Category Archives: Alt-right

BRINGING RACISM TO SCHOOL BOARD DEBATE-A simple internet search of Van De Mark would have produced several pictures such as this one. Behind Van De Mark (front) is a woman flashing a white supremacist sign

September 17, 2022

Staff Report

The La Mirada Chamber of Commerce pulled a fast one Thursday night at the NLMUSD Candidates Forum introducing as the moderator Critical Race Theory espousing alt-right and known Proud Boy supporter Gracey Van De Mark to the surprise of many at the event.

LM Chamber executives were giddy, as was the clones who knew she was coming in advance, ready to pounce with their right-wing divisive statements about teachers in the classroom, what theyre teaching, abortion, birth control, and how they are enabling LGBTQ+ kids.

But others, including HMG-CN Publisher Brian Hews, had no idea Van De Mark was going to be the moderator.

The Cerritos Republican Club invited Van De Mark to speak at the Cerritos Library, which was attended by then Vice President of ABCUSD Board Soo Yoo; HMG-CN learned of the event and publicized it, which drew many protesters to a Cerritos City Council meeting, but the City Council still allowed the library event.

Cerritos Republican Club Hosted Racist Proud Boy Supporter Gracey Van Der Mark at Cerritos Library Weeks After AAPI Beating at City Park

Shes a right-wing whack job who needs to stay in Orange County, said HMG-CN publisher Brian Hews, I did not find out she was the moderator until I got several texts during the forum from people attending who were very angry. Extremely bad judgment on the part of the La Mirada Chamber to invite her.

My local community news writer, Tammye McDuff, who asked me if she could be Chamber President this year, also did not tell me.

And its not just Hews view of Van Der Mark, Shes a disruptor, shes a bigot, and she has no place in public governance. None, Gina Clayton-Tarvin, clerk of the board of trustees at Ocean View School District told the Daily Beast in 2021.

A simple internet search by the chamber would have revealed Van Der Marks long involvement with the alt-right.

In April 2017, according to a Facebook post, she shared a picture from an event with Kyle Based Stickman Chapman. A far-right brawler and leader of the Proud Boys paramilitary wing the Alt-Knights, Chapman had earned his nickname when video footage showed him hitting a leftist protester with a stick, leading to his arrest and eventual plea deal on a weapons charge.

My son got a few tips from Based Stick Man on how to protect himself against the Antifa masked cowards at rallys and patriot events. [sic] Van Der Mark wrote on Facebook.

In another selfie, Van Der Mark can be seen with Antonio Foreman. who, in August 2017, marched in the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.

Van Der Mark can also be seen attending an anti-Islam event in San Bernardino. Photos from the day show her wearing a gun-print shirt, standing behind far-right figure Johnny Benitez, who is wearing a Proud Boys uniform and holding a poster with a meme about ethnic cleansing of Muslims.

But that history did not matter to the chamber. Van Der Mark was introduced, smugly strolled up to the podium and immediately began her alt-right line of questioning, not knowing that it was traditional to allow the customary two minutes for each candidate to introduce themselves.

Van Der Marks first question was predictable, will you teach CRT in the NLMUSD.? Her second question was, will you fight against the state trying to include CRT in school curriculum?

It has been a proven fact in all reputable media reports that CRT is only taught in college graduate courses and it is a right-wing racist meme meant to divide parents and school boards

All candidates could be seen as taken by surprise, with all answering the question in the negative.

Van Der Mark then asked if the board members would allow a Planned Parenthood clinic, but that was a moot subject and yet another divisive question.

An item had been put on the NLMUSDs Board agenda weeks ago to discuss a clinic, but it was pulled and never discussed, the board making it clear in a statement they were not considering the clinic.

By the time Van Der Mark began asking abortion questions, a visibly upset LMUSD Board Member Dr. Robert Cancio, who is endorsed by HMG-CN, objected to Van Der Marks line of questioning.

Van Der Mark asked, a minor in school cannot be given an aspirin or Neosporin without permission from their parents; however, a child of any age, without permission or knowledge of their parents, can consent to have an abortion as well as be given birth control, do you approve of this?

Cancio responded, I almost feel like Im not in a friendly debate for school board with these questions.

Many attendees could be overheard on a microphone saying yes what is this? Why are you asking these questions?

Cancio continued, as the only product of the Norwalk La Mirada School District on the stage, I can assure you that we are in the business of teaching our students to be lifelong learners, we do not provide services and its inappropriate you keep asking these questions.

A debate moderators job is to be objective and control the situation, but Van Der Mark, could be overheard saying after Cancios comment, actually its [abortion services] happening in a lot of schools Ive seen it myself.

Cancio responded, not in this school district.

Board Member Norma Amezcua spoke up and said, your [Van Der Mark] questions are ridiculous and have no place in this debate, can you ask pertinent questions? That statement drew a loud and vocal response from the attendees.

Undaunted, Van Der Mark continued asking other candidates the abortion question, with the attendees becoming increasingly angry and yelling in her direction.

The last question caused chamber executives Noel Jaimes and McDuff to call a break and end Van Der Marks questioning.

Does anyone believes a six-year-old is cognitively prepared to understand the concept of being assigned a gender?

In an email, Jaimes told HMG-CN, yes I approved her [Van Der Mark] as the moderator, I did some research and found a few articles on her in Orange County, but your [HMG-CNs] stuff did not pop up in my search. Why?

Like the Daily Beast article, a search of Van Der Mark will produce many unflattering Orange County articles pointing out her alt-right Proud Boy supporter background, her controversial run for Huntington Beach City Council [she came in fourth] and her association with ex-HB Councilman Tito Ortiz, another right-wing Proud Boy supporter who called the Jan. 6 insurrection a false flag, and the pandemic a plandemic.

The information in the OC articles was used as background information when HMG-CN published the report outlining how ABC Board President Soo Yoo and the Cerritos Republican Club invited Van Der Mark to speak at the Cerritos Library.

That meeting ended with Yoo, Van Der Mark, and ABC Board Member Michael Eugenio pictured under the California Department of Education with a circle/slash through the logo.

WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?WhiteSupremacistVan Der Mark (left) with ABC VP Soo Yoo and Trustee Mike Eugenio (r) under the Prohibition sign.

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La Mirada Chamber Invited Alt-Right Racist to Moderate School Board ...

The SPLC is the premierU.S. organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists including the Ku Klux Klan, white nationalists, the neo-Nazi movement, antigovernment militiasand others.

Wetrackmore than 1,600 extremist groups operating across the country. We publish investigative reports, train law enforcement officers and share key intelligence, and offer expert analysis to the media and public.

Our work fighting hate and extremism began in the early 1980s, amid a resurgence of Klan violence that began several years after the end of the civil rights movement. Each year since 1990, we have released an annual census of U.S. hate groups. In the mid-1990s, we also began documenting the number of radical, antigovernment militias and other organizations that comprise the far-right Patriot movement.

Over the years, weve crippled or destroyed some of the countrys most notorious hate groups including the United Klans of America, the Aryan Nations and the White Aryan Resistance by suing them for murders and other violent acts committed by their members or by exposing their activities.

Visit link:

Hate & Extremism | Southern Poverty Law Center

American political conference

The America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC; AF-pak) is an annual white nationalist[2] and far-right[3] political conference. Many attendees are members of the "America First" movement and supporters of Nick Fuentes, also known as Groypers. The conference was described by The Daily Dot as a "white nationalist alternative" to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.[4] The Arizona Republic and Rolling Stone have characterized it as an extremist rival of CPAC.[1][5]

As of 2022, the conference has featured two current United States House Republicans as speakers.

