Tag: white supremacy

Trump Jr. Compares Syrian Refugees to Poisoned Skittles

Donald Trump’s eldest son has caused uproar on social media by comparing Syrian refugees to the fruit-flavoured sweets Skittles.

Trying to suggest the US should not accept any refugees, Donald Trump Jr posted an image that asked:

“If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you, would you take a handful?”

“That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”

He added: “This image says it all. Let’s end the politically correct agenda that doesn’t put America first.”

The food analogy has been used before to imply that, if a few people in a group are bad, it would be dangerous to take a single one in.

The language in Donald Jr’s tweet was used in a post by conservative radio host Joe Walsh in August. Joe Walsh was a former single-term Congressman most remembered for being kicked off the air for using racial epitaphs to describe African Americans and for trying to incite violence against President Barack Obama.

But following the tweet by the Republican presidential candidate’s son, the company that owns Skittles, Wrigley, stepped in.

“Skittles are candy. Refugees are people,” said Denise Young, vice-president of corporate affairs for Wrigley America.

“We don’t feel it is an appropriate analogy,” she added. “We will respectfully refrain from further commentary as anything we say could be misinterpreted as marketing.”

Meanwhile the photographer who took the picture of the Skittles said the picture was used without his permission and revealed that he was himself a former refugee.

(h/t BBC)

Reality

In the US, each year, you are far more likely to die due to choking on candy than due to a terrorist attack by a refugee. According to the US National Safety Council and Cato Institute you have a:

  • 1 in 3,408 chance of choking to death on food
  • 1 in 3,640,000,000 chance of being killed by a refugee in a terror attack

The fact is, the refugee resettlement program is the single most difficult way to enter the United States. So refusing refugees was truly about preventing some “Trojan horse” terrorist, it is such a highly ineffective policy that should put into question the very qualifications of this candidate.

Instead this follows a pattern of white supremacist from Donald Trump Jr. and his father and keeping brown people with different beliefs from them out of the country. Some examples include:

  • On March 3rd, Donald Trump Jr. appeared on a radio show and took questions from a known white supremacist.
  • On July 5th, Donald Trump Jr. liked a tweet by one of the worst and most active member of the “alt-right” neo-Nazi movement on Twitter.
  • On August, 29th, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a post from known white supremacist Kevin MacDonald.
  • On September, 10th, Donald Trump Jr. shared a meme with him next to a white nationalist symbol.
  • On September, 15th, Donald Trump Jr. casually made a holocaust joke on a radio show.

Donald Trump Jr. Tweets Straight-Up White Nationalist Propaganda

Donald Trump Jr. on Tuesday morning decided to re-up a column from an anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant British activist blaring that “Western woman will be sacrificed at the alter of mass migration.”

After tweeting an anti-immigrant message featuring a white supremacist meme on Monday night, the eldest son of the GOP nominee tweeted:

Europe’s Rape Epidemic: Western Women Will Be Sacrificed At The Altar Of Mass Migration https://t.co/BkguApQqvQ via @BreitbartNews

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 20, 2016

He linked to a 2015 post from Anne-Marie Waters, a British activist and member of the fervently anti-immigration UK Independence Party, which she penned for Breitbart’s London offshoot.

In the post, Waters recounts being sexually harassed and intimidated by “Middle Eastern-looking men” across Europe to set the stage for her takedown of “suicidal” immigration polices that she says allow Muslim men to rape white women.

“In England, it’s been rape after rape – tens of thousands of young British girls are brutalised, tortured, beaten and raped by organised gangs comprised almost exclusively of Muslims,” she wrote.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration polices “opened the door to the rape of German women,” Waters wrote. She went on to claim rape, sexual assault and “forced prostitution” are “rampant within the refugee camps in Germany.”

(h/t Talking Points Memo)

Reality

With the exception of an incident in Germany on New Years Eve in 2015, where there was a reported 5 rapes and 1,200 sexual assaults by “Arab or North African appearance,” and sexual assaults at a camp in Greece, there are no widespread reports to back up Waters’ claim.

Trump Claims Clinton Coined Term ‘Alt-Right’, This is Not True

Trump and alt-right mascot Pepe the Frog kissing.

In an interview on Trump’s plane in Canton, Ohio, Trump tried to blame Clinton and her allies for creating the term “alt-right,” although the term has been used within the movement for years.

Clinton and her campaign argue that some Trump backers are racist and misogynistic and have sought to link him to the “alt-right” movement of self-avowed white nationalists, many of whom have rallied around his candidacy.

“The alt-right. You know they came up with the term ‘alt-right.’  I think the term itself is ridiculous. The alt-right. When did it come into existence? It was just made up.”

