Tue, Apr 9, 2019 12:47 p.m.
White Nationalism in America
"W": They are still citing the SPLC.
N.S.: And the ADL. And Ilhan Omar?!
From:
Newsweek [mailto:newsletter@email.newsweek.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2019 12:44 P.M.
Subject: White Nationalism in America
Daily Briefing
White Nationalism in America
The majority of Americans, 56 percent, believe that President Donald Trump has made race relations in the U.S. worse, according to a new Pew survey out today.
The vast majority of those surveyed, about two-thirds, also believe it has become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views since Trump was elected, and a plurality of respondents thought it had become more acceptable to do so.
Just 15 percent of Americans say the president helped race relations in the U.S. In contrast, about 37 percent of Americans believed that former President Barack Obama aided in race relations.
The survey comes as the House Judiciary Committee holds a hearing Tuesday morning on "hate crimes, the impact white nationalist groups have on American communities and the spread of white identity ideology."
Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler remarked during Tuesday morning's hearing that "the president's rhetoric fans the flames with language that, whether intentional or not, may motivate and embolden white supremacist movements."
The GOP, said Nadler, also fans those flames. Republicans "did not even hold hearings after the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally or after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting," he said.
The president has called Mexican immigrants rapists, said there were good people "on both sides" of the white nationalist marches in Charlottesville, Virginia, and this weekend implied that Jewish Americans practice dual loyalty.
When asked after last month's New Zealand mosque shooting if he believed "today that white nationalism is a rising threat around the world?" President Donald Trump responded, "I don't really." White nationalists, he said, are "a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess."
But a recent Washington Post analysis found there was a 226 percent increase in reported hate crimes in counties that had hosted a 2016 campaign rally for the president over those that hadn't.
Data from the the Anti-Defamation League showed that white supremacists' propaganda efforts increased 182 percent in 2018 and right-wing extremists were linked to at least 50 murders in the United States last year, making them responsible for more deaths than in any year since 1995.
A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center, meanwhile, found the number of hate groups in America rose to a record high of 1,020 in 2018. This was the fourth year in a row that hate crimes rose following a three-year decline during the Obama presidency.
"The numbers tell a striking story–that this president is not simply a polarizing figure but a radicalizing one," said Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project. "Rather than trying to tamp down hate, as presidents of both parties have done, President Trump elevates it–with both his rhetoric and his policies. In doing so, he's given people across America the go-ahead to act on their worst instincts."
The survey and today's hearing come just days after Trump ousted former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen for not being tough enough on border security.
The president and reportedly wants to reinstate his policy of separating migrant children from their families. Trump adviser Stephen Miller was reportedly behind the change in policy and reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security.
"Stephen Miller is a white nationalist," Representative Ilhan Omar tweeted yesterday. "The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage."
Donald Trump Jr. responded to Omar saying that Miller could not be a white nationalist because he is Jewish.
Nicole Goodkind is a political reporter at Newsweek. You can reach her on Twitter @NicoleGoodkind or by email, N.Goodkind@newsweek.com.
Elections in Israel
Israel's 2019 Knesset election is underway today with a tough race between current conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and center-left retired general Benny Gantz.
This election is widely seen as a fight for the future of Israel.
If Netanyahu, anally of both Trump and Russian President Vladmir Putin, wins he has suggested he will annex the West Bank of Israel and inflict irreparable harm on peace negotiations with Palestine. If re-elected, he said, "I am going to apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements. And I don't differentiate between the settlement blocs and the isolated settlements." This would be a huge move as the international community recognizes those lands as occupied Palestinian land. Gantz called the comments "irresponsible."
Netanyahu, who could become the longest-serving prime minister in Israel's history, is currently under investigation for bribery and breach of trust. Taking a cue from President Trump, the Israeli prime minister has called the pending indictments a "witch hunt" propagated by the "left-wing media elite."
Still, Netanyahu is expected to remain in his role today, partially because of a few key gifts from Trump.
Last month, the president has invited Netanyahu to the White House, sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Israel and announced that he would recognize the disputed Golan Heights as Israeli territory, all great optics for the prime minister.
Yesterday, just one day ahead of the election, Trump announced that the U.S. will designate Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. Netanyahu took to Twitter to grab credit for the move and thank Trump for "answering another of my important requests."
But things could change for the prime minister next year.
Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke called Netanyahu a racist from the campaign trail this weekend. "The U.S.-Israel relationship is one of the most important relationships we have on the planet," said O'Rourke in Texas. But, he added, "it must be able to transcend a prime minister who is racist as he warns of Arabs coming to the polls who want to defy any prospect for peace, as he threatens to annex the West Bank and who has sided with a far-right racist party in order to maintain his hold on power."
The trade wars continue!
The U.S. said Monday that it was considering adding $11 billion in tariffs to European goods like aircraft, fish, dairy products, olive oil and wine, in retaliation for illegal subsidies the EU gave to aerospace firm Airbus.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said yesterday that the World Trade Organization found EU subsidies to Airbus caused "adverse effects" to the United States. "The harm from the EU subsidies as $11 billion in trade each year," he wrote.
But these fights have been going on for decades, with the U.S. granting subsidies to its own aerospace firm, Boeing, as well.
Europe called Lighthizer's estimates greatly exaggerated and said it wasn't up to him to decide how much damage had been done to the U.S. "The EU is confident that the level of countermeasures on which the notice is based is greatly exaggerated. The amount of [World Trade Organization] authorized retaliation can only be determined by the WTO-appointed arbitrator," a European Commission spokesman said.
Barr Speaks
U.S. Attorney General William Barr told lawmakers Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller's full report into Russian meddling in the 2016 election will be made available "within a week."
There will be redcations to the report, he said, but they will be color-coded and footnoted with explanations of why they're necessary. "Within a week, I will be in a position to release the report to the public and then I will engage with the chairman of the Judiciary Committees" about releasing them to Congress, said Barr. He later indicated that he was unsure about whether he would release the full, unredacted report to Congress.
Barr said he would be "glad to talk" with House and Senate Judiciary Committee chairs "as to whether they feel they need more information and see if there is a way we can accommodate that."
Today marks Barr's first time testifying to Congress since the completion of the Mueller report.
Good Tweets
America is not full. In fact, the number of U.S. residents in prime working years has stopped growing, which is probably one reason for secular stagnation - persistent weakness even with very low interest rates pic.twitter.com/OkXDjbFR5W
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) April 9, 2019
Hi, rabbi here.
— Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) April 9, 2019
Stephen Miller is a white nationalist.
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4.
" it has become more common for people to express racist or racially insensitive views"
ReplyDeleteSure. American colored have been going around for a long time referring to whites as "devils". Whites for whatever reason venturing into a negro area beaten, robbed, killed, all the time.