Authoritarianism in the 2020s

[pErvinalia]

Hamas is definitely a problem. But Islam isn't necessarily. There's plenty of Muslims who live in peace.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Some giddy Trumpist dweeb in the Department of Homeland Security public relations crew has come up with a 'clever' taunt. It's directed at anybody who objects to their jackbooted fun and games with the life of Albrego Garcia (latest is that they want to deport him to Uganda). The Trumpists have long expressed disgust at the media trope of describing him as a 'Maryland man.'

Uganda Man.

Non-X link to tweet.

[L'Emmerdeur]

No doubt I've mentioned it before and I don't think I'm the only one to say this, but when they first created the 'Department of Homeland Security' in 2002 shortly after the USA PATRIOT (we have to just trust the government to protect us from terrorists even if it means infringing on rights and liberties) Act, the name struck me as having an authoritarian resonance. Homeland echoes Fatherland, surely a coincidence. As a governmental department it's really coming into its own with this administration.

[Brian Peacock]

[Tero]

Tik Tok sold to US fat cats. GOP owners now ban mention of Epstein.

[Brian Peacock]

...and criticism of, or unfavourable content about ICE.

If the Trump Cartel is providing you with #OUTRAGE you can share, then I fear there's far far more shareable #OUTRAGE to come.

The current US administration is clearly building a narrative around an enemy, and by this they're creating the enemy they need. The political function of that enemy is to be something that can be defeated -- rendering the administration relevant, righteous, and powerful, at least in its own mind -- thus the existence of the enemy will act as justification for its own destruction.

The question everyone in the US needs to think about is: "When will the administration decide if I'm their friend or their enemy?" And if people don't want to be assigned to the box marked 'enemy of the state' what are they going to do about it? Keep quiet and play along, or stand up for their communities and themselves?

In other words, by its actions the Trump Cartel is making everyone in the US decide if you're their friend or foe, and the tool they're using to force that decision from the public is govt violence against its own citizens.

[Svartalf]

which is funny, because such contents is perfectly legal, unlike vids showing AI versions of various influencers, made without their knowledge or consent, and used to shill verious snake oil products... but those "are not contrary to tik tok terms", or so the influencers who protested were told.

[L'Emmerdeur]

A recent absurdity from Trump's Department of Justice--claiming that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is propping up and funding hate groups by infiltrating them with informers, and lying about it to donors. The northern troll would be having a lot of fun with this one. Too bad for him that he's unwilling to color inside the lines here.

'MAGA media gaslights on Charlottesville'

Almost immediately after the mob at Donald Trump diehards smashed its way into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the right-wing noise machine moved into action to downplay what the world saw unfold in real time. Now, five years later, with a giant assist from the Department of Justice, conservative media is again attempting to launder reality through conspiracy about another dark day in the first Trump administration — the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Virginia — with some saying the event was a false flag operation.

In one of the most brazen escalations yet in the administration’s war on its perceived enemies, the DOJ, created in 1870 to enforce the civil rights of formerly enslaved Americans in the South, announced the criminal prosecution of the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization founded in Montgomery, Alabama, the former capital of the Confederacy, and credited with financially crippling the modern Klan.

On April 21, a federal grand jury in Alabama indicted the SPLC on 11 counts — six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. But it is a case built to win on cable news, not court.

The core allegation, stripped of its melodramatic framing, is that the SPLC used paid informants to infiltrate hate groups and ran those payments through shell accounts to protect the identities of people who were living among Klansmen and neo-Nazis. The SPLC has long relied on informants to infiltrate organizations, sometimes in coordination with federal authorities. As far back as 1996, the New York Times reported that the organization had “spies” embedded in white nationalist gatherings.

The federal government’s legal argument, such as it is, falls apart the moment anyone with prosecutorial experience examines it. Kyle Boynton, an attorney who worked previously as both a federal civil rights prosecutor and an FBI agent, told CBS News, “I don’t think any prosecutor with white-collar experience would look at this indictment and believe it makes out the elements of a crime.”

To prove the wire fraud charges, the government needs to demonstrate that the SPLC made material misrepresentations to its donors — in other words, that donors gave money expecting one thing and received something meaningfully different. The vague fundraising language cited in the indictment is likely not strong enough to show the organization made affirmative false statements, and the use of paid informants to obtain intelligence about hate groups does not on its face run contrary to its mission statement. While the indictment struggles to identify any actual victims, more than 20 verified donors told The Intercept that using funds to gather intelligence on hate groups was precisely what they expected the organization to do.

Some experts predict the charges could be dismissed before the case makes it to trial. Former Justice Department fraud section attorney William Johnston, speaking to CBS News, put it plainly: The theory that paying informants to dismantle hate groups somehow contradicts the mission of dismantling hate groups is “very stretched.”

None of this matters to the people who ordered these charges. What the indictment does do, quite effectively, is provide a scaffolding for a broader disinformation campaign. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed on Tuesday that the SPLC was “manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.” And almost immediately, conservative media figures and politicians seized on it as proof of all of their long-standing conspiracies.

On Truth Social, Trump said if the indictment against the SPLC is correct, the 2020 election should be vacated.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt went on Fox News to claim the SPLC “transformed into a criminal organization run by fraudsters who are paying for and inciting the very racism they claim to stand against.” FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “The charity that supposedly fought the Klan funded the Klan. The charity that supposedly fought Neo-Nazis funded Neo-Nazis. That’s the ultimate hypocrisy.”