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"We... never thought this could happen to us," they begin...

Given the setup, you might expect to read a steamy fantasy filled with tall, blonde, Teutonic cheerleaders who love the Fatherland and can unhook a bra strap without missing a note of Wagner.

But this is no fantasy. It's real, and the screwing these ultra conservatives are getting is not at all pleasurable.

They are pissed about the way their purpose, and their experience at the MIA, has been distorted by "media" -- meaning the Star Tribune, City Pages, and, as of last night, the New York Times.

These and other outlets covered a confrontation between left-wing protesters and these men -- one of whom, according to a witness, cried out "Heil Trump!" and made a Nazi salute -- whom the lefties called "Nazis."

That term, these guys complain, is now being ascribed to "everybody to the right of Stalin." They're not Nazis! They're merely members of this "exciting* new movement of the Alt-Right."

(*Note: The movement will be less "exciting" and more "terrifying" for certain types, including but not limited to immigrants, blacks, Jews, Muslims, liberals, historians, feminists, World War II veterans, and those who have trouble manufacturing misplaced hatred.)

Now that they've cleared up that misconception, "AltRight MN" -- whose "About" page is literally just a "Minnesota for Trump" button -- can explain what happened at the museum on Saturday. First, they were hacked. Someone from the left-wing Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) sneaked into their secret chat room "by pretending to be a Trump supporter."

Then, they were attacked. Two AltRight MN guys were jumped inside the museum "simply for how they looked."

If you are attacked for "how you looked," and "how you looked" is "like a neo-Nazi," and you are a neo-Nazi... is it still "simply"because of how you looked?

Another "Trump supporter" was "violently attacked and maced." Cops called to the scene found "an illegal knife" on one of the IWW side, though they didn't arrest him.

"Why not?" AltRight MN asks. "Are they supporting the actions of these leftist thugs?"

Probably not!

This was all an unnecessarily violent response to what was supposed to be a fun little outing for a few well-meaning, white-leaning -- oops, right-leaning patrons of the arts. Specifically, the old stuff.

"We were there only to meet a few new faces and enjoy the Minneapolis Institute of Arts collection of traditional art."

And who doesn't love "traditional art"?

Anyway, at last, the media's "lies" about what happened at the museum are corrected.

Pay no mind to this blog post write-up from the IWW point of view, which claims it was one of the AltRight MN guys who had a "large folding knife," and who "started a physical brawl with the anti-fascists when they questioned him about his [Nazi flag] shirt."

Or to the photo of a guy who appears to be giving a Nazi salute. That's out of context. He is actually just demonstrating that the men of AltRight MN care a lot about "traditional art," and they... have high standards.

See the rest here:
Alt-Right museum-goers respond: We're not Nazis, we just like 'traditional art' - City Pages

At last weeks Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), the annual conservative confab that in recent years has hosted a growing number of American extremists, organizers made the unexpected step to take a hard stance on the white nationalist Alt-Right seeking to inject itself into the conservative mainstream.

Organizers disinvited gadfly provocateur Milo Yiannopolous before the conference began when video surfaced showing the former Breitbart tech editor casually dismissing pedophilia. Then, on Sunday, as Richard Spencer was speaking with reporters about the so-called deep state being opposed to the president and creating something like a civil war, security guards interrupted, stripped Spencer of his credentials and escorted him from the building.

Spencer was quick to attack the conservative establishment as out of touch with the rising Alt-Right. But tucked in his comments was that mysterious phrase the deep state.

Spencer was tapping into a term that has grown in popularity in news coverage over the last month, as well as on the radical right, as the Trump administration appears to make good on chief strategist Steve Bannons promise to destroy all of todays establishment. Foreign Policy,Salon, andGlenn Greenwalds investigative website The Intercept have all discussed the idea. Even neoconservative Bill Kristol, founder of The Weekly Standard, recently referenced the deep state.

Perhaps it is no surprise, but many oftheAlt-Right figures even if they feel they are increasingly at odds with the GOP now point to the deep state as the principal enemy of Trumps America.

The concept of the deep state is not new. Historically associated with countries such as Turkey, and sometimes called a state within a state, the term refers to government bodies like the armed forces, political foundations, police and administrative agencies that work to undermine a countrys civilian leadership, regardless of party affiliation.

The entire idea took root when the Trump administration, stumbling amid leaks to a news media it has named as the opposition party, accepted the resignation of retired Army Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who had been named national security adviser. It was revealed that Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Within days, pundits and extremists alike responded. