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GOP’s new ‘bathrooms, bedrooms and race’ mantra on display at ‘fascist’ CPAC summit: report
August 04, 2022
The Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, Texas was a sign of a troubling fascist direction being chosen by American conservatives.
"Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban won over the crowd at CPAC Texas on Thursday, arguing that his nationalist agenda in Hungary aligns with the goals of the American conservative movement – and sounding a lot like the conference’s upcoming Saturday keynote speaker, former President Donald Trump," CNN reported Thursday. "The right-wing European leader hit guaranteed applause lines – including telling the Texas crowd that 'Hungary is the Lone Star State of Europe' – and criticizing liberals, the news media and the Democratic Party."
During his speech, Orban said he predicted tomorrow's headlines in America would declare, "Far-Right, European Racist and Anti-Semite, Strongman, Trojan Horse of Putin, Holds Speech at Conservative Conference.
MSNBC anchor Mehdi Hasan described it as fascism and displayed a list of ten Republican election deniers on the ballot.
"They do not believe in liberal democracy," Hasan said. "And so today, in 2022, I'm sorry to say the Republican playbook is Viktor Orban playbook, and you can call that what you want, but I'm going to continue to call it fascism.
Anne Applebaum, author of the 2003 book Gulag: A History and the 2020 book Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, posted to Twitter four reasons that CPAC "admires" Orban.
"He bent the rules, changing his constitution and altering voting laws in order to remain in power, indefinitely," Applebaum wrote. "He destroyed the independent media; nothing remains but a few websites."
"He doesn't keep his homophobia, his anti-semitism or his racism a secret," Applebaum continued. "He moves, walks and talks like a Ruritanian dictator from a movie."
NYU Prof. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the author of the book Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present, noted that Fox News host Tucker Carlson traveled to Hungary in 2021 to hype Orban.
"Orban's appearance today at CPAC is the outcome of a carefully cultivated relationship," she said. "He can be the Big Man mentoring the GOP in how to wreck a democracy."
In May, after CPAC held a summit in Budapest, Ben-Ghiat wrote, "we can also see Orban's impact on things like the rollback of reproductive rights in the U.S. Former Vice President Mike Pence previewed the Supreme Court opinion in Budapest last fall as a speaker at Orban’s 'Summit for Democracy' where 'pro-family' agendas, meant to increase the 'right' kinds of births (white, Christian births) twinned with anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ platforms."
Stuart Stevens, the Lincoln Project strategist who has worked on five GOP presidential campaigns, posted, without attribution, “This is why we have always fought: we are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed-race.”
"That’s not David Duke, it’s Viktor Orban, the star of CPAC, the new darling of American conservatism," Stevens noted. "Bathrooms, bedrooms & race. That’s who they are."
Reflecting on the embrace of Orban by the far-right, civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill noted, "over 400,000 Americans were killed in WWII-a war in which 88% of the soldiers were white. And yet we see so many Americans (mostly white) so readily defile the sacrifice of their grandparents and forbears who fought in WWII and defeated fascism, by embracing the rise of fascism here."
"And perhaps that’s because so many who fought fascism abroad were still prepared to tolerate, embrace or promote white supremacy and racism at home. And there’s the rub," Ifill wrote. "Orban and Trump’s rhetoric is not alien to this country. It had been pushed to the margins. But it is not alien."
And that’s why we have to confront and grapple with the contradictions of our history," she counseled. "So that we can understand what calls will resonate in times of fear and stress-calls that repeat earlier unresolved contradictions and threaten the project of building a healthy multi-racial democracy."
Watch Mehdi Hasan's analysis:
CPAC fascism www.youtube.com
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On Thursday, Boston.com reported how neo-Nazi groups are targeting Boston as a recruiting ground for their organizations — and detailed how they are doing it.
"Spurred by groups like Patriot Front and NSC 131, hateful propaganda, flash demonstrations, and full-on marches have captured the attention of residents and officials alike," reported Ross Christiantiello. "Massachusetts had the fourth highest levels of hate propaganda activity in America last year, according to a report released this spring by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The Bay State only fell behind Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas on this front. Racist and antisemitic flyers, banners, and stickers are the usual ways in which these groups spread their messaging to the public."
"In 2021, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) tracked 14 hate groups in Massachusetts," said the report. "Patriot Front, the group that marched through Boston in early July and allegedly assaulted a Black activist, was found by the ADL to be most active in five particular states, including Massachusetts. Nationally, Patriot Front was behind more than 82 percent of propaganda incidents."
According to the report, NSC 131 is one of the groups most radicalized by true Nazi ideology: 'Members of the group “see themselves as soldiers at war with a hostile, Jewish-controlled system that is deliberately plotting the extinction of the white race,' according to the ADL."
The article revealed several recent incidents of Nazi activity in Boston, including an incident where "About 10 members of NSC 131 demonstrate[d] outside the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston on May 23, 2021," and "About two dozen people associated with NSC 131 gather[d] outside Brigham and Women’s Hospital holding a banner that reads 'B and W Hospital Kills Whites' on January 22, 2022. Flyers were handed out with the images of two Brigham and Women’s doctors condemning them for so-called 'preferential health care policies for non-white patients.'"
Last month, a report in The Boston Globe detailed how white nationalist groups, which suffered a setback amid lawsuits and faction-fighting after the 2017 Charlottesville riot, are becoming more active in New England generally, including two NSC members who were charged with obstructing police while trying to drop racist fliers in Providence, Rhode Island.
ALSO IN THE NEWS: 'Cat's out of the bag': Alex Jones' ex-wife says 'a lot of people will be interested' in her 'insider info'
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Sinema says she’ll ‘move forward’ as Schumer announces ‘entire caucus’ on board for Inflation Reduction Act
August 04, 2022
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Thursday evening that the "entire" Democratic Party caucus is unified behind the Inflation Reduction Act.
Schumer announced the final bill would be introduced on Saturday, likely setting up a weekend vote-a-rama followed by votes next week.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) announced she will "move forward" after preserving the carried interest tax loophole that is primary used by hedge fund managers.
The bill will also have to go before the Senate parliamentarian.
Passage of the bill would be a major victory for Democrats and President Joe Biden heading into the 2020 midterm election.
This would be the second big legislative victory this summer after passage of the burn pit bill.
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