Later in the interview Trump said he was unconcerned that moderators during the upcoming debates may decide to fact-check during the forums.

“I don’t care. My facts are good. My facts are good. I don’t get enough credit for having my facts right,” Trump said. “They’ll say I’m wrong even when I’m right.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

Trump rarely gets his facts right. We have over 150 instances of Trump not getting his facts right and we’re positive we missed quite a few.

The term “alt-right”, or Alternative Right, was not created by Hillary Clinton but was coined in 2008 by Richard Bertrand Spencer, who heads the white nationalist think tank known as the National Policy Institute, to describe a loose set of far-right ideals centered on “white identity” and the preservation of “Western civilization.

The alt-right movement is associated with white nationalism, white supremacism, antisemitism, right-wing populism, nativism, and the neoreactionary movement and wholeheartedly embrace the overt racism, misogyny, neo-Nazi affectations, bullying and trolling of chan culture as a lifestyle

Donald Trump famously hired alt-right leader and former Breitbart editor as his campaign CEO, signaling his embrace of the movement and pushing hate and racism into the mainstream.

Donald Trump Jr. Casually Makes A Holocaust Joke

Donald Trump’s son, a primary surrogate for his presidential candidacy, alluded on Thursday to the mass killing of Jewish people in Nazi Germany while laying out what he sees as a media double standard in campaign coverage.

In an interview with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, Donald Trump Jr. made the argument that Republicans would be punished if they lied or schemed in fashions similar to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And then he decided to talk about gas chambers.

“The media has been her number one surrogate in this. Without the media, this wouldn’t even be a contest, but the media has built her up,” Trump Jr said. “They’ve let her slide on every indiscrepancy (sic), on every lie, on every DNC game trying to get Bernie Sanders out of this thing. If Republicans were doing that, they’d be warming up the gas chamber right now.”

A reference to gas chambers is the type of remark that under typical campaign conventions would be met with profound rebuke and alarm. But while criticism came in quickly on Twitter, a senior member of the Republican National Committee still blasted out the interview.

Trump Jr. has gone down similar paths before. As the group RightWingWatch noted, he has “posted an image to Instagram that included “Pepe the frog,” which, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, is a meme “constantly used by white supremacists” and “appeared on a radio show with James Edwards, host of the white supremacist radio show Political Cesspool.”

The Trump campaign has also been accused in the past of pushing anti-Semitic memes. Donald Trump himself got into trouble over the summer for tweeting an image of Clinton pasted over money with a Jewish star badge next to her.

(h/t Huffington Post)

Update

Trump Jr. told NBC News that he was referring to corporal punishment, not the Holocaust. The reaction from some anti-Semitic Trump supporters on Twitter, however, suggests that they comfortably took it as a Holocaust reference.

Media

Trump Adviser, Son Post Image Featuring White Nationalist Symbol

A white nationalist symbol has made its way into the latest back and forth in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Amid the flurry of statements about Hillary Clinton calling “half” of Donald Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables,” — a reference to some of the Republican nominee’s supporters who ascribe to views popular among the white nationalist-linked alt-right movement — informal Trump adviser and confidante Roger Stone tweeted a picture of the poster from the movie “The Expendables” altered as “The Deplorables.” Donald Trump, Jr., one of Trump’s sons, posted the same image on Instagram. The origin of the image is unclear.

The Photoshopped faces in the picture include Trump, running mate Gov. Mike Pence, Gov. Chris Christie, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Ben Carson, both of Trump’s eldest sons, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, alt-right icon Milo Yiannopoulos, and Stone himself.

Prominently featured over Trump’s right shoulder: popular white nationalist symbol, Pepe the Frog.

“Pepe the Frog is a huge favorite white supremacist meme,” Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center told NBC News of the meme.

While Pepe the Frog may not be a household name, the meme is known to members of the alt-right on the internet.

“It’s constantly used in those circles,” Beirich said. “The white nationalists are gonna love this because they’re gonna feel like ‘yeah we’re in there with Trump, there’s Pepe the Frog.'”

Pepe the Frog, a cartoon amphibian, was popularized on the website 4chan, and became associated with the neo-Nazi movement.

The Trump campaign has been repeatedly accused of dog whistles to white supremacists and the alt-right, though his original position on support from these groups was ambiguous. When confronted with the support of prominent white nationalist and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke in February, Trump stumbled in his initial disavowal of the man — telling CNN at the time, “I don’t know David Duke. I don’t believe I have ever met him. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet him. And I just don’t know anything about him.”