On December 21, 2019, in the wake of the "Groyper Wars", leaders of the Groyper movement held a speaking conference called the "Groyper Leadership Summit" in West Palm Beach, Florida. The event was invite-only and held at an undisclosed location. The date, location, and title of the event mirrored Turning Point USA's "Student Action Summit," a speaking event featuring conservatives including Ben Shapiro, who Fuentes would publicly confront outside the venue. In the confrontation, Nick said, "Ben, it's great to see you. Why did you give a 45-minute speech about me at Stanford? And you wouldnt even look in my direction." Shapiro did not respond as he walked into the venue.[6] The Daily Beast characterized the Groyper Leadership Summit as "aimed at embarrassing Turning Point, potentially by luring some of the Turning Point students to Fuentes white nationalist event".[7]

AFPAC was founded in 2020 by Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist[8] political commentator.[1]

The inaugural AFPAC was held on February 28, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Speakers included the political commentator Michelle Malkin;[9] former leader of the neo-Nazi group Identity Evropa, Patrick Casey; former Daily Caller editor Scott Greer; and Fuentes.[10] After his appearance at the inaugural AFPAC and immediately following the 2021 United States Capitol attack, Casey cut ties with Fuentes and declared that he would not be returning as a speaker or guest at future conferences.[11]

The second AFPAC was held on February 25, 2021, in Orlando, Florida. While it was open to the public, the organizers were secretive about where the conference would be held; it was later reported that it had been held at the Hilton in Orlando.[12] Speakers included Malkin, Vincent James of The Red Elephants radio show, former BlazeTV host and Glenn Beck Program writer Jon Miller,[13] and former Representative Steve King.[14] According to the Orlando Sentinel, the event "was more of a dinner than a multi-day conference".[12] ABC News reported, "speakers spread white nationalist rhetoric, organizers railed about the U.S. losing its 'white demographic core,' and some called for further engagement like the ire that drove the Capitol attack on Jan. 6".[15]

Arizona Representative Paul Gosar appeared as a surprise keynote speaker at the conference; his attendance was the subject of controversy.[15][16][17] In his speech, he discussed immigration and what he described as censorship by social media platforms.[17] Gosar skipped voting on a COVID-19 relief bill in order to attend AFPAC. Rolling Stone criticized Gosar for this decision, as well as other Republicans who, in order to attend CPAC, "play[ed] fast and loose with the rules" of a new provision allowing them to vote by proxy. Rolling Stone wrote, "In order to vote by proxy, members are required to sign a letter saying they can't attend 'due to the ongoing public health emergency,' and traveling to another state to appear maskless at an event with thousands of people doesn't seem to fit that situation."[1] Gosar, appearing on a panel at CPAC several hours after his appearance at AFPAC, stated, "I denounce when we talk about white racism. That's not appropriate."[1][15][16][18]

The third AFPAC was held on February 25, 2022, in Orlando, Florida, at the Orlando World Center Marriott. It was sponsored by the social media platform Gab, which resulted in backlash from Gab users due to Fuentes' harsh comments about Gab users. Many of Gab's donors stated that they would stop funding Gab due to this decision; in response to the backlash, Gab CEO Andrew Torba said that "Controversy is attention. Attention is influence" and that "The point of marketing is to influence people to get off Big Tech and get on Gab. In order to do that I need their attention."[19] It was later announced that Torba would be a guest speaker at the AFPAC.[20]

During his speech, Fuentes stated that the media had been comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler "and they say that's not a good thing", which Rolling Stone described as "giggling praise of Adolf Hitler".[21][22] Fuentes also asked the audience, Can we get a round of applause for Russia? which was followed by large applause and chants of "Putin! Putin!".[23]

Former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio spoke at the conference and received cheers when he stated, "I have the reputation of being the biggest racist in the country." In response to the applause, Arpaio asked the audience, "What are you clapping for?"[24][25]

The conference featured four elected officials as speakers: Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Arizona Representative Paul Gosar, Arizona Senator Wendy Rogers, and lieutenant governor of Idaho Janice McGeachin.[26][27] Greene and Gosar were subsequently met with criticism from members of the Republican party, including from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. Greene initially stated to CBS News that she was not aware of Fuentes' views,[28] but later defended her attendance in a statement which read, "It doesnt matter if Im speaking to Democrat union members or 1,200 young conservatives who feel cast aside and marginalized by society [...] The Pharisees in the Republican Party may attack me for being willing to break barriers and speak to a lost generation of young people who are desperate for love and leadership.[29] Rogers was censured by the Arizona State Senate for calling for political violence during her AFPAC speech.[30]

The conference additionally hosted a variety of far-right media personalities, including Gavin McInnes, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Jesse Lee Peterson, as well as white supremacists Jared Taylor and Peter Brimelow.[31] Fuentes claimed that Yiannopoulos was responsible for connecting him with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.[32]

Kari Lake, a Republican candidate in the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, was advertised as a speaker on a flyer for the conference. Lake later denied plans to attend, with Fuentes claiming it was due to a scheduling conflict rather than ideological differences.[33][24] Thomas Homan, former Director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed to The Huffington Post that he had been scheduled to speak at AFPAC, but cancelled his appearance on the day of the conference due to Fuentes' support of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[34]

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America First Political Action Conference - Wikipedia

ALTERNATE NAMES: Sad Frog

Pepe the Frog is a cartoon character that has become a popular Internet meme (often referred to as the "sad frog meme" by people unfamiliar with the name of the character). The character first appeared in 2005 in the on-line cartoon Boy's Club. In that appearance, the character also first used its catchphrase, "feels good, man."

The Pepe the Frog character did not originally have racist or anti-Semitic connotations. Internet users appropriated the character and turned him into a meme, placing the frog in a variety of circumstances and saying many different things. Many variations of the meme became rather esoteric, resulting in the phenomenon of so-called "rare Pepes."

The majority of uses of Pepe the Frog have been, and continue to be, non-bigoted. However, it was inevitable that, as the meme proliferated in on-line venues such as 4chan, 8chan, and Reddit, which have many users who delight in creating racist memes and imagery, a subset of Pepe memes would come into existence that centered on racist, anti-Semitic or other bigoted themes.

In recent years, with the growth of the "alt right" segment of the white supremacist movement, a segment that draws some of its support from some of the above-mentioned Internet sites, the number of "alt right" Pepe memes has grown, a tendency exacerbated by the controversial and contentious 2016 presidential election. Though Pepe memes have many defenders, the use of racist and bigoted versions of Pepe memes seems to be increasing, not decreasing.

However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context. The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist. However, if the meme itself is racist or anti-Semitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes.

In the fall of 2016, the ADL teamed with Pepe creator Matt Furie to form a #SavePepe campaign to reclaim the symbol from those who use it with hateful intentions.

Original post:

Pepe the Frog - ADL

English YouTuber, radio host, and conspiracy theorist

Paul Joseph Watson (born 24 May 1982)[1] is a British right-wing[11] YouTuber, radio host, and conspiracy theorist.[15] Until July 2016, Watson embraced the label "alt-right", but he now identifies as part of the new right.[16] In May 2019, Facebook and Instagram permanently banned Watson for violation of hate speech policies.[17][18]

Watson's career emerged through his work for conspiracy theorist and radio host Alex Jones. As editor-at-large of Jones' website InfoWars, he helped promote fake news[19] and advocated for 9/11, chemtrail, and New World Order conspiracy theories.[1] Subsequently, reaching a significant audience, both Watson and Jones altered their focus. They now mainly focus on criticizing feminism, Islam, and left-wing politics.[20] Watson also contributes to InfoWars's talk radio program The Alex Jones Show, which he occasionally hosts or co-hosts. Watson has been working at InfoWars since October 2002.[21]

Since 2011, Watson has hosted his own YouTube channel, prisonplanetlive, on which he expresses his views on topics such as contemporary society, politics, and modern liberalism in an often mocking manner. He rose to prominence on his YouTube channel by criticizing and mocking the "woke mob", social justice warriors, feminism and anti-racist movements.[10] As of January 2021, his channel has over 1.9 million subscribers.[22]

