12 school superintendent race.

According to a recent report by Media Matters for America (MMFA), Morrow has touted her past work for the political action committee (PAC) Liberty First Grassroots, which is a far-right advocacy group that's embraced numerous conspiracy theories. Some of the group's most spurious claims are that school shootings are "false flag" attacks staged by the US government, that the US government secretly played a role in the orchestration of the 9/11 terror attacks, that wealthy celebrities drink the blood of children and that former President Barack Obama is a grandson of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler through his mother.

The PAC — whom Morrow used to work for as a spokesperson — has given Morrow a "100%" endorsement, calling her "the light on the hill."

READ MORE:GOP nominee for NC public schools chief endorsed 'pay per view' execution of Obama: report

MMFA also found documented examples of Liberty First Grassroots PAC endorsing other fringe conspiracy theories like QAnon, Pizzagate (in which a Washington, DC pizzeria was accused of running a child sex trafficking ring out of its nonexistent basement), that Obama was "a political science project by psychopaths" with a "Hitler blood line" and even the belief that public schools are part of a "plan set up by the Illuminati to mold the brains of our children." The group has also endorsed the chemtrails/contrails conspiracy theory, as well as the conspiracy that Obama is secretly a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

"[Morrow] has been involved with LFG for years and has served as the group’s spokesperson. A 2021 LFG statement described her as 'a long time Conservative Activist Team member' and someone who has been 'quoted by the media many times,'" MMFA's Payton Armstrong and Eric Hananoki wrote. "Morrow has credited LFG with being an integral part of her political journey, telling an interviewer that she first connected with the group surrounding the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, who became a Supreme Court justice in 2017."

In one social media post from 2019, Liberty First Grassroots wrote that LGBTQ marriage was part of the "New World Order" conspiracy, whose adherents believe that "a shadowy elite force is trying to implement a totalitarian world government."

"This is where we are headed... if we let the Left continue," the group wrote on Facebook, sharing an image of a book whose author predicted that the state would raise children instead of parents and that practitioners of all religions would be imprisoned.

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Prominent Islamophobic activist recruits for anti-Muslim organization on QAnon show: “We need you by our side” | Media Matters for America

Article III Project's Mike Davis says there will be “Hamas riots to scare the hell out of Republican voters” on Election Day | Media Matters for America

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Right-wing media use mistranslation of Ilhan Omar’s speech to push for her deportation and expulsion from Congress | Media Matters for America

Right-wing media have taken a couple of blatant mistranslations of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) recent speech about the Republic of Somaliland to claim Omar is not loyal to the U.S. and should be removed from Congress and deported.

Omar said that one of the mistranslations was “completely off” and posted by “propagandists,” and the other mistranslation circulating online is satirical and was pushed by a right-wing troll account. Some right-wing figures picked it up in earnest to attack Omar, a frequent target of such smears. Right-wing media have taken a couple of blatant mistranslations of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) recent speech about the Republic of Somaliland to claim Omar is not loyal to the U.S. and should be removed from Congress and deported.

Omar said that one of the mistranslations was “completely off” and posted by “propagandists,” and the other mistranslation circulating online is satirical and was pushed by a right-wing troll account. Some right-wing figures picked it up in earnest to attack Omar, a frequent target of such smears.

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  1. ### Right-wing media attack Minnesota's state flag redesign with “great replacement” theory rhetoric

12/20/23 9:26 AM EST

  1. ### House GOP ouster of Ilhan Omar from Foreign Affairs committee is a big win for right-wing media

02/02/23 4:26 PM EST

  1. ### Right-wing media are pushing bigoted rhetoric toward Muslims — including Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar — after recent Hamas attacks

10/13/23

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chris hayes 3/22 no clash of civs with islam, but there is w/ putin authoritariANISM

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'Have to assume': GOP senator again claims without proof Iranian 'sleeper cells' may be in US - Alternet.org

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Right-wing media attack Minnesota's state flag redesign with "great replacement" theory rhetoric | Media Matters for America

After a Minnesota commission unveiled its finalist pick for a new state flag to replace a racially offensive design, right-wing media insisted that the new design resembled one from a state in Somalia. Conservatives used the redesign to promote the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that Minnesota has been “conquered” by Somali immigrants. Right-wing media claimed the design’s green and white stripes, which a state commission ultimately chose to remove from the final design, resembled Somalia’s flag.

Minnesota’s new flag design incorporates the state's shape, motto, and natural resources, replacing an old “genocidal” design

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Right-wing media figures exploit anti-immigrant riots in Ireland to demonize migrants and Muslims, and attack legal immigration

Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, and others pushed the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and falsely portrayed immigrants as threats to public safety

WRITTEN BY JOHN KNEFEL

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM JACINA HOLLINS-BORGES, SOPHIE LAWTON & JACK WHEATLEY

PUBLISHED 11/30/23

Right-wing media figures reacted to anti-immigrant riots in Ireland by demonizing Muslims, falsely accusing migrants of being a risk to public safety and attacking the very idea of legal immigration. Their response is an escalation of the xenophobic rhetoric that right-wing media frequently direct at unauthorized migration, and is a clear attempt to push for policies that would drastically reduce legal immigration levels.

The riots in Dublin were sparked after early reports on November 23 that an Irish citizen who allegedly stabbed five people, including three children, was believed to have been born abroad — thus highlighting the suspect’s perceived foreignness. Subsequent reporting found that although the alleged attacker was apparently born in Algeria, he has lived in Ireland for at least 20 years, according to Irish authorities. Numerous studies have found that increased levels of immigration do not cause a rise in crime rates either in the United States or European countries.

This manufactured panic and demonization of a marginalized group echoes a similar episode from last week, when Fox News invented a terrorism scare over a car crash at the U.S.-Canada border and used the nonexistent plot to paint Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, and their supporters as the culprits, only to retract its reporting hours later. Anti-Muslim hate incidents have also skyrocketed during Israel’s bombardment and invasion of the Gaza Strip after Hamas’ attack on October 7.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon exploited the Dublin attack to spread his anti-immigrant message across multiple platforms, including his own War Room podcast as well as Tucker Carlson’s show on X (formerly Twitter) and Donald Trump Jr.’s streaming show on Rumble, a far-right competitor to YouTube. In several of these segments, Bannon and his interlocutors endorsed versions of the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which holds that liberal elites are attempting to change the demographics of white-majority countries through mass migration from the Global South to maintain political and economic dominance.

Prior to Fox News’ firing of Carlson, he was the network’s — and perhaps the entire country’s — most visible proponent of the great replacement theory. During Bannon’s appearance on Carlson’s show on November 27, both figures pushed openly nativist bigotry alongside the racist conspiracy theory.

Bannon referred to migrants to the United States and Ireland as “alien invaders,” adding that Irish politicians have “sold out the sovereignty of the Irish” and that the riots were “natural blowback.”

“The Irish government is trying to replace the population of Ireland with people from the Third World, obviously,” Carlson responded. “But why? What's the justification for that?”

“You talk about the great replacement theory and people are — oh, you know, people get very upset when you talk about it, but just look at the math,” Bannon answered.

“It’s not a theory,” Carlson interjected.

“This has happened across Europe,” Bannon continued. “It's happened in Germany.”

“In 100 years, there'll be a minority of Irish people in Ireland,” Carlson said. “That's a big change, and it's on purpose.”

Later in their conversation, Bannon endorsed mass deportations, saying: “I think illegal alien invaders are coming because they've gamed the asylum system. My belief is those people have to go home. They have to be returned, they have to leave our country or we're not going to have a country.”

Later that day, Bannon appeared on Donald Trump Jr.’s Triggered to celebrate Hungary’s far-right authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán and Irish mixed martial arts fighter Connor McGregor, who had come under police investigation following anti-migrant social media posts.

Video

CitationFrom the November 27, 2023, edition of Triggered, streamed on Rumble

Former President Donald Trump fought “for the sovereignty, not just of nation-states, but the sovereignty of the individual citizens in those nation-states,” Bannon said. “I think it's inspired Orban in Hungary. I think McGregor in Ireland standing up the other day was inspired by Donald Trump.”

The discussion then turned to the knife attack in Dublin, with the host claiming Arab and Muslim cultures celebrate anti-social violence.

“In their culture, they can stab people in the streets. It's fine. We must allow them to do that to our children,” Trump Jr. facetiously said, adding, “I mean, the government is taking an actively hostile position against their citizens in favor of, like, seemingly savages in many cases.”

Bannon returned to the subject the next day on his War Room podcast, calling for the “deportation of the 9 million — at least 9 million to 10 million — illegal alien invaders coming in the Biden regime.”

“What happened in Ireland — it's all coming here, folks,” Bannon warned ominously. “It’s all coming here.”

His guest the following hour was conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who has been increasingly embraced by right-wing media in recent years. Jones falsely claimed that “illegal aliens or migrants” are responsible for “the majority of muggings, rape, and murder in every European country."

That evening, Bannon discussed the violence in Ireland in another episode of War Room, where his guest, author Michael Walsh, again pushed the great replacement conspiracy theory.

“This was the spark that set off what’s become a powder keg across the country, which is the notion — widely held among the Irish people — that they’re being replaced by foreigners,” Walsh said. He added that the Irish government “is committed to this program of quiet replacement and has demonized what we would have called Irish patriots,” referring to the far-right mobs.

Several other right-wing media figures also used the riots to spread anti-migrant bigotry.

"Across the West, the status quo has become intolerable,” Loomer added. “The endless waves of immigrants, the devastation of our culture, and the crackdown against anyone who dares to stand against it has all become too much to bear.”

“There can be no doubt that the average person is, at last, awake to the gravity of the situation, and their anger is brewing,” Loomer continued. “White people, in particular, have taken all of this on the chin for the last few decades, but that appears to be coming to an end.”

Following the riots, some observers of the far right argued that anti-immigrant sentiment had become a major issue in Ireland in recent years, and that politicians needed to do more to address the rising xenophobia. Right-wing media figures are determined to stand in the way.

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mma 12 23

December 1, 2023, edition of BlazeTV's *The Steve Deace Show

STEVE DEACE (HOST): Well, let's go back to 9/11 and reset a research point that I pointed out on this show a few months ago. Since 9/11, we -- if you took the total amount of people that we have imported from Islamist-dominated countries, that we have -- for not even illegally, we just agreed to accept either legally or as refugees or asylum seekers, because I'm sure -- I'm sure we vetted them all, right? Right? Sure.

If you took the total population of those people from Islamist-dominated countries that we have imported, it would be the 36th most populous state in the union, the 36th most populous state. Now, let's -- let's say 99 percent of them were completely and totally vetted -- they weren't -- and we have a pretty good read on their character and caliber and qualifications -- we don't -- but let's say we do, and it's one percent - you'd be looking at a standing army in the tens of thousands. Let's say it's point one - you'd be looking at a standing army way beyond the size and scope of the 20 -- what was it, 20, 21 people pulled off 9/11, something like that?

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Fox News guest: "Let's not talk about the Gazans as poor innocent victims" | Media Matters for America

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mma 1123 no twt

Fox News falsely reported last Wednesday that a car accident at the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara, New York, was an act of terrorism. Much of the network’s coverage was based on reporting from correspondent Alexis McAdams, who attributed her information — later debunked — to anonymous law enforcement sources. A close look at Fox’s treatment of this event shows how the network manufactured a terrorist event out of thin air, and then blamed it on Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, and their supporters.

Fox News personalities and guests made at least 97 claims alleging or speculating that the crash was an act of terrorism or an attack from when the incident happened at 11:30 a.m. ET, until about approximately 5:15 p.m. ET, when Gov. Hochul stated that the explosion was not related to terrorism. From when the network first began reporting the crash, around 1:15 p.m. ET, through Gov. Hochul's statement, Fox News aired 1 hour and 45 minutes of on-screen text that speculated that the car crash at the U.S.-Canada border was an act of terrorism or an attack. Several Fox guests and personalities backpedaled their statements over the course of the timeframe.

The incident occurred on November 22, one of the busiest travel days of the year, at a border checkpoint between the United States and Canada. By 9:40 p.m. ET Wednesday evening, the FBI had concluded its investigation, determining that “no terrorism nexus was identified.” Local police have now taken over the investigation, and a cause of the crash has yet to be released. The Niagara police chief criticized media outlets for spreading misinformation about the crash, which he said had “created significant and unnecessary anxiety in the community.”

Right-wing media outlets including Fox News have consistently fearmongered about the purported threat of Muslims and Arabs looking to cross into the United States to carry out violence following an attack in Israel on October 7 by the armed wing of Hamas, the Palestinian organization that governs the occupied Gaza Strip. An estimated 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas attack; Israel responded with a bombardment and invasion of Gaza that has reportedly killed more than 14,000 Palestinians, an estimated 10,000 of whom are women and children. Incidents of anti-Muslim discrimination in the United States have skyrocketed over this period.

Fox News was an early source to falsely claim the accident in Niagara was an act of terrorism, with the clear implication that it had been carried out by Islamists.

“High level police sources tell me this is an attempted terrorist attack,” Fox’s McAdams posted on X (formerly Twitter) at 1:53 p.m. ET on Wednesday, November 22. “Sources say the car was full of explosives. Both men inside dead.” By 3:16 p.m. ET, The New York Times reported, “A preliminary investigation has found that the car did not contain explosives,” which users on X added to McAdams’ post as a community note.

CitationFrom the official X account of Fox News correspondent Alexis McAdams

McAdams’ post spread fast. Fox News border reporter Bill Melugin shared McAdams’ post to his more than 350,000 followers and made his own post paraphrasing and citing his colleague. Melugin later deleted that post, but his repost of McAdams’ initial message is still viewable on his timeline.

Around the same time, Fox News anchor John Roberts read McAdams’ reporting on air, including information not contained in her post.

“Alexis McAdams is reporting that according to high-level police sources, the explosion was an attempted terrorist attack,” Roberts said. “A lot of explosives in the vehicle at the time, the two people who were in the car are deceased, one Border Patrol officer was injured. Driving from the U.S. apparently to Canada, and were trying to drive toward the CBP [Customs and Border Protection] building.”

Video

CitationFrom the November 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' America Reports

Roberts also suggested that Hamas might be behind the attack, claiming the “unrest in the Middle East that has spilled out past Israel” means there “could be operatives in this country sympathetic to terrorists who want to send a message here in the United States.”

Video

CitationFrom the November 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' America Reports

From there it was off to the races, as other Fox News on-air talent and guests began pushing the narrative that the incident was an act of terrorism. “When you are talking about radical Islamic terrorism and the attacks against the United States, this has happened before," said senior correspondent Eric Shawn.

During the 2 p.m. hour of America Reports, Roberts speculated whether the two people involved were "acting alone” or if the explosion was “part of a larger plot.”

“How long have these people been in the country — are they American, are they foreign-born, are they radicalized, are they just trying to make a statement here?” he continued. “I mean, there’s so many possibilities.”

McAdams joined the program as well, reporting that there may have been a “second car possibly involved” and that the original car was “full of explosives, according to those high-level sources.” She added that “there’s going to be big crowds of people coming here to New York City for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade," insinuating it could be a target, and also repeated that the explosion was “a planned terrorist attack, according to high-level police sources who were on the ground."

Video

CitationFrom the November 22, 2023, edition of Fox News' America Reports

Later that hour, former Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend suggested, like Shawn before her, that Hamas or another group of “jihadists” may be to blame.

“We don't know yet whether or not this is attributed — can be attributed to Hamas or another terrorist group, but I will tell you from our own experience we know that this sort of bomb, this kind of a vehicle bomb is sort of a classic technique of, you know, jihadists,” Townsend said. “So I don't think law enforcement yet understands who it was or what the intended target was, but the detonation of an explosive, a vehicle explosive this size, is regrettably — look, there could have been many more casualties — but as I say, very much a hallmark of jihadists.”

Roberts interviewed Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who used the opportunity to go on an anti-migrant tirade. “We have a number of people, by the tens of thousands, who have entered this country with bad intentions,” Ramaswamy said.

At 4 p.m. ET, McAdams joined Your World with Neil Cavuto to double down on her initial reporting, only to then retract it — all over the course of a few minutes.

“We’ve been checking in with police sources who were very confident just in the past hour or so saying that they believe this was a terrorist attack there, at that border crossing,” McAdams said. But the story had already started to fall apart.

“The bomb techs, who have lots of experience, thought that this was an explosive — that the car, I was told, had explosives in it, several explosives were in that vehicle,” she continued. “Now they’re backing that up, saying it was the way that the car landed that caused such an explosion.”

Finally, McAdams was forced to retract her initial claims. “We started seeing those conflicting reports, but that’s what happens with breaking news,” McAdams said. “They get new information, they give it to us, and we bring it back to the viewers.”

“So as of now, they’ve walked back that it was a possible terrorist attack,” she concluded.

Still, McAdams’ walkback didn’t prevent Fox from continuing to weaponize the incident against Palestinians and migrants.

On The Ingraham Angle, guest host Jason Chaffetz acknowledged the explosion might not have been an act of terrorism, but used it to argue for a nativist immigration policy anyway.

“Today's explosion at the border, regardless of the motive behind it, is a chilling reminder that we are all on high alert and living in a post-9/11 mindset, which means that our borders need to be secure,” Chaffetz said, adding, that the Biden administration doesn’t “have the political will to actually shut down the border."

Later that evening, Fox’s Kayleigh McEnany insinuated that it was only natural to assume the explosion was tied to Hamas or connected with Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.

“The crash was so fierce and in such a sensitive location that everyone's mind of course went to the same place — terror,” McEnany said on Jesse Watters Primetime. “With war in the Middle East, violent domestic protests, radicals calling for days of jihad, the FBI director telling us to be vigilant — we are all on edge.”

McAdams’ misinformation reached far beyond the confines of Fox News.

On The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, host Clay Travis interviewed former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about the incident, also citing McAdam’s reporting. “Alexis McAdams, who is at Fox News, says: 'High-level police sources tell me this is an attempted terror attack,'” Travis told his listeners.

“This should not be surprising to any of us,” Christie concluded.

On X, a paid X Premium account called The Insider Paper posted Fox News’ supposed confirmation that the car crash was an “attempted terrorist attack,” which was reposted by right-wing media figures including Richard Grenell and Colin Rugg, racking up thousands of reposts and millions of views.

Right-wing sites American Greatness, The Gateway Pundit, The Daily Caller, and PJ Media also amplified McAdams’ false report, only to be forced to update their stories after she retracted her initial claims.

There was no terrorist attack at the U.S.-Canadian border on Wednesday, November 22. But Fox News’ manufactured panic was very real, and risks exacerbating the threats that Muslims and Arabs in the United States already face.

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Rumble host Laura Loomer wants Palestinian Americans purged from government | Media Matters for America

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Fox News fearmongered about Middle Eastern terrorists at the border over 400 times in the four weeks after the Israel-Hamas war began | Media Matters for America

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also

Jesse Watters: “I want to say something about Arab Americans and about the Muslim world. …we’ve had it with them.”

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Charlie Kirk turns to antisemitic stereotypes amid Israel-Hamas war

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Here’s what right-wing radio listeners are hearing about the Israel-Hamas war

10/30/23

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Tom Cotton slammed for boosting conspiracy theories about journalists - Alternet.org

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On YouTube, Steven Crowder declares "all of Islam is a doomsday cult" | Media Matters for America

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marjorie-taylor-greene-continues-her-racist-campaign-against-rep-rashida-tlaib

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tucker ticks off all the phobes boxes now?

no lnx

Tucker Carlson issues weird warning as he aims to protect Putin

Tucker Carlson's story about the NSA spying on him is filled with holes

Meaghan Ellis March 30, 2022

Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently issued a bizarre warning about the possible adverse effects of removing Russian President Vladimir Putin from office.

On Monday, March 28, Carlson expressed concern about the looming discussions during his recent segment of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."The conservative TV host claims he's concerned about the possibility of Islamic extremists seizing Russia's nuclear weaponry and using it on the United States if Putin is removed from power.

“So, Russia has a large and restive population of Islamic extremists. Do we think it’s possible that with no one running the country ― because of course we have no chosen successor to Putin ― is it possible, if we did that, that one of those 6,000 nuclear weapons might wind up in the hands of some anti-American terror group and be used against our civilian population here?” he asked. “A nuclear weapon! Well, it’s not just possible, it’s likely.”

Carlson's latest remarks follow multiple attempts he's made to defend the Russian authoritarian. Since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Carlson has echoed talking points from Russian state media circulating Kremlin propaganda. Like other Russian propagandists, Carlson has also made calls for the 25th Amendment to be invoked so President Joe Biden could be removed from office.

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During the same segment, Carlson said, "The joke is over. Too much is at stake. If there ever was a time — if there was in U.S. history ever a time to invoke the 25th Amendment, it is now. As Joe Biden himself put it, 'For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power.' For all of our sakes."

Carlson’s bizarre remarks were reportedly in response to Biden's speech made while in Poland. Speaking of Putin, Biden called for Putin to be striped of his presidential powers saying, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

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CNP GINNI CRUZ

In May 2021, SPLC reported on leaked documents appearing to show Gabriel and other Islamophobic figures as being members of the secretive right-wing coalition Council for National Policy.For 40 years, Council for National Policy has brought together influential right-wing leaders, political operatives, conservative media figures, members of the religious right, free-market fundamentalists and donors.

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https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch**/2021/05**/27/shadowy-right-wing-strategy-group-embraces-islamophobic-figures-policies-presents-challenge

islamophobia has a presence within the Council for National Policy, a secretive and influential right-wing coalition, according to leaked documents reviewed by Hatewatch.

A cache of documents obtained and published by the investigative research organization Documented appears to show anti-Muslim hate group leaders such as Brigitte Gabriel, Frank Gaffney and others who have stoked Islamophobia are involved with the Council for National Policy, or CNP. The documents also reveal that the coalition has promoted policies championed by the broader anti-Muslim network.

Founded in 1981, CNP is a coalition of influential right-wing leaders, political operatives, conservative media figures, members of the religious right, free-market fundamentalists and donors. The coalition operates on multiple fronts and focuses on political strategy, media and grassroots organizing. The goal of the coalition is to advocate for right-wing and anti-rights policies that favor conservatives and the religious right.

CNP has a habit of cozying up to extreme figures, the coalition’s rosters and associations appear to show. This includes figures known for engaging in anti-Muslim hate.

Journalist and author Anne Nelson researches CNP and is the author of “Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right,” which provides an in-depth look into the coalition and its history.

“The Council for National Policy and its affiliates would be revealed to associate with unsavory characters, and they would be shocked that such nice folk could harbor such nasty ideology,” Nelson writes in the book.

In 2016, Hatewatch published CNP’s 2014 membership directory, a 191-page compendium on its over 400 members, some of whom are deceased, and their interests. The directory shows CNP membership included extremists harboring anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ views. It also revealed so-called “Radical Islam” and “Islamic Fascism” to be among the interests identified by several CNP members. “Radical Islam,” a problematic term as detailed later, continues to be a topic among the group.

While the coalition’s existence and some of its officers are public knowledge, CNP works hard to keep its membership and activities shrouded in secrecy, including reportedly encouraging members to keep quiet about the group. The New York Times once described CNP as “a little-known club of a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country.” CNP is invitation-only, with new members being nominated by current ones.

Reports and investigations over the years have sought to expose the coalition’s tactics, membership and influence. The cache of materials obtained by Documented provides further insight into the right-wing coalition’s inner workings in recent years, including its strategies, goals and talking points.

The documents also reveal CNP has only expanded the hate and far-right figures in its ranks. The inclusion of these figures puts Islamophobia among other problematic measures pushed by CNP that pose a threat to inclusive democracy.

CNP did not return Hatewatch’s multiple requests for comment.

Islamophobic figures in the mix

[ pix  Brigitte Gabriel, founder and president of ACT for America, speaks at the 2017 Values Voter Summit at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

One of those listed in CNP’s September 2020 roster is Brigitte Gabriel, an anti-Muslim firebrand who has called Muslims a threat to the civilized world and claimed a practicing Muslim “cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States.” Gabriel is the founder and head of ACT for America, an anti-Muslim hate group that operates a network of chapters across the U.S. that disparage Islam and promote Islamophobic legislation at the state and national level.

Despite Gabriel’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, she operates freely within mainstream conservative circles and maintains allies in Congress such as Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Scott Perry, R-Penn.

According to Documented’s cache, Gabriel first appears in the January 2018 CNP membership roster. The cache spans back to 2017. She is listed as a member in subsequent rosters up to September 2020, the last list obtained by Documented. Documented did not return requests for comment by time of publication.