He later clarified that he disavowed Duke’s support, though the former Klansman — now running for Congress in Louisiana — has continued to tweet messages of support for the Republican nominee.

Over the course of this campaign, Trump has retweeted Twitter accounts with names such as ‘WhiteNationalistTM’ and blasted out anti-Semitic images to his over 11 million followers on the social media site. Some members of his campaign have been tied to the alt-right, including Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, who is now CEO of the Trump campaign. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton gave a speech shortly after Bannon’s appointment linking Trump’s campaign to the nationalistic movement and calling on the rest of the GOP to reject extremist views. Clinton has continued to argue that Trump has “given voice” those who engage in “offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric.”

Stone, for his part, is known for his controversial tweets that usually defend Trump, warn of a rigged election, and lashing out at Clinton. For months he has repeatedly advertised “Clinton Rape” t-shirts on his account and pushed hard on the Trump-proposed narrative that the election could be rigged against the Republican nominee.

Stone is no longer with the campaign in an official capacity, after parting ways with Trump in August of last year. Despite that, he remains a self-described “FOT: Friend of Trump” who was most recently invited to attend the campaign’s event announcing Gov. Mike Pence as Trump’s running mate.

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks tells NBC News that “Don Jr., like Mr. Trump, disavows any groups or symbols associated with a message of hate.”

Stone could not be reached for comment on this article or the image’s origination. In his tweet, Stone said that he was “proud” to be among “The Deplorables” in the image, while Trump, Jr. wrote that he was “honored to be grouped with the hard working men and women of this great nation that have supported” his father.

(h/t NBC News)

Reality

Tweeting white supremacist and neo-Nazi imagery once could be considered an accident, multiple times shows an unmistakable pattern that can’t be explained away.

  • On July 4th, 2015, Trump tweeted that Jeb Bush likes “Mexican illegals because of his wife.”
  • On August 28th, 2015, Trump tweeted an attack on Jeb Bush how he should stop “speaking Mexican.”
  • On November 4th, 2015, Trump tweeted a meme tying Jeb Bush to the Nazis that used racist imagery.
  • On December 10th, 2015, Trump tweeted the debunked belief pushed by “alt-right” websites like Breitbart that the UK has Muslim no-go zones.
  • On November 22nd, 2015, Trump tweeted a graphic with fake statistics that incorrectly inflated African-American murderers in the United States.
  • On January 22nd, Trump retweeted a tweet from the white supremacist WhiteGenocideTM.
  • On February 10nd, Trump AGAIN retweeted a tweet from WhiteGenocideTM, after being blasted a few weeks prior.
  • On July 4th, the Trump campaign tweeted anti-Semitic imagery of rival Hillary Clinton with a star of David on a backdrop of money. Trump tried to explain the controversy away that it was a “sheriff star” but journalist uncovered the Trump campaign never created that image because it was originally posted on a neo-Nazi website.
  • On July 5th, Donald Trump Jr. liked a tweet by one of the worst and most active member of the “alt-right” neo-Nazi movement on Twitter.
  • On July 6th, Trump attempted to defend his “Star of David” tweet by retweeting a meme from a known white supremacist.
  • On July 20th, an elected Trump delegate known for months to be a white supremacist has had her credentials stripped by the Republican party after posting a racial slur to Facebook and making “threats of violence” against black people.
  • On July 25th, Trump’s foreign policy advisor Retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn retweeted an anti-semitic post.
  • On August, 29th, Donald Trump Jr. retweeted a post from known white supremacist Kevin MacDonald.

And these are just the tweets. Trump had also refused to disavow former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke’s endorsements, called his foreign policy plan “America First,” and his father was once caught at a KKK clan rally, just to name a few.

Donald Trump Jr. Retweets Prominent White Supremacist

Just days after Hillary Clinton criticized the Trump campaign for promoting groups and individuals associated with preserving “white identity,” Donald Trump Jr. has retweeted an adherent of the “alt-right” movement that Clinton singled out for criticism.

Donald Trump’s oldest son this week retweeted a post from Kevin MacDonald, a former professor at California State University Long Beach who now runs a website about “White Identity, Interests, and Culture.” He has been accused of anti-Semitism by critics, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is the leading organization that tracks hate groups.

MacDonald said last week that white people in America are becoming a victimized minority and that Colin Kaepernick struggles as a quarterback because he lacks the leadership abilities inherent to his white teammates.

MacDonald’s tweet had to do with Clinton’s State Department and perceived favoritism for UBS, a global financial services company that donated to the Clinton Foundation.

trump-jr-tweet-kevin-macdonald-hrc-foundation

Trump Jr.’s retweet prompted Richard Spencer, a leader of the alt-right movement, to tweet “Wow. Just wow.”