In a 2016 interview for a student newspaper in his native Sheffield, UK, Watson said he grew up on a council estate with little financial resources, and that by 18, he was teetotal and exercising 3 hours per day.[23] However, a 2018 article for The Daily Beast said his birth certificate indicated the family lived in a house in Grenoside, a semi-rural district in the north of the city, which the Sheffield City Council stated they never owned. From just before the age of ten, Watson and his family lived in Loxley, another area of Sheffield.[1]

Watson described his formative moment as when, at the age of 18, he watched The Secret Rulers of the World, a documentary in which journalist Jon Ronson accompanied Alex Jones in infiltrating Bohemian Grove in California, a place where some conspiracy theorists believe global elites plot the New World Order. He has described British conspiracy theorist David Icke, whom he first read as a teenager, as the person who woke him up.[1] Following the Ronson documentary, according to Watson, he started his own website Propaganda Matrix. He registered Global Propaganda Matrix, the company behind his website, in 2004. Watson has said he was first asked to contribute by Alex Jones in 2002, quickly becoming highly paid for his InfoWars work, according to the ex-wife of the site's founder.[1]

Watson, along with Jones and InfoWars as a whole, has shifted from mainly commenting on conspiracy theories such as chemtrails, the New World Order and the Illuminati, to increasingly criticising feminism, Islam, and left-wing politics.[20] Watson has been described as a member of "the new far-right" by The New York Times, which wrote in August 2017 that his "videos are straightforward nativist polemics, with a particular focus on Europe" and convey his opposition to modernist architecture and modern art.[24] Iman Abou Atta, director of the anti-Islamophobia group Tell MAMA, has said that Watson "has become 'the' nexus for anti-Muslim accounts that we have mapped... He has become an influencer in promoting informationmuch of it bizarre and untruewhich has been regurgitated by anti-Muslim and anti-migrant accounts time and time again."[25]

Watson previously described himself as a libertarian and supported Ron Paul in the 2012 presidential election. In a 2016 tweet, he said he no longer considered himself a libertarian because Gary Johnson "made the term an embarrassment."[26] Watson has also called himself a conservative and considers modern-day conservatism a countercultural movement.[19] In a November 2016 Facebook post, he differentiated between the New Right and the alt-right. He claimed that the alt-right "likes to fester in dark corners of subreddits and obsess about Jews, racial superiority and Adolf Hitler."[16] He and Mike Cernovich have feuded with figures such as Richard B. Spencer and David Duke, who see white nationalism as necessary for the alt-right.[citation needed]

Although he endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, Watson declared in a tweet on 6 April 2017, he was "officially OFF the Trump train" after Trump's decision to launch missile strikes on Syria in response to a Khan Shaykhun chemical attack several days earlier, believing Trump had reneged on his promise not to intervene in Syria. He said Trump was "just another deep state/Neo-con puppet".[27] After a decrease in Twitter followers occurred, he denied he had "turned on Trump", saying he was only "off the Trump train in terms of Syria" and blaming the media for "fake news".[28] He declared in a separate tweet he would shift his focus to ensuring French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen of the National Front would be elected in the 2017 election, which she lost.[29] Donald Trump Jr. retweeted Watson's reference to French celebrities leaving France if Le Pen was elected and referred dismissively to similar reputed claims in the U.S. before Trump Sr. was elected.[30]

On 16 June 2018, Watson announced that he had joined the UK Independence Party along with Mark Meechan and Carl Benjamin.[31][32]

In 2016, Watson was an early proponent of allegations that Hillary Clinton suffers from numerous serious medical conditions, though he was unable to provide any evidence.[33] Watson's part in the manufacture and dissemination of the rumour was taken up by the National Enquirer[33] and mentioned in the mainstream media as part of a discussion of the role of rumour and conspiracy theory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[34][12][35]

In February 2017, Watson tweeted an offer to pay for a journalist to visit Sweden and stay in the "crime ridden migrant suburbs" of Malm, if they think it would be safe.[36] Many journalists took him up on the offer,[36][37] and Watson chose New York journalist and videographer Tim Pool, who was already planning a similar investigation.[38] Watson gave Pool $2,000 for the trip.[36][38] Pool's findings contradicted Watson's claims.[39]

At a November 2018 White House press briefing, persistent questioning of Trump led an intern to attempt to take a microphone from the hand of CNN's Jim Acosta.[40][41] Acosta's White House press credentials were subsequently revoked, allegedly for having "put his hands" on the intern.[42][43] Watson uploaded an edited version of the original footage in support of this claim. In this version, zoom and frame rate changes create the misleading impression that Acosta had behaved aggressively towards the intern.[42]

Watson confirmed that he had applied a zoom and denied making any other alterations, though expert analysis confirmed that "the clip repeats several frames that do not appear in the original footage" and that it had been sped up.[44][43] The video has generally been described as doctored, though some experts concluded that the changes do not necessarily represent deliberate manipulation but could be artefacts of accidental degradation during processing.[44][45] White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders pointed to the video that Watson posted as clearly documenting Acosta's "inappropriate behaviour." The White House was criticised for sharing a doctored video and thereby spreading "actual fake news" rather than using the original footage.[46] A subsequent court ruling found that the action against Acosta was unconstitutional on due process grounds.[47]

On 2 May 2019, Watson and several other people considered to be extremists, including Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Jones, and right-wing commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, were permanently banned from Facebook, which called them "dangerous."[48] "We've always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate, regardless of ideology", a Facebook spokesperson said. "The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today."[49] Watson tweeted that he had broken "none of their rules" and complained of "an authoritarian society controlled by a handful of Silicon Valley giants" in which "all dissent must be purged."[17] Trump retweeted Watson, mocking the "dangerous" epithet.[50]

Watson is anti-immigration.[51][1] He has claimed[52] that "Malm is known as 'Sweden's Chicago'" due to mass immigration into the country.[53] According to a study published in Critical Studies in Media Communication, this claim is false.[54]

In 2022, Watson used the murder of a Jewish man in Paris to attack French President Emmanuel Macron and France's African migrant communities.[10]

Watson is opposed to Islam.[51][55][56] He has labelled Muslim culture "horrific" and declared that it produces mass rape, "Islamic ghettos" and the destruction of Western culture.[1] Watson has said that the western world needs "Islam control" rather than gun control. In an InfoWars article, Watson wrote, "Muslims living in both the Middle East and the west show alarmingly high levels of support for violent jihad"[57] and that there is "violent oppression of gays and Christians in the Middle East".[58] In August 2017, he said that YouTube had blocked monetisation on all his videos about Islam as part of the website's policies dealing with hate speech, and on other subjects including modern art.[59]

Watson has criticised perceived racial tokenism.[60] In 2017, he criticised the BBC for "portraying Roman Britain as ethnically diverse" after the broadcaster included a black Roman centurion in an educational cartoon. His criticism was contradicted by Mary Beard and Cambridge's Faculty of Classics, saying there was overwhelming evidence that Roman Britain was a multi-ethnic society, but noting that this would have been more noticeable in a military or urban setting than a rural one and the significant gaps in historians' understanding of the topic.[61]

Watson has released content falsely linking race to IQ, and lower IQ to aggression.[10]

In May 2022, Byline Times and the Southern Poverty Law Center published an account of a recording apparently of Watson at a party saying: "I really think you should press the button to wipe Jews off the face of the Earth" and making other homophobic and racist comments, such as saying: "I care about white people and not sand nigger Paki Jew faggot coons". The recording has been confirmed by three secondary sources. In response, Joe Mulhall of Hope not Hate said that while Watson was careful to follow social media platform moderation policy, it was not surprising that he would express such views in private.[9][10]

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Paul Joseph Watson - Wikipedia