Regular members pay an annual fee of $1,750, according to CNP nomination documents published by Political Research Associates, an organization that researches the far right. There are other membership levels, and the higher the level, the higher the fees, up to several thousands of dollars.

Gabriel appears to be actively involved with CNP. In February 2020, she gave an “Update on the Middle East” at CNP’s meeting in Dana Point, California, according to a leaked copy of the agenda. Details about the presentation are unknown, however, the many other speeches of hers available on the Internet are often tinged with anti-Islam bias. The presence of anti-Muslim figures within CNP does not surprise Nelson.

“Islamophobia has been a core value of the Council for National Policy for a long time, an outgrowth of the Christian fundamentalist roots of the organization,” Nelson told Hatewatch in an interview. She posits CNP’s hardline Christian theology holds other religions, such as Islam, as “invalid.”

Gabriel’s relationship with CNP seems to be reciprocal, with the coalition promoting her brand and products.

“Brigitte Gabriel has been somebody who has been promoting and disseminating hate speech against Muslims,” Nelson said. “She’s a very fiery speaker and recently joined the roster of the Council for National Policy, whose member organizations also promote her books and her speaking engagements. It is a tragic decision because Muslims in the United States already face a great deal of prejudice and these figures just make their lives that much harder.”

Gabriel held a book signing at the CNP event she spoke at in February 2020. ACT for America and Gabriel did not return requests for comment.

According to a leaked 2016 copy of CNP’s media and confidentiality policy, “CNP members should not answer media inquiries about CNP. Only the CNP president or his or her designee is authorized to speak to the media about CNP.” Violation of this, according to the policy, “could result in sanctions, up to and including removal from CNP membership.”

Gabriel’s listed interests within CNP include “Radical Islam,” “Terrorism” and “Immigration,” among others, as revealed by Documented. CNP members’ interests are often listed with their names and affiliations and range from a variety of issues from “Judeo-Christian Values” to “Tax Reform” to “Regulatory Reform” to “Homosexual Issues.”

The term “radical Islam” is itself problematic because the descriptor “radical” is not used to describe any other religion and is often deployed to soften anti-Muslim bigotry. Gabriel herself has claimed that there is no such thing as radical Islam and that terrorism is associated with the “purest form” of the religion. Other CNP members view Islam in a similar way.

Gabriel and her group were some of former President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters. CNP also threw its support behind Trump in 2016 after candidates more aligned with its members’ values, such as Ted Cruz and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, dropped out. As Nelson details in “Shadow Network,” Trump’s willingness to adopt retrograde policies aligned with CNP and appoint conservative judges earned the backing of the coalition and its networks.

Gabriel – like several other CNP members – enjoyed unprecedented access to the White House under Trump, meeting with his staff on numerous occasions. The Trump administration implemented policies long promoted by the anti-Muslim network, such as the Muslim ban and a low cap on refugees. Tony Perkins, an influential figure among the religious right, is also president of the anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council, which also traffics in anti-Muslim ideology and is currently avidly supporting voter suppression bills.He also enjoyed extensive access to the Trump administration.

As Nelson notes in “Shadow Network,” “Perkins – the man who declared ‘Islam is not a religion … it is a comprehensive system which is incompatible with the Constitution’ – was named to the U.S. Commission on International Freedom [under Trump].” Perkins is a longtime CNP member, having been with the coalition for 25 to 30 years, according to the September 2020 roster. He also served as the CNP’s president from 2012 to 2019, except for 2013 and 2014 where he was listed as vice president.

In 2017, Gabriel met with then-White House staffer and CNP member Paul S. Teller to hand-deliver a petition in support of Trump’s Muslim ban. Teller previously served as Ted Cruz’s chief of staff. He is also active within CNP. In 2020 , The Washington Post reported he held weekly meetings of the CNP-affiliated Conservative Action Project.According to the Post, the Conservative Action Project helped “choose loyalists to run federal agencies and coordinate outside messages with nonprofit organizations to support [Trump] administration policies and leaders.” Pages from Documented reveal Teller’s interests at CNP include “Immigration,” “Foreign policy” and “Religious freedom.” Teller now serves as the executive director of Advancing American Freedom, a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.

Another anti-Muslim figurehead involved with CNP is Frank Gaffney. A former Ronald Reagan administration staffer, Gaffney has since become one of the most prolific anti-Muslim propagandists in the country. He is gripped by paranoid fantasies of foreign entities such as the Muslim Brotherhood infiltrating and supplanting the U.S. from within. Gaffney founded the anti-Muslim hate group Center for Security Policy and now serves in an executive chairmanship role at the group.

[pix Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, testifies during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2013 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Hatewatch first reported on Gaffney’s CNP membership in the publication of the group’s 2014 roster. He is listed as a “Gold Circle Member” in CNP’s September 2020 membership roster. Gold Circle Members pay a yearly fee of $10,000, as shown by nomination documents. Like Gabriel, Gaffney’s listed interests at CNP include “Radical Islam.”

Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy did not respond to a request for comment.

In 2016, candidate Trump used data from a shoddy survey commissioned by the Center for Security Policy to justify his call for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” The survey was done by The Polling Company, Kellyanne Conway’s company. Conway served as Trump’s senior counselor and was a member of CNP’s executive committee from 2014 to 2015, tax records show.

Like other anti-Muslim and far-right actors, CNP has begun to frame China as a new Cold War-style adversary. Gaffney and his group are active in stoking alarmism about the supposed threat from China. At a CNP conference in August 2020 in Arlington, Virginia, the coalition’s sister lobbying arm CNP Action, Inc., hosted a panel titled “Reckoning with China: Action Steps,” according to a leaked copy of the agenda obtained by the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy. The panel featured Gaffney as a participant.

Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, a right-wing activist who is married to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is also a CNP member and counts “Radical Islam” among her interests. In 2013, Mother Jones reported Ginni Thomas and Gaffney were part of another right-wing strategy group known as Groundswell.

CNP has also included Islamophobic figures in its orbit and network. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn,Trump’s former National Security Adviser who was later pardoned by the former president after lying to the FBI, has ties to CNP, though he is not listed as a member. Flynn spoke at a CNP Policy Counsel event in July 2016. His name is also associated with a CNP Zoominfo account, as uncovered by investigative researcher Brent Allpress, suggesting Flynn might be involved more formally with the coalition. Flynn has a history of expressing anti-Islam sentiment, once calling the religion “a cancer.” In 2016, ACT for America advertised Flynn serving on its board of advisers. He was also a keynote speaker at ACT’s 2016 conference in Washington, D.C.

In September 2017, longtime anti-Muslim figurehead David Horowitz (who is not listed as a member) spoke at a CNP conference in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The theme of the event and Horowitz’s presentation was “Mapping the Left.” Horowitz heads the eponymously named David Horowitz Freedom Center, a hate group known for spreading anti-Muslim sentiment and helping fund other Islamophobic projects such as Jihad Watch and FrontPage Magazine. Once a leftist in the 1960s, Horowitz now tries to smear his former political affiliation as being totalitarian.

Dr. Mark Christian is listed as a member of CNP’s Board of Governors, which carries an annual fee of $6,000. Christian runs the anti-Muslim hate group Global Faith Institute, a group that peddles Islamophobic conspiracy theories while claiming to advocate for “the victims of Islam.” Christian is a former Muslim who converted to Christianity. He joins a cottage industry of former Muslims now disparaging their former faith. Christian is willing to associate with extreme figures in the anti-Muslim network, such as the former FBI agent turned anti-Muslim hate figure John Guandolo. Christian subscribes to the conspiracy theory that Islamic Sharia law is slowly “creeping” into American society.

“Islam has infiltrated all aspects of our life: our schools, churches, media, courts, military and our government,” reads a 2017 Global Faith Institute email to supporters. “Every day we are losing more of our freedom because of creeping sharia law.”

Christian did not answer a request for comment.

CNP’s rosters reveal the membership of other figures known for spreading Islamophobic rhetoric. One isfar-right historian William “Bill” Federer,who treads in Islamophobic and anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories. According to the watchdog and research group Right Wing Watch, Federer once claimed that an “atheist homosexual gay agenda movement” will “open up” the U.S. “to move into an Islamic future.” Federer has been featured at events such as the Values Voter Summit, an annual conference put on by the Family Research Council. Brigitte Gabriel has also spoken at the Values Voter Summit in recent years, including 2018 and 2019. Family Research Council’s executive vice presidentJerry G. Boykin is also a member of CNP.

Boykin has a track record of making anti-Muslim remarks, once claiming Islam should not be protected by the First Amendment. Boykin used similar rhetoric in a 2014 news briefing for Policy Counsel, a CNP publication and speaker series to inform the public on a “wide range of topics” and “variety of opinions.” Boykin goes heavy on the anti-Islam rhetoric in the article, which touches on the rise and activities of the terrorist group ISIS at the time. Boykin took issue with former President Barack Obama’s attempts to not conflate the terrorist group with a religion of around 1.8 billion people.

“I think most Americans have figured this out,” Boykin said. “When you say Isis [sic] is not Islam the rest doesn’t really matter because if you are laying out a strategy that doesn’t start with an understanding of your enemy and who you are up against and what motivates him to do what he does the rest doesn’t matter.”

Boykin adds elsewhere: “One of the mistakes that we make about Islam is that only 16% of Islam is actually a religion.” He claims the rest is a legal, geopolitical and military system. Claiming Islam is not a religion – or only part one – is a well-tread trope deployed by Islamophobic figures. “But only 16% is an actual religion,” he said. “And we make the mistake of thinking that it’s exactly like Christianity. It is not.”

CNP’s Policy Counsel includes a disclaimer that views expressed in the articles are not always representative of the coalition. “These views should not be construed as the views of the Council for National Policy, as an attempt to aid or hinder the enactment of any legislation, or as an intervention in any political campaign for public office,” the disclaimer reads.

However, as CNP papers brought to light by Documented reveal, the coalition has advocated for policies steeped in Islamophobia.

Turning interest into action

It appears stoking fear of Islam goes beyond merely the interests of CNP members and has manifested into policy recommendations. Documented produced a cache of documents attributed to CNP Action, Inc.

According to Documented:

CNP members meet together in-person three times a year and strategize about their collective goals. A number of the sessions at each meeting are action focussed [sic], and the participants collectively agree on a set of ‘action-steps’ that the members and their organizations (including the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the American Legislative Exchange Council) will carry out before the next meeting.

An action step from a May 2018 session called to “declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization.” The session was facilitated by Jerry Boykin and featured Frank Gaffney as a participant. Designating the Muslim Brotherhood has been a longtime goal of Gaffney and the anti-Muslim network. The designation fits into greater paranoia of Muslims being a fifth-column threat in the U.S., or a group that attempts to undermine the country from within.

Prominent Muslim civil rights and advocacy organizations are often accused by Islamophobia peddlers of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Arjun Sethi, a civil rights lawyer and author, noted in a 2017 column for The Washington Post that such a designation could have knock-on effects. “The result is likely to be intimidation, harassment and smears of Muslim and Arab groups here in the United States,” Sethi wrote.

Trump regularly threatened to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group while in office, but never did. Foreign relations experts and government officials have advised against such a designation. But there are still attempts to do so legislatively.

Bills attempting to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist group have been introduced in Congress multiple times in recent years. Sponsors of such bills include Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., and Ted Cruz. Both members of Congress have ties to Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy. Diaz-Balart joined Gaffney on his radio program “Secure Freedom Radio” in 2016 to promote the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation bill. Cruz has longstanding ties to the Center for Security Policy and tapped Gaffney to serve as an adviser during his 2016 presidential run. Cruz also has ties to CNP, having given speeches to the coalition.

Brigitte Gabriel’s ACT for America also lobbies for bills to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, lobbying disclosure forms show. The group also supported Trump to do so. ACT tweeted in 2019: “President Trump should 100% designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group. Past administrations have promised but failed. MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN!”

CNP supports the effort to halt refugees from Muslim majority countries being resettled in the U.S. Leaked copies of the coalition’s newsletters from 2015 and 2016 reveal this support. Halting refugee resettlement has been a tactic pushed by the anti-Muslim network, since many of those displaced are from Muslim majority countries, with many being ones the U.S. has a presence in. In 2015, ACT for America launched a working group to push back against the resettlement program and “ensure that this broken system is fixed, and that potential terrorists are kept on the outside looking in.”

Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy also launched an anti-refugee project for activists interested in “building resistance” to resettlement programs. The group also published two monographs in 2015 about the program steeped in demographic anxieties about Muslim refugees moving and relocating to the United States.

Anti-refugee sentiment features in a December 2015 newsletter of “Heard Around the Hill,” a publication of CNP Action, Inc. The newsletter promotes legislation aimed at curbing refugee resettlement.

“Intelligence officials have determined that Islamic extremists have explored using the refugee resettlement program to enter the United States,” the newsletter reads. This claim was pushed back on by U.S. officials and refugee advocates at the time.

The newsletter adds that House Republicans introduced H.R. 4218, which would suspend refugees from entering the U.S. The bill was introduced by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and did not make it out of committee. Now serving in the U.S. Senate, Blackburn has connections to such anti-Muslim hate groups as ACT for America and Center for Security Policy, having attended ACT’s annual conference and been a guest on Gaffney’s radio program.

The newsletter notes that the anti-LGTBQ hate group Liberty Counsel produced a petition in support of the bill. “If you would like to sign the petition, click here,” it reads with a hyperlink. The newsletter notes, “Mat Staverserves as Chairman of Liberty Counsel Action.” Staver is on CNP’s board of governors and counts “Radical Islam” among his interests.

Another “Heard Around the Hill” newsletter from April 2016 touched on CNP’s opposition to refugees, with the effort being led by Paul Teller.

“At the most recent CNP meeting … CNP member Paul Teller, Chief of Staff for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), referenced three pieces of immigration-related legislation introduced in the U.S. Congress that conservatives nationwide may want to examine and support,” the newsletter states. “One would suspend the entrance of refugees from terrorist-dominated countries, a second would give states the power to deny the resettling of refugees within their borders, and a third would focus key resources to better enable ICE agents to implement border security.”

The newsletter adds: “Please feel free to contact Paul Teller if you have questions or want to offer support for any or all of these efforts.”

While Islamophobia is at the coalition’s core, its activism and messaging on the issue may ebb and flow with what is politically relevant at the time.

“The political operatives of the Council for National Policy are very strategic,” Nelson said. “They do a great deal of polling, conduct focus groups, and promote inflammatory rhetoric when serves their political purposes. You are likely to see an uptick in their Islamophobic content at moments where the national news environment would favor it, such as periods of tension with Muslim countries or international incidents ascribed to terrorist organizations.”

Nelson says CNP and its network “were instrumental in convincing Trump to institute his infamous Muslim travel ban, which was opposed by foreign policy experts as being counterproductive to our national interests.”

She adds, “But again, this kind of dog whistle is signaling to their base. By lashing out at innocent populations, they are promoting a dangerous form of nationalism.”

‘We could expect a whole raft of measures’

The cache of documents reveals CNP’s willingness to embrace Islamophobic figures, their messaging and policies in its efforts to influence politics in the country. But Islamophobia is only one cog in the CNP machine.

The defeat of Donald Trump and Mike Pence has been a setback for CNP, having lost major allies at the federal level. The coalition continues to operate and reassess its strategy for the future. Nelson notes CNP and its networks will be eyeing the 2022 midterm elections. While the Democrats – who generally lean toward the left ­– narrowly hold both houses of Congress, Nelson notes trends show the party in White House generally does poorly in the midterms. She says the CNP has been active at the state level helping to promote voter suppression measures aiming to suppress “populations that favor the Democrats starting, but not ending with, African Americans.”

A CNP Action, Inc. action step from February 2020 advocated for “government-issued voter ID, including mail-in ballots and verification for residency and citizenship.” Voter ID measures have been criticized by voting rights advocates for disproportionately affecting black voters and other voters of color.

Nelson says that voter suppression efforts can help tip the midterms in favor of Republicans, some of whom have been known to support CNP affiliates’ access to power. A Republican takeover of Congress would derail the Biden administration’s policies and possibly set up a win for another Republican presidency in 2024.

“If the Radical Right of the Republican Party takes Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024, there will be very little standing in their [CNP] way from reshaping the United States from the country as we know it,” Nelson says. “We could expect a whole raft of measures that would include not just depriving Muslims of basic rights, but rollbacks of voting rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights – and the list goes on and on.

“They have made no secret of the vision that they have for the United States, which is reminiscent of a 19th-century religious patriarchy. American voters will have to decide what kind of country they want for their children to inherit, and respond accordingly.”

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https://www.fox9.com/news/project-veritas-alleges-election-fraud-evidence-scant

kmsp minneapolis? local fox

Project Veritas alleges election fraud, evidence scant

By Tom Lyden Published September 28, 2020  Updated September 29, 2020PoliticsFOX 9

(FOX 9) - “This is the scene of the crime, in downtown Minneapolis,” said the guy in the leather jacket against a backdrop of the city’s skyline.

James O’Keefe, of the conservative propaganda operation Project Veritas, was back in the public spotlight and once again making an incendiary allegation: There was major election fraud in Minneapolis.

[pix?]

Project Veritas alleges election fraud, evidence scant

A Project Veritas video alleges election fraud involving Rep. Ilhan Omar, yet the evidence is scant.

One problem: The hard evidence of cash in exchange for votes was lacking, and some of the other conduct of collecting ballots might be perfectly legal.

The meat of the Project Veritas report, posted on YouTube Sunday night, was a Snapchat video from the brother of newly elected City Councilman Jamal Hassan. In the video, Liban Mohamed, is seen driving his car and bragging about money in politics with what appears to be dozens of mailed in ballots.

“Money is everything. Money is the king of this world. If you don’t have money you should not be here. Period,” said Liban Mohamed in the video. Attempts to reach Liban Mohamed through his social media accounts were not successful.

For O’Keefe the implication was clear: Money was being exchanged for votes, and those ballots were being "harvested."

But the full context of the video is unclear. Were the ballots sealed? Had they already been filled out? Where did the ballots come from?

And the timing of that video may be critical. The practice of turning in ballots that are not your own – or, "harvesting" – was in flux this summer with three separate court decisions.

Historically in Minnesota, there has been a three-person limit for bringing in other people’s ballots. But in July a district court ruling invalidated that limitation. The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed the ruling in September, but that was after the primary on August 11.

The court rulings created a window where the three-person limit was not enforced from July 28 through August 11. Project Veritas claims Liban Mohamed’s Snapchat video was posted outside that window on July 2.

The video was buttressed by an interview with a controversial community activist, Omar Jamal. Jamal speculated, without evidence, that the campaign of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was behind the ballot harvesting.   

In surreptitiously recorded video, other anonymous figures echo those sentiments in the story.

On Monday, Jamal had set-up a fundraising page as the “Project Veritas Insider,” raising $14,000.

President Donald Trump, who has been suggesting that voter fraud is rampant, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, tweeted about the Project Veritas story: “This is totally illegal. Hope that the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota has this, and other of her (Ilhan Omar) misdeeds, under serious review???”

GOP leaders in Minnesota called for the Minnesota Secretary of State to investigate the allegations.

A spokesperson for Secretary of State Steve Simon, who was recognizing Yom Kippur, said, “Our office does not make determinations of legality, nor do we have investigative authority.”

The spokesperson suggested anyone with evidence of election fraud go to the appropriate county attorney.

But the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said it “… has received no information of cases involving so-called ballot harvesting in any elections.” The office suggested those who do have information go to Minneapolis Police. 

A Minneapolis Police spokesperson said, “We are in the process of looking into the validity of those statements,” in the Project Veritas report.

Congresswoman Omar, who won her primary in a landslide by 35,000 votes, said in a statement, “the amount of truth to this story is equal to the amount Donald Trump paid in taxes in 10 out of the last 15 years: zero.”

The timing of the report is certainly curious. The Project Veritas story was posted Sunday night, around the same time the New York Times rolled with its story about Trump’s history of avoiding federal income tax.

O’Keefe has a long resume of disinformation, entrapment, and working in concert with Republican operatives. In fact, O’Keefe recently met with the Chairman of Trump’s Minnesota campaign.

On Monday night Project Veritas released a second part of their investigation that purports to show a ‘ballot harvester’ allegedly connected to Congresswoman Omar giving an unidentified man $200 in exchange for a vote.  But the exact circumstances and nature of the light-hearted, joking exchange is unclear.

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aha: note trumpista reptile brain sensitive plus soc med algo amp --> qanon?

HYPE FEAR

origin of xian nat'l trumpism? recall his BS about ppl dancing in streets in NJ? birther obama other foreigner secret muslim; muslim travel ban

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/christians-are-right-wing-radical/

k j salon

earlier this week, a new Pew survey foundthat the share of Americans who believe Donald Trump was largely responsible for the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, has declined by nearly 10 percent over the past year, while the percentage of people who think he bears no responsibility has increased by almost as much. On Wednesday, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty released a new report that helps explain that shift:The same Christian nationalism that served as the unifying principle behind theJan. 6 insurrection is also driving efforts among the faithful to rewrite the history of that day.

As two of the report's contributors, scholars Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, co-authors of "Taking America Back for God," noted in a launch event on Wednesday, Christian nationalist support for Jan. 6 rioters has doubled in the past year, while support for prosecuting those rioters has declined by 20 percent. That suggests, said Perry, "that this ideology is powerfully connected to a reinterpretation of these events" in a way that could become "a powerful motivator for future potential violence."

At more than 60 pages and drawing on the work of a number of academics, journalists and researchers, "Christian Nationalism and the January 6 Insurrection" is the most comprehensive account to date of the role of the movement in the attack. Within the political and cultural universe of Christian nationalism, America is a special place: It was created as a Christian nation and its founding documents were divinely inspired. Christianity should and must have a privileged position in public life, and "true Americans" are understood to be "white, culturally conservative, natural-born citizens."

That ideology, argues the report, served both as the unifying theme for the various factions that joined in the assault on the Capitol as well as the "permission structure" that allowed participants to justify their violence. To call those fringe ideas is misleading: Surveys repeatedly find that close to half of the country supports the idea of fusing Christianity and civic life.

Christian nationalism also lends itself to a number of other convictions, notes the report. Surveys in early 2021 found strong associations between Christian nationalist views, such as the proposition that thefederal government should declare America a Christian nation, and a whole range of far-right beliefs not directly connected to faith. Those include the disproved claim that Antifa or Black Lives Matter caused the violence on Jan. 6, while Donald Trump was blameless; support for various white supremacist and antisemitic beliefs; and even a willingness to accept the outlandish premises of QAnon.

Two-thirds of white Americans who strongly support Christian nationalist ideology believe that the 2020 election was rigged; 40 percent of them think that violence from patriotic Americans might be necessary to save the country; and more than 40 percent are convinced that Democrats are engaged in "elite child trafficking," said Whitehead.

The report includes some meditations on the movement's origins as well. Penn religion scholar Anthea Butler, the author of "White Evangelical Racism," writes that white Christian nationalism began moving more firmly into the mainstream after9/11, as the "Holy War" coding of the "War on Terror" helped popularize its ideology, laying the groundwork for Trump's rise. The seemingly contradictory beliefs of Christian nationalism — that America is the greatest nation on earth thanks to its foundation in Christianity, and also that America has been overtaken by alien and even demonic enemies — only serves to keep the movement in a state of tense mobilization, observed journalist Katherine Stewart, author of "The Power Worshippers."

"It's astonishing to so many of us that the leaders of the Jan. 6 attack styled themselves as patriots," Stewart added at Wednesday's event. "But it makes a glimmer of sense once we start to understand that their allegiance is to a belief in blood, earth and religion, rather than to the mere idea of a government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Most of the report was written by Andrew Seidel, a constitutional attorney at theFreedom from Religion Foundation and author of "The Founding Myth." It consists of a meticulous accounting, drawing on hundreds of hours of video footage, of Christian nationalism's ubiquitous role in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and its execution. There are the flags, the signs, the cross and gallows that we've all seen.

There are also some less familiar pieces of evidence, such as the 50-person Christian choir singing about swords and taking possession of the land while the attack was underway. Multiple rioters recounted how God's hand or voice had urged them to enter the capital. One avowed white supremacist had convinced his parole officer to let him travel to Washington that week to hand out Bibles. And then there's the man who broke down Nancy Pelosi's office door, believing that "the crowd would tear her 'into little pieces,'" and latertestified in court that God had been on Trump's side: "And if patriots have to kill 60 million of these communists, it's God's will."...

[permission structure for violence, when do we get to use the guns?]