(h/t New York Times, Slate)

Reality

Journalists have noticed that Donald Trump Jr. follows many known white supremacists in the alt-right movement on his Twitter account, including users @Bidenshairplugs and @Ricky_Vaughn99.

A White Supremacist Trump Delegate Tweets Racial Slur While at RNC

An elected Trump delegate from Chicago known for months to be a white supremacist has had her credentials stripped by the Illinois Republican party after posting a racial slur to Facebook and making “threats of violence” against black people.

Lori Gayne, a Chicago-area mortgage banker, was attending the Republican National Convention and posted a photo on Sunday night of police officers standing on the roof of Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where an opening party was taking place. She wrote the following caption, indicating that cops were prepared to shoot black protesters:

“Our brave snipers just waiting for some “n—- to try something. Love them.”

The Chicago Sun Times reported that she had used an abbreviation for the racial slur.

Gayne admitted to party officials and reporters that she authored the abhorrent post and later apologized in a statement.

“I strongly regret the offensive statements I recently made on social media. While I in no way intended to make racist or threatening statements, I now realize that they could be interpreted that way,” she said.

Illinois GOP Chairman Tim Schneider revoked Gayne’s credentials as a RNC delegate and told the Sun-Times that the party “has zero tolerance for racism of any kind and threats of violence against anyone.”

Gayne was elected in March’s Illinois Republican Primary as a Trump delegate for the 5th Congressional District and was identified as early as May for her white-power loving social media posts under the Twitter handle “whitepride.”

In an interview with Chicago Tribune in May, Gayne said the following:

“With all the racism going on today, I’m very proud to be white. Just like black people are proud to be black and now, as white people, whenever we say something critical we’re punished as if we’re racists. I’m tired of it. I’m very proud,” Gayne said.

“I’m so angry I don’t even feel like I live in America. You can call me a racist. Black Lives Matter? Those people are out of control,” she said.

She used other social media accounts under different names to attack Muslims, the Tribune reported.

Gayne is not even the first Trump delegate to tout white supremacy.

Los Angeles doctor William Johnson resigned in May after Mother Jones revealed that he was the leader of the white nationalist American Freedom Party.

A day later, anti-Muslim pastor and fellow California delegate Guy St.-Onge resigned after racist social media posts surfaced, including “Barack Hussein Obama and his tranny wife Michelle hate the USA!”

The AFP claims that there are even more of its members who are delegates but have declined to identify them, Mother Jones reported.

Trump has also garnered the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard and former Louisiana lawmaker David Duke, who said in February that it would be treason to white voters’ heritage to not cast a vote for the real estate magnate.

(h/t New York Daily News)

 

Trump Used a Frozen Meme From a White Supremacist to Defend His Other Star of David Meme

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday tweeted an image of a Disney book featuring a six-pointed star in an attempt to draw comparisons to an anti-Hillary Clinton image he tweeted this past weekend.

“Where is the outrage for this Disney book? Is this the ‘Star of David’ also? Dishonest media!” he tweeted, with an image of a book from Disney’s “Frozen.”

The book features a six-pointed star with the words “With 50 stickers!” written on it.

(h/t The Hill, Vox)

Reality

As we explained in detail before, the star Trump used in his original tweet is not a sheriff’s badge. And original meme Trump shared wasn’t controversial just because it used a 6-pointed star, like this Frozen sticker book cover does, but specifically because the meme was created by a white supremacist, implied antisemitic stereotypes with the Star of David on a bed of money,  and originally posted on a neo-Nazi message board.

What is further concerning is the the Frozen meme Donald Trump used to defend was taken from a Twitter user who is part of the white supremacist alt-right movement.

Donald Trump Jr. Likes Tweet From White Supremacist

Today, Buzzfeed’s Rosie Gray noticed that Donald Trump Jr., who has been taking a large role in his father’s campaign, had “liked” a tweet by one of the worst and most active member of the “alt-right” movement on Twitter:

The user, @Ricky_Vaughn99, his Twitter timeline is absolutely full of hateful racist and anti-Semitic tweets; there’s no way Trump Jr. could possibly have missed it. Yet he chose to follow this user.

Some recent tweets from Ricky_Vaugn99, who’s being followed by the son of the Republican Party’s nominee for president of the US, include:

(h/t Buzzfeed, Little Green Footballs)

Reality

Journalists have noticed that Donald Trump Jr. follows and retweets many known white supremacists in the alt-right movement on his Twitter account, including users The Occidental Observer, @Bidenshairplugs and @Ricky_Vaughn99.