American commentator and conspiracy theorist

Jack Michael Posobiec III ( p-SOH-bik; born December 14, 1984)[1][2] is an American alt-right[8] political activist, television correspondent and presenter,[9] conspiracy theorist,[10] and provocateur.[11][12][13] Posobiec is known for his pro-Donald Trump comments on Twitter, as well as using white supremacist and antisemitic symbols and talking points, including the white genocide conspiracy theory.[14][15][16][17] He has repeatedly planted false and derogatory claims about political figures in an effort to damage his opponents. He has promoted fake news, including the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory claiming high-ranking Democratic Party officials were involved in a child sex ring.[18][19] He was also a promoter of the Stop the Steal movement.[2] From 2018 to 2021, Posobiec was employed by One America News Network (OANN), a far-right cable news television channel, as a political correspondent and on-air presenter.[9] He left OANN in May 2021 to begin hosting a show for the conservative student organization Turning Point USA, and to join conservative news site Human Events as a senior editor.[20]

Posobiec was born and raised in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to a family of Polish descent.[21] His parents were both Democrats.[22] He attended Kennedy-Kenrick Catholic High School[22] and went to college at Temple University.[22] While at Temple, he became the chairman of the Temple University College Republicans and started a chapter of Students for Academic Freedom, an organization run by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.[22] He also participated in a summer internship for U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and volunteered for U.S. Representative Curt Weldon's unsuccessful reelection campaign in 2006.[22] He graduated from Temple in 2006[23] with a double major in political science and broadcast journalism.[24]

After graduation, Posobiec worked for the United States Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, China.[22] He played a minor role in the film The Forbidden Kingdom, which was released in 2008.[21] He later worked for WPHT, a conservative talk radio station, and then for the campaign of Steve Johnson in the 2010 Pennsylvania lieutenant gubernatorial election.

Posobiec served several tours in the United States Navy Reserve from 2010 to 2017, reaching the rank of lieutenant junior grade. He was deployed for ten months at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base from September 2012, and worked at the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), where he later worked again as a civilian.[21][25]

During the 2016 election, Posobiec was a special projects director of Citizens for Trump, a pro-Trump organization[26] but not an official group.[27] In March 2017, Posobiec resigned from his full-time civilian position at ONI, saying that his support for Trump led to a "toxic work environment". As of August 2017, his security clearance was suspended[25] and was under review.[28]

Posobiec describes himself as a "Republican political operative".[29] During the 2016 election, Posobiec was a special projects director of the political organization Citizens for Trump.[26]

He said in 2017 that his work was "reality journalismpart investigative, part activist, part commentary",[30][31] and that "I'm willing to break the fourth wall. I'm willing to walk into an anti-Trump march and start chanting anti-Clinton stuffto make something happen, and then cover what happens."[24] Will Sommer, an editor at The Hill, said in 2017 that Posobiec "make[s] stuff up, relentlessly", and that "there's no one at that level."[32]

On June 16, 2017, Posobiec disrupted a Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar that depicted the title character as a Trump-like figure. Posobiec was prompted by Mike Cernovich, another alt-right conspiracy theorist, who had offered a $1,000 prize for anyone who interrupted a performance.[33] "You are all Goebbels, you are all Nazis like Joseph Goebbels", he shouted at the audience in a video he posted on Twitter.[25] Posobiec was escorted from the event along with another protester, Laura Loomer, who was arrested for disorderly conduct after refusing to leave the stage.[29]

Posobiec has supported other conservative political figures with similar tactics. He promoted e-mails and files leaked to 4chan of Emmanuel Macron shortly before the French presidential election in 2017.[26] In a video shot for Rebel Media, he promoted the candidacy of Marine Le Pen of the National Front.[34] Posobiec celebrated the Macron leak at a party hosted by Milo Yiannopoulos. In October 2017, Posobiec and Cernovich formed a super PAC called #Rev18 and announced its support for Josh Mandel in the 2018 U.S. Senate election in Ohio.[35] In July 2017, Posobiec handed out flyers thanking Democratic senators for "protecting our quality violent porn content", including "ritual Satanic porn videos". The flyers were distributed outside the U.S. Senate at a demonstration in support of net neutrality.[36]

Posobiec organized a "Rally Against Political Violence" in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2017, to condemn the shooting of Steve Scalise. Richard Spencer, another alt-right figure who organized a separate, competing rally at the same time, ridiculed Posobiec's event and called it "pathetic".[37] In November 2017, Posobiec encouraged his Twitter followers to target a woman at her workplace after she came forward with allegations that Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore had attempted to have sex with her when she was 14 years old.[38][citation needed] In Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district special election in March 2018, Posobiec supported Democrat Conor Lamb over Republican Rick Saccone. Posobiec described Lamb as a "Pro-Trump Dem veteran".[39]

Posobiec's social media and political activities are linked to white supremacist movements. He has published multiple posts containing the white supremacist code "1488", or the Fourteen Words, and supports the use of the slogan.[16][17][40][41] The 88 stands for HH, or Heil Hitler.[42][43] In October 2016, Posobiec posted a tweet that included triple parentheses, an antisemitic symbol.[15] In response to a 2017 Anti-Defamation League report on the alt-right, which included Posobiec, he tweeted a selfie of his visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial in Poland: "The @ADL_National would be wise to remember what happened the last time people made lists of undesirables".[40]

In August 2017, following the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that led to violent clashes between white nationalists and anti-protesters, Posobiec said that the rally had become "massive propaganda" for the left and that the mainstream media was "fanning the flames of this violence." He said that Trump should have disavowed Black Lives Matter. Posobiec later tweeted that he had consistently disavowed white nationalism and violence.[29] He also tweeted that he was "done with trolling" and that it was "time to do the right thing." Posobiec has frequently tweeted about the white supremacist white genocide conspiracy theory.[14][44]

In June 2020, in Washington, D.C.'s Lincoln Park, Posobiec was shoved and chased for several minutes by a dozen protesters at the Emancipation Memorial. The protesters called Posobiec, who was filming speakers, a Nazi and forced him from the park. Police arrived in a van and, after trying to quell the fracas, helped Posobiec into the van before driving away. Posobiec tweeted later that he was "totally fine" but "filing an assault report with DC police".[45][46]

On June 9, 2022, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed Posobiec as an extremist, citing his links to hate groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, as well as his links to white nationalists, neo-Nazis, anti-government extremists, and the Polish far-right.[2][47]

Between September 2016 and March 2017, Posobiec described himself as having previously worked for CBS News in his Twitter profile. CBS News told the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2020 that he had never worked for them.[41]

Between early April and May 2017, Posobiec was employed by Rebel News, a far-right[55] Canada-based website, as its Washington bureau chief,[26] and was granted press access to the White House in April 2017. According to Philadelphia magazine, Posobiec "seem[ed] to have been charged in the press briefing room with haranguing legitimate journalists and running out the clock on press conferences with inane softball questions and Dear Leader obsequiousness" during his short time in the White House press pool.[56]

In May 2017, Posobiec hired neo-Nazi brothers Jeffrey and Edward Clark to help create a documentary about the murder of Seth Rich for Rebel News. Jeffrey Clark was arrested by the FBI on gun charges after saying that the Jewish victims of the October 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting "deserved exactly what happened to them and so much worse".[57] Posobiec later said that he had never heard of Jeffrey Clark and had never made a documentary about Seth Rich, even though HuffPost published photographs of Posobiec and the Clarks working together.[58][59] He left Rebel News after allegedly plagiarizing a video script from white supremacist Jason Kessler.[60][61]

From 2018 to 2021, One America News Network (OANN), a far-right cable news television channel, employed Posobiec as a political correspondent and on-air presenter.[20] In September 2018, he presented the pro-Hitler online poster known as Microchip on the network without indicating that person's affiliations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC said the two men had worked together in spreading disinformation for several years, including the false claims propagated in Pizzagate.[62]

Posobiec left OANN in May 2021 to begin hosting a show for the conservative student organization Turning Point USA, and to join Human Events as a senior editor.[20]