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afghan, ALSO ROVE

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/laura-ingraham-denigrates-immigrants-and-afghan-refugees-mass-humanity-who-will-grow

===

BRODY (HOST): Welcome back to The Water Cooler, everybody. The border crisis continues to worsen with every passing day that the Biden administration is in office. In fact, new drone footage from Fox News over the Del Rio Bridge in Texasshows just over 8000 thousand migrants waiting to be processed, which is twice as many as it was just yesterday. And yet radio silence from border czar Kamala. I want a T-shirt that says that. No, I don't. And to make matters worse, this, of course, also comes as we're allowing thousands of Afghan refugees into our country, leaving plenty of reason for the American people to be concerned about the vetting process of all of these folks. Well, let's get more on that now. Joining me to weigh in, former acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America. Take a breath, Ken Cuccinelli. Ken, thank you for joining me, sir.

KEN CUCCINELLI (SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR RENEWING AMERICA): Good to be with you, David.

BRODY: Well, look, Ken, obviously, we can't process all these people properly. I mean, so what do you think is going to happen, given that it's unlikely the administration is going to intervene? What's happening here?

CUCCINELLI: So with respect to the Afghans, the raw numbers are overwhelming for the vetting process. Realize I think most people – I certainly do – want to see those Afghans who truly helped our troops come over to escape the Taliban because they're being hunted. The Biden administration, of course, completely botched getting those folks out. But those are people we know something about, we know a fair bit about. And so the vetting is a lot of the vetting already took place when they were hired. So that's easy. The challenge and the objection that I have. that Center for Renewing America has, and so many others is bringing in 90 percent of these folks who aren't American citizens, who aren't potential SIVs. And SIVs, for your viewers, is a visa designation, special immigrant visa for the folks who helped us over there in Afghanistan and in Iraq. In Iraq, there were four thousand cases of fraud and they're investigating another hundred thousand, which should tell you how difficult this vetting process is. And that's for people we already know something about; the other 90 percent that the Biden administration is bringing over, we know nothing about or very little. We may get a little something from their documents, but now we're relying on getting information from the Taliban as the host government.

This is not a workable situation from a security vetting standpoint. And this is a population that starts out fairly radical on the jihadist scale. I mean, left of center, Pew Foundation Longitudinal Study, five years, they found that 99 percent of Afghans want to live under Sharia law and 61 percent of them believe that non-Muslims should have to live under Sharia law. Almost 40 percent thought that there were some occasions where suicide, murder, blowing yourself up in defense of Islam was acceptable. This is not consistent with our tolerance of other religions in the First Amendment. It is not consistent with our values in this country and it's not being vetted for – not being vetted.

BRODY: Well, then that's where I want to go with this, the vetting process. I mean, you know, the deal. I just look it up on the Internet. But I mean, I see it there. This takes, what, a couple of years? A year. I mean, this is a very long process. And this is not there's no way – the Biden administration says, oh, biometrics, we got it taken care of. Come on, does anybody really believe they're going through the full vetting process here?

CUCCINELLI: No.

So the typical process is about 18 to 24 months. There are 14 steps. And that assumes we're getting the information we need from all the sources. Again, with the Taliban now in control over there makes this more difficult. And over the last 15 years, since the SIV program was set up, we did about seven hundred and fifty a year and now we're going to do 50 or a hundred thousand people that we don't have any information on in literally a matter of weeks. It's not possible, David. It's not possible.

BRODY: No, for sure. I'm glad you gave us that perspective. Ken, when it comes to Afghan refugees, tens of thousands of them are being resettled, as we know, all over the country. In fact, we heard from Stephen Miller not long ago here on this show that there are even more than that coming. He said this is just the beginning. So why haven't we at least closed the border temporarily while we figure this all out? I know it's a bold move, especially from the Biden administration, but wouldn't that be the logical play?

CUCCINELLI: David, there you go. Thinking logically, no place in this administration.

BRODY: My bad.

CUCCINELLI: So but honestly, another way to look at it is just a consistent element of their open borders policy. It isn't just our southern border. It's come in from anywhere. We don't care who you are or how dangerous you are, come on in. It's only the Republicans who are the threat. It isn't people from other countries, some of whom may want to destroy our country. I mean, that is the attitude of this administration. It's reflected on the southern border, including in how they're not dealing with the COVID threat as it relates to the southern border. It's consistent with their massive open-door policy with respect to Afghan refugees. And there's a long history, by the way, of dealing with refugee flows in the region near their home. That is a universal international consensus that America, Joe Biden's administration, is abandoning here at the risk of our security.

BRODY: Yeah, for sure. And that's a whole nother can of worms, if you will, or at least another topic to discuss. But you mentioned politics. Oh, shocking. The politics is involved in this because one does have to wonder if there's a political motive here for the left when it comes to allowing refugees in. Look at Minnesota.I mean, Minneapolis, to be exact. The Ilhan Omar, very far left, a Muslim, pretty extreme views. She's a representative out there in Minneapolis, they're resettling 300 refugees out there. That doesn't sound like a lot, but my guess is it's still more than they're letting on. I mean, you just want to wonder about this stuff.

CUCCINELLI: Yeah. I mean, once these folks are let leave the military bases that they're being housed on, including right in my backyard here at Quantico military base, Marine Corps base, they can go wherever they want.And the Somali experience in Minnesota is not a good one for America. This is not a case of assimilation. This is a case of setting up a balkanized pocket within the United States. And, yes, we are a country of immigrants, but that presumes that we're a melting pot. If you refuse to melt in, and I would suggest that the data we have on the average Afghan suggests that's a possibility, a strong possibility, and we've seen it with the Somali community in Minnesota, then you shouldn't be immigrating here. More accurately, America shouldn't be letting you immigrate here.

BRODY: And there have been not only Minnesota, but I think of Dearborn, Michigan, as we know with what's going on for there with Rashida Tlaib. We know the situation – they're doing a call to prayer in Dearborn, Michigan. They've been doing that for a while. But here's the point. You have all of that and you do wonder where this is going, because judges, even you mentionedSharia law at the top of our show or top of the segment here. I mean, there are some judges. You just look it up. It's legitimate stuff. I mean, they are ruling saying, look, Sharia law needs to weigh in here, not the US judicial system. I mean, what in the world? This is the concern of quite a few Americans, and the left, they don't care and they don't get it and they don't want to get it.

CUCCINELLI: Well, I don't know, Ithink this is part of their goal. They really want to atomize this country. They want to atomized families, heck, individuals. They want to treat you as having however many genders you want.They believe that kind of societal destruction and chaos works to the advantage of their political power. And I think that's true. But it also works to the destruction of us all in the not very long run. And that's the path they're on. And look, this reconciliation bill, David, has a massive amnesty component in it. And the last election bill they had, had a massive element of letting illegal aliens and non-citizens vote without penalty in federal elections. This is part of a comprehensive strategy on the left. This is not a one-off occurrence.

BRODY: Very interesting. I'm glad you tied it all together. Ken Cuccinelli, great to have you on the show.

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raw bigotry

https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/afghan-refugees-2654694668/

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calls them terrorists?! nope jenna

https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/jenna-ellis/

gOP's Lauren Boebert slammed for mocking Afghans killed trying to flee on US plane

Leah Foreman Salon

August 17, 2021

There has been a rush of Republican critiques and complaints about the Biden administration's execution of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of fighting. But no reaction appears to have gone...

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an 621 ah

no lnx twt

When Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018, the progressive Democrat expected to have frequent policy differences not only with Republicans, but also, with centrists in her own party. However, attacks on Omar from the far right — including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and pundits at Fox News — go way beyond policy disagreements, painting her as fundamentally anti-American and an outright enemy of the United States. And on June 9, Omar tweeted a racist, threatening message her office received following a tweet by Boebert and the June 7 publication of an anti-Omar article by Houston Keene on Fox News' website.

In a June 8 tweet, Boebert — a supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy cult — described Omar as an "honorary member of Hamas" and one of the "terrorist sympathizers in Congress." Members of QAnon were among the violent extremists involved in the January 6 insurrectionist assault on the U.S. Capitol Building.

In her June 9 tweet, Omar — who is a Muslim and is originally from Somalia — noted that it isn't unusual for her to be "inundated with death threats." And she cited the call that she tweeted as a prime example. That racist caller can be heard saying, "Muslims are terrorists. And she is a raghead n*****. And every anti-American communist piece of shit that works for her, I hope you get what's fucking coming for you."

Omar tweeted that calls like the one she posted are "incited directly by articles like this" — a reference to Keene's article for Fox News' website — and "far-right politicians like" Boebert.

   TW: Every time I speak out on human rights I am inundated with death threats. Here is one we just got. “Muslims ar… https://t.co/tKLay3dwdl

    — Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1623286390.0

    This is incited directly by articles like this and far right politicians like this. And it is enabled by a politic… https://t.co/6Ogf2nXnMX

    — Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1623286456.0

Here are some reactions to the racist, threatening call Omar's office received:

    @IlhanMN Its really ironic since Boebert is literally a terrorist sympathizer (if not directly involved) when it co… https://t.co/RBMVTRqWyJ

    — AnarchyPunished2:ElectricBoogaloo (@AnarchyPunished2:ElectricBoogaloo) 1623287545.0

    @IlhanMN This is truly disgusting. You deserve so much better.

    — Tammy Ellis ???? (@Tammy Ellis ????) 1623291291.0

    @IlhanMN I hope you're reporting these messages to the FBI. Sometimes all it takes is a visit for people to realize they've crossed a line.

    — Fran Adkins (@Fran Adkins) 1623287261.0

    @IlhanMN Damn shame. So sorry you have to deal with that.

    — Matt Gordon (@Matt Gordon) 1623286921.0

    @MaryWalsh_NL @IlhanMN She was literally tweeting the location of her colleagues when violent fascists were stormin… https://t.co/AGldXKhIOx

    — ThisIsItChief SupportBDS???? (@ThisIsItChief SupportBDS????) 1623312669.0

...

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https://www.mediamatters.org/laura-loomer/republican-party-florida-backing-laura-loomer-proud-islamophobe-who-said-shes-favor

Republican Party of Florida recently expressed its support for right-wing commentator and congressional candidate Laura Loomer, who has described herself as a “proud Islamophobe,” has said that she didn’t “care” about the anti-Muslim mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, and has stated that she’s in favor of “more” migrant deaths.

Loomer won the Republican nomination in Florida’s 21st Congressional District on August 18. The district is represented by Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel, who is heavily favored to win the race in November.

Shortly after her victory, the Florida GOP tweeted:

The Florida GOP is supporting someone who has been banned from numerous platforms because of her anti-Muslim hate and has:

Loomer has also worked for Alex Jones’ Infowars network. Jones and Infowars have pushednumerous conspiracy theories about 9/11 and school shootings. The Daily Beast wrote that after the February 14, 2018, school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, Infowars sent Loomer to Parkland, where she “accused students who spoke out against gun violence of being puppets. ‘It’s obvious these kids are reading a screen or notes someone else wrote for them,’ Loomer tweeted of students who spoke out against gun violence.”

That’s just a brief summary of Loomer’s horrific background. More on Loomer’s prior remarks and commentaries can be found here, here, and here.

In addition to getting support from the Florida GOP, Loomer has received backing from President Donald Trump, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Fox News hosts Jeanine Pirro and Pete Hegseth.

The Republican Party of Palm Beach County is also backing Loomer:

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/06/trump-nominee-for-key-pentagon-position-accused-is-an-islamophobic-conspiracy-theorist-who-called-obama-a-terrorist-leader/

trump nominee for key Pentagon position accused is ‘an Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who called Obama a terrorist leader’

Written by Alex Henderson June 16, 2020

President Donald Trump has nominated retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata for a key position in the Pentagon, but Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee, according to CNN, have vowed to oppose the nomination in light of Tata’s history of hateful anti-Islam rants.That includes Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, the leading Democrat on the SASC.

In 2018, CNN reported, Tata described Islam as the “most oppressive violent religion I know of” and called former President Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader” for — as he saw it — being overly pro-Islam. Tata was vehemently critical of the Obama Administration’s deal with Iran and claimed that it came about because ofObama’s “Islamic roots.” Obama, Tata claimed, did more to “help Islamic countries than any president in history.”

Anthony J. Tata

@ajtata

If true, and it appears to be, #Obama and #Clinton are guilty of sedition and/or treason 18 U.S. Code 2384 #MAGA #trump2020 #ComeyMemos #Kanye2024 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384 … https://twitter.com/_vachellindsay_/status/988616258022076416 …

8:31 PM - Apr 23, 2018

Twitter Ads info and privacy

See Anthony J. Tata's other Tweets

In addition to Reed, Senate Democrats who have told CNN they will oppose Tata’s nomination include Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Gary Peters of Michigan. Warren told CNN, “An Islamophobic conspiracy theorist who called President Obama a ‘terrorist leader’ should not be #3 at the Pentagon. Anthony Tata is by far Trump’s most unqualified and ill-suited senior defense nominee.”

In May 2018, Tata attacked former CIA Director John Brennan and tweeted, “Might be a good time to pick your poison: firing squad, public hanging, life sentence as prison b*tch, or just suck on your pistol. Your call. #Treason #Sedition #crossfirehurricane #Obamagate.”

andrew kaczynski??

@KFILE

Replying to @KFILE

The "Manchurian candidate" Obama conspiracy article shared and endorsed by Tata claimed that Obama let ISIS grow on purpose in Iraq and Libya, saying the "deviousness of the Obama sedition runs deep."https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/politics/tata-pentagon-nominee-kfile/index.html …

Democrats on key Senate committee oppose Pentagon pick as more inflammatory tweets emerge

Several Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee said Monday that they would oppose the nomination of retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata to oversee the Pentagon's policy shop.

cnn.com

andrew kaczynski??

@KFILE

Tata accused Obama administration remembers of treason several times, saying former CIA chief John Brennan should "pick your poison: firing squad, public hanging, life sentence as prison b*tch, or just suck on your pistol. Your call."https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/politics/tata-pentagon-nominee-kfile/index.html …

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter...

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aha lethal

an 5/20

India’s treatment of Muslims and migrants puts lives at risk during COVID-19

Jay Ramasubramanyam, The Conversation

by Jay Ramasubramanyam, Carleton University In India, the second most populous country in the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed pre-existing fault lines of inequality and communalism, exposing current problems…

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jeez easy to forget how pervasive/wacko this is: bannon buys clash of civs; needs a might enemy to justify his crusade/fear-mongering

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Middle East Media and Research Institute—$5.1 million

An anti-Muslim nonprofit led by Daniel Pipes, the Middle East Media and Research Institute is another favorite of right-wing megadonors. The Institute, an organization at the “inner core” of the nation’s Islamophobia network that “attempts to portray Muslims and Arabs as being inherently irrational and violent,” according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, took in $5.1 million–or 23 percent of its contribution revenue–from four conservative foundations from 2015-18: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s family foundation ($4 million), DonorsTrust ($564,800), the Sarah Scaife Foundation ($450,000), and the Bradley Foundation ($70,000).

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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2020/01/22/koch-favored-donorstrust-keeps-funding-anti-muslim-anti-lgbtq-hate-groups/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/how-racists-cynically-market-hate-by-hijacking-mainstream-symbolism/

no lnx

How racists cynically market hate by hijacking mainstream symbolism

Written by David Neiwert / Daily Kos January 14, 2020

The gun that Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, showed off on Instagram this week was intended to grab people’s attention: An AR-15 semiautomatic rifle adorned with dubious Christian “Crusader” decorations, sold by a Florida gunmaker who assures buyers that they are “inspired by some of the most fierce warriors who fought in nearly 200 years of epic conflicts known as the Crusades.”

In addition to the pseudo-medieval decorations, the gun (called “The Crusader”) featured a magazine decorated with a caricature image of Hillary Clinton behind bars.

A Trump Jr. spokesperson told The Hill: “The Instagram post was strictly about him using a famous meme to mock Hillary Clinton, as he and many others have done on numerous occasions and will surely do again in the future, so long as it continues triggering humorless liberals.”

However, the gun itself and its decorations were what caught a lot of people’s attention, since the Crusades and medieval mythology are yet another field of mainstream culture that has been appropriated by the racist alt-right in recent years. The way alt-right activists deploy such symbology—ironically, with full awareness of its mainstream meaning, behind which the people wielding them cynically hide by claiming that the people offended or disturbed by their use are simply oversensitive liberals—is similar to the alt-right’s similar appropriation of such mainstream symbols as the “OK” hand signal, or the cartoon Pepe the Frog and its permutations.

As with all these ploys, it’s frequently difficult to discern the user’s motives. Is it an innocent display intended to invoke its established mainstream meaning? Or is it a surreptitious (and cynical) expression of affiliation with racist ideology?

The ensuing confusion has a twin effect: It simultaneously creates chaos within the realm of mainstream discourse, while it provides cover for the spread of that racist ideology and its organizing.

“The adoption of these symbols is meant largely as a way ofsignaling anti-Muslim sentiment in particular, but also this notion that Christianity needs to retake western civilization,” Howard Graves, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told CNN.

Trump’s spokesman told CNN there was no connection, saying that “Symbols on firearms depicting various historical warriors are extremely common within the 2nd Amendment community.”

The gunmaker, Rare Breed Firearms, responded angrily: “It’s objectively silly and dishonest for leftwing groups, like the SPLC, to claim that this symbol on our Crusader model has anything to do with hate or an extremist ideology,” said CEO Cole Lelux. “In other words, these people have no idea what they’re talking about and should apologize for their outrageous smears.”

When Rare Breed first began making the gun, it explained the religious connotations of its decorations to the Orlando Sentinel in xenophobic terms: “They believe America and much of the world is threatened by Islamic terrorism and the Crusader is a symbol of shared Christian values and the right to defend themselves, he said. The safety selector that controls the Crusader’s trigger has three settings: Peace, War and God Wills It.”

Trump’s gun featured an etching of a Bible verse as well as the Latin phrase “Deus Vult,” another medieval term meaning “God wills it”—a phrase with an ominous quality, since the alt-right ideologues latching onto Crusader mythology have adopted it as their personal battle cry. It appeared on the streets ofCharlottesville in 2017, and still crops up regularly in far-right demonstrations involving such hate groups as the Proud Boys.

It turned up recently at the scene of the attempted firebombing of a Planned Parenthood women’s health clinic in Newark, Delaware. An 18-year-old man named Samuel Gulick spray-painted “Deus Vult” on an exterior wall before he threw a lit incendiary device into the building, police said.

Police investigators were able to identify Gulick through a combination of video evidence and his social media posts, in which he frequently used “Deus Vult” and ranted against abortion. More broadly,Gulick eagerly participated in alt-right ideology, using a Pepe-esque “Groyper” cartoon as his online avatar and posting viciously anti-Semitic and anti-LGBT sentiments.

One post featured a link to an article about transgender girl, on which he commented: “Hans, get the flamethrower.”

“The Nazis said killing millions of Jews was a national health issue. Democrats are using the same excuse to kill American children,” Gulick wrote in another post. “When will we start shooting? Its about time we kill these genocidal demons.”

His social media posts were filled with references to the Crusaders, as were those of another teenager charged last August in a strikingly similar case. Justin Olsen, an 18-year-old Ohio man, was charged with threatening federal officers for posts fantasizing about the murders of FBI agents after the 1993 tragedy involving the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Olsen operated an iFunny page titled “Army of Christ” adorned with images of Christian Crusade knights.

White nationalist fanboys’ love affair with the Crusades dates primarily back to 2011, when Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik published a manifesto titled “2083—A European Declaration of Independence,” adorned with Crusader imagery and demanding a “Second Crusade” in which Muslims would be driven out of European nations—just before setting off a truck bomb in downtown Oslo that killed eight people, and then murdering 69 teenage campers at a socialist youth camp.

At his trial, it emerged that Breivik claimed to be a member of a modern-day group of “Knights Templar,” the 12th-century military order. According to Breivik, an April 2002 meeting of the “Knights” in London featured pseudonyms for the participants such as “Richard the Lionheart” and “Sigurd the Crusader.”

More recently, the Christchurch shooter claimed a similar kind of affiliation in his manifesto, and the weapons he used to murder 51 people in March 2019 were scrawled with references to crusading knights. Fittingly, he also notoriously flashed the “OK” white-power symbol with his hands.

The Crusades have also been adopted by a broad range of alt-right activists, notably at neo-Nazi websites such as The Daily Stormer, where pro-Trump memes featuring Crusade imagery have been common. The debate has even made its way into academia. As Joseph Livingstone explained in The New Republic, all of these reinterpretations are travesties of history—and the internet has played a critical role in producing them.

Hijacking vaguely understood religious belief systems for their own ends is nothing new for the American radical right. In the early 1980s, a number of neo-Nazis—choosing to reject the racist “Christian Identity” movement popular among their ranks at the time, on the grounds that Jesus was Jewish and therefore tainted—instead decided to adopt certain ancient Nordic religions as their “true faith,” most notably the Odinist religion Asatru.

That trend has intensified in recent years, thanks in no small part to the increasing reach of far-right ideologies on the Internet. It’s also spread globally, and racists deploy it as a kind of cynical shield in much the same way as other appropriations from the mainstream.

Asatru recently turned up in news stories about a couple of Army National Guardsmen in Georgia who were given the boot after their activities as neo-Nazis were uncovered. Active in a local chapter of Asatru Folk Assembly, described by the SPLC as “perhaps this country’s largest neo-Völkisch hate group,” the men complained that they were being persecuted for their faith.

Ex-Guardsman Trent East told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he is not a racist—rather, he’s simply interested in his ancestry and worshiping as his forebears did.

“The whole race thing started with me finding Asatru or Odinism or whatever you want to call it and seeing that as a better option than Christianity as a spirituality,” he said. “I’ve just never been a fan of Christianity, and so seeing a faith that was about my ethnic roots was something I could get into a little more.”

However, as the AJC noted, East’s social media profile—much of it deleted after he was exposed—told a very different story. It included “numerous memes and slogans popular among white supremacists, and his contacts include neo-Nazis and other extremists. After his doxxing, East opened an account on VK.com, a Russian social media platform popular among the racist far right.” He also attended a speech by alt-right godfather Richard Spencer in 2017, toting a sign bearing white nationalist slogans.

For white nationalists, disguising the vile bigotry inherent in their ideology is critical to their ongoing project to normalize their belief systems within the mainstream of society—which is why so many of them go to such lengths to deny their involvement or the existence of the innate racism in their movement.

As social media’s wide-open global distribution of ideas has taken hold, the work of camouflaging their beliefs has become increasingly sophisticated—particularly the way it hijacks popular internet behaviors such as trolling and the use of ironic language as both vehicles for ideas as well as means of intimidating and threatening their critics. This is central to the alt-right’s appeal to its targeted core demographic—namely, young white males between the ages of 12 and 30.

Talia Lavin at GQ acutely observes that Donald Trump Jr.’s exercise in indulging this mindset on his Instagram account—intentional, accidental, or otherwise—fits in neatly with the White House’s current push to war in the Middle East, one in which the underlying premise is that “war is holy”: “It’s a Knight Templar with an AR-15; it’s Arabic script as a signal of enmity. That’s the signal Donald Trump Jr. was sending, with his snug Crusader gun-helmet. And it may be ensconced even deeper in the halls of power, with those formally entrusted with our nation’s security under the Trump regime.”

The machinery of hate thus encompasses both the individual nebbishes—hiding in the dark corners of the Internet, ever-fearful about revealing themselves as the face of hate even as they revel in it as trolls—and their willing, if not always conscious, enablers who walk the world’s halls of power, as well as everyone in between. Mainstream observers, particularly those working in media, often feel confused by the resulting crossfire—unsure about the meanings of the wielded symbology, most likely feeling “left out”—and so dismiss the talk as functionally meaningless.

It’s not, particularly for the racist ideologues who organize and spread their hatefulness behind the resulting fog and smoke they throw up for the rest of us. Donald Trump Jr. may not have intended to send an encouraging, approving signal to white nationalists—it’s likely it never crossed his less-than-a-steel-trap mind—but intentions matter little in this arena.

That’s not how things work in the world of white nationalists. Just as with his father, these kinds of signals are received rapturously as proof that the Trumps are on their side, and that their values are shared by people at the very apex of the social ladder: thus, they feel deeply empowered. Any later denials are laughed at and excused as “what he has to do.”

The key to the game, no matter who’s playing, is plausible deniability for everybody involved. The alt-right has mastered its use as a way to market and spread the movement’s hate.

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/don-jr-posts-photos-of-his-assault-rifle-bearing-ancient-symbol-of-war-with-islam-now-used-by-white-supremacists-experts/

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aha: bottomless well of BS /justification for big war budget, war, fear, islamophobia...

note gulf war 2 b/c lie that saddam met w/ al-Q AND WMD; now vpence  runs same play!

