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You’re a left wing activist if you say the feel good slogans.

You’re a rightwing extremist if you take out a calculator and figure out the actual logistics of making those slogans a reality.

Most of the attacks were carried out in Jerusalem (148), followed by Nablus (140) and then Hebron (113). The commission added that settlers carried out 202 attacks in various parts of the occupied West Bank, but mainly in Nablus (65), Ramallah (35) and Hebron (28).

Berlin, Germany

A policeman speaks to a participant in a leftwing protest held in solidarity with ‘Lina E’, who has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison for taking part in a series of attacks on alleged neo-Nazis and other rightwing extremists over a period of two years

Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

More photos here

By Charles Kaiser

The Guardian

July 5, 2023

David Neiwert offers a necessary and chilling read about American extremists and the threat they pose to us all

Rightwing extremism has always been a feature of American life, from the diehard supporters of slavery in the 19th century to the 20,000 fascists who filled Madison Square Garden in 1939 and the violent opponents of integration who beat and killed civil rights workers and leaders throughout the 1960s.

Today, this ugly tradition of hatred is perpetuated by dozens of vile groups, from the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers to the Family Research Council and a slew of Christian nationalist organizations.

But as the investigative reporter David Neiwert argues in his terrifying new book, there is one terrible difference: the relentless mainstreaming of such disgusting ideas. The white nationalist ideology which inspired Payton Gendron to travel 200 miles to massacre 10 people in a Black Buffalo neighborhood is becoming as American as cherry pie.

Neiwert shows such extremism has been “widely adopted” from “the highest reaches of the Republican party” to broadcasts by Tucker Carlson, “the most popular cable talk show host” until Fox News fired him.

The surge in rightwing extremism inspired by the election of the US’s first Black president was reflected in an explosion in militia groups during Barack Obama’s first year in office. Then came Donald Trump, the first modern president to celebrate white supremacists. He praised “fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville, Virginia, where in August 2017 neo-Nazis clashed with counter-protesters, and he embraced the Proud Boys in 2020, telling them to “stand back and stand by”.

The collaboration between such a president and the high-speed locomotive of social media has had disastrous consequences. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have brought American wackos together faster than any previous medium.

Neiwert is a former senior writer for Daily Kos, the admirable progressive website founded by Markos Moulitsas 21 years ago. But Neiwert’s work goes back further. When he started out, he saw rightwing extremism as “an excellent bet” to propel a career in journalism, “an endless wellspring of human misery, social disruption and frightening violence – the kind of behavior that always makes news”.

Read more.

Look, I know that comic books, bein' soap-opera-style drama, is gonna have lotsa conspiracy theories. But maybe don't go after NASA, "The Vigil" #2? Please? An' not with somethin' so close to an actual right-wing conspiracy theory. (First caption box is unedited, the other two are added for comedy)

There is something interesting about how often the earlier a deconstruction of a genre that would later get a Whole Ton Of Them is the more likely it is to actually go deep into the Actual Faults of the genre.

Like again Vigilante 1983 is not perfect, constantly back and forths on if Adrians right or wrong, and goes insane in the last set of issues (before the last three which go back to being great) but I still think its a way better deconstruction of the idea of a violent vigilante hero guy then other stuff that claims to do the same thing but is incapable of letting its cool male leads look actually vulnerable or stupid for longer then a panel or two

Far-right Christian Nationalists don't like trans women being armed? That's odd?

// I wish the tumblr search function worked because Al definitely adopted the phrase "bimbo ops" at least once and she's gonna keep using it and y'all are welcome to share.

Bravo Australia 👏👏👏 for calling a spade a spade:

More countries should do it too. No more two-tiered system of international law.

so will getting a gray wolves tattoo finally make öz*l a persona non grata or is everyone gonna ignore it like when erdogan was his best man?

Nowadays, if a group has "freedom" or "patriot" in its name, it's more likely than not that it has links to the far right. The "Alliance Defending Freedom" certainly qualifies.

Since it was formed in 1994, Alliance Defending Freedom has been at the center of a nationwide effort to limit the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people, all in the name of Christianity. The Southern Poverty Law Center has termed it an “anti-LGBTQ hate group” that has extended its tentacles into nearly every area of the culture wars. In the process, it has won the ear of some of the most influential people in the US, and become “a danger to every American who values their freedoms”, according to Glaad, the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization. Through “model legislation” and lawsuits filed across the country, ADF aims to overturn same-sex marriage, enact a total ban on abortion, and strip away the already minimal rights that trans people are afforded in the US.

The ADF is a bigtime lobbying and political action group which is a major force in the homophobia-patriarchy industrial complex.

Under the Trump administration, the group found its way into the highest echelons of power, advising Jeff Sessions, the then attorney general, before he announced sweeping guidance to protect “religious liberty” which chipped away at LGBTQ+ protections. The organization counts among its sometime associates Amy Coney Barrett, the supreme court justice who the Washington Post reported spoke five times at an ADF training program established to push a “distinctly Christian worldview in every area of law”. ADF is engaged in “a very strong campaign to put a certain type of religious view at the center of American life”, said Rabia Muqaddam, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “[The ADF campaign] extends to abortion, it extends to LGBTQ folks, to immigration, to what kind of religion we think is America, what kind of people we think are American,” Muqaddam said. “It’s as dramatic as that. I think we are in a fight to preserve democracy and preserve America as a place where we do tolerate and encourage and empower everyone.”

