Monday, November 29, 2021
American Fascism
Dorothy Thompson: Who Goes Nazi?
"It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis..."
"It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times—in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis..."
Monday, November 22, 2021
Too Much, Even For Fox News?
NPR: Two Fox News commentators resign over Tucker Carlson series on the Jan. 6 siege
"Two longtime conservative Fox News commentators have resigned in protest of what they call a pattern of incendiary and fabricated claims by the network's opinion hosts in support of former President Donald Trump.
In separate interviews with NPR, Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg pointed to a breaking point earlier this month: network star Tucker Carlson's three-part series on the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol that relied on fabrications and conspiracy theories to exonerate the Trump supporters who participated in the attack.
"It's basically saying that the Biden regime is coming after half the country and this is the War on Terror 2.0," Goldberg tells NPR. "It traffics in all manner of innuendo and conspiracy theories that I think legitimately could lead to violence. That for me, and for Steve, was the last straw."
Hayes has been a close friend of Fox News political anchor Bret Baier since their college days at DePauw University; both he and Goldberg were mainstays of Baier's Special Report since joining the network in 2009. Together, Hayes and Goldberg co-founded the conservative news site The Dispatch.
According to five people with direct knowledge, the resignations reflect larger tumult within Fox News over Carlson's series "Patriot Purge" and his increasingly strident stances, and over the network's willingness to let its opinion stars make false, paranoid claims against President Biden, his administration and his supporters..."
"Two longtime conservative Fox News commentators have resigned in protest of what they call a pattern of incendiary and fabricated claims by the network's opinion hosts in support of former President Donald Trump.
In separate interviews with NPR, Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg pointed to a breaking point earlier this month: network star Tucker Carlson's three-part series on the Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol that relied on fabrications and conspiracy theories to exonerate the Trump supporters who participated in the attack.
"It's basically saying that the Biden regime is coming after half the country and this is the War on Terror 2.0," Goldberg tells NPR. "It traffics in all manner of innuendo and conspiracy theories that I think legitimately could lead to violence. That for me, and for Steve, was the last straw."
Hayes has been a close friend of Fox News political anchor Bret Baier since their college days at DePauw University; both he and Goldberg were mainstays of Baier's Special Report since joining the network in 2009. Together, Hayes and Goldberg co-founded the conservative news site The Dispatch.
According to five people with direct knowledge, the resignations reflect larger tumult within Fox News over Carlson's series "Patriot Purge" and his increasingly strident stances, and over the network's willingness to let its opinion stars make false, paranoid claims against President Biden, his administration and his supporters..."
Saturday, November 13, 2021
January 6th
Greg Palast: Smoking Gun for Impeachment: Proof Trump’s Call to March on Capitol was a Crime
"Here is the smoking gun.
Trump’s GOP defenders say that Trump merely called for a march to the Capitol, a legal act of protest.
Except for this: it wasn’t legal. And Trump and his team knew it.
During Wednesday’s trial, House impeachment manager Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) laid out the evidence the Palast investigative team first broke in Consortium News and on the Thom Hartmann Program: The sponsors of the January 6 rally at the Ellipse repeatedly promised, in writing, there would be no march on the Capitol...
...On January 5, the night before the riot, two participants foolishly posted (in posts since removed, but recorded) that they were meeting at Trump’s personal residence at his DC hotel with top Trump strategists about the next day’s events. The group included notably, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. Both would speak at the rally the next day.
Crucially, during the meeting Don Jr.’s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle called Ali Alexander—who’d been calling for a “Stop the Steal” march from the rally despite admonitions from the rally organizers that it would be illegal and dangerous. We’ve previously reported on Alexander’s threats of violence to overturn the election [“We’ll light the whole sh*t on fire!”]. Guilfoyle gave Alexander the go-ahead. And indeed, Alexander was escorted by White House emissaries to a place just outside the rally to lead the march—which he did. It is not minor that neither Trump, nor the White House, nor Trump fils told the organizers that Trump would issue a call to march. The permit holders, Women for America First, told this reporter that both the White House and Alexander had been warned repeatedly against attempting the uncontrolled march. The point is simple: when you promote an illegal action—exhorting an angry, armed mob to head to the Capitol, you are legally liable for its foreseeable outcome even if you did not plan nor endorse the outcome. When a law is broken and someone ends up dead, that’s murder. Trump knows that. In December, Trump proudly authorized the execution of Brandon Bernard. Bernard was 18 years old when his friends killed two people in a robbery in which he took part. The kid had no idea the couple would be killed, but joining in an illegal act which led to death, put him in the electric chair..."
"Here is the smoking gun.
Trump’s GOP defenders say that Trump merely called for a march to the Capitol, a legal act of protest.
Except for this: it wasn’t legal. And Trump and his team knew it.
During Wednesday’s trial, House impeachment manager Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-VI) laid out the evidence the Palast investigative team first broke in Consortium News and on the Thom Hartmann Program: The sponsors of the January 6 rally at the Ellipse repeatedly promised, in writing, there would be no march on the Capitol...
...On January 5, the night before the riot, two participants foolishly posted (in posts since removed, but recorded) that they were meeting at Trump’s personal residence at his DC hotel with top Trump strategists about the next day’s events. The group included notably, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. Both would speak at the rally the next day.
Crucially, during the meeting Don Jr.’s girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle called Ali Alexander—who’d been calling for a “Stop the Steal” march from the rally despite admonitions from the rally organizers that it would be illegal and dangerous. We’ve previously reported on Alexander’s threats of violence to overturn the election [“We’ll light the whole sh*t on fire!”]. Guilfoyle gave Alexander the go-ahead. And indeed, Alexander was escorted by White House emissaries to a place just outside the rally to lead the march—which he did. It is not minor that neither Trump, nor the White House, nor Trump fils told the organizers that Trump would issue a call to march. The permit holders, Women for America First, told this reporter that both the White House and Alexander had been warned repeatedly against attempting the uncontrolled march. The point is simple: when you promote an illegal action—exhorting an angry, armed mob to head to the Capitol, you are legally liable for its foreseeable outcome even if you did not plan nor endorse the outcome. When a law is broken and someone ends up dead, that’s murder. Trump knows that. In December, Trump proudly authorized the execution of Brandon Bernard. Bernard was 18 years old when his friends killed two people in a robbery in which he took part. The kid had no idea the couple would be killed, but joining in an illegal act which led to death, put him in the electric chair..."