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/mike-pence-shows-just-how-much-contempt-he-holds-for-the-american-public-with-tweet-containing-multiple-lies

no lnx

Mike Pence shows just how much contempt he holds for the American public with tweet containing multiple lies

Written by Mark Sumner / Daily Kos January 5, 2020

Donald Trump has lied over 14,000 times since taking office. Some of those lies are about the economy, some of them about his political opponents, and a surprising number involve Trump claiming credit for programs actually signed into law by Barack Obama. Trump’s been joined in his lies by members of his White House team, from Kellyanne Conway to Mick Mulvaney to Mike Pompeo, delivering a fat untruth with a sneer seems to be the primary qualification to join Team Trump.

But it’s a tweet posted by Mike Pence on Friday that may be the best illustration of the lies originating from this White House. Because it’s not just a lie, it’s multiple lies. Incredibly lazy lies. Lies so sloppy, with so little attention to history, reason, or anything else, that Pence should be forced to wear them eternally stapled to his massive white forehead.

In defense of assassinating Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, Pence went through a long list of Soleimani’s supposed crimes. Among them “Assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.”

The list of reasons why this tweet is ridiculous is far longer than the original tweet. First of all, on the most straightforward point, there were 19 hijackers on 9/11. Not 12. A spokesperson for Pence has since launched a defense for this in saying that Pence was talking about a “subset” of the hijackers who traveled to Afghanistan through Iran. That statement also clarifies how Soleimani “assisted” these hijackers. He “allowed them to land” in Iran. A quick check of the records shows that Soleimani also allowed 4 million other people to land in Iran in 2001 alone. He was apparently a very busy fellow.

As many, many people have pointed out since Pence’s tweet, 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. They didn’t just touch down in Saudi Arabia to change planes on the way to Kabul, they lived there—which would seem to make a lot of Saudi officials more bomb-worthy than Soleimani if that were the real basis of Trump’s action. More importantly, not only were the large majority of the hijackers Saudi, all of them were Sunni. So was all of al-Qaeda. The whole organization is composed of Salafist jihadists, a subset of radical Sunnis who regard Shiite Muslims as heretics worthy of death.

Attempting to tie the Sunni forces of al-Qaeda to the Shiite government of Iran may just signal that Mike Pence is astoundingly ignorant.But it certainly shows the disdain the whole Trump White House holds for the intelligence of the American public. And it’s not the only way they’re demonstrating their contempt.

Here’s the schedule for the top Defense Department officials on Friday.

Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense: No public or media events.

David Norqust, Deputy Sec. of Defense: No public or media events.

Mark Miley, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff: No public or media events.

John Hyten, Vice chair Joint Chiefs of Staff: No public or media events.

In the wake of an event that takes the nation to the brink of war, the Defense Department had nothing to say. The generals left it guys like Pence to distribute lies.

Pence isn’t even pretending to have secret intelligence that supports the death of Soleimani. Completely missing from his list of reasons is any detail about the supposed “imminent threat” that the general represented to Americans.

The reason for that is clear enough: The intelligence that Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence and others have been claiming supported the assassination of a foreign official, was just as absurd as Pence’s tweet.

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1219 dn

India’s Upper House Passes “Anti-Muslim” Citizenship Bill

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chris farrell red dir judicial watch

...Bates:  Our borders, particularly the Southern border, have been very porous, long before the Obama Administration. However there has been news that it is not just illegal migrants seeking economic opportunity in America that they can't find in Mexico. Is there a concern now that some of these migrants are actually not Mexican or Latin American at all? And, in fact they might possibly be Islamic terrorists?

Farrell:  It is not a concern, it's a fact. The illustration of this is the case of Tampico, Mexico, a large commercial port on the Gulf of Mexico with a huge amount of freighter traffic and commercial shipping. On those vessels arrive persons from the Middle East, North Africa, and Southwest Asia, many of them are Islamists. They arrive in the Port of Tampico for $1,500 a head. Mohammad becomes Manuel. $1,500 later that person has authentic, legitimate Mexican identity papers, birth certificates, and  drivers’ licenses. This would be all of the documentation they would need to establish their identity and take on a new life in Mexico. They are then moved through a series of camps. We know locations of three camps. We have heard from various sources that there are upwards of seven camps in the interior of Mexico where these folks receive language training, clothing, cultural history and mannerisms to help them integrate and appear Mexican. To live, breathe, walk, talk, and act as though they are natives of Mexico. From there they move north to our Southern border and into the United States. The example I use is one raindrop in an ocean of humanity washing up on our Southern shore. However, what is concerning is that this happens with some regularity and frequency. It is organized, deliberate and poses an enormous security threat to our country.

Bates:Does the Administration know this is happening? Clearly if Judicial Watch knows the Administration must know.

...

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https://theintercept.com/2019/12/07/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-muslims-islamophobia/

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published a study this week that found that, around the 2018 midterm elections, Ms. Omar and Ms. Tlaib were in the cross hairs of a tiny band of Islamophobes, long before Mr. Trump elevated them in his tweetstorms, and likely before they were even on his radar.

https://www.ssrc.org/publications/view/islamophobia-stoking-fear-and-prejudice-in-the-2018-midterms/

#Islamophobia: Stoking Fear and Prejudice in the 2018 Midterms

Pintak, Lawrence, Albright, Jonathan, Bowe, Brian J. and Pasha, Shaheen

This report examines the campaign experiences of Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and other Muslim candidates who ran in the 2018 US midterm elections. While many Muslim candidates reported limited encounters with Islamophobia among their constituents, a social media narrative of manufactured outrage was disproportionately Islamophobic, xenophobic, racist, and misogynistic. It was heavily influenced by a small number of agents provocateurs, whose hate-filled messages and disinformation were amplified by networks of accounts operating on a scale that signals the involvement of organized networks. These operations largely replaced Breitbart and other extreme-right media entities that were the primary source of anti-Muslim dialogue in the 2016 presidential campaign.They spread hate speech like a virus on social media through both human interaction and the use of bots, sockpuppets, and automated “cyborg” accounts, poisoning the political narrative, drawing in both likeminded and unsuspecting individuals, and disproportionately amplifying—and, for some, normalizing—the message of intolerance.

 Download #Islamophobia: Stoking Fear and Prejudice in the 2018 Midterms here.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ssrc-cdn1/crmuploads/new_publication_3/islamophobia-2018-midterms-ssrc.pdf

Title#Islamophobia: Stoking Fear and Prejudice in the 2018 MidtermsAuthorPintak, Lawrence, Albright, Jonathan, Bowe, Brian J. and Pasha, ShaheenPublishedSocial Science Research Council, November 5, 2019On the web#Islamophobia: Stoking Fear and Prejudice in the 2018 MidtermsCitationPintak, Lawrence, Albright, Jonathan, Bowe, Brian J. and Pasha, Shaheen, #Islamophobia: Stoking Fear and Prejudice in the 2018 Midterms (Social Science Research Council, November 5, 2019), https://doi.org/10.35650/MD.2006.a.2019.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Two American Muslim members of Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, have become the primary targets of President Donald Trump’s xenophobic 2020 reelection campaign rhetoric. But the vilification of the pair began the moment they entered national politics in the 2018 midterm elections. This paper examines the experiences of Omar, Tlaib, and other Muslim candidates who ran in the midterms. While many Muslim candidates reported limited encounters with Islamophobia among their constituents, we found a social media narrative of manufactured outrage that was disproportionately Islamophobic, xenophobic, racist, and misogynistic. It was heavily influenced by a small number of agents provocateurs, whose hate-filled messages and disinformation were amplified by networks of accounts operating on a scale that signals the involvement of organized networks. These operations largely replaced Breitbart and other extreme-right media entities that were the primary source of the anti-Muslim dialogue in the 2016 presidential campaign. They spread hate speech like a virus on social media through both human interaction and the use of bots, sockpuppets, and automated “cyborg” accounts, poisoning the political narrative, drawing in both likeminded and unsuspecting individuals, and disproportionately amplifying—and, for some, normalizing— the message of intolerance.

CONTENTS

1 Executive Summary 2

3 Table of Figures 5

4 Introduction: Politics & Islam 8

5 Social Media 9

5.1 The Congressional Candidates 9

5.1.1 Online Narrative 9

5.1.2 Grass-Roots Trolling & Astroturfing 10

5.2 Key Themes 12

5.2.1 The Subhuman “Other” 12

5.2.2 Xenophobia 13

5.2.3 Sharia Law Threat 14

5.2.4 Taqiyah 15

5.2.5 Hijab 15

5.2.6 Dark Humor & Provocation 15

5.2.7 Threats 16

5.2.8 Israel 16

5.3 Disinformation, Misdirection & Gaslighting 18

5.3.1 Case Study: Incest 18

5.3.2 Case Study: FGM 21

5.3.3 Case Study: Anti-Semites 22

5.3.4 Case Study: “The Good Muslim” 24

6 The Networks 26

6.1 Influencers, Amplifiers & Icons 26

6.2 Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) 27

6.2.1 Influencers 28

6.2.2 Amplifiers 31

6.2.3 Icons 34

4 / #ISLAMOPHOBIA

6.3 Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) 35

6.3.1 Influencers 35

6.3.2 Amplifiers 38

6.3.3 Icons 42

6.4 Omar Qudrat (@OmarQudrat1) 43

6.4.1 Influencers 43

6.4.2 Amplifiers 44

6.4.3 Icons 45

7 Suspended/Deleted Accounts 46

7.1 Ilhan Omar 47

7.2 Rashida Tlaib 50

7.3 Omar Qudrat 53

8 Candidate Survey: Encounters with Islamophobia 55

8.1 View from the Campaign Trail 57

9 The Media 59

9.1 The Islamophobic Media 59

9.2 National Conservative Media 60

9.3 Fear, Inc. Passing the Torch? 62

10Analysis/Conclusions 63

Appendix 1: The Role of Bots 68

Appendix 2: Queen of the Trolls 71

Appendix 3: Methodology 73

Survey Methodology 73

Social Media Methodology 73

Hate Speech Lexicon 74

Twitter Naming Conventions 74

Media Coding 75

About the Authors 77

Acknowledgments 78

Bibliography

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5.2 KEY THEMES

Among the Twitter accounts that trolled the Muslim congressional challengers with broadly anti-Muslim,

xenophobic content, a clear set of common themes was evident. These themes were the threads that bound

together this disparate community of trolls and were present in both seemingly off-hand Twitter comments and more substantial posts.

Dehumanization is the first step toward violence. It takes just a few

minutes on social media to understand that Muslims are considered subhuman by a sizeable and dangerous ethnocentric community that transcends national borders.

In his so-called manifesto, the man charged with carrying out the slaughter of fifty people at two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques explained the source of his belief system. “The internet, of course,” he wrote.

“You will not find the truth anywhere else.”15 But when he discussed those beliefs in the document, we can

see that the truth he cites is anything but. Rather, he drew his inspiration from a group of trolls—to borrow

from William Golding, one might call them the lords of the Islamophobic flies—who fuel fears, weave conspiracies, and spew hate across ever-expanding virtual networks. Participants in this realm attribute fictive

characteristics to Muslims, describing them as demons, deceivers, and invaders.

5.2.1 The Subhuman “Other”

In our close analysis of the Twitter posts tagging Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Omar Qudrat, we found a cabal

of Islamophobes for whom Muslims were, quite literally, demons. As one troll (Figure 6) purported to explain:v

Allah exists but he is not god. Allah is Baal the moon God. A very evil, demonic creature who infests the world

with his presence through Islam. One billion people are enslaved by this bloodletting creature of doom. There is

a better Way but they are forced not to seek it.16

Allah and his band of demons is a meme frequently encountered in Islamophobic posts. Also common is

the idea that Allah, or the Prophet Muhammad, is a “false god” or “Satan.” Using such rhetoric, trolls actively

attempt to delegitimize Islam as a religion, portraying it instead as

a nefarious political ideology. In this realm, Islam’s revered Prophet

Muhammad is depicted as a pedophile or Satan.

The dehumanization of Muslims online is ubiquitous. Often, individual Muslims are not “she” or “he,” but rather “it,” as in this tweet

tagging Ilhan Omar: “This is what’s running for the House in MN.”

“Piece of garbage,” “piece of shit,” or “POS” were some of the derogatory references to the Muslim candidates we tracked. Others include

“animals,” “termites,” or “dogs”; “muzzies,” “muzzrats,” and “mooslims.” It is important to understand that

we are not talking about the anonymous denizens of some extremist 8chan message board. This is Twitter

and the majority of posts were from people who described themselves as soccer moms, stockbrokers, and

small business owners and who professed love for “God, family and country” and “puppies.”

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5.2.3 Sharia Law Threat

While the Islamic concept of sharia refers to a moral code that governs personal and community life, it is distorted by this online community with an oft-repeated trope, suggesting that Muslims will impose “sharia law” in the US, ushering in a dystopian future in which churches are shuttered and women are subjected to forced genital mutilation. That notion has been fanned through a campaign by two organizations labeled as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their efforts have led to lawmakers in forty-eight states to introduce more than 200 anti-sharia bills, with fourteen states enacting such legislation.29 In tweets tagging Ilhan Omar, “sharia” was the most commonly used term found in the lexicon of Islamophobic and xenophobic language (Figure 8) in our enhanced version of the Hatebase hate speech database (see Methodology).30 For Tlaib, only “jihadi” appeared more frequently. The term “sharia” is an example of why it was necessary to individually code each tweet, rather than rely solely on the lexicon of Islamophobic terms, in order to identify Islamophobia. “Sharia” was not included in the Hatebase list of Islamophobic terms (though, counterintuitively, “Muslim” was). We initially included it on a separate list of religious terms. However, language is contextual. In examining the individual tweets, we found that in the overwhelming number of cases, “sharia” was used in a negative way, as in these two examples:vi @RashidaTlaiB No to your sharia “law”. Go back to your desert.31 7. Trojan Horse 8. Omar word cloud based on Islamophobic lexicon viWe found only a few tweets in which it was not used in a negative way

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5.3 DISINFORMATION, MISDIRECTION & GASLIGHTING

The hostile environment described above was often fueled by false or wildly distorted stories that largely originated in fringe media, were republished by other fringe media, tweeted by influential accounts, amplified by bot networks and others, and then widely adopted as fact within the anti-Muslim, xenophobic, antiPalestine online community. In short, it was a systematic digital version of “gaslighting,”55 the process by which individuals or groups “build alternative realities” in ways that cause a person to question their understanding of the world around them—and reality itself.56 A version of this insular feedback loop within the right-wing media, then centered on Breitbart, played an important role in the 2016 Trump election.57

A new iteration emerged in the 2018 right-wing narrative about Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. Within this Twitter narrative, we find all three types of what has been labeled “Information Disorder”: (1) disinformation, which is false and created with the intent to cause harm; (2) misinformation, which is false, but not created with malicious intent; and (3) malinformation, which is reality-based but intentionally twisted to inflict injury.58 Twitter discourse was particularly rife with disinformation and malinformation. Some key examples are discussed below. 5.3.1 Case Study: Incest The degree to which a handful of provocateurs can shape the social media narrative using disinformation and innuendo is illustrated in the allegation, widely repeated on social media, that Ilhan Omar married her brother. In 2016, two obscure websites published a “tip” she did this as part of a scheme to obtain a visa for her brother, thus committing immigration fraud. The first was Powerline, a conservative blog run by four lawyers, which posted the allegation on August 12, 2016, after Omar won the DemocraticFarmer-Labor (DFL) Party (the name of the Democratic Party in Minnesota) 12.

Categories of tweets tagging Rashida Tlaib 13. PJ Media #ISLAMOPHOBIA / 19 nomination for state legislature. The article was based on an anonymous comment on a forum for the Somali diaspora, Somalispot.com.59 The post claimed, without providing evidence, that Omar’s previous husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, was actually her brother. Five days later, AlphanewsMN.com, a fringe website in Minnesota, ran a story claiming, “New Evidence Confirms Rumors About DFL Candidate’s Marriages.” Omar has repeatedly denied the allegation and has never been charged, though she has avoided addressing certain inconsistencies.60 The largest local newspaper, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, did not give credence to the claims at the time.61 Despite the fringe media allegations, the story remained unproven and essentially faded away until it was revived during the 2018 primary by PJ Media (Figure 13), a conservative news site that attracts an average of fifteen million unique readers per month62 and is rated by Media Bias/Fact Check as “right-wing” and “borderline ‘Questionable’ based on numerous failed fact checks.”63

On August 8, six days before the primary vote, PJ Media posted this story: OMAR’S MEDIA AND PARTY SUPPORTERS HAVE BEEN AGGRESSIVELY UNINTERESTED IN A DISTURBING ALLEGATION ABOUT OMAR WITH LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS: THAT IN 2009, SHE SEEMS TO HAVE MARRIED HER BROTHER. THAT ALLEGATION HAS BEEN PUBLIC FOR NEARLY TWO YEARS WITHOUT OMAR ADDRESSING ITS SPECIFIC FOUNDATIONS. NEWLY UNCOVERED EVIDENCE—EXCLUSIVELY PUBLISHED BELOW—ADDS ANOTHER ALLEGATION: ILHAN OMAR HAS SINCE SIGNED OFF ON APPARENT FALSEHOODS, UNDER PENALTY OF PERJURY, DURING HER 2017 DIVORCE FROM THE MAN IN QUESTION: AHMED NUR SAID ELMI.64 The story included copies of divorce documents and screengrabs of pictures on social media, but none of the “evidence” proved Omar’s first husband was her brother. Nevertheless, the allegation had been rereleased into the echo chamber. The same day, Robert Spencer, cofounder of Stop Islamization of America,65 reposted the story on his Jihadwatch.org website, which is dedicated to tracking the “current state of radical jihad theology and ideology.”66 Daniel Pipes’s Middle East Forum, which the Center for American Progress puts “at the center of the Islamophobia network,”67 also posted an excerpt of, and link to, the PJ Media story on its Islamist Watch website.68 Two days later, on August 10, Gateway Pundit, an extreme right-wing website,69 ran a headline, “Democratic Congressional Candidate from Minnesota Divorces Her Brother,”70 which cut and pasted from the original 2016 Powerline story.

The uncorroborated story was given another boost on August 12 when media provocateur Laura Loomer crashed a joint event between Omar and Rashida Tlaib (see Appendix 2: Queen of the Trolls).71 “VIDEO: Laura Loomer Confronts Democrat Muslim Candidate on Why She Married Her Brother—Is KICKED OFF FACEBOOK after Posting the VIDEO,” Gateway Pundit reported.72 On August 16, Gateway Pundit published news that Loomer was suing Tlaib for assault allegedly committed during the confrontation, and reprinted most of the previous story.73 A week later, Americanthinker.com mentioned the allegation in an article on Muslims running for office nationally.74 14. Married her brother 20 / #ISLAMOPHOBIA On October 23, two weeks before the midterm election, PJ Media revived the story yet again with “exclusive new evidence” that consisted of high school records of a man by the same name as Omar’s ex-husband. The new allegations were quickly picked up by WMD.com, which reposted the first few paragraphs of the PJ Media story and then linked to the piece.75 The story set off a social media frenzy (Figure 14). A tweet linking back to the article and demanding that she be “thrown in jail or deported” was retweeted more than 5,000 times.

A Laura Loomer tweet asking, “@IlhanMN why did you marry your brother?” was retweeted 890 times over the next three days. In fact, a keyword search of the 90,000 tweets tagging @IlhanMN in the eight weeks before the election found that (after “Minnesota” and “Congress”) three of the top six words in tweets tagging Omar involved terms associated with the alleged marriage (Figure 15). The word “brother” and the terms “marry/married” appeared in more tweets—almost 16,000—than any others, followed closely by “fraud.” The way in which innuendo was a hallmark of alt-right media coverage of the allegations was reflected in an October 27 article on AlphanewsMN.com, one of the two sites that originally published the story. Under the headline “Did City Pages Expose Evidence of Ilhan Omar’s Marriage Controversy?” writer Preya Samsundar reported:

[CITY PAGES] WROTE THAT ILHAN OMAR’S FATHER IS NAMED “NUR SAID ELMI MOHAMED”. A DAY LATER, [THE] ARTICLE WAS CHANGED AND NOW OMAR’S FATHER’S NAME APPEARS IN THE ARTICLE AS “NUR OMAR MOHAMED”. WHY THE SUDDEN CHANGE? IT COULD VERY WELL BE THAT BY ADMITTING THAT ILHAN OMAR’S FATHER’S NAME IS NUR SAID ELMI MOHAMED, IT VALIDATES THE INFORMATION DISCOVERED EARLIER BY ALPHA NEWS THAT ILHAN OMAR MARRIED HER BROTHER AND COMMITTED IMMIGRATION FRAUD… THE ORIGINAL NAME USED BY CITY PAGES TO IDENTIFY ILHAN OMAR’S FATHER LENDS CREDENCE TO THE FRATERNAL STATUS OF AHMED NUR AID ELMI UNDER SOMALI NAMING CONVENTIONS. THE CHANGE WOULD ALSO REMOVE ANY SUSPICION FROM THE READER THAT OMAR MARRIED A MAN WITH AN ALMOST IDENTICAL NAME OF HER FATHER.76

But the story did not rest there. It was resurrected by another right-wing media outlet, and given credibility by Donald Trump in July 2019, the same week Trump posted a series of racist tweets about Omar. As he departed for a campaign rally at which he would again denounce Omar, prompting the crowd to break into chants of “Send her back,”77 Emerald Robinson, a reporter for the hard-right One America News Network, asked if the administration was looking into “possible immigration fraud committed by Ilhan Omar for possibly marrying her brother.”78 Trump’s response: “Well, there’s a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother. I know nothing about it. I hear she was married to her brother. You’re asking me a question about it. I don’t know, but I’m sure there’s somebody who will be looking at that.” 15. Ilhan Omar network top keywords #ISLAMOPHOBIA / 21

With that, the story had been released back into the social media echo chamber with new imprimatur of credibility for those who wanted to believe it. 5.3.2 Case Study: FGM A similar twisting of facts by online outlets led to a false allegation about Omar that formed the basis of another Twitter narrative: that she supports female genital mutilation (FGM). Omar’s native Somalia has one of the highest rates of FGM in the world.79 Despite Omar’s opposition to the procedure, its high prevalence in Somalia has made the issue a potent vector for innuendo. “In 2017, Omar rejected Muslim reform-driven efforts against gender discrimination and female genital mutilation (FGM),” the website for the Clarion Project reported in August 2018.80 The group describes itself as “a non-profit organization that educates the public about the dangers of radical Islam,”81 though it is designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-Muslim hate group. This October 17 post by Laura Loomer, an influential anti-Muslim troll,

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6 THE NETWORKS

In addition to analyzing the content of the tweets, we mapped the Twitter networks that linked each candidate to clusters of their own trolls and followers and the way in which those clusters connected to the broader galaxy rotating around the candidate.xiv This unlocked a complex, interconnected universe of Twitter accounts, revealing the relationships between the key players driving the anti-Muslim, xenophobic, antiPalestinian narrative and those who propagate such messages. The position of any given account on the map reflects its relationship to the other accounts. The lines show the connections. If an account is located on the border between two clusters, it acts as a bridge between them, perhaps by tweeting content that references or is retweeted by accounts from both clusters. The further away from the center of the map, generally speaking, the less interaction the account had with the candidate.

6.1 INFLUENCERS, AMPLIFIERS & ICONS

We generated three views of each candidate’s network (except for that of Mahmoud Mahmoud, since there was not enough activity in his network to be meaningful). Each of these visualizations is a different way to look at the same network, and each highlights a different aspect of the network’s organization. The terms for each view have been adapted from previous efforts to categorize Twitter accounts.102 View #1. Influencers: This visualization shows the relative influence of the accounts that shape the Twitter narrative (based on the account’s PageRank; see Methodology).103 The importance, or “authority,” of these accounts relative to other accounts in the candidate’s network reflects the degree to which they are being retweeted or mentioned by other accounts or the candidates themselves, either because they are authoring the most widely distributed tweets, or because others are trying to get their attention. We have labeled these accounts “Influencers.” The size of the font on the map is scaled to visualize the account’s relative influence.