Trump Loses Another Delegate as Anti-Muslim Pastor ‘Takes One For the Team’

The chaos over Donald Trump’s California delegation to the national convention escalated on Wednesday after a controversial, anti-Muslim pastor said he was standing down to “take one for the team”.

Guy St Onge, who proselytizes frequently on YouTube, told the Guardian he was no longer a delegate for the presumptive Republican nominee. Onge has in the past shared social media postings appearing to advocate killing Muslims and last year claimed: “Barack Hussein Obama and his tranny wife Michelle hate the USA!”

St Onge, who is listed on the California secretary of state’s official list as one of three delegates pledged to Trump from California’s 35th congressional district, declined to say precisely when he stood down. The list was formally submitted by the Trump campaign on Monday night.

However St Onge informed the Guardian of his decision to relinquish his delegate spot hours after reporters contacted the Trump campaign asking for confirmation the controversial pastor was among a colorful list of delegates, some of whom have a controversial past.

On Tuesday, the Trump campaign was forced to distance itself from another one of their delegates, self-avowed white nationalist William Daniel Johnson, who once called for a constitutional amendment which would revoke citizenship for all non-white Americans.

It was at first unclear if either St Onge or Johnson could be formally removed from Trump’s delegate list. California’s secretary of state said on Tuesday that the Trump campaign had attempted to send a revised delegate list after news broke about Johnson’s inclusion. However, because they had missed the deadline, a spokesperson for the secretary of state said the initial list must stand.

But late Wednesday afternoon, the Trump campaign told the Guardian that an updated list of its delegates was posted on the website of the California Republican party, without William Johnson and Guy St Onge on it.

According to his voluminous social media presence, St Onge is an evangelical pastor living in Ontario, California. His numerous Facebook accounts, YouTube videos and Tumblr page feature videos of his preaching, photos of himself carrying rifles and anti-Muslim memes.

A meme shared on one of his Facebook pages reads: “Allah SUCKS/ Mohammed SUCKS/ Islam SUCKS/ Any of you Hadji’s have an issue with me saying this, PM me and I’ll gladly give you my address. You can come visit me, where I promise/ I will/ KILL YOU/ In my front yard!!”

Reached by a reporter through Facebook, St Onge replied Wednesday afternoon: “I am no longer a delegate, by my own choosing … I will take one for the team, Loyal to a fault you might say … Jesus loves you, but not the trouble you try and cause for others.”

Asked about precisely when he ceased being a delegate, St Onge replied: “I have spoken to the appropriate people . thank you, Have a great day and may God bless you …”

He subsequently posted a Facebook post about a Guardian reporter on another Facebook account, writing: “This is a reporter who started doing a story on me … who is she to call the kettle black?”The post has since been deleted.

In a later message, St Onge wrote: “I see you are not a Christian so that tells me a lot about you and who you represent!!”

Asked about a report that he had once burned a Mexican flag, St Onge responded: “No, that is not true, even if it was, they burn ours don’t they?” The pastor then messaged a reporter several links to a video of two men, one wearing a Trump T-shirt, burning a Mexican flag. “I would call these men my brothers, US Citizen brothers!!,” he wrote.

According to a biography on one of St Onge’s Facebook pages, he “was in a very bad world, full of drugs, motorcycles, gangs and cops and more” before he was reborn and baptized in September 1995. “For me my life used to be all about Sex, Drugs and Rock&Roll … Now it is God Jesus and the Holy Ghost,” he writes on Facebook.

On 27 March 2016, St Onge posted about his application to be a Trump delegate on Facebook, writing: “I JUST SIGNED UP TO BECOME A NATIONAL DELEGATE FOR DONALD TRUMP, I WILL NOT FIND OUT UNTIL March 31, 2016. WHEN THEY DECIDE …”

St Onge is the second California delegate to attempt to drop out after Johnson, a corporate attorney and prominent white nationalist from Los Angeles.

Trump’s campaign blamed Johnson’s inclusion on a “database error” and said he was no longer a delegate. His campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Mixed in with Bible verses and YouTube sermons, St Onge shares a wide variety of political material, including anti-same sex marriage memes, a meme featuring the Confederate flag that reads “620,000 Died for this flag they deserve to be honored”, and a “Christian for Trump” image with the attached commentary: “Not saying Trump is a very godly man, but God can use anyone even evil to bless His people which are not just the Jews any longer but even the Gentiles now, for we are all under the same God …”

Another post features a photoshopped image of Barack Obama and David Cameron kissing, with the caption: “Sodomites!!”

(h/t The Guardian)

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