Posobiec has promoted many falsehoods,[32] leading to Philadelphia calling him the "King of Fake News" in 2017.[22] He was one of the most prominent promoters on social media of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which falsely claimed that high-ranking officials were involved in a child-sex ring centered at a Washington, D.C. pizzeria.[22][18] He live-streamed an investigation of the pizzeria and was asked to leave after attempting to broadcast a child's birthday party being held in a back room.[63] Posobiec later said he had always thought the Pizzagate theory was "stupid" and had filmed his visit to debunk it.[22]

Posobiec attempted to discredit anti-Trump protesters in November 2016 by planting a sign at a protest reading "Rape Melania".[64][65][66] Posobiec denied his involvement to BuzzFeed News, but the same phone number was used in his contact with the website and the text messages he reportedly sent.[67] He said he had been questioned about it by the Secret Service.[22] Posobiec organized the DeploraBall, an event held on January 19, 2017, to celebrate Trump's inauguration.[68]

In December 2016, Posobiec claimed without evidence that Disney had re-written scenes in the Star Wars movie Rogue One to add "Anti Trump scenes calling him a racist", and called for a boycott of the Star Wars franchise. Disney denied the allegations.[69]

Posobiec falsely said that former FBI director James Comey, at a United States Senate hearing on May 17, 2017, "said under oath that Trump did not ask him to halt any investigation". The claim was later repeated by conservative personalities and media outlets, including Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the InfoWars website.[31] Posobiec promoted the discredited conspiracy theory that Seth Rich had leaked e-mails from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks.[26] Posobiec promoted a hoax that CNN had published and then deleted an article defending Bill Maher's use of a racial slur.[70]

In June 2017, shortly after Republican congressman Steve Scalise was shot and injured during a baseball practice, along with four others, Posobiec tweeted that it was a terrorist attack and blamed comments from liberal anti-Trump individuals. Later, he falsely tweeted that former United States Attorney General Loretta Lynch had called for "blood in the streets" the previous March[71] and that Bernie Sanders had ordered his followers to "take down" Trump.[72]

In December 2017, Posobiec, along with Cernovich, The Gateway Pundit, and InfoWars, promoted a false theory that a passenger train derailment near Dupont, Washington, was linked to the Antifa anti-fascism movement.[73]

In October 2019, after Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a White House national security official and decorated Iraq war veteran, testified in Congress about President Trump requesting that the Ukrainian President investigate his political rival Joe Biden, Posobiec falsely claimed that Vindman had been advising the Ukrainian government on ways to prevent Trump from implementing his foreign policy goals.[74]

In June 2020, during the protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Posobiec falsely claimed that there were pipe bombs planted at the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. and that "federal assets [were] in pursuit". There were no pipe bombs nor was there any evidence that any "federal assets" investigated. The claim was, however picked up by The Gateway Pundit and retweeted by over 29,000 users on Twitter.[75]

Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Posobiec promoted the Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory and downplayed the Bucha massacre.[2]

From 2012 to 2016, Posobiec ran a blog and podcast about Game of Thrones called AngryGoTFan.[21] Posobiec married in November 2017; he told BuzzFeed News that he met his wife in 2015.[76]

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Jack Posobiec - Wikipedia

This article is about the astronomy experiment. For other uses, see Quiet.

QUIET was an astronomy experiment to study the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation.[1] QUIET stands for Q/U Imaging ExperimenT. The Q/U in the name refers to the ability of the telescope to measure the Q and U Stokes parameters simultaneously. QUIET was located at an elevation of 5,080 metres (16,700 feet) at Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in the Chilean Andes.[2] It began observing in late 2008 and finished observing in December 2010.[3]

QUIET iwas the result of an international collaboration that had its origins in the CAPMAP, Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) and QUaD collaborations. The collaboration consisted of 7 groups in the United States (the California Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, Columbia University, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Miami, Princeton University and Stanford University), 4 groups in Europe (the University of Manchester, the Max-Planck-Institut fr Radioastronomie Bonn, the University of Oslo and the University of Oxford) and one group in Japan (KEK; the first time a Japan group has been involved in CMB studies). Other members of the collaboration are from the University of California, Berkeley, the Goddard Space Flight Center and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.[1]

QUIET had arrays of detectors at two frequencies: 43GHz (Q band) and 95GHz (W band). It used four telescopes, three of which were purpose-built 2m ones with the other being the 7m Crawford Hill telescope used for CAPMAP. As a result, it will have angular resolutions between a few arcminutes and several degrees. The detectors are mass-produced coherent correlation polarimeters.[1][4]

The instrument was constructed in three phases. The first phase consisted of a 7-element 95GHz array to demonstrate the technology. The second phase aims to mount a 91-element 95GHz array (with 18GHz bandwidth) and a 19-element 43GHz array (with 8GHz bandwidth) on 1.4m cassegrain telescopes, mounted on what is currently the CBI platform. It is expected that these will start observing in 2008. The third phase aims to construct four further arrays by around 2010. Two of these will be at 43GHz, with 91 elements each, and the other two will be at 95GHz, with 397 elements each. These will then be mounted on three 2m dishes on the CBI platform and the 7m telescope.[5][6]

The instrument is located at a height of 5,080m at Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in the Chilean Andes. The site is owned by the Chilean government, and is leased to the Atacama Large Millimeter Array. The site was selected due to the altitude, current infrastructure and accessibility, as well as the low humidity of the site, which reduces the contamination of the detected signals by the atmosphere.[2]

QUIET measured the polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB). This polarization is commonly split into two components: E-modes, which represent the gradient component, and B-modes, which give the curl component. It is thought that B-modes are formed both from primordial fluctuations due to cosmic inflation, and from gravitational lensing of the CMB. As of 2008, only E-modes have been detected. QUIET aims to detect and characterize the B-modes polarization for the first time, and to provide more accurate measurements of the E-mode polarization.[4]

B-modes are thought to be much fainter than E-modes, as they are formed by higher order effects. The ratio of the E-mode to B-mode polarization is currently unknown, and the minimum detectable value of this can be used as a measure of the sensitivity of a CMB instrument. For QUIET this value is r=0.009, which corresponds to the energy scale of cosmic inflation being around 10 16 {displaystyle 10^{16}} GeV.[4]

QUIET's measurements of the CMB's power spectrum were designed to be between the multipoles of about 40 and 2,500, and will be made in a section of the sky known to have low foreground contamination.[4]

The first season reported on power spectra from over 10000 hours of observation at 43GHz in the multipole range = 25475.[7] The E-mode result was consistent with the standard cosmological model. A B-mode spectrum was not detected. The second season paper included 95GHz data.[8] Power spectra from = 25 to 975 were used to constrain the tensor-to-scalar ratio.

As of March 2011, the QUIET team described the status

Observations were made from October 2008 through May 2009 using a 19-element 40GHz instrument coupled to a 1.4 meter telescope located at the Llano de Chajnantor Observatory in Chile. Observations with a 91-element 90GHz instrument on the same telescope finished in December 2010. The QUIET instrument has been dismantled from the old CBI mount.

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QUIET - Wikipedia

Japanese politician (19241991)

Shintaro Abe

Abe in 1956

Shintaro Abe ( , Abe Shintar, April 29, 1924 May 15, 1991)[1] was a Japanese politician from Yamaguchi Prefecture. He was a leading member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). He served as foreign minister from 1982 to 1986.[2] He was the father of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Abe was born on April 29, 1924, in Tokyo, the eldest son of politician and member of Parliament Kan Abe. He was raised in his father's home prefecture of Yamaguchi from soon after his birth. His mother was an army general's daughter.[3]

Abe married Yoko Kishi[ja], daughter of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, in 1951.[2] His second son, Shinzo Abe, served as prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and from 2012 to 2020.[4] His third son, Nobuo Kishi, was adopted by his brother-in-law shortly after birth, won a House of Representatives seat in 2012 and was appointed Minister of Defense in 2020.