View #2. Amplifiers:This is who is doing the work. These are the accounts that are spreading the gospel of the Influencers. The size of the font reflects their relative impact based on “weighted-out degree” (see Methodology). We have labeled them “Amplifiers.” This amplification can happen in several ways. Sometimes, it is through retweeting or replying to others who mention or reply to a candidate’s account. Other times, it is through tagging or adding a candidate’s handle to threads on which they were not included. Or it happens through directly replying to or retweeting the candidates themselves. Amplifiers are probably best summed xivData was collected for references made to the candidate’s handle (including @ or not) with search terms defined for each handle (@username) through the streaming Twitter API and filtered for the desired date range. See Methodology. #ISLAMOPHOBIA / 27 up as “net contributors” or “top engagers-activists,” as this measure prioritizes the most active accounts by total frequency relative to the candidate whose network is depicted. They have a symbiotic relationship with the Influencers. Without those Influencers who post the original narrative-shaping tweets, there would be nothing to talk about.

Without the Amplifiers, there would, in relative terms, be no one to talk about it. The tweet would be read by the account’s immediate followers, but the impact would not scale. View #3. Icons: These are the social media icons: political, entertainment, and news celebrities; major media organizations; and similar accounts that have huge networks of followers. Their relative rank is based on total follower count, not their influence within the individual candidate’s network. However, they only appear on a particular candidate’s network map if this Icon has, in some way, interacted with others in that candidate’s network. This activity is not necessarily influential inside the captured networks, but it is important for the diffusion of awareness and information outside the candidate’s network to the rest of Twitter and world. This view is useful for showing topical attention and candidate coverage by the mainstream media, and for showing references from highly influential support and opposition actors. However, other high-profile figures with larger networks do not appear, since they have not had any twitter interaction with the candidate. Below, we discuss the specific sets of visualizations for each of the candidates we studied.

6.2 ILHAN OMAR (@ILHANMN) 28. Omar “Influencers” network (collection Sept. 30-Nov. 4, 2018; references to IlhanMN and @IlhanMN) 28 / #ISLAMOPHOBIA 6.2.1 Influencers The network map in Figure 28 shows Ilhan Omar’s entire Influencer network.104 The central “swirl” is the location of the candidate’s own account, @IlhanMN. Network pathways radiate out in all directions, linking her account to all the accounts that tag her Twitter handle or mention her name in both positive and negative posts. The area in red to the “north” of @IlhanMN is the nexus of the anti-Muslim discourse in Omar’s network. This concentration includes accounts that are in some way linked to those trolling Omar with Islamophobic/xenophobic/anti-Palestine content, along with other accounts that are being tagged in those tweets. It is very important to note that the mere presence of an account in this sector does not imply it has posted Islamophobic/xenophobic tweets or those containing hate speech, or that it is a politically conservative account.

For example, in Figure 29, @MPRNews, the Twitter account of Minnesota Public Radio, can be found near the bottom of this sector, not because it is tweeting anti-Omar content but because it is being tagged in tweets that do contain such sentiment, presumably by individuals who want the news organization to be aware of what they are tweeting in the hopes it will retweet that content. Quite often, prominent news organizations and politicians from rival parties—such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi—are tagged in tweets containing sentiment directly contrary to their own views in the hopes of provoking them. That is the very nature of trolling. To the far “west,” the heavy web of red intersecting lines represents a cluster of accounts showing signs of “inauthentic” activity that makes them suspected bots, which are retweeting each other’s posts or those of another account that acts as a “mother ship” for the “fleet” (see Appendix 1: The Role of Bots for details on bot detection strategy). The lines stretching from them back to the heart of the red cloud show how they are connected to the nexus of the anti-Muslim narrative.

The dark “clouds” are concentrations of accounts, likely bots, that are in close communication and/or coordination with each other or are tweeting common content. The thick crescent to the “southwest” of @IlhanMN highlights largely pro-Trump accounts that are mentioning Omar, but not necessarily with Islamophobic content. To the “east,” the node at the nexus of the red swirl going north and the purple swirl going south is Rashida Tlaib’s account. She is present because so many of the tweets posting Islamophobic/xenophobic comments and hate speech about Ilhan Omar also tag her. The blue area to the south represents the concentration of Democratic/progressive accounts that are posting positive content about both candidates. The role of the most Islamophobic accounts, clustered at the top, is visualized and discussed below through the three different map perspectives.xv The mere presence of an account in the map sector at the nexus of the anti-Muslim narrative does not mean it has posted Islamophobic/xenophobic tweets. xvThe specific colors assigned to the various themed clusters are, in and of themselves, meaningless. They are simply meant to differentiate the anti-Muslim accounts from the others.

#ISLAMOPHOBIA / 29 Laura Loomer is the most influential anti-Muslim voice in Ilhan Omar’s network. An agent provocateur who specializes in staging media events and leveraging them on Twitter (see profile in Appendix 2), her PageRank puts her 13th among all accounts of every political viewpoint in the Omar network, but first among accounts posting anti-Muslim/xenophobic content and more influential than some news organizations, including @PioneerPress, the Twitter account of Minnesota’s main newspaper, which ranked eighty-two overall in the network.xvi

DELETED ACCTS

Perhaps the most revealing view of the anti-Muslim networks highlights the accounts that no longer exist and the connections between them. In July 2019, seven months after we completed data collection, we went back and ran status checks on each candidate’s network. The result is a study in the distorted nature of the Twitter narrative. On the Ilhan Omar map above (Figure 57), suspended accounts appear in red and deleted accounts appear in orange. The most active accounts still operating are highlighted in light green and all other live accounts are in black. Figure 58 shows the total number of accounts suspended or deleted in each of the candidates’ networks. For Omar 13.5% of accounts were suspended or deleted; for Rashida Tlaib 11%, and for Omar Qudrat 9.5%. The bubble graph in Figure 59 shows the relative activity of the suspended (red) and deleted (orange) accounts versus the other active accounts, with the individual bubbles sizes reflecting activity (the example tweet was retweeted 365 times).

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9 THE MEDIA 9.1 THE ISLAMOPHOBIC MEDIA

The anti-Muslim narrative has long been fed by an echo chamber of dozens of Islamophobic websites that stoke fear and fuel hatred, with Breitbart at the nexus. The role of those sites has been documented in several reports, most recently Fear, Inc., a study by the Center for American Progress.149 “Islamic invasion: More Than 90 Muslims, Nearly All Democrats, Running for Public Office across the U.S.” declared a headline on the website Creeping Sharia in the spring of 2018. “The long game does not bode well for nonMuslims,” the article warned.150 The echo chamber effect was illustrated by a Breitbart article about Omar Qudrat, headlined “Local News Blasts Democrat Scott Peters for Avoiding Debate with Republican Omar Qudrat,” which was reposted by eight other websites. In their study of the 2016 presidential campaign, Benkler, Faris, and Roberts found “Breitbart was the lead singer in the anti-immigrant right-wing choir [that] framed immigration primarily in terms of fear of Muslims, Islam, and Islamic terrorism.”151

However, this study found that by the 2018 campaign, Breitbart and the traditional constellation of overtly Islamophobic news organizations and websites paid relatively little attention to the Muslim candidates who won their parties’ nomination for Congress. It was notable that a pro-Israel, anti-Muslim blog run by an anonymous writer, elderofziyon.com,152 had the largest total story count (fifteen) about the candidates, as compared to Breitbart’s ten (Figure 76). Also notable was the relatively small role played by traditional anti-Muslim influencers such as Pamela Geller, whose two blogs—Geller Report and Atlas Shrugs—posted a combined total of eight articles, while another stalwart of the anti-Muslim movement, Robert Spencer, posted just eight articles on his Jihad Watch website (seven authored by him and one from another writer). Stories about Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib published by Islamophobic websites during the period January 1, 2018, to November 4, 2018, constituted 8% of all media coverage of Omar and 5% for Tlaib. The percentage for Qudrat was much higher, at 28%, but it is important to keep in mind that involved just eleven stories, so it was more a function of the lack over overall media attention he received. Also, those articles were generally positive, with headlines like “Omar Qudrat: A New Hope for San Diego”153 and “We Found a Candidate Who Gets It.”154 There were no stories on third-party candidate Mahmoud Mahmoud in the Islamophobic media.

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9.3 FEAR, INC. PASSING THE TORCH?

A handful of influencers have been at the heart of the Islamophobia industry, running or contributing to many of the media outlets above. They form what the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has called “the anti-Muslim inner circle” of individuals who have led the Islamophobic narrative in recent years.155 Our study indicates that with the rise of Twitter as a political tool and the growth of new blogs and independent websites, along with bots and cyborgs, the nexus of influence within the anti-Muslim ecosystem may be shifting, with new actors seizing the mantle of leadership.

Figure 80 shows the fourteen individuals (in red) who were named as either part of the “inner circle” by the SPLC or as “misinformation experts” or “activists” in the anti-Muslim “echo chamber” by the Fear, Inc. study. It compares their overall rank as Influencers in the Omar network versus other anti-Muslim voices (in black).Only Bill Warner, Pamela Geller and Brigitte Gabriel made it into the top ten most influential purveyors of anti-Muslim/xenophobic messaging in Omar’s network. Only three of those individuals appeared in Tlaib’s network (Figure 81).

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10 ANALYSIS/CONCLUSIONS

Almost two decades after 9/11, Islamophobia remains a cancer in the American body politic. It has also become a proxy for the undifferentiated xenophobia and racism directed toward religious minorities, people of color, and immigrants. These are not new sentiments, but they have recently been unleashed in a way not witnessed in recent decades. During his 2016 campaign, Donald Trump normalized the vilification of Muslims and other minority groups within some sectors of society. More recently, he has made the targeting of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib—and fellow congresswomen of color Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts—a cornerstone of his 2020 reelection bid.156

In fact, our research found that Omar and Tlaib were in the crosshairs of the Islamophobic community long before Trump elevated them in his tweetstorms, and likely before they were even on his personal radar screen. That was particularly true of Ilhan Omar. For members of a distinct Twitter subculture, she embodied everything they despised and/or feared: a female, brown-skinned, Muslim refugee immigrant who wore a hijab and had the temerity to run for national office. Those antipathies were preyed on and inflamed by online actors and complex bot networks with an interest in isolating minorities and/or fueling division. In the experience of Omar and her fellow candidates, there are important lessons for fellow Muslims and other persons of color entering the political fray in 2020. Online vs. On the Campaign Trail The goal of this study has been to better understand the source and scope of the challenge facing future Muslim candidates as America enters the 2020 election cycle by studying the highest-profile Muslim congressional candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.

As more Muslims enter politics, they draw more attention and, it is sadly inevitable, more attacks. Given that many of the Muslim candidates for office were running in areas with established Muslim communities, it is perhaps unsurprising that face-to-face interactions with constituents were mostly positive, though mixed. As research indicates, people who know a Muslim in real life are more likely to have warmer feelings toward Muslims generally.157 As such, these candidates were more likely to interact with voters who saw them as members of the community rather than representatives of a mysterious monolith. This provides some explanation for the seeming contradiction between the overall positive experience candidates reported in the survey and the high level of Islamophobia found in the Twitter narrative. Islamophobes make up a small percentage of any given congressional district; as such, even the survey respondents who reported being targeted on the campaign trail also reported that a majority of constituents felt neutral or positively toward Muslims. But Twitter operates on a global level, so these high-profile candidates drew the attention of domestic and international anti-Muslim/xenophobic elements, though they still represented just a tiny proportion of the overall Twittersphere

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that the border between rational philosophical positions—such as objecting to Omar’s statement about Israel—and an agenda of hate is sometimes invisible and impossible to navigate. In this context, the meaning of the term “troll” is transformed as seemingly innocuous tweets—e.g., “This is the Democratic candidate for Congress”—are tossed like bait into the digital waters by malevolent actors seeking to drag the unsuspecting into their nets. A simple and innocent retweet ensnares well-meaning individuals in a wider, and far uglier, narrative.

By constantly dehumanizing Muslims or portraying them as invaders, these troll accounts contribute to the notion that Muslims—as proxies for other persons of color—are outside of the mainstream and incompatible with American values. Through repetition in the form of retweeting, malign messages are adopted as the “wisdom” of the crowd, which then spills over into mainstream coverage and becomes part of an opportunistic to-and-fro of demonization of minorities; Muslims one day, Latinx the next. An essential question for the future is: Who is behind those accounts, and what ideological germs do their tweets and retweets carry? Determining the sources and motivations behind these automated attacks—whether on Muslims or any other American—is critical. We are not saying that without the organized agitator networks there would be no Islamophobia; rather that these largely faceless forces are the catalysts for a spiral of outrage that drives a dangerous national— and international—narrative. Individual hate-filled tweets may not quite be the digital equivalent of the tree falling in the forest when there is no one there to hear it, but the impact of angry individuals would be far less significant without the automated amplifiers of hate, coupled with the signal boosters in the mainstream media. The broader impetus for discovering who is behind the bots and their motivation relates to protecting the integrity of the US political process, as well as that of other democracies.

While bot campaigns and agents provocateurs didn’t prevent Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from being elected, the experience of the 2016 general election shows that malign actors can leverage social media to sow discord and confusion within the electorate.The next candidate in their sights may not be so lucky. Social media companies are making renewed efforts to crack down on hate speech, evident in the many suspended accounts and deleted tweets we found among the examples documented above. In July 2019, Twitter announced it would delete any tweet that “dehumanizes” others based on their religion.163 Such rules, if enforced, would address much of the hate speech discussed above. However, the numbers show that the task of shutting down anti-Muslim hate speech is daunting. As Andrew Nachison, founder of We Media, observed, “[I]t’s already bad—but if the overall tone is lousy, if the culture tilts negative, if political leaders popularize hate, then there’s good reason to think all of that will dominate the digital debate as well.”164 This is not an issue that is likely to go away anytime soon, particularly with Muslim candidates gearing up to compete in the 2020 election. As we have documented, despite the suspensions and deletions, almost Islamophobia remains a toxic undercurrent of American society, ready for exploitation by those with an agenda and an algorithm. #ISLAMOPHOBIA / 67 82.

Troll status vs. account status (all candidates)

20,000 of the of Islamophobic/xenophobic trolls we identified continue to operate in the Omar, Tlaib, and Qudrat networks (Figure 82), and it is likely that countless others are being activated for 2020. What are the prospects for citizen participation in the public debate if the debate venue is actually an echo chamber of manufactured outrage stirred up by digital straw men and women who serve as proxies for faceless political forces—at home and abroad? Three Muslims are now serving in Congress; another is running the campaign of a major presidential contender, Bernie Sanders. But the experiences of Muslim candidates who competed in the 2018 midterms suggest that while Islamophobia/xenophobia is not the only story, it remains a toxic undercurrent of American society, ready for exploitation by those with an agenda and an algorithm.

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also breivik? see modi

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/russia-accusations-a-distraction-from-tulsi-gabbards-actual-troubling-ties

no lnx docs?

Russia accusations a distraction From Tulsi Gabbard’s actual troubling ties

Written by Ari Paul / FAIR October 26, 2019

When 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (Campaign HQ, 10/17/19) accused Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, a long-shot Democratic primary candidate, of being a Russian-groomed foil, the media reverberations were sweeping. Coverage of the row prompted more coverage, with some takes defending Gabbard’s moral compass and others prolonging the obsession with the idea that Russia is interfering in American politics.

Lost in the noise is the reality that Gabbard’s most troubling attribute is her documented connection to the far-right Hindu nationalist, or Hindutva, movement known as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organization of India’s ruling BJP party.

There is no evidence that Gabbard, who rarely polls above 3%, is any kind of Russian agent, plucked by Moscow to sway the 2020 election toward the reelection of Donald Trump. But those silly accusations eventually mix into the media as they look to explain how an idiosyncratic candidate like Gabbard can gain the support not only of anti-war leftists who see her as a champion of nonintervention, but also of far-right white nationalists like David Duke and Richard Spencer.

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https://yyy.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/the-myth-of-eurabia-how-a-far-right-conspiracy-theory-went-mainstream

guk no lnx

The long read

The myth of Eurabia: how a far-right conspiracy theory went mainstream

Once an obscure idea confined to the darker corners of the internet, the anti-Islam ideology is now visible in the everyday politics of the west. How did this happen? By Andrew Brown

Fri 16 Aug 2019 01.00 EDT Last modified on Fri 16 Aug 2019 07.48 EDT

In July 2011, a quiet European capital was shaken by a terrorist car bomb, followed by confused reports suggesting many deaths. When the first news of the murders came through, one small group of online commentators reacted immediately, even though the media had cautiously declined to identify the attackers. They knew at once what had happened – and who was to blame.

“This was inevitable,” explained one of the anonymous commenters. And it was just the beginning: “Only a matter of time before other European nations get a taste of their multicultural tolerance that they’ve been cooking for decades.”

“Europe has been infested with venomous parasitic vermin,” explained another. “Anything and everything is fine as long as they rape the natives and destroy the country, which they do,” said a third.

As the news grew worse, the group became more joyful and confident. The car bomb had been followed by reports of a mass shooting at a nearby camp for teenagers. One commenter was “almost crying of happiness” to be proved right about the dangers of Islam. “The massacre at the children’s camp,” another noted, “is a sickening reminder of just how evil and satanic the cult of Islam is.”

A couple of hours after the first reports of the bomb explosion in central Oslo, a few doubts emerged to cloud the picture: “Because the targets in the shooting were all good little leftists, won’t the shooter be played up as a rightwing extremist, whatever his actual motives?” one person asked.

When information emerged to suggest that the attacker might be a “tall Nordic guy”, one of the commenters, who called himself “Fjordman”, realised the true nature of the disaster: “Judging from some of the recent information, it must be treated as a serious possibility that this is actually some Timothy McVeigh, not a Muslim. It is too early to tell. If that is indeed the case … it would practically destroy my country, and make the working conditions for people like myself incredibly difficult for a long time to come, I’m afraid.”

The truth turned out to be worse than Fjordman feared. The massacre in Oslo had not been committed by Muslims. It was the work of a white supremacist, Anders Behring Breivik, who had detonated a bomb in Oslo, killing eight people, and then shot dead 69 others, many of them teenagers, at a youth camp run by Norway’s Labour party. And, according to the manifesto he published online, Breivik had been directly inspired by Gates of Vienna – the blog where all these comments appeared on the day of his massacre. Breivik called the ideology that justified his murders “The Vienna school”, after the blog.

Fjordman, whose real name is Peder Are Nøstvold Jensen, now lives in obscurity in provincial Norway. He outed himself as the man behind the pseudonym to a Norwegian tabloid in the weeks following the massacre – butmanaged to avoid testifying at Breivik’s trial, thanks to the intervention of high-powered lawyers paid for by the Middle East Forum, a rightwing American group that would later sponsor Tommy Robinson– real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – in Britain. Nonetheless, Jensen’s influence on Breivik, however indirect, had been considerable.

Breivik borrowed part of the title of his manifesto, A European Declaration of Independence, from one of Fjordman’s blog posts, and many of the chapters in it were simply reprintings of Fjordman’s postings on various blogs, mostly Gates of Vienna, but also a far-right and passionately anti-EU site called the Brussels Journal.

Gates of Vienna was, and still is, run by Edward “Ned” May, an American computer programmer from Washington DC. It was among the first in a wave of blogs that urged the US to war after the shock of 9/11, and almost certainly the most fanatically anti-Muslim. It takes its name from the siege of Vienna in 1683, when an Ottoman Turkish army was defeated by a Polish-led one. Its essential thesis is that this was only one battle in a long war and that Europe and its civilisation are constantly threatened by a Muslim invasion.

On these varied online forums, the narrative was always the same: a liberal cabal was conspiring with hostile Muslim powers to hand over the decent working people to Islam. This was the animating myth of the bloggers, calling themselves the “counter-jihad”, who congregated at Gates of Vienna and other like-minded sites – and inspired both the violence of Breivik and the message of the racist far-right parties that have transformed European politics in the past decade.

But all of these later conspiracy theories took inspiration from a founding myth of contemporary Islamophobia: an invented plot, known as “Eurabia”, to destroy European civilisation. This is the doctrine that Jensen promoted and Breivik acted on, a hidden underpinning of a movement that has changed the world.

Once an ideology confined to the kookier corners of the internet, the idea of Eurabia is now visible in the everyday politics of the US, Australia and most of Europe: when Trump tweets about stabbings in London and falsely claims that crime in Germany is “way up”, he is invoking the Eurabian myth, taken as fact on Fox News, that European liberals have surrendered their cities to Muslim criminals.

The spread of the belief that elites conspired to push Muslim immigration on their native populations is also the story of a conspiracy theory that was nourished on some of the very first blogs and message boards, started appearing in mainstream discourse after 9/11, and thentook on a life of its own, even while the supposed facts behind it were exposed as ridiculous. It is a lesson in the danger of half-truths, which are not only more powerful than truths but often more powerful than lies.

Eurabia is a term coined in the 70s that was resurfaced byGisèle Littman, an Egyptian-born Jewish woman who fled Cairo for Britain after the Suez crisis, and then moved to Switzerland in 1960 with her English husband. She wrote under the name of Bat Ye’or (Hebrew for “Daughter of the Nile”). In a series of books, originally written in French and published from the 1990s onward, she developed a grand conspiracy theory in which the EU, led by French elites, implemented a secret plan to sell out Europe to the Muslims in exchange for oil.

The original villain of Littman’s story was General Charles de Gaulle. It is difficult for an outsider to understand how De Gaulle, who led the French resistance to the Nazis and was probably the greatest conservative statesman in French history, could be reinvented as the man who betrayed western civilisation for money. But Littman had lived many years in France, and the French far right hated De Gaulle, and indeed tried several times to assassinate him. Not only had De Gaulle fought the Vichy government, he had also admitted defeat in the long and hideously bloody war of Algerian independence – granting an Arab Muslim country its freedom at the expense of the French-Christian settler population, who had to retreat to France (and whose descendants formed the backbone of Jean-Marie Le Pen’s National Front).

Agreeing to Algerian independence was understood by the French far right as a betrayal. De Gaulle had been brought out of retirement and restored to power in 1958 because he was believed to be on the side of the settlers in their war, which was opposed by much of the left. And so, to the far right, the Mediterranean came to seem like the frontline in a long, shifting struggle between rival colonialisms, Christian and Muslim, in which the Muslims had won a great victory in Algeria. Where would their new advance stop?

Littman’s argument, framed by her experience in Egypt (which a French force had invaded, along with the British and Israelis, in 1956), was that Islam imposed a second-class status on all non-Muslims, whom they ruled. This status of “dhimmitude” – a coinage of Littman’s, meaning subjection to Islamic rule on pain of “forced conversion, slavery or death” – was now to be extended to Europe.

According to Littman, her books describe “Europe’s evolution from a Judeo-Christian civilisation, with important post-Enlightenment secular elements, into a post-Judeo-Christian civilisation that is subservient to the ideology of jihad and the Islamic powers that propagate it.”

She saw tentacles of the great conspiracy in committees of blameless tedium and obscurity, such as the Euro-Arab Dialogue, an institution set up by the European Economic Community and the Arab League in the 70s to promote greater discussion between the regions. Her conspiracy theory was dismissed in 2006 by the Israeli historian Robert Wistrich as “the protocols of the elders of Brussels”, but what mattered more was the place he chose to challenge her ideas: a conference in Jerusalem on antisemitism to which she had been invited despite her lack of academic status. September 11 had changed everything for Littman, she told Haaretz after the conference: “In the United States, I am certain that the September 11 attacks woke people up, including the Jewish community that had previously ignored me, because it belongs more to the left.”

She explained to Haaretz the future she saw for Europe. “We are now heading towards a total change in Europe, which will be more and more Islamicised and will become a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world.”

This was the idea that the Norwegian Jensen was enchanted by, and which, as Fjordman, he transmitted to Anders Breivik.

[Marine Le Pen, president of France’s far-right National Rally (formerly National Front) party, applauds the former US presidential adviser Steve Bannon after his speech at the party’s annual congress in March 2018.]

Jensen is unusual among Eurabia believers in that he has actually had some experience of the Muslim world and even speaks Arabic. He is the son of a socialist politician in Norway and studied Arabic in Cairo – his earlier university studies in Bergen had included English (which he writes fluently), Russian, Arabic and Middle Eastern history. In 2000, he had been interviewed by the local paper back in Norway, and spoke enthusiastically about his hosts in Egypt: “Outside the tourist areas, you meet friendly, hospitable, curious and open people who want to get to know you. I have been part of their daily lives. We’ve been invited to their homes, and talked and smoked shisha together.”

That was Jensen’s first encounter with Islam, and he was still in Cairo at the time of the 9/11 attacks. He says he saw then that there were some Muslims who celebrated the slaughter, and he also saw that this wasn’t reported in the Norwegian papers. The next year, he worked for the Norwegian Refugee Council in the disputed city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.Unusually among Scandinavians who have worked with Palestinians in Israel, he identified with the Israelis.He narrowly escaped a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, at a bar where two of his colleagues had been killed in another attack the previous year. The experience cemented his growing fear and loathing of Islam.