Their connection to the odious "Focus on the Family" is not unexpected.

ADF was founded in 1994 by a group of “leaders in the Christian community”, according to its website. Among those leaders was James Dobson, the founder of the anti-LGBTQ+ Focus on the Family organization who has said the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed, was a “judgment” from God because of declining church numbers. [ ... ] Over the past two decades, ADF has been a main driver in dozens of pieces of rightwing legislation and lawsuits.

ADF has gobs of money to spend on promoting anti-LGBTQ legislation – especially in state legislatures. And they have been successful because people on the moderate to progressive part of the political spectrum have been badly neglecting state legislatures for decades.

Emerson Hodges, a research analyst at the SPLC, said what ADF is really doing is attempting to “undo LGBTQ social and legislative progress”. “They go under the guise of religious liberty, and religious freedom. What that means, though, is this religious liberty to discriminate and the religious freedom to invalidate LGBTQ individuals,” Hodges said. Worryingly, there are signs that ADF, and other groups like it, are growing in influence. As Republican politicians and rightwing media fan the flames of an extremist culture war, NBC reported that donations to ADF, which is a registered non-profit, more than doubled from 2011 to 2021. As it has grown in influence, ADF’s “model legislation” has found its way into state legislatures across the country, as the group attempts to strip away LGBTQ+ rights, and the rights of trans people in particular.

[ ... ] “They’ve also worked to ban the right to choose, and are in cahoots with other extremist groups to oppress marginalized people. ADF is a danger to every American who values their freedoms – to be ourselves, live freely, and be welcome to contribute and to succeed in every area of society.”

The only way to curb groups like the ADF on a state level is by making sure there are are fewer Republicans in state legislatures who will do the ADF's bidding.

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No Labels Isn't What It Claims to Be

The “No Labels” Party is not what it pretends to be. It’s a front group for Donald Trump.

Now I understand, if you’re sick of the two major parties, you might be intrigued by a party that claims to be a “common sense” alternative that finds the middle ground.

But if you or anyone in your life is planning to vote for No Labels — or any third party — in 2024, please watch and share this video first.

Here are three things you need to know.

First, No Labels is a dark money group with secret far-right donors. Investigative reporting has revealed that they include many of the same Republican donors who have pumped huge sums of money into electing candidates like Trump and Ron DeSantis. They also include the rightwing billionaire Harlan Crow, who spent years secretly treating Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to a lifestyle of the rich and famous.

If the No Labels Party is backed by Trump donors, in an election where Trump is on the ballot, there’s actually a label we should give to “No Labels.” Clearly, they’re a pro-Trump group.

Second, the premise No Labels is based on — that Donald Trump and President Biden are at equally extreme ends of the political spectrum — is preposterous.

Trump has been impeached twice, found by a jury to have committed sexual assault, is facing 91 criminal charges in four separate cases — two of them in connection with an attempt to effectively end American democracy.

There is no “equally extreme” candidate as Trump!

Finally, the structure of the Electoral College means that as a practical matter, a third party only draws votes away from whichever major party candidate is closest to it. No third party candidate has ever won a presidential election.

And in this particular election, when one of the major parties is putting up a candidate who threatens democracy itself, we cannot take the risk.

Donald Trump has already tried to overturn one election and suggested suspending the Constitution to maintain power. It is no exaggeration to say that if he takes the White House again, there may not ever be another free and fair election.

Democracy won by a whisker in the last presidential election. Just 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin — less than one tenth of 1 percent of the total votes cast nationwide — were the difference between the Biden presidency and a tie in the Electoral College that would have thrown the election to the House of Representatives, and hence to Trump.

If candidates from No Labels— or any other third party, like the Green Party or the Libertarian Party —  peel off just a fraction of the anti-Trump vote from Biden, while Trump voters stay loyal to him, Trump could win the top five swing states comfortably and return to the Oval Office. And No Labels’ own polling shows they would do just that!

Let me be absolutely clear. Third-party groups like No Labels are in effect front groups for Trump in 2024, and should be treated as such.

The supposed “centrism” No Labels touts is nonsense. There is no middle ground between democracy and fascism.

Please share this video and spread the word.

Why is the alt-right like this?

@political-beauty (insta)

Millions of people went out to the streets this week all over Germany to protest against right wing extremism. The protests were sparked by a media report that emerged in January, reporting on a 'conference' held by rightwing extremists and neo-nazis, which also some members of the far-right party AfD attended, where they discussed a 'masterplan' for mass deportations, mainly of people who are not 'ethnically German'. The AfD is currently polling at around 20% across Germany, which would make it the second strongest party. It is particularly strong in some eastern German states where elections are being held this year and there is a risk that they could become the strongest party there. To prevent this, people are hoping that by then the AfD could be categorised as anti-constitutional and thus be banned. Millions of people have signed petitions to this effect.

The video shows hundreds of thousands of people who gathered in Berlin last night, 21 January. They're chanting an old protest song which (roughly) goes: Resist, resist the fascism in this country, on the barricades, on the barricades, resist!