After graduating from high school in 1944 during World War II, Abe entered a naval aviation school and volunteered to become a kamikaze pilot. The war ended before he could undergo the required training.[5] In 1949 he graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, Shintaro Abe began his career as a political reporter for Mainichi Shimbun.[6] He became a politician in 1957, when he started working as a legislative aide of his father in-law, the then-prime minister Nobusuke Kishi.[6] He won his father's seat in the House of Representatives in 1958.[3]

He led a major LDP faction, the conservative Seiwa Seisaku Kenkykai, whose reins he took from former Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda in July 1986, and held a variety of ministerial and party posts, the former of which included Minister of Agriculture and Forestry and Minister of International Trade and Industry.[3] Abe was named as Minister of International Trade and Industry in the cabinet of the then prime minister Zenk Suzuki on November 30, 1981.[7] During this period, he was seen as a young leader groomed for the future prime ministry.[7] In November 1982, he was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of the then-prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, replacing Yoshio Sakurauchi. His term lasted until 1986.[2]

Abe was a top contender to succeed Nakasone as prime minister in 1987, until he stepped aside for Noboru Takeshita, head of a powerful rival faction. Then, he was given the post of secretary general of the party in 1987.[2] In 1988, his chances of becoming prime minister some time in the near future were again thwarted when his name became associated with the Recruit-Cosmos insider-trading stock scandal, which brought down Takeshita and forced Abe to resign as the party's secretary general in December 1988.[2]

Shintaro Abe was hospitalized in January 1991.[3] He died at Tokyo's Juntendo University Hospital on May 15, 1991, aged 67, the same age as the death of his son Shinzo Abe. The cause of death was not officially announced, although various reports point to cancer, liver failure, or heart failure.[8][6][9]

From the corresponding article in the Japanese Wikipedia

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Shintaro Abe - Wikipedia

How alt-right media and a handful of Twitter bots tried to get the United States National Security Advisor fired

On August 3, a handful of Twitter accounts launched a media campaign under the hashtag #FireMcMaster. The hashtag appeared in response to United States National Security Advisor H.R. McMasters recent personnel decisions at the National Security Council (NSC) and his recently leaked letter to former President Barack Obamas National Security Advisor Susan Rice.

The ensuing social media campaign to #FireMcMaster spread virally and, ultimately, forced President Trump to affirm support for his closest advisor on matters relating to national security and foreign policy, for now. Mobilization across alt-right social media platforms is commonplace, and this case shows another correlation between their mobilization and high-performing bot networks.

In the past week, McMaster fired Rich Higgins, the NSCs Senior Director for Strategic Planning, because of a memo Higgins wrote alleging a conspiracy or political warfare against Trump, including from globalists, bankers, the deep state, and Islamists. McMaster also fired two other senior officials brought to the NSC by General Michael Flynn, who preceded McMaster in the National Security Advisor position.

McMaster also extended the top secret clearances to all of his predecessors as National Security Advisor, including Susan Rice, who alt-right in the media has accused of politically-motivated requests to unmask portions of sensitive intelligence sources, during the 2016 United States presidential elections. The practice of extending security clearances for former National Security Advisors and unmasking certain aspects of intelligence are commonplace and routine for any United States National Security Advisor.

Both actions led to a coordinated campaign, spearheaded by known alt-right figures, to fire McMaster. The anti-McMaster campaign was initiated by large, alt-right media platforms primarily Infowars and Breitbart, as well as alt-right Twitter activists including Paul Joseph Watson and Jack Posobiec, both of whom are associated with Prison Planet, another website operated by Alex Jones.

Between August 2 and August 6, Infowars and Breitbart published 14 negative stories about McMaster and his relationship to President Trump.

Infowars

Aug 4: Everything the president wants to do, McMaster opposes former NSC official says

Aug 4: General McMaster panics as journalists expose him as greatest national security threat

Aug 3: McMaster purging key Trump Allies

Aug 3: Report: McMaster fired National Security Council official for penning memo on globalists

Breitbart

Aug 6: McMaster worked at think tank backed by Soros-funded group that helped Obama sell Iran nuclear deal

Aug 4: Trump meets with McMaster amid reports he cleared Susan Rice, purged loyalists

Aug 4: Brigitte Gabriel: Politically correct H.R. McMaster doesnt see eye-to-eye with Trump on how to defeat Islamic State

Aug 4: Report: H.R. McMaster increasingly volatile and frequently blows his top

Aug 3: Report: H.R. McMaster gave explicit instruction not to mention Obama holdovers in Trump admin

Aug 3: Allen Roth: H. R. McMaster at odds with Trump on Iran nuclear deal

Aug 3: H.R. McMaster promised Susan Rice she could keep her security clearance in secret letter

Aug 3: NSC Purge: McMaster deeply hostile to Israel and to Trump

Aug 3: Report: H. R. McMaster believes Susan Rice did nothing wrong in unmasking requests

Aug 2: Report: H. R. McMaster fired National Security Council official for penning memo on globalists

These were quickly picked up by other alt-right media outlets. Below is an example of how one of those stories Report: McMaster fired National Security Council official for penning memo on globalists spread:

Other articles on Infowars and Breitbart had similar amplifying networks behind them.

The Twitter campaign #FireMcMaster was led by a traditional group of alt-right activists, among whom were Prison Planets Paul Joseph Watson and Jack Posobiec:

They, however, were not as effective as Lee Stranahan. Stranahan is the founder of Populist.TV and a co-host of the Sputnik news show Fault Lines. Sputnik is a Russian government media outlet that frequently recurs in @DFRLab reporting.

In a recent interview with The Atlantic, Stranahan said: Im on the Russian payroll now, when you work at Sputnik youre being paid by the Russians.

Stranahan was heavily involved in the #FireMcMaster campaign. Between August 3 and August 7, Stranahan used #FireMcMaster 25 times. During the same time, he only used #FaultLines (the name of his show) 12 times.

Apart from that, Stranahan posted a video on Periscope in which he called on alt-right Twitter users to retweet #FireMcMaster. He also urged Trump supporters to get on the phone, call the White House, and ask President Donald Trump to fire McMaster.

On top of that, he published three videos on his YouTube channel urging his subscribers to call the White House and ask for McMaster to be fired:

#FireMcMaster on Twitter appears to have been the most well-organized campaign in the history of the alt-right. A total of 136,292 tweets using the hashtag #FireMcMaster were posted between August 3 and August 6, with two thirds posted between August 3 and August 4.

@DFRLab analyzed a sample of 6,064 tweets posted during the period of August 3 and August 6. We found that 1,278 tweets using #FireMcMaster were generated by a mere 86 accounts, with the most active account managing to post 69 tweets using the hashtag. Our random sample indicates that less than 8 percent of all accounts sharing #FireMcMaster was responsible for 20 percent of all traffic on the hashtag.

The following are some of the most active Twitter accounts to converse using the hashtag #FireMcMaster.

Twitter user @MarieMa49685063 posted 34 tweets using #FireMcMaster. Overall, in just four days, the account posted more than 3,000 tweets, 90 percent of which were retweets. Its highly likely that this account is a bot.

Similarly, @Hrenee80 posted 34 tweets using the hashtag, and posted 3,195 tweets in total last week (the week of August 1), of which 90 percent were retweets. Such volume indicates the account is likely a bot.

@RescueTracker81 mentioned the hashtag 69 times, but this account is less likely to be a bot. It posts an average of 156 tweets a day, of which 74 percent are retweets.

@GeneralDefense appears to be a bot. It was created a few weeks ago, and it posts 226 tweets a day on average.

More importantly, #FireMcMaster makes up 68 percent of all hashtag usage by the @GeneralDefense account. In total, the account has posted 98 tweets with the hashtag.

@tamaraleighllc is another account that appears to be at least partially automated. It tweets 332 tweets a day, 98 percent of which are retweets.

The spread of the call for McMasters dismissal, and the spread of accompanying media articles, did not stop with Twitter, but also proliferated heavily on Facebook. Data from Buzzsummo suggests that anti-McMaster articles from Circa, Breitbart, Liberty Writers News, The Daily Caller, and Young Conservatives (@TheYoungCons) garnered 126,000 engagements on Facebook alone.