The fact that the Norwegian press took a generally pro-Palestinian line while he and his friends had been the victims of Palestinian terrorism helped to convince Jensen that Islam was an existential threat to European civilisation which the politically correct establishment was wilfully ignoring. Like Littman, he seems not to acknowledge any element of nationalism in Palestinian consciousness: it is all either Arab or Muslim. In fact, the belief that Islam is hostile to national consciousness is quite widely held on the right: the philosopher Roger Scruton brought it up in a controversial speech on nationality in Hungary in 2013, in which he contrasted European Christian nations with Islamic empires.

In 2003, Jensen returned to Norway, where he attempted to make a name for himself as a public intellectual. At first, he was hostile to feminism, accusing feminists of destroying Norwegian manhood. But the focus of his concerns soon switched to Islam. He started writing under the pseudonym “Norwegian Kafir” on an American blog calledLittle Green Footballs, which loudly and fervently supported the invasion of Iraq. From then on, his writing appeared in English, on American-hosted blogs. There, he hammered into shape the narrative of elites, specially identified with the EU, who are destroying and betraying Europe by the deliberate encouragement of mass immigration.

At this point in time, the Eurabian conspiracy appealed largely to those who had long perceived a conflict between Islam and the Judeo-Christian west – with Israel as a beleaguered and persecuted outpost of western values. These people, largely on the American right, were among the earliest exponents of Eurabia – but as they never ceased to complain, theirs was not an attitude very widely shared in Europe. What would soon supply the emotional force of the fantasy was another set of ideas about global migration, less conspiratorial in their essence, but much more widely accepted among generally apolitical Europeans. These, also, originated in France, where they were known as the“great replacement”.

The idea of the great replacement had its origin in a blatantly racist French novel of the 1970s, The Camp of the Saints, in which France is overthrown by an unarmed invasion of starving, sex-crazed Indian refugees when the French army is not prepared to fire on them. Themoral of the book is that western civilisation can only be saved by a willingness to slaughter poor brown people. Steve Bannon, among the founders of the rightwing news site Breitbart and a former adviser to President Trump, has referred to it repeatedly.

Throughout the 80s and 90s, the naked racism of The Camp of the Saints kept it largely out of public debate. But the rise of Islam as a global force allowed the question to be recast. If the threatening masses were defined by religion rather than by skin colour, then hating them could be presented as an intellectual commitment rather than a racist one.

And the paranoid did have a large, shadowy half-truth to fall back on. The demographic shrinkagefacing Europe is real and undeniable, and it was obvious in the early years of this century, too. So are the much greater birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. In 2002, Russia and Pakistan both had populations of about 145 million; by 2017, Russia’s population was 144 million while Pakistan’s was 200 million.

The next stage in the development of a xenophobic populist worldview was for the two narratives to merge, so that Islam and Muslims became both a conspiracy and a demographic threat.

The 9/11 attacks changed attitudes to Islam in much of Europe and the US. Israel and the US now shared a sense of being under attack from Muslims. Without 9/11, Littman would have remained an obscure crank, and Jensen more obscure still. But the assault on the twin towers unleashed an immense backlash of wounded American pride and nationalism that led to the devastation of two whole countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, and countless deaths. It also fuelled a demand for explanations. Theories about the unique malevolence and danger of Islam answered a popular hunger. George W Bush declared at the time that the US had no quarrel with Islam, but many of his compatriots disagreed.

One of the many bad fruits of 9/11 was the new atheist movement, a phenomenon marked by mutual self-praise and undeviating hostility to Islam. Even if the ostensible target of much of the hostility was Christianity, the new atheists tend to consider Islam far worse and more “religious” a religion. The American writer Sam Harris’s breakthrough book The End of Faith from 2004 now reads like Bat Ye’or without the inconvenient scaffolding of easily disproved facts. “We are at war with Islam,” he writes. “It may not serve our immediate foreign policy objectives for our political leaders to openly acknowledge this fact, but it is unambiguously so. It is not merely that we are at war with an otherwise peaceful religion that has been ‘hijacked’ by extremists … Armed conflict ‘in the defence of Islam’ is a religious obligation for every Muslim man ... Islam, more than any religion humans have ever devised, has the makings of a thoroughgoing cult of death.”

In the run-up to the Iraq war, and after the invasion, coverage in American newspapers and on television was, to a European eye, jingoistic in the extreme. The possibility of defeat was unthinkable. Nonetheless, a new wave of bloggers began using the term “MSM” for “mainstream media” as a disparaging reference to the large media organisations’ pretended neutrality. One of the earliest and most influential of these was Little Green Footballs, founded and run by Charles Johnson, a Los Angeles-based former session guitarist with an interest in web design. It was typical of the moment that he was an opinionated amateur with no credentials, whose real advantage was that he could build websites at a time when this required some programming skill.

Jensen, commenting on Little Green Footballs as Norwegian Kafir, made it a distribution point for Eurabian ideas. Another was Gates of Vienna itself, run by Ned May under the moniker Baron Bodissey after a sage in the sci-fi novels of Jack Vance. Then there was Jihad Watch, run by the American author Robert Spencer. Both Spencer and his frequent collaborator Pam Geller were banned from the UK in 2013 for making statements likely to foster hatred and violence between communities.

The only European blog of note in this constellation was the fanatically anti-EU site the Brussels Journal, where the Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan was a contributor. The Brussels Journal was run by Paul Beliën, a far-right Belgian journalist and author. Jensen was active on all these sites, taking part in discussions in which the Eurabian beliefs gave rise to something that called itself the counter-jihad movement.

Nowadays, when Facebook effortlessly spreads disinformation around the world, it is difficult to recapture the sense of revelation, and of belonging, that once accompanied the discovery of a new blog. The cramped but, to its adherents, strangely comforting thought world of the counter-jihad blogs turned politics into a gigantic online game. Anyone could play and everyone could find in it their inner child: “Some people think I’m weird; some think I am exceptionally intelligent,” Jensen had told a reporter when he was still a student in Cairo.

The boundaries between these blogs and the “MSM” they affected to despise were porous. Some writers aimed for a high-minded tone about the dangers of Muslim immigration: the former Financial Times columnist Christopher Caldwell published in 2009 a book, Reflections on a Revolution in Europe, that recapitulates the idea of a slow-moving Muslim barbarian invasion from a position of Olympian disdain: “Immigrants also bring a lot of disorder, penury and crime … Muslim culture is unusually full of messages laying out the practical advantages of procreation … If you walk north across the Piazza Della Repubblica in Turin, you see, mutatis mutandis, what the Romans saw. To the east, two well-preserved Roman towers remain, and so do the walls built to separate citizens from barbarians. Today, in the space of about 60 seconds on foot, you pass from chic shops and wine bars through a lively multiethnic market into one of Europe’s more menacing north African slums.”

Some were less highbrow. In 2004, the Daily Telegraph gave a column to the Canadian prophet of American greatness Mark Steyn, who had originally made his name as a witty critic of musical theatre. Doom and horror was all he saw in Europe’s future. As early as 2002, he said: “I find it easier to be optimistic about the futures of Iraq and Pakistan than, say, Holland or Denmark” – a remark he was still proudly quoting for Telegraph readers in 2005, when Iraq had become a slaughterhouse.

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In terms that anticipated Jensen, Breivik and the alleged manifesto of the man charged with the Christchurch massacre, Steyn wrote (and the Telegraph published) this prophecy: “In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography – except through civil war. The Yugoslavs figured that out. In the 30 years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43% to 31% of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26% to 44%.”

[painting naked white? woman sucks finger, others gawk; ‘Europeans, vote for AfD, so that Europe will never become ‘Eurabia’!’ reads a campaign poster in Berlin for the far-right party during this year’s European elections.

Compare Steyn in 2005 with the manifesto of Patrick Crusius, who confessed to murdering 22 people in El Paso earlier this month: “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion ... America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible.”

In 2007, the believers in a counter-jihad began to meet up in the real world. After a preliminary meeting of bloggers, commentators and Danish and Norwegian sympathisers in Copenhagen, attended by Jensen, a conference was arranged by May and the far-right Flemish party Vlaams Belang, in Brussels in 2007. This brought together most of the ideologues of Eurabia, as they attempted to transform it from an idea into a movement. Littman was the keynote speaker. Others present were Geller and Robert Spencer from the US, and Gerard Batten, later briefly the leader of Ukip in Britain. Ted Ekeroth, of the nationalist, rightwing Sweden Democrats, also attended.

As both Ukip and the Sweden Democrats rose to become powerful political forces, anxieties about terrorism were subsumed into much wider anxieties about demography, and about status within the old order. The American anthropologist Scott Atran has carried out extensive research into the mindset of the young men who become Islamic terrorists: the combination of wounded pride with the delight of belonging to a movement which has both global, apocalyptic significance and a living presence in a friendship group is tremendously important in recruiting jihadis. The same dynamic operates among their enemies: Breivik was remarkable chiefly in that he was so solipsistic that he could radicalise himself without the aid of any friends in real life, only those he imagined on the internet. He had at one stage approached his intellectual idol, Jensen, via email, who brushed him off as “boring as a vacuum cleaner salesman”.

You do not have to be a jihadi to feel the tug of these compulsions. The counter-jihadis, just as much as their enemies, believed they were entering an apocalyptic battle between good and evil. This is a century of wounded pride and anxieties about status for almost everyone.

Despite all this, there were some signs, even before the Breivik killings, that the original Eurabian front would break up. Those who were opposed to immigrants in general began to separate from those who hated Muslims in particular.Johnson, the founder of Little Green Footballs, excommunicated most of his followers in 2010 because of their increasing closeness to parties of western Europe that he regarded as being descended from fascists – the Vlaams Belang in Belgium and the Sweden Democrats, although he also denounced the English Defence League. Johnson was a genuine philosemite, who could not forgive the taint of antisemitism.

The anti-immigrant right had good reasons for separating itself from the anti-Muslim right. If the logic of the “Vienna school” – Jensen, Spencer and Geller, May and Littman – led inexorably to civil war and the righteous slaughter of Muslims and their leftie enablers, then most of the right shrank back from it. Commenters such as Douglas Murray and Caldwell quite genuinely believed that Breivik was insane, and that his actions had no relation to the ideas that he espoused. There may in this have been an element of self-deception, but it is also a testimony to the sort of instinctive, unthinking decency we all need sometimes to rescue us from the consequences of our ideas. It seemed that some kind of pragmatism would prevail.

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The hope now seems deceptive. What changed this was above all the election of the US president, Donald Trump, whose then adviser Bannon was a believer in a “brutal, bloody ... global war” against “Islamic fascism”. They showed that there was a huge constituency for racialised hatred and despair and – for them – no real negative consequences, electoral or otherwise, in pandering to it.

Since Breivik’s massacre, his own beliefs have only become more widespread.They have spread into the politics of all European countries. In the campaign for the European elections this May, the German far-right party AfD ran posters showing a naked white woman being pawed by dark-skinned men in Arab headgear. One had stuck his fingers in her unresisting mouth. “Europeans, vote for AfD, so that Europe will never become ‘Eurabia’,” said the caption. Millions of people who have never heard of Bat Ye’or, of Fjordman, or even of Breivik and Bannon, now understand that poster at a glance, and no amount of evidence will shake their certainty. They now believe all politics comes down to the words of one of Trump’s more recent tweets: “The losers all want what you have, don’t give it to them … Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!”

But who, in this situation, are the losers, and who are the strong? Last week, in an apparent attempt to emulate Breivik, a rich, disaffected young Norwegian, Philip Manshaus, shot his way through the entrance gates to a mosque in the upmarket suburb of Oslo where he lived and started firing at the congregation. He was wrestled to the ground by an unarmed 65-year-old Muslim, Mohammed Rafiq, who then held him down, with the help of another man, until the police arrived. On the Gates of Vienna blog, this episode was not deemed worthy of mention. Instead, its devoted readers were told that Muslims had been responsible for a recent outbreak of animal cruelty in Sweden.

•Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, and sign up to the long read weekly email here.

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vox zach b

The idea that the Brotherhood dominates Muslim American life serves a critical bridging point in counter-jihadist ideology. It is the only possible explanation for why, despite sharia’s supposed mandate to violence and domination, Muslim Americans are not all that violent. It’s not that they don’t believe in “Islamic supremacism” (a favored counter-jihadist term); it’s that they’re more strategic about it than the dummies in al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Militant groups can be bombed and killed. But stealth jihadists cannot: They wield Western commitments to free speech and political tolerance as a shield, allowing them to build up Muslim strength in the West without meaningful opposition.

Counter-jihadists latch onto any evidence of links between Muslim civic society and the Muslim Brotherhood to buttress this theory, wrenching quotes from Muslim leaders out of context and casting fringe figures as leading Muslim authorities.

Take their strongest and most commonly cited piece of evidence: a 2007 Justice Department case against the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity in the Dallas area that was diverting some of its donations to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

This is the most significant and largest case of a terror-funding operation using an American Muslim civic group as a front. The Akram memo was uncovered during the HLF investigation.

But in addition to the five leaders of the HLF who were actually convicted in the case, more than 246 individuals and Muslim groups, including ISNA and CAIR, were named as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the indictment — meaning the prosecutors believed they were linked to HLF’s scheme but couldn’t prove it.

They couldn’t prove it because they had no real evidence for this claim. ISNA and CAIR later filed a suit alleging that the prosecutors had unjustifiably damaged their reputation by mentioning them in the indictment. Their evidence was that counter-jihadists were using it to smear them, and the court agreed.

“There is no real dispute that CAIR suffered injury to its reputational interest by being listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in this terrorism case. Press accounts and blog entries have reported, based on this case, that CAIR is a criminal organization that supports terrorism,”the presiding judge ruled. “The government has not argued or established any legitimate government interest that warrants publicly identifying CAIR and 245 other individuals and entities as unindicted co-conspirators.”

Now a faction in the Trump administration,reportedly led by Flynn, is pushing to do the same thing by executive fiat — to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.But, as with the Akram memo, the counter-jihadists have not stopped using the HLF case as proof that America’s largest Muslim organizations are part of a stealth jihad. Multiple Republican members of Congress have parroted these accusations, most notably when they accused Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin of having ties tothe Muslim Brotherhood. Sen. Ted Cruz, a frequent speaker at CSP events, has repeatedly pushed legislation labelingthe Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group — a key recommendation in both Spencer’s book and the Team B II report.

The State Department reportedly opposes this move as illegal. A new CIA memo, reported by Politico, warns that it would boost ISIS and al-Qaeda recruiting. Virtually every expert on the Muslim Brotherhood thinks it would be unworkable and unwise.

Despite all this, the New York Times reports that the move has broad support in the White House. This should be no surprise: Both Attorney General Sessions and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, while in Congress, co-sponsored Cruz’s bill.

“There are organizations and networks here in the United States tied to radical Islam in deep and fundamental ways,” Pompeo told Gaffney in a February 2015 interview on the latter’s radio program. “They’re not just in places like Libya and Syria and Iraq, but in places like Coldwater, Kansas, and small towns all throughout America.”

Bannon has long been warning of the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood and stealth jihad; in 2007, he wrote a documentary script proposal specifically calling CAIR and ISNA "cultural jihadists" secretly working to build “an Islamic Republic in the United States.” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, in a2016 interview with Bannon, warned of “an explanatory memorandum” uncovered in the Holy Land Foundation trial telling Muslims “to infiltrate, to multiply, to gain positions of power, and to commit what they call ‘civilization jihad.’”

Officially labeling the Brotherhood a terrorist group, an odd step given that the Brotherhood has not been linked to a terrorist attack in decades, takes on much darker tones when viewed through a counter-jihadist light. Remember, counter-jihadists think the majority of Muslim American groups in the United States are Brotherhood fronts. It’s illegal for any American to provide assistance to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

This, then, could set the stage for a massive federal inquisition into America’s major Muslim organizations based on counter-jihadist conspiracy theories. The text of the Cruz-Sessions-Pompeo bill refers to CAIR and ISNA as “United States-Muslim Brotherhood affiliates,” citing the Holy Land case. Gaffney toldBloomberg View’s Eli Lake that "CAIR is one of the organizations [prosecutors] would have to look at” if the Brotherhood were designated a terrorist group.

Spencer told me that the solution to the stealth jihad was to “enforce existing laws regarding sedition and subversion,” adding that “Muslim organizations in the West should be called upon to back up their pro-forma condemnations of al-Qaeda and ISIS with transparent, inspectable, honest programs teaching young Muslims why they should reject the understanding of Islam offered by jihad terror groups.”

==

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https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/youtubes-newest-far-right-foul-mouthed-red-pilling-star-is

What does a 14-year-old girl dressed in a chador have to say on YouTube to amass more than 800,000 followers?

How about this: “I’ve become a devout follower of the Prophet Muhammad. Suffice to say, I’ve been having a fuck ton of fun. Of course, I get raped by my 40-year-old husband every so often and I have to worship a black cube to indirectly please an ancient Canaanite god — but at least I get to go to San Fran and stone the shit out of some gays, and the cops can’t do anything about it because California is a crypto-caliphate.”

Or how about, simply, “Kill yourself, faggot.”

Yes, if you want a vision of the future YouTube is midwifing, imagine a cherubic white girl mocking Islamic dress while lecturing her hundreds of thousands of followers about Muslim “rape gangs,” social justice “homos,” and the evils wrought by George Soros —under the thin guise of edgy internet comedy, forever.

Actually, don’t imagine it. Watch it. It’s already here.

The video is called “Be Not Afraid,”and it may be the clearest manifestation yet of the culture the executives of Alphabet’s video monster are delivering to millions of kids around the world, now via children incubated in that selfsame culture. To understand just how bad things have gotten on the platform,you need to see it for yourself.

Users — and more importantly to YouTube, advertisers — have over the past year started to hold the platform accountable for enabling the exploitation of children and exposing them to disturbing content. But this video reveals an entirely different way the platform is harming kids: by letting them express extreme views in front of the entire world. This is what indoctrination looks like when it’s reflected back by the indoctrinated.

A 20-minute, unbroken, and hyperarticulate tirade ostensibly about ignoring criticism online, “Be Not Afraid” stars a high school freshman from the Bay Area who goes by the name Soph on YouTube. (She edits as well as scores the videos, which she says are comedic.) Through videos like these, she’s become a rising star — with more than 800,000 followers — in the universe of conspiracy theorists, racists, and demagogues that owes its big bang to YouTube.

The video platform for years has incentivized such content through algorithms favoring sensational videos, and, as recent reporting has revealed, has deliberately ignored toxic content as a growth strategy.

Soph’s scripts, which she says she writes with a collaborator, are familiar: a mix of hatred toward Muslims,anti-black racism,Byzantine fearmongering about pedophilia,tissue-thin incel evolutionary psychology, and reflexive misanthropy that could have been copied and pasted from a thousand different 4chan posts. Of course, it’s all presented in the terminally ironic style popularized by boundary-pushing comedy groups like the influential Million Dollar Extreme and adopted of late by white supremacist mass shooters in Christchurch and San Diego.

(Soph is even more explicitly hateful on Discord, the gaming chat app, whereshe recently admitted to writing under the username “lutenant faggot” that she hoped for“A Hitler for Muslims” to “gas them all.”)

By now, we’re used to this stuff coming from grown men — some of whom have even used the platform as a launching pad for political aspirations. But Soph is a child. Despite the vitriol of her words and her confidence in delivering them, she’s still just a 14-year-old kid. And hearing this language lisped through braces, with the odd word mispronounced as if read but never before said, is clarifying.

Think of Jonathan Krohn, the conservative child prodigy who addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2009, at age 13. Today he’s a freelance journalist who writes about extremism for liberal magazines, and has disowned his past views. Or think of Lynx and Lamb Gaede, who became media sensations as 11-year-old white nationalist twin pop singers in the mid-aughts. Today they’ve renounced racism and taken up marijuana legalization activism. Part of being a young person, maybe especially for a rhetorically gifted one, is testing out ideas and identities — even ones we later find anathema. That’s not to excuse anything Soph says; but it is to say children often don’t understand the weight of the words they use. (Neither Soph nor her father responded to requests for comment.)

Interviews with Soph and asides in her videos reveal a young person whose identity is obviously still being formed. She didn’t start as a politics caster but, predictably, as a profane 9-year-old (9!) game streamer called LtCorbis. Influential YouTubers Pyrocynical and Keemstar promoted her early work, which ripped on YouTube culture and the indignities of being a fifth-grader instead of people of color and liberals. (A 2016 Daily Dot story about her bore the unintentionally profound headline “This sweary, savvy, 11-year-old gamer girl is the future of YouTube.”) In more recent videos, Soph discloses a health issue that kept her out of class for long stretches. She confesses to being unhappy in school. She talks about a move from New York to California. She identifies by turns as “right-wing” and “anarcho-capitalist.” She’s 14, precocious, isolated, and pissed off, a combination that has produced a lot of bad behavior over the years, but not all of it monetized through preroll ads and a Patreon, and not all of it streamed to millions.

YouTube’s kid problem is well-known. From disturbing auto-generated cartoons to parents who playact violence with their children for clicks to a network of users exploiting videos of children for sexual content, the company has consistently failed at protecting the young users who are its most valuable assets. But Soph’s popularity raises another, perhaps more difficult question, about whether YouTube has an obligation to protect such users from themselves — and one another.

Of course, that’s partially the job of parents, a fact Soph pointed out in a recent video while addressing people alarmed by her content.

“I’m wondering why they’re concerned with what I say instead of being concerned with the parents who let their kids watch me,” she said.

It’s unclear how much Soph’s own parents know about her videos. Internet sleuths have figured out details about her parents' lives, one of whom Soph has claimed voted for Hillary Clinton. In a recent interview, Soph said that her parents have never had a serious conversation with her about the politics of her videos, though she did respond angrily when a reporter attempted to contact her dad.

But the powers of parents over children who live online are limited. And YouTube has taken no ownership over what is happening to kids who grow up inhaling its trademark stench of bigotry, conspiracy, and nihilism. Now the kids, or the smart ones anyway, seem to know it. Indeed, YouTube’s own incompetence and lack of quality is one of Soph’s recurring themes; she acknowledges owing her fame to them.

“The fact that I was 11 and could easily follow the commentary formula should have been a sign that the standards for the genre were terribly low,” she said in the same interview.

Last month, after YouTube deactivated comments on her videos — the platform disabled comments on all videos with children in response to an outcry over the aforementioned network of exploitation — Soph uploaded a 12-minute video in which she seemed to be daring the platform to suspend her, knowing full well that it wouldn’t.

“Susan, I’ve known your address since last summer,” Soph said, directly addressing YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. “I’ve got a Luger and a mitochondrial disease. I don’t care if I live. Why should I care if you live or your children? I just called an Uber. You’ve got about seven minutes to draft up a will. ... I’m coming for you, and it ain’t gonna be pretty.”

A far-right child comedian threatening to murder the executive of the video site that has made her famous, for trying to protect her from pedophiles: the state of YouTube in 2019.

After being contacted about the story, YouTube reviewed Soph's channel. It removed the video containing the death threat against Wojcicki, but not "Be Not Afraid" or any others. The company also issued Soph a strike, which prevents her from uploading videos for a week. According to YouTube, as per its terms of service, the platform is for children 13 and older, and it deletes accounts belonging to children under that age as it is made aware of them. Soph created her account at age 9 and received significant publicity for her videos before turning 13.

Indeed, one of Soph’s messages seems to be that in a world where the adults who have grown rich through technology took the implications of that technology seriously, she wouldn’t exist. She’s a problem, she seems to be saying, of YouTube’s own making.

“You could beg me kicking and screaming to stop disseminating the ideas I believe in, and it wouldn’t make a fucking difference,” Soph says at the end of “Be Not Afraid," in a passage in which she seems to drop her shtick, if only for a moment. “Not only am I inoculated to that bullshit, most of Gen Z is too. Millennials grew up with MTV and nowadays watch Colbert. We, on the other hand, grew up with the internet, so we have no centralized source of information that controls what we think. We filter out the truth for ourselves; we’re not lazy. No one is brainwashing kids. Kids are simply learning from having free access to information, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

The ultimate target of “Be Not Afraid” is, finally, adults: people who just don’t get why social justice discourse is meaningless and co-optable, why school can’t compare to YouTube, why mass murder can be funny. People who have enough experience to know better. She’s sure that adults are selfish and stupid, that the people with the most power over her life are making it up as they go along, just like she is. When you look at the adults who have gotten rich off the platform that created Soph, she isn’t completely wrong. She's been publishing on YouTube for years with no consequence other than becoming famous.