Due to Facebooks limited API (application program interface), its hard to tell how organic the engagement was, but if the Twitter campaign is any indication, the articles were likely spread by fake or automated accounts.

Redditors on /r/TheDonald, an alt-right forum of Reddit dedicated to discussions of President Trump, also actively engaged in spreading the hashtag and the articles associated with it.

Redditors were sharing the hashtag #FireMcMaster and encouraging others to spread it more widely:

Links to tweets using the hashtag were also shared on the subreddit to prompt others to retweet and like them:

This, by far, is one of the most organized and widespread alt-right campaigns to date, spanning across Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and other social media. This shows the alt-rights capacity to organize and amplify on several platforms simultaneously, and it signals the communitys growing digital capabilities.

The success of the campaign forced Trumps administration to respond. Only two days after the start of the campaign, the White House issued a statement saying President Trump supports H. R. McMaster. The case shows how effective a group of well-organized bots, trolls, and cyborgs can, in extremis, force the White Houses hand in internal policy matters or at least shape public posture.

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#FireMcMaster, explained. How alt-right media and a handful of | by ...

Political alignment favoring traditional politics

Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,[1][2][3] typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authority, property or tradition.[4][5]:693,721[6][7][8][9][10] Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences[11][12] or competition in market economies.[13][14][15]

Right-wing politics are considered the counterpart to left-wing politics, and the leftright political spectrum is one of the most widely accepted political spectrums.[16] The term right-wing can generally refer to the section of a political party or system that advocates free enterprise and private ownership, and typically favours socially traditional ideas.[17]

The Right includes social conservatives and fiscal conservatives, while a minority of right-wing movements, such as fascists, harbor anti-capitalist sentiments.[18][19][20] The Right also includes certain groups who are socially liberal and fiscally laissez-faire, such as right-wing libertarians.

The following positions are typically associated with right-wing politics.

The original use of the term "right-wing", relative to communism, placed the conservatives on the right, the liberals in the centre and the communists on the left. Both the conservatives and the liberals were strongly anti-communist. The history of the use of the term right-wing in reference to anti-communism is a complicated one.[21]

Early Marxist movements were at odds with the traditional monarchies that ruled over much of the European continent at the time. Many European monarchies outlawed the public expression of communist views and the Communist Manifesto, which began "[a] spectre [that] is haunting Europe", and stated that monarchs feared for their thrones. Advocacy of communism was illegal in the Russian Empire, the German Empire, and Austria-Hungary, the three most powerful monarchies in continental Europe prior to World War I. Many monarchists (except constitutional monarchists) viewed inequality in wealth and political power as resulting from a divine natural order. The struggle between monarchists and communists was often described as a struggle between the Right and the Left.

By World War I, in most European monarchies the divine right of kings had become discredited and was replaced by liberal and nationalist movements. Most European monarchs became figureheads or they yielded some power to elected governments. The most conservative European monarchy, the Russian Empire, was replaced by the communist Soviet Union. The Russian Revolution inspired a series of other communist revolutions across Europe in the years 19171923. Many of these, such as the German Revolution, were defeated by nationalist and monarchist military units. During this period, nationalism began to be considered right-wing, especially when it opposed the internationalism of the communists.

The 1920s and 1930s saw the decline of traditional right-wing politics. The mantle of conservative anti-communism was taken up by the rising fascist movements on the one hand and by American-inspired liberal conservatives on the other. When communist groups and political parties began appearing around the world, their opponents were usually colonial authorities and the term right-wing came to be applied to colonialism.

After World War II, communism became a global phenomenon and anti-communism became an integral part of the domestic and foreign policies of the United States and its NATO allies. Conservatism in the post-war era abandoned its monarchist and aristocratic roots, focusing instead on patriotism, religious values, and nationalism. Throughout the Cold War, colonial governments in Asia, Africa, and Latin America turned to the United States for political and economic support. Communists were also enemies of capitalism, portraying Wall Street as the oppressor of the masses. The United States made anti-communism the top priority of its foreign policy, and many American conservatives sought to combat what they saw as communist influence at home. This led to the adoption of a number of domestic policies that are collectively known under the term McCarthyism. While both liberals and conservatives were anti-communist, the followers of Senator McCarthy were called right-wing and those on the right called liberals who favored free speech, even for communists, leftist.[22]

In France after the French Revolution, the Right fought against the rising power of those who had grown rich through commerce, and sought to preserve the rights of the hereditary nobility. They were uncomfortable with capitalism, the Enlightenment, individualism, and industrialism, and fought to retain traditional social hierarchies and institutions.[23][24] In Europe's history, there have been strong collectivist right-wing movements, such as in the social Catholic right, that have exhibited hostility to all forms of liberalism (including economic liberalism) and have historically advocated for paternalist class harmony involving an organic-hierarchical society where workers are protected while class hierarchy remains.[25]

In the nineteenth century, the Right had shifted to support the newly rich in some European countries (particularly England) and instead of favouring the nobility over industrialists, favoured capitalists over the working class. Other right-wing movementssuch as Carlism in Spain and nationalist movements in France, Germany, and Russiaremained hostile to capitalism and industrialism. Nevertheless, a few right-wing movementsnotably the French Nouvelle Droite, CasaPound, and American paleoconservatismare often in opposition to capitalist ethics and the effects they have on society. These forces see capitalism and industrialism as infringing upon or causing the decay of social traditions or hierarchies that are essential for social order.[26]

In modern times, "right-wing" is sometimes used to describe laissez-faire capitalism. In Europe, capitalists formed alliances with the Right during their conflicts with workers after 1848. In France, the Right's support of capitalism can be traced to the late nineteenth century.[27] The so-called neoliberal Right, popularised by US President Ronald Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, combines support for free markets, privatisation, and deregulation with traditional right-wing support for social conformity.[9] Right-wing libertarianism (sometimes known as libertarian conservatism or conservative libertarianism) supports a decentralised economy based on economic freedom and holds property rights, free markets, and free trade to be the most important kinds of freedom. Political theorist Russell Kirk believed that freedom and property rights were interlinked.[28]

Conservative authoritarians and those on the far-right have supported fascism and corporatism,[26] a political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groupssuch as agricultural, labour, military, scientific, or guild associationson the basis of their common interests.[30]

In France, nationalism was originally a left-wing and Republican ideology.[31] After the period of boulangisme and the Dreyfus Affair, nationalism became a trait of the right-wing.[32] Right-wing nationalists sought to define and defend a "true" national identity from elements which they believed were corrupting that identity.[27] Some were supremacists, who in accordance with scientific racism and social Darwinism applied the concept of "survival of the fittest" to nations and races.[33] Right-wing nationalism was influenced by Romantic nationalism, in which the state derives its political legitimacy from the organic unity of those who it governs. This generally includes the language, race, culture, religion, and customs of the nation, all of which were "born" within its culture. Linked with right-wing nationalism is cultural conservatism, which supports the preservation of the heritage of a nation or culture and often sees deviations from cultural norms as an existential threat.[34][pageneeded]

Right-wing politics typically justifies a hierarchical society on the basis of natural law or tradition.[6][7][8][9][10][35]

Traditionalism was advocated by a group of United States university professors (labeled the "New Conservatives" by the popular press) who rejected the concepts of individualism, liberalism, modernity, and social progress, seeking instead to promote what they identified as cultural and educational renewal[36] and a revived interest in concepts perceived by traditionalists as truths that endure from age to age alongside basic institutions of western society such as the church, the family, the state, and business.