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==

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/2/13/14559822/trump-islam-muslims-islamophobia-sharia

zach b

Last July, a sharply dressed man named Frank Gaffney:{ }walked:{ }::{onto the stage of a crowded convention center in downtown Denver and proceeded to calmly warn his audience that Muslims were working to conquer America from the inside.}:

:{:{}:

}:

Speaking without notes at a glass lectern, Gaffney — who worked, decades ago, as a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration — told the audience that political leaders from both parties had spent years covering up the true threat to the US. It didn’t come from terrorists acting in the name of Islam. It came from Islam itself.

Gaffney said that sharia, the Arabic term for Islamic law, was a “brutally repressive, totalitarian, political, military, and legal program” for gradually subverting Western governments and replacing them with ones that adhere to harsh Islamic dictates. And in the US, those efforts were already well underway.

“This program of subversive, stealthy penetration and takedown is operating. It’s, in fact, been at work for 50 years,”he said. “Our government has been subverted.”

Gaffney wasn’t speaking metaphorically. He accused “agents of Hillary Clinton” of shredding files about Muslim radicals living both inside and outside the US and said that then–Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson was surrounded by “a small echo chamber which is filled by Muslim Brotherhood operatives.”

The notion of senior US officials intentionally weakening American national security or appointing advisers who were literal members of a Middle Eastern Islamist movement is preposterous. But it’s important to take Gaffney seriously: He isn’t some little-known crank pumping out Islamophobic literature on the internet, and the event wasn’t a fringe gathering outside the political mainstream.

It was instead the2016 Western Conservative Summit, a major meeting of thousands of Republican activists in Denver billed as “the largest gathering of conservatives outside of Washington, D.C.” Other featured speakers included then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, major conservative media figures like Hugh Hewitt and Erick Erickson, and two sitting US senators.

Gaffney is an important cog in a vast and growing ecosystem that exists just out of sight of most Americans— one that has spent years pushing the notion that there is a creeping, quiet plot to take over America from within. It is a plan that springs from Islamic scripture itself, and is supported by most mainstream Muslim organizations, most mosques, and, in all likelihood, your Muslim neighbor.

The only way to be safe from the threat, according to Gaffney and other self-proclaimed "counter-jihadists," is to slash Muslim immigration, arrest key leaders of the Muslim American community, and shut down huge numbers of mosques. They have not gone so far as to propose outright ethnic cleansing; Gaffney, in his speech, says he has Muslim friends. Their dream, instead, is to destroy the Muslim American community without kicking out Muslims.

The dire warnings are spread through an influential lobby, slick documentaries, and best-selling books with titles like The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion. And now that fearful vision of Islam has found a home in the Trump White House.

[

The Truth About Muhammad - Wikipedia

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

2.

The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most intolerant Religion (2006) is a book by Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch and Dhimmi Watch ...

Author**‎: ‎Robert Spencer

Publisher‎: ‎Regnery Publishing

Response · ‎Reviews · ‎References and notes

The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant ...

https://www.amazon.com/Truth-About-Muhammad-Intolerant-Religion/.../159698528...

2.

The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion [Robert Spencer] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers.

]]

Senior strategist Steve Bannon is a devotee of Gaffney’s ideas, as are National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Trump’s political adviser, Kellyanne Conway, has done polling for Gaffney designed to illustrate the scale of the threat Muslims pose to America. And Trump himself has said things that sound like they could have been ripped from counter-jihadist literature.

When the new president announced his ban on immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations, it was widely seen as Trump moving to quickly carry out one of his most explicit — and most controversial — campaign promises. Yet it made no sense as a counterterrorism policy: No immigrant from one of the seven targeted countries has ever killed anyone in a terrorist attack on US soil.

That’s because the real motivation was rooted in counter-jihadist logic. The movement’s thinkers have, for years, advocated a similar ban on Muslim immigration. They look to Europe and see Muslim immigrants creating a continentridden with terrorism and nearly lost to Islamist subversion. The Muslim ban only makes sense when seen as part of their plan to prevent America from going down the same path — by keeping out as many Muslims as possible.

The counter-jihadist influence in the Trump administration appears far from exhausted. They have long wanted to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization, because they see major American Muslim organizations as Brotherhood fronts — and now that’s reportedly a major priority inside the Trump White House.

Trump’s policies reflect an even scarier kind of prejudice than his own: one with a plan.

The theory: ISIS represents the soul of Islam

Gaffney is the president of the Center for Security Policy, or CSP, a right-wing think tank located just blocks from the White House. In 2010, it convened a panel to study the Islamic threat to America. The group — which included former CIA Director R. James Woolsey and former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency Edward Soyster — called itself “Team B II.”

The original Team B was a working group put together in the ’70s as a kind of devil’s advocate in the Gerald Ford administration. Its goal was to provide a hawkish counterpoint to the softer detente policy toward the Soviet Union favored by the White House. Team B argued that communism was an insatiably aggressive doctrine, one that could not be appeased — a conclusion that would influencing Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy ideology.

Team B II aimed to do something similar, but for radical Islamism and today’s Republican Party. They drew on the arguments of a loose intellectual movement that had coalesced on blogs in the years after 9/11, and had come to refer to itself as the “counter-jihad.”

Counter-jihadists believe that mainstream scholars of Islam, and counterterrorism experts in governments the world over, have fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the Islamist threat. Their basic mistake is that they overemphasize differences between Muslims, like the Sunni-Shia split, and assume that ISIS and al-Qaeda are aberrant distortions of Islam.

The truth, counter-jihadists believe, is more like the opposite. They argue that a correct reading of Islamic scripture shows that violence is intrinsic to Islam — that the religious doctrine itself, properly understood, commands Muslims to kill subjugate unbelievers. People who say otherwise — and CSP lumps both George W. Bush and Barack Obama into this category — are either willfully or unintentionally deceiving the American public.

In the years since its publication in 2010, the “Team B II” report — titled “Shariah: The Threat to America” — has become something of a counter-jihadist bible. It’s the clearest and most comprehensive summary of their ideas. To understand what they believe, and why they believe it, you have to understand this report.

The great enemy in the report is something called “sharia.” An Arabic word that literally translates as “law,” it’s the vast body of rules and regulations that guide daily life for believing Muslims — everything from not eating pork to who can lawfully be killed in a time of war to whether to charge interest on bank loans.

“UNDER ISLAMIC LAW, LYING IS NOT ONLY PERMISSIBLE, BUT OBLIGATORY”

But because there is no single authority in Islam (like, say, the pope in the Catholic Church), there is no single, official, agreed-upon interpretation of sharia. The thousands of rules and regulations that collectively make up the body of sharia have been deeply contested among Muslim scholars — and even individual Muslims — since the birth of Islam, with no agreement even on many vital issues.

Team B II argues that sharia is different from similar moral codes in other religions, like the Jewish law that governs the rules for keeping kosher. They argue that sharia is fundamentally political; that its aim is to govern the lives of all people, and not just Muslims, by seizing control of the world’s governments.

“There is ultimately but one sharia,” the report holds. “It is totalitarian in character, incompatible with our Constitution, and a threat to freedom here and around the world. Sharia’s adherents are making a determined, sustained, and well-financed effort to impose it on all Muslims and non-Muslims, alike.”

To make this argument, Team B II’s authors rely heavily on something called “abrogation.” This is a complex concept in Islamic legal theory, but it basically boils down to the idea that when trying to determine the “correct” answer to some legal question — say, whether it’s okay to drink alcohol, for instance — later verses in the Quran carry more weight than earlier ones. That is, the later verses abrogate, or override, the earlier ones.

This stems from the fact that the Quran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed not all at once, but rather over a period of 23 years. During that time, the circumstances in which Mohammed and the early Muslim community were living changed quite a bit. The earlier verses of the Quran came down while Mohammad was more of an itinerant preacher in Mecca, whereas the later verses came down during a time when Mohammed controlled the city of Medina and commanded a large Muslim army.

The result is that the later verses tend to be more concerned with real-world administrative rules and military doctrine — including verses about conquering unbelievers — while the earlier verses are more focused on broader, more universal concepts of spirituality.

As a result of the doctrine of abrogation, Team B II claims, all Muslims are obligated to conquer the West and replace its governments with an Islamic theocracy called a caliphate. But one would be hard-pressed to find a single credible Islamic scholar who interprets it this way.

For Islamic legal scholars, abrogation is but one tool used to interpret the Quran, and not an ultimate trump card. And the Quran, like the Bible, contains scriptures that both endorse and reject violence. In the full context of Islamic law, the injunctions to kill and conquer are often interpreted as being specific to that time and place in history, and do not necessarily overrule other, more peaceful verses in the Quran (e.g., “let there be no compulsion in religion”).

Team B II dismisses this as a form of tactical, sharia-sanctioned lying. There is an actual Arabic term for permissible lying in sharia, called taqiyya. It’s an obscure medieval ruling that basically permits Muslims to verbally blaspheme God or renounce their religion without incurring God’s wrath if they are under compulsion to do so.

So, for instance, if a Muslim were traveling in a land where being Muslim could get him killed and is captured by the authorities, he is allowed to say he isn’t Muslim — or even do things like praise pagan gods or slander the Prophet Mohammed — if his survival is on the line, without God getting mad. It’s a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s also a concept generally associated with Shia Islam, as nearly all Sunni Islamic legal scholars reject the concept outright.

But the counter-jihadists have taken this medieval concept and turned it into a devious trick that Muslims are using to hide their true violent intentions.

They assert that the peaceful interpretations of Islam offered by Muslim authorities are a form of taqiyya designed to obscure the true nature of Islam from gullible Westerners. They point to things like the 9/11 hijackers going to strip clubs and drinking alcohol as examples of terrorists using taqiyya to blend in. And while the 9/11 hijackers certainly did those things, and may even have tried to justify their actions by saying they were just trying to blend in, they were all Sunni Muslims and therefore never would’ve used the concept of taqiyya to justify their actions.

“Under Islamic law, lying is not only permissible, but obligatory for Muslims in some situations,” Team B II writes in its report. “What Muslim audiences are required to know about Islam is not the same thing as what non-Muslim Western audiences are allowed to know — or encouraged to think — by Islamic authorities.”

This quickly takes on the character of a conspiracy theory. Any attempt to cite an Islamic authority who takes a different view of the Quran is only proof, to the counter-jihadists, that you are taken in by sharia propaganda. In that sense, arguing with the counter-jihadists is something of an impossible task. It’s a bit like attempting a point-by-point rebuttal of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

How a conspiracy theory goes from the fringes to the White House

[vid act for am]

When you ask credentialed experts on Islam and terrorism about counter-jihadist theories today, they usually don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“It's hard to reply without sounding snooty,” Will McCants, the director of the Brookings Institution’s Project on US Relations with the Islamic World, tells me in response to a question about counter-jihadists. “[They] sell a lot of books and scare the hell out of Americans, but their policy recommendations range from vague to downright harmful.”

McCants is not wrong about the books. America Alone, a 2006 book alleging that ”a large majority of Western Muslims support the terrorists’ strategic goals,” cracked the top five of the New York Times’s best-seller list. Several other counter-jihadist books, including The Politically Correct Guide to Islamand Because They Hate, made the best-seller list around the same time.

What few reviews of these books could be found in mainstream publications were not kind. Yale lecturer Daniel Luban wrote that they “can justly be called the new McCarthyism” in a review of the genre published in the Jewish magazine Tablet.

Regardless, the success of counter-jihadist literature spawned a whole mini industry — what author Nathan Lean termed “the Islamophobia Industry.” In 2008, an organization called theClarion Projectdistributed 28 million copies of a documentary titled*Obsession*, which alleged that more than 100 million Muslims were in thrall to “militant Islam.”

Another Clarion video, The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision for America, was blurbed by former New York City mayor and current White House cybersecurity adviser Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ:{). Clarion’s 2015 mini documentary }*By**t**he Numbers*:{, starring a Muslim woman named Raheel Raza who alleges a majority of her co-religionists want sharia to set national law, has more than 4 million views on YouTube.}:

These works found a large audience, mostly among conservatives, largely as a result of America’s encounter with Islamic extremism over the course of the 2000s. The 9/11 attacks, interestingly, did not themselves spark an immediate turn against Muslims.

Part of this can be attributed to concerted efforts by the George W. Bush administration to discourage such sentiments. Indeed, just a little over a month after the 9/11 attacks took place, Bush issued a message to commemorate the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, stating, "The Islam that we know is a faith devoted to the worship of one God, as revealed through The Holy Qur'an. It teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace."

But as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq dragged on and more and more American service members died in those countries at the hands of Muslims, and as terrorist attacks in the name of Islam continued to take place around the world, many Americans started to blame Islam in general for the continuing bloodshed.

[graf]

Under the Obama administration, this took on an overtly partisan flavor. When Bush defended Islam, few Republicans were interested in attacking him. Barack Hussein Obama got no such dispensation: Republicans attacked him as soft on ISIS and claimed he was more interested in protecting “the image of Islam” than in protecting America. Influential right-wing pundits suggested he was an Islamist sympathizer or even a secret Muslim himself.

All of this, combined with Trump’s much more overt anti-Islam rhetoric, has helped turn the Muslim religion into a partisan issue:

Right-wing media, recognizing the appeal of the counter-jihadist message among their audience, has embraced this extreme anti-Islam narrative the counter-jihadists are peddling. A study published by UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center found that guests with extreme anti-Muslim views made up 11 percent of all guests on prominent conservative talk radio during a period they studied in 2010. Two prominent counter-jihadists appeared on Fox News 15 times between September 2015 and February 2016, according to a count by Media Matters. Prominent televangelists spread the anti-Islam gospel to yet another group of reliable conservatives. Pat Robertson, the host of the widely broadcast 700 Club, once said on air that “Islam is a political system that is bent on world domination.”

All of this is supplemented by a vast grassroots network, centering on a group called ACT for America. Billing itself as the “the NRA of National Security,” it claims to have a membership of 500,000 nationwide, clustered in 1,000 chapters around the country.

Its president, Brigitte Gabriel, is the author of one of those mid-2000s counter-jihadist bestsellers (Because They Hate). A Lebanese Christian immigrant who calls herself “one of the leading terrorism experts in the world,” Gabriel has no formal background in terrorism, either through working in government or academia. According to her book, the highest level of education she received was a one-year course in business administration at a YWCA. Her claim to authority stems, allegedly, from experiences of persecution at the hands of Muslims during the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s — a historically dubious story that Lebanese-American journalist Michael Young once labeled a “con act.”

In a speech inMay 2016 at the Oasis Church in Middletown, Ohio, Gabriel delivered an accessible and entertaining speech on the counter-jihadist view of Islam. In her telling, the history of Islam is a history of bloodshed.Between Islam’s founding in the seventh century and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1924, she says, “Islam was responsible for 270 million people across the globe — killed by the sword.”

This violence was not accidental, Gabriel told the rapt crowd. It was the core of Islam itself.

Gabriel believes that for 12 years, Mohammed attempted to peacefully proselytize — and failed, miserably. Only when he turned to violence, to conversion at the point of the sword, did he begin to win success.

“Islam went from being strictly a spiritual movement, after 12 years, to becoming a political movement cloaked in religion,” she says. “Jihad is mentioned in the Quran 40 times — 36 times out of 40 as a holy war against the infidels, to either kill them or subjugate them.”

These are all historically inaccurate claims. Haroon Moghul, a fellow at the New America Foundation, writes that they “play loose and fast with very different eras, places and peoples,” in order to put together a narrative of a uniformly aggressive Islam. Yet Gabriel’s group has been profoundly influential.

[twt mar  lago sec breifing look who i ran into djt]

Her activists have worked tirelessly to pass legislation, based on a template constructed by Gaffney and CSP in-house counsel David Yerushalmi, that would ban state courts from considering sharia a valid source of law.By 2016, they had succeeded in nine states: Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arizona, South Dakota, Arizona, and Tennessee.

“No court, administrative agency, or other governmental agency may enforce any provisions of any religious code,” the South Dakota version reads, neutral language obscuring the clear intent.

More alarmingly, the ideas pushed by Gabriel and CSP have been embraced by the most important members of the Trump White House.

“Most people in the Middle East, or at least 50 percent, believe in being sharia-compliant,”Bannon said on theBreitbart Daily News radio show in 2015. “Sharia-compliant” is an innocuous phrase commonly used by Muslims to denote that something is in line with Islamic law: For instance, you can find sharia-compliant home mortgage companies in the US that cater primarily (but not exclusively) to Muslims, because Islamic law forbids Muslims from collecting or paying interest on loans.

The Team B II report’s authors sees things like sharia-compliant financial institutions as an insidious threat to the US Constitution (they never really explain how a home mortgage company that doesn’t charge interest threatens the Constitution).

It’s not just Bannon.But the Team B II report also frequently uses the term “sharia-compliant” to describe not institutions or practices, but people: specifically, Muslims with dangerous, anti-American beliefs, anti-constitutional beliefs. And this is exactly the way Bannon is using the term. “If you're sharia-compliant or want to impose sharia law, the United States is the wrong place for you,” Bannon proclaimed.

In his 2016 bookThe Field of Fight, Trump’s new national security adviser, Michael Flynn, wrote that Islamic scholars are attempting to trick the West to obscure the true nature of sharia.

“These so-called Islamic scholars keep their message so complicated so as to create chaos, to confuse in order to control,” Flynn writes. “Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Mussolini were more transparent. Sharia is a violent law that is buried in barbaric convictions.”

Trump’s new attorney general, Jeff Sessions, said more or less the same thing — in an official Senate press release. “Once again we face a totalitarian threat to the free world. This time it’s from ideological and apocalyptic Islam,” Sessions said.

“Theologically-based sharia law,” Sessions argued, “fundamentally conflicts with our magnificent constitutional order that separates church and state, and that considers free debate and dissent the way to a better world.”

That these individuals all espouse the same weirdly specific interpretation of sharia is not a coincidence. Each one of them is deeply connected to the counter-jihadist world.

Bannon hosted counter-jihadists on his Breitbart radio show 41 times,according to a count by Mother Jones’s Josh Harkinson. Flynn is an adviser to the board of Gabriel’s ACT for America, and local ACT chapters organized many of the stops on the speaking tour for Flynn’s book. In 2015, Sessions received CSP’sKeeper of the Flame award, in honor of “his leadership on issues of great importance to the national security.”

And it goes even deeper than just Trump’s cabinet. Walid Phares, a fringe Lebanese Christian academic who served as Trump’s Middle East policy adviser during the campaign, once said, “It is absolutely constitutional and moral that citizens reject Sharia as a legal system that takes away their rights.”

Sebastian and Katharine Gorka, a married couple who are staples of the counter-jihadist movement, have been given high-level positions on Trump’s staff: Sebastian is now his deputy assistant in the White House, and Katharine was on Trump’s Department of Homeland Security transition team.

Trump himself, at times, has sounded a lot like a counter-jihadist.

“Sharia authorizes such atrocities as murder of non-believers who won’t convert, beheadings, and more unthinkable acts that pose great harm to American — especially women,Trump said, reading off a prepared statement during a December 2015 televised rally defending his proposal for a Muslim ban. “These are people who believe only in jihad. They don’t want our system.”

Several months prior to the rally, Trump had met with staffers at CSP for an hour-long briefing. The subject was the threat from sharia.

Counter-jihadists see leading American Muslims as part of the problem

The fact that most Muslims are not killers is, for the counter-jihadists, a most inconvenient fact. Over time, counter-jihadists have put less emphasis on the threat from overtly violent groups, like al-Qaeda and ISIS, and focused instead on a more insidious threat: the “stealth” or “civilization jihad.”

The foremost theorist of civilization jihad is a writer named Robert Spencer. “He’s author of so many books, and one of the top two or three experts in the world on this great war we’re fighting against fundamental Islam,” Bannon said, when hosting Spencer onBreitbart Daily News on August 9, 2016. “Trump is listening to people like you,” he told Spencer later in the interview.

Spencer, like Gabriel and Gaffney, has no formal training in Quranic scholarship. He received an MA in 1986 in religious studies from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and wrote his master’s thesis on Catholic history.

He’s run the blog Jihad Watch, a near-obsessive tracker of Islamist activity, since 2003. He is also the author of 16 books, with titles like The Complete Infidels' Guide to the Koran. Many of his books have been published by Regnery, the conservative publishing giant that also put out both Trump’s and Mitt Romney’s most recent books. Two of Spencer’s tomes made the New York Times best-seller list; there’s a decent chance you’ve seen him on Fox News in the wake of a terrorist attack.

In person, Spencer is short and portly, with a neatly trimmed black beard. He’s exceptionally confrontational, constantly trumpeting his willingness to debate all comers on Twitter and on Jihad Watch. When I contacted him for this story, his reply attacked the media — like most counter-jihadists, he sees journalists as some of jihad’s most powerful enablers.

“There you go again, Zack,” he wrote in response to one of my questions. “I know you’re a reporter, and a reporter for Vox, so I know where you stand.”

Spencer’s 2008 book, Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam Is Subverting America Without Guns or Bombs, developed one of the most important ideas of the counter-jihad. Its arguments were cited repeatedly and amplified in the Team B II report and also appear, in a simplified form, in speeches delivered by people like Gabriel in towns around the country. Spencer also regularly gives “counterterrorism” seminars based on these arguments to law enforcement agencies.

The central idea is that terrorists aren’t America’s real Muslim problem.

“Distracted by foreign wars and the prospect of domestic terror attacks, Americans pay little heed to the true agents of intolerance in their midst,” Spencer writes. “The stealth jihad advances largely unopposed because it is largely unrecognized.”

The “agents of intolerance” at the heart of this stealth jihad, Spencer explains, are the Muslim Brotherhood.

It’s a group you’re probably at least passingly familiar with. Founded in Egypt in 1928, the Brotherhood is one of the oldest and most influential Islamist groups in history. The group’s goal has long been the toppling of the Egyptian government and its replacement with a Sunni theocracy.

Its tactics have varied over time, from promoting grassroots social change to fielding candidates for parliament, and some individuals and groups associated with the Brotherhood in the past have advocated violent revolution. The Brotherhood even managed to gain control over the Egyptian government briefly, when Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi won in the country’s first democratic election following the Arab Spring uprising in 2011.

Today, the group’s influence is relatively limited — Egypt’s military dictator, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, overthrew Morsi in 2013 and since then has viciously suppressed Brotherhood activity. According to Human Rights Watch, he has killed more than 1,000 individuals linked to the Brotherhood and arrested many, many more.

In Spencer’s telling, though, the Brotherhood is not defined by its founding chapter in Egypt, or even its various open branches and offshoots (like the Palestinian militant group Hamas or the moderate Islamist Ennahda party in Tunisia). The hidden history of the 20th century, according to Spencer, is a history of the Brotherhood’s stealth penetration of the West.

“Of course the MB still has the resources to act in the US and Europe,” Spencer tells me. “Its organizations here were well-established and handsomely funded before Sisi came along.”

In Stealth Jihad, Spencer rests this claim on a 1991 memo, written by a Muslim Brother named Mohamed Akram. The memo outlines a plan to establish a “global Islamic state,” starting in the United States. This begins, according to Akram, through a “shift from the collision mentality to the absorption mentality” — to move away from open conflict with Western authorities to suborning them from within.

This might seem like a pathetically impossible task, given the minuscule number of Muslim Brothers in the US. But — and this is the absolutely critical part — Akram thinks the Brotherhood has powerful allies who might successfully and quietly mainstream its radical agenda. In the memo, he writes out “a list of our organizations and the organizations of our friends.”

The Brotherhood, and its present-day allies and friends, [are] really working to forward the ‘grand jihad,’” Spencer writes. “When we scratch the ‘moderate’ surface of groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), we find links to terrorist organizations and exhortations to Islamic supremacism.”It reads like a who’s who of Muslim civic organizations in the United States, including the Islamic Society of North America (the continent’s largest Muslim civic group) and the Muslim Students’ Association (the organization that represents Muslim students on virtually every college campus in the United States). This one memo, for Spencer and Gaffney, is solid proof that these organizations are Brotherhood fronts.

The Team B II report, two years later, put the point even more clearly.

“The majority of Islamic organizations in America are affiliates of or associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in some way,” its authors explain. “Any organization that does not embrace sharia and the MB line has not been able to gain broad recognition as a Muslim-American force.”

The evidentiary basis for this claim is extremely thin. For one thing, scholars of the Brotherhood have found no evidence that Akram’s memo was an accurate representation of the Brotherhood’s reach.

“Nobody has ever produced any evidence that the document was more than something produced by the daydream of one enthusiast,” Nathan Brown, a George Washington University professor who studies the Brotherhood, told Religion Dispatches’ Sarah Posner in 2011. “Nothing in anything that I have heard has ever struck me as similar in tone or content to the ‘master plan.’”

Beyond that, the organizations themselves flatly deny being agents of the Muslim Brotherhood. Of course, as Spencer and his ilk would say, this could just be taqiyya. Except that the groups don’t just deny these affiliations — they openly advocate policies and interpretations of Islam that directly contradict this supposed grand Muslim Brotherhood plot against American values.

That does not stop Spencer, Team B II, and the rest of the counter-jihadists from citing Akram’s memo as gospel. Gaffney still tells audiences to download it (it’s available for free on CSP’s site).

The idea that the Brotherhood dominates Muslim American life serves a critical bridging point in counter-jihadist ideology. It is the only possible explanation for why, despite sharia’s supposed mandate to violence and domination, Muslim Americans are not all that violent. It’s not that they don’t believe in “Islamic supremacism” (a favored counter-jihadist term); it’s that they’re more strategic about it than the dummies in al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Militant groups can be bombed and killed. But stealth jihadists cannot: They wield Western commitments to free speech and political tolerance as a shield, allowing them to build up Muslim strength in the West without meaningful opposition.

Counter-jihadists latch onto any evidence of links between Muslim civic society and the Muslim Brotherhood to buttress this theory, wrenching quotes from Muslim leaders out of context and casting fringe figures as leading Muslim authorities.

Take their strongest and most commonly cited piece of evidence: a 2007 Justice Department case against the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim charity in the Dallas area that was diverting some of its donations to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

This is the most significant and largest case of a terror-funding operation using an American Muslim civic group as a front. The Akram memo was uncovered during the HLF investigation.

But in addition to the five leaders of the HLF who were actually convicted in the case, more than 246 individuals and Muslim groups, including ISNA and CAIR, were named as “unindicted co-conspirators” in the indictment — meaning the prosecutors believed they were linked to HLF’s scheme but couldn’t prove it.

They couldn’t prove it because they had no real evidence for this claim. ISNA and CAIR later filed a suit alleging that the prosecutors had unjustifiably damaged their reputation by mentioning them in the indictment. Their evidence was that counter-jihadists were using it to smear them, and the court agreed.

“There is no real dispute that CAIR suffered injury to its reputational interest by being listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in this terrorism case. Press accounts and blog entries have reported, based on this case, that CAIR is a criminal organization that supports terrorism,”the presiding judge ruled. “The government has not argued or established any legitimate government interest that warrants publicly identifying CAIR and 245 other individuals and entities as unindicted co-conspirators.”

Now a faction in the Trump administration,reportedly led by Flynn, is pushing to do the same thing by executive fiat — to add the Muslim Brotherhood to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.But, as with the Akram memo, the counter-jihadists have not stopped using the HLF case as proof that America’s largest Muslim organizations are part of a stealth jihad. Multiple Republican members of Congress have parroted these accusations, most notably when they accused Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin of having ties tothe Muslim Brotherhood. Sen. Ted Cruz, a frequent speaker at CSP events, has repeatedly pushed legislation labelingthe Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group — a key recommendation in both Spencer’s book and the Team B II report.

The State Department reportedly opposes this move as illegal. A new CIA memo, reported by Politico, warns that it would boost ISIS and al-Qaeda recruiting. Virtually every expert on the Muslim Brotherhood thinks it would be unworkable and unwise.

Despite all this, the New York Times reports that the move has broad support in the White House. This should be no surprise: Both Attorney General Sessions and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, while in Congress, co-sponsored Cruz’s bill.

“There are organizations and networks here in the United States tied to radical Islam in deep and fundamental ways,” Pompeo told Gaffney in a February 2015 interview on the latter’s radio program. “They’re not just in places like Libya and Syria and Iraq, but in places like Coldwater, Kansas, and small towns all throughout America.”

Bannon has long been warning of the threat from the Muslim Brotherhood and stealth jihad; in 2007, he wrote a documentary script proposal specifically calling CAIR and ISNA "cultural jihadists" secretly working to build “an Islamic Republic in the United States.” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, in a2016 interview with Bannon, warned of “an explanatory memorandum” uncovered in the Holy Land Foundation trial telling Muslims “to infiltrate, to multiply, to gain positions of power, and to commit what they call ‘civilization jihad.’”

Officially labeling the Brotherhood a terrorist group, an odd step given that the Brotherhood has not been linked to a terrorist attack in decades, takes on much darker tones when viewed through a counter-jihadist light. Remember, counter-jihadists think the majority of Muslim American groups in the United States are Brotherhood fronts. It’s illegal for any American to provide assistance to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

This, then, could set the stage for a massive federal inquisition into America’s major Muslim organizations based on counter-jihadist conspiracy theories. The text of the Cruz-Sessions-Pompeo bill refers to CAIR and ISNA as “United States-Muslim Brotherhood affiliates,” citing the Holy Land case. Gaffney toldBloomberg View’s Eli Lake that "CAIR is one of the organizations [prosecutors] would have to look at” if the Brotherhood were designated a terrorist group.

Spencer told me that the solution to the stealth jihad was to “enforce existing laws regarding sedition and subversion,” adding that “Muslim organizations in the West should be called upon to back up their pro-forma condemnations of al-Qaeda and ISIS with transparent, inspectable, honest programs teaching young Muslims why they should reject the understanding of Islam offered by jihad terror groups.”

Investigations into, and perhaps prosecutions of, Muslim civic organizations. “Inspectable” programs ensuring that Muslim organizations toe a religious line that counter-jihadists find acceptable. That’s what the counter-jihadists really want from Trump.

Europe will soon be “Eurabia” — a fate America might share

In July of last year, I went to Cleveland to report on the Republican National Convention. It was a weird event by any metric, but the high point of strangeness had to be the evening I spent at a party for queer counter-jihadists.

The event, organized by Breitbart’s gay firebrandMilo Yiannopoulos, was called “Wake Up!” — as in, “wake up” to the threat of jihadism. Held in a dark ballroom adorned with pictures of mostly naked, extremely young-looking men posing in red “Make America Great Again” hats, the party attracted afairly infamous crowd.

I bumped into Pamela Geller, who co-founded (alongside Spencer) a counter-jihadist group calledStop the Islamization of America, since renamed the American Freedom Defense Initiative, wearing a rainbow sequin shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Love Will Win.” Geller is a regular on Fox News and conservative talk radio; she’s one of the most widely known counter-jihadists due to her assuming a leadership role in the fight against the “ground zero mosque” in 2010. She also has a tendency to embrace the most outlandish of conspiracy theories, once publishing a piece on her website suggesting that Barack Obama is the secret love child of Malcolm X.

When I ran into her, she was warning a partygoer of the imminent threat from Syrian refugees.

“ISIS said they were going to send a jihad army into Europe via migration in 2015. Then two months later, the migration started,” Geller said. The implication — that the refugee crisis was an ISIS plot — wasn’t especially subtle.

The ostensibly perilous state of Europe was something of a motif at the party. The featured speaker was Geert Wilders, the virulently anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant leader of the Netherlands’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV). Wilders, an extremely tall man with slicked-back, Trumpesque hair, gave a fiery speech denouncing the influence of Islam in his homeland.

“There is only one Islam, and that Islam has no place in a free society,” Wilders told the crowd. “We should de-Islamize our societies. It’s a matter of our existence.”

One could not have hoped for a better summary of the counter-jihadist view of Europe. Proponents see the continent as a dark twin of America, a “there but for the grace of God” dystopia the Islamists are on the verge of conquering.

The key culprit, in their minds, is immigration. Prior to World War II, the Muslim population in Europe was negligible. After the war, a need to rebuild the continent led Europe to bring in a lot of people from the nearby Middle East and North Africa as guest workers. Many of these guest workers stayed, and eventually brought over their families. These people formed Muslim communities, which continue to be a draw for new Muslim immigrants today, at the same time that birthrates among white Europeans were slowing down.

The result was a rapidly growing Muslim minority in Western Europe. In 1950, 2 percent of Europeans were Muslim. That figure was 4 percent by 1990, and 6 percent by 2010.

In 2005, a Cairo-born woman named Gisèle Littman published a book warning of the dangers of this demographic shift, titledEurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis. Littman, who publishes under the name Bat Ye’or (Hebrew for “daughter of the Nile”), dropped out of a master’s program at the University of Geneva in the 1960s. Nevertheless, she spent much of her life publishing “academic” tomes on Islam and Europe, arguing that the history of Islam is an unbroken history of theologically driven conquest.

In Eurabia, Ye’or posited that Muslim immigration to Europe was not the benign economic migration it seemed. It was, instead, a dark plot — a plan, dating back to 1973, “superimposed on Europe by powerful governmental lobbies.” The goal was to Islamize Europe, to reduce European whites to “dhimmitude” — a term she uses for second-class citizenship granted to non-Muslims in an Islamic society.

In the pages of Jihad Watch and CSP publications, the notion that Muslim immigrants are imposing their rule on a hapless and clueless European majority is simply common sense. Every crime or terrorist attack committed by a Muslim, every law granting religious accommodations to Muslims, is cast as proof of the coming of Eurabia.Eurabia has gotten scant mention in the American press; mainstream historians have scorned it. Yet the book’s thesis has risen to the level of dogma among American counter-jihadists; Geller has called Ye’or “the world's leading scholar and historian on Islamic expansionism in Europe, the Middle East and the West.”

At the 2015 Values Voter Summit, the big annual gathering for right-wing evangelicals, Bannon sat down with ACT’s Gabriel to talk about the European refugee crisis. He referred to it as a Muslim “invasion,” and asked Gabriel if that was an overstatement.

“It is not,” she replied. “Europe will no longer be Europe by 2050. Europe has already become Eurabia. Europe is Eurabia right now.”

For this reason, immigration occupies a central role in the counter-jihadist imagination. If Muslim immigration turned Europe into a terror-ridden nightmare on the brink of sharia rule, then the first priority in the United States needs to be making sure the same thing can’t happen here. The Muslim Brotherhood is most easily defeated when you deny it foot soldiers.

One of the key recommendations of CSP’s Team B II report is that “immigration of those who adhere to sharia must be precluded.” More recently, CSP and ACT for America have been out front in opposing the resettlement of Syrian refugees. CSP has teamed up with longtime anti-refugee activistAnn Corcoran, who got her start in 2006 opposing the resettlement of African refugees in her area of rural Maryland. A CSP video starring her has racked up nearly 3 million views on YouTube.

“This process of Muslim colonization is called the hijra,” Corcoran says in the video, using the Arabic word for migration. “Mohammed told his followers to migrate and spread Islam, in order to dominate all the lands of the world ... and that’s exactly what they’re doing now.”

The “Muslim ban” and the counter-jihad

When Trump initially announced his plan for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” way back in December 2015, his campaign statement cited a poll conducted by CSP as the key piece of justification.

“A poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing ‘25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad,’”the statement read. “51% of those polled, ‘agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to sharia.’”

This poll was, unsurprisingly, shot full of methodological problems. It was anonline opt-in poll, meaning that it was not a random sample of American Muslims, and several questions were written in such a way that the answers would end up sounding extremist no matter what.

More interestingly, though, is the person who conducted the poll on CSP’s behalf. It was none other than Kellyanne Conway, who would go on to become Trump’s campaign manager and chief press surrogate. According toMother Jones’s Pema Levy, who first reported the link, Conway’s firm had a relationship with CSP that dated back to 1998.

"It's very alarming to me that such a high number of individuals, Muslims living in the US, would say, 'Well, we can have a choice' [to follow sharia]," Conway said during a June 2015 appearance on a CSP podcast. “The Muslims living in the US themselves — 27 percent of them, anyway — say that this is what the purpose of jihad is, to either punish nonbelievers (16 percent) or, the other 11 percent, to undermine non-Muslim states."

This is the way in which the “Muslim ban” makes sense. Not as something Trump dreamed up by accident, but as a direct product of the counter-jihad’s influence on the president of the United States. You can even see the counter-jihadist influence in the text of the executive order itself.

“In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles,” the order reads. “The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law.”

When the Trump administration talked about the Muslim ban to press, they warned that unfettered Muslim entry into the country would bring about a constant drumbeat of low-level terrorism — a warning that sounded a lot like some counter-jihadists’ descriptions of contemporary Europe.

“We don't want a situation where 20, 30 years from now, it's just like a given thing that on a fairly regular basis that there's domestic terror strikes, that stores are shut up or that airports have explosive devices planted or people are mowed down in the street by cars and automobiles and things of that nature,” an unnamed senior administration official told the Washington Post’s Jenna Johnson. “These are the realities that we're living in today.”

How counter-jihadists want to change America — if Trump will let them

There is a counter-jihadist master plan.

In 2015, CSP issued a follow-up report to the Team B II report. Titled “The Secure Freedom Strategy,” and authored by “the Tiger Team,” it fleshed out a broad slate of specific policy actions that could be taken to act on Team B’s diagnosis of the problem. Something like Trump’s ban on refugees entering the country is in there, as is the Flynn-Sessions-Pompeo plan for listing the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Those aren’t the only two examples. The report spends a great deal of time lambasting the Obama administration for failing to openly name Islamism as our enemy.

“The Obama administration’s increasingly institutionalized secularist — if not actively pro-Islamic — policies have largely prevented the U.S. government from engaging in strategic information operations aimed at exposing and undermining the supremacist doctrine of shariah and the terrorism it commands,” its authors write. “Public clarity about that threat has also been compromised by the distortion of intelligence analysis and terminology used to describe Islam, jihad, and shariah.”

This has obvious resonances with the Republican attacks on Obama for failing to call terrorists “radical Islamists.” But it also targets, specifically, President Obama’s “Countering Violent Extremism” initiative — a program that focuses on preventing Americans from being attracted to violent political movements, Islamist and non-Islamist alike. This, the Tiger Team argues, is a way of downplaying the threat from the more dangerous stealth jihad.

Now bothReuters andCNN have reported that the Trump team is planning to revamp the CVE program to focus solely on Islamism. Its new name? “Countering Islamic Extremism,” nomenclature that a) is focused exclusively on Islam, and b) deemphasizes the threat from violence specifically.

News of the Trump team’s plans delighted counter-jihadists, who have long attacked US government counterterrorism training for downplaying the threat from sharia. Spencer told me the revamp of the CVE program was the Trump initiative that he was most excited about.

Spencer is being a bit premature — as of right now, the reports about the program still aren’t confirmed. But his glee points to something important, something missed in taking these things in isolation.

The Trump team is incredibly disorganized: According to one New York Times account, Trump staffers still haven’t figured out how to turn on the lights in the White House Cabinet room. They also have an insurgent ideology, one that’s in many ways at odds with what you hear from mainstream Republicans — especially on foreign policy. There just isn’t a clear sense of what they want to do on a lot of issues, or what specific tools they could use to do it.

The counter-jihadists, by contrast, are extremely organized. They have a think tank that has put out detailed policy proposals, intellectuals with fairly large megaphones who can argue for the think tank’s ideas, and a large activist network that’s surprisingly well-connected inside the Republican Party.

And, of course, they have a lot of like-minded sympathizers in the White House. So if the Trump team needs policy ideas on national security and terrorism, it’s entirely likely that they’d turn to CSP for help. Indeed, the explicit point of the Tiger Team’s Secure Freedom Strategy was to provide a comprehensive blueprint for a “war” on sharia to a White House that’s willing to listen.

So what are their actual policy proposals?

The report advocates reorienting training for counterterrorism staff around “the threat doctrine — sharia,” essentially meaning that the US should teach its spies and law enforcement officials that Islam is their enemy. It proposes “rolling up and shutting down [Muslim Brotherhood] front groups in the United States,” by which it means the main Muslim organizations in America. It suggests ending university programs that promote “Muslim-Christian dialogue,” and replacing them with “corresponding educational activities exposing the true nature of sharia and the Muslim Brotherhood’s operations.”

Some recommendations are even more jarring. The report calls on the US government to use “sharia adherent advocacy and practices as legal premises for deportation and stripping of American citizenship” — in other words, kicking out Muslims who publicly announce that they live by Islamic moral codes. Former Speaker of the House and staunch Trump supporter Newt Gingrich has fervently embraced this idea, telling Sean Hannity in June 2016 that the US government should deport all Muslims who believe in sharia.

The CSP report further states that “over eighty percent of U.S. mosques have been shown to be sharia-adherent and promoting jihad,” and that “they are incubators of, at best, subversion and, at worst, violence and should be treated accordingly.” The clear implication is that the US government should shut down 80 percent of American mosques and arrest their imams on charges of promoting terrorism.

This isn’t just a blueprint for war on sharia — it’s a blueprint for war on the Muslim American community. For using the power of the state to shut down Muslim organizations, arrest believing Muslims, and close the vast majority of mosques.

Prominent politicians have endorsed this plan (though it’s not clear if they’ve read it all the way through). At a 2015 CSP conference, the entirety of which is uploaded to YouTube, both Gingrich and Cruz labeled the Secure Freedom plan a sound strategy for fighting jihadism — a move that garnered very little attention at the time. The document is too obscure, and too boring, for most people to root through it.

But these ideas in it cannot be seen as obscure anymore.

“I definitely see individuals with this [counter-jihadist] network having a huge influence within this administration,” Yasmine Taeb, a lobbyist at the Friends Committee on National Legislation who focuses on terrorism and civil liberties, tells me. “[Trump’s] policies are ones that they’ve been advocating for ... which is scary.”

According to McCants, the Brookings scholar on Islam, “national security professionals on both sides of the aisle are freaking out” about the influence of counter-jihadists on Trump.

Would Trump be able to implement all of the policies in the Secure Freedom Strategy by executive fiat? Almost certainly not. More to the point, it’s not clear that he’d want to: Shutting down 80 percent of America’s mosques is extreme even for him, well beyond anything he’s said publicly.

The point, rather, is that this is where the people who are advising the president are coming from. Their repeated public statements, and the administration’s policy alignment with some key counter-jihadist priorities, cannot be ignored. These ideas, ideas which when taken to their logical conclusion end in a mass campaign of persecution targeting Muslim Americans, are now the dominant approach to terrorism among the president’s closest advisers.

Watching the video of Gaffney’s speech at the Western Conservative Summit no longer feels like watching the ramblings of a coot. It feels like peering through a window into the way the Trump White House sees the world.

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eg gaffney

The far-right is using the tragic Notre Dame Cathedral fire to push conspiracy theories and bigotry

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https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/12/17230078/mike-pompeo-secretary-of-state-confirmation-cory-booker

Cory Booker just excoriated Trump’s secretary of state nominee, Mike Pompeo, during his confirmation hearing over Pompeo’s past associations with prominent anti-Muslim ideologues.

For most of his hearing on Thursday morning, Pompeo (who’s currently the CIA director) seemed prepared and capable of handling every question the Senate Foreign Relations Committee threw at him. But the nominee stumbled — badly — under a cleverly prepared series of questions from the New Jersey Democrat.

First, Booker asked Pompeo about a 2013 speech in which Pompeo blasted American Islamic leaders for their “silence” in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and said that made them “potentially complicit” in terrorism. (American Muslim leaders in fact spoke out forcefully against terrorism and extremism in the wake of the attacks and organized effortsto help victims.)

Pompeo responded by saying that he wasn’t trying to cast aspersions on all Muslims but was simply pointing out that Muslims have more ability to discourage other Muslims from joining militant groups. “For certain forms of violence, there are certain people who are better positioned” to act, he said.

Pompeo added, “Each and every human, not just Americans, each human being has an obligation to push back against this extremist use of violence.”

This seemed like a decent evasion at first — but it soon became clear that Pompeo had walked into a dangerous trap.

Booker said he agreed with Pompeo that “silence in the face of injustice lends strength to that injustice.” Then he sprang the trap: He brought up Pompeo’s long history of association with two of America’s most prominent Islamophobes, Frank Gaffney and Brigitte Gabriel, and asked whether Pompeo had ever used his “position” to denounce their extremist views.

Gaffney, a conspiracy theorist who has accused most American Muslim civic organizations of being fronts for Islamist groups, had hosted Pompeo on his radio show. Gabriel, an anti-Islam activist who has described Islam as “a political movement cloaked in religion,” hosted a dinner in Pompeo’s honor in 2016 — where she gave him an award that he accepted. Did Pompeo ever condemn them in the way he expects all Muslims to condemn terrorists?

Pompeo had no good answer: “Senator, I couldn’t tell you,” he responded. “I don’t recall each statement I’ve made over 54 years.”

Here’s the exchange a transcript, if you prefer reading:

BOOKER: I’m wondering, Sir — do you know Frank Gaffney?

POMPEO: Yes, I do.

BOOKER: And you’ve been on his show dozens of times?

POMPEO: I was on his show some, yes.

BOOKER: I have here over 20 times. And he has talked about [how] Muslims who abide by the adherence of the faith should be considered to be tried for acts of sedition and prosecuted. I have a lot of his statements. Did you remain silent — and, from my notes at least, you’re a friend of his — were you silent in your position of authority in these words that devalue the American constitution?

POMPEO: Sir, my record on this is unambiguous ...

BOOKER: If that’s your response, you did not say anything to call out his remarks. What about Brigitte Gabriel. Do you know her?

POMPEO: I do.

BOOKER: Someone who runs an organization that has been considered a hate group by the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Were you silent? Did you ever call her out on her remarks that are hateful or bigoted?

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Islamophobia among white evangelicals is about politics, not faith: study

Sophia A. McClennen / Salon

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omfg

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/china-created-a-racist-artificial-intelligence-to-track-muslims

The  Chinese government is using facial-recognition software to “track and control” a predominantly Muslim minority group, according to a disturbing new report from The New York Times. The Chinese government has reportedly integrated artificial intelligence into its security cameras to identify the Uighurs and appears to be using the information to monitor the persecuted group. The report, based on the accounts of whistleblowers familiar with the systems and a review of databases used by the government and law enforcement, suggests the authoritarian country has opened up a new frontier in the use of A.I. for racist social control—and raises the discomfiting possibility that other governments could adopt similar practices.

Two people familiar with the matter told the Times that police in the Chinese city of Sanmenxia screened whether residents were Uighurs 500,000 times in a single month. Documents provided to the paper reportedly show demand for the technology is ballooning: more than 20 departments in 16 provinces sought access to the camera system, in one case writing that it “should support facial recognition to identify Uighur/non-Uighur attributes.” This, experts say, is more than enough to raise red flags. “I don’t think it’s overblown to treat this as an existential threat to democracy,” Jonathan Frankle, an A.I. researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Times.“Once a country adopts a model in this heavy authoritarian mode, it’s using data to enforce thought and rules in a much more deep-seated fashion than might have been achievable 70 years ago in the Soviet Union. To that extent, this is an urgent crisis we are slowly sleepwalking our way into.”

Racial profiling has long been a concern in the use of artificial intelligence. But in the United States and other Western countries, much of that scrutiny has centered on biases built into A.I. systems. Computer scientist Aylin Caliskan put the matter succinctly in a 2017 interview with Vox: “Many people think machines are not biased. But machines are trained on human data. And humans are biased.” Already, studies have shown this to be the case. A 2016 investigation by ProPublica found that machine-learning software rated black people at higher risk of committing another crime after an initial arrest. (The software’s conclusions were based on current incarceration rates.) American lawmakers have highlighted these concerns as the A.I. race heats up. “Algorithms are still made by human beings, and those algorithms are still pegged to basic human assumptions,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said at an event in January. “They’re just automated assumptions. And if you don’t fix the bias, then you are just automating the bias.”

In China, however, the government appears to be exploiting that bias, purposely using the technology to keep tabs on a subset of its population. China has faced increasing criticism from human-rights groups for its treatment of the country’s 11 million Uighurs, about a million of whom are believed to be detained in Chinese indoctrination camps, which the government characterized to the Times as “vocational training centers that curb extremism.” But the secret use of artificial intelligence as part of its crackdown on the Muslim minority is likely to exacerbate fears about the government’s increasingly aggressive approach to the group, and about the abilities of governments worldwide to use technology for nefarious purposes. China appears to be the first country to use the systems explicitly for racial profiling, but experts are concerned that others will follow. “Take the most risky application of this technology, and chances are good someone is going to try it,” Clare Garvie, an associate at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law, told the Times. “If you make a technology that can classify people by an ethnicity, someone will use it to repress that ethnicity.”

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