Right-wing populism is a combination of civic-nationalism, cultural-nationalism and sometimes ethno-nationalism, localism, along with anti-elitism, using populist rhetoric to provide a critique of existing political institutions.[37] According to Margaret Canovan, a right-wing populist is "a charismatic leader, using the tactics of politicians' populism to go past the politicians and intellectual elite and appeal to the reactionary sentiments of the populace, often buttressing his claim to speak for the people by the use of referendums".[38][pageneeded]

In Europe, right-wing populism often takes the form of distrust of the European Union, and of politicians in general, combined with anti-immigrant rhetoric and a call for a return to traditional, national values.[39] Daniel Stockemer states, the radical right is, "Targeting immigrants as a threat to employment, security and cultural cohesion."[40]

In the United States, the Tea Party movement stated that the core beliefs for membership were the primacy of individual liberties as defined by the Constitution of the United States, preference for a small federal government, and respect for the rule of law. Some policy positions included opposition to illegal immigration and support for a strong national military force, the right to individual gun ownership, cutting taxes, reducing government spending, and balancing the budget.[41]

Philosopher and diplomat Joseph de Maistre argued for the indirect authority of the Pope over temporal matters. According to Maistre, only governments which were founded upon Christian constitutionswhich were implicit in the customs and institutions of all European societies, especially the Catholic European monarchiescould avoid the disorder and bloodshed that followed the implementation of rationalist political programs, such as the chaos which occurred during the French Revolution. Some prelates of the Church of Englandestablished by Henry VIII and headed by the current sovereignare given seats in the House of Lords (as Lords Spiritual); but they are considered politically neutral rather than specifically right- or left-wing.

American right-wing media outlets oppose sex outside marriage and same-sex marriage, and they sometimes reject scientific positions on evolution and other matters where science tends to disagree with the Bible.[42][43]

The term family values has been used by right-wing partiessuch as the Republican Party in the United States, the Family First Party in Australia, the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Indiato signify support for traditional families and opposition to the changes the modern world has made in how families live. Supporters of "family values" may oppose abortion, euthanasia, and birth control.[44][45]

Outside the West, the Hindu nationalist movement has attracted privileged groups which fear encroachment on their dominant positions, as well as "plebeian" and impoverished groups which seek recognition around a majoritarian rhetoric of cultural pride, order, and national strength.[46]

In Israel, Meir Kahane advocated that Israel should be a theocratic state, where non-Jews have no voting rights,[47] and the far-right Lehava strictly opposes Jewish assimilation and the Christian presence in Israel.[48] The Jewish Defence League (JDL) in the United States was classified as "a right wing terrorist group" by the FBI in 2001.[49]

Many Islamist groups have been called right-wing, including the Great Union Party,[50] the Combatant Clergy Association/Association of Militant Clergy,[51][52] and the Islamic Society of Engineers of Iran.[53][54]

Right-wing politics involves, in varying degrees, the rejection of some egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming either that social or economic inequality is natural and inevitable or that it is beneficial to society.[35] Right-wing ideologies and movements support social order. The original French right-wing was called "the party of order" and held that France needed a strong political leader to keep order.[27]

Conservative British scholar R. J. White, who rejects egalitarianism, wrote: "Men are equal before God and the laws, but unequal in all else; hierarchy is the order of nature, and privilege is the reward of honourable service".[55] American conservative Russell Kirk also rejected egalitarianism as imposing sameness, stating: "Men are created different; and a government that ignores this law becomes an unjust government for it sacrifices nobility to mediocrity".[55] Kirk took as one of the "canons" of conservatism the principle that "civilized society requires orders and classes".[28] Italian scholar Norberto Bobbio argued that the right-wing is inegalitarian compared to the left-wing, as he argued that equality is a relative, not absolute, concept.[56]

Right libertarians reject collective or state-imposed equality as undermining reward for personal merit, initiative, and enterprise.[55] In their view, such imposed equality is unjust, limits personal freedom, and leads to social uniformity and mediocrity.[55]

In the view of philosopher Jason Stanley in How Fascism Works, the "politics of hierarchy" is one of the hallmarks of fascism, which refers to a "glorious past" in which members of the rightfully dominant group sat atop the hierarchy, and attempt to recreate this state of being.[57]

According to The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Political Thought, the Right has gone through five distinct historical stages:[58]

The political terms Left and Right were first used in the 18th century, during the French Revolution, in reference to the seating arrangement of the French parliament. Those who sat to the right of the chair of the presiding officer (le prsident) were generally supportive of the institutions of the monarchist Old Regime.[23][59][60][27] The original "Right" in France was formed in reaction to the "Left" and comprised those supporting hierarchy, tradition, and clericalism.[5]:693 The expression la droite ("the right") increased in use after the restoration of the monarchy in 1815, when it was applied to the Ultra-royalists.[61]

From the 1830s to the 1880s, the Western world's social class structure and economy shifted from nobility and aristocracy towards capitalism.[62] This shift affected centre-right movements such as the British Conservative Party, which responded in support of capitalism.[63]

The people of English-speaking countries did not apply the terms right and left to their own politics until the 20th century.[64] The term right-wing was originally applied to traditional conservatives, monarchists, and reactionaries; an extension, extreme right-wing, denotes fascism, Nazism, and racial supremacy.[65]

Rightist regimes were common in Europe in the Interwar period, 19191938.[citation needed]

The political term right-wing was first used during the French Revolution, when liberal deputies of the Third Estate generally sat to the left of the presiding officer's chair, a custom that began in the Estates General of 1789. The nobility, members of the Second Estate, generally sat to the right. In the successive legislative assemblies, monarchists who supported the Old Regime were commonly referred to as rightists because they sat on the right side. A major figure on the right was Joseph de Maistre, who argued for an authoritarian form of conservatism.

Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right in France was between supporters of the republic (often secularists) and supporters of the monarchy (often Catholics).[27] On the right, the Legitimists and Ultra-royalists held counter-revolutionary views, while the Orlanists hoped to create a constitutional monarchy under their preferred branch of the royal family, which briefly became a reality after the 1830 July Revolution.

The centre-right Gaullists in post-World War II France advocated considerable social spending on education and infrastructure development as well as extensive economic regulation, but limited the wealth redistribution measures characteristic of social democracy.[citation needed]

The dominance of the political right of inter-war Hungary, after the collapse of a short-lived Communist regime, was described by historian Istvn Dek:

Although freedom fighters are favoured, the right-wing tendency to elect or appoint politicians and government officials based on aristocratic and religious ties is common to almost all the states of India.[67][68][69][70] Multiple political parties however identify with terms and beliefs which are, by political consensus, right or left wing. Certain political parties such as the Bharatiya Janata Party, identify with conservative[71] and nationalist elements. Some, such as the Indian National Congress, take a liberal stance. The Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist), and others, identify with left-wing socialist and communist concepts. Other political parties take differing stands, and hence cannot be clearly grouped as the left- and the right-wing.[72]

In British politics, the terms right and left came into common use for the first time in the late 1930s during debates over the Spanish Civil War.[73]

In the United States, following the Second World War, social conservatives joined with right-wing elements of the Republican Party to gain support in traditionally Democratic voting populations like white southerners and Catholics. Ronald Reagan's election to the presidency in 1980 cemented the alliance between the religious right in the United States and social conservatives.[74]

In 2019, the United States populace leaned center-right, with 37% of Americans self-identifying as conservative, compared to 35% moderate and 24% liberal. This was continuing a decades long trend of the country leaning center-right.[75]

The United States Department of Homeland Security defines right-wing extremism in the United States as "broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."[76]

The meaning of right-wing "varies across societies, historical epochs, and political systems and ideologies."[77] According to The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics, in liberal democracies, the political right opposes socialism and social democracy. Right-wing parties include conservatives, Christian democrats, classical liberals, and nationalists, as well as fascists on the far-right.[78]

British academics Nol O'Sullivan and Roger Eatwell divide the right into five types: reactionary, moderate, radical, extreme, and new.[79] Chip Berlet wrote that each of these "styles of thought" are "responses to the left", including liberalism and socialism, which have arisen since the 1789 French Revolution.[80]

Other authors make a distinction between the centre-right and the far-right.[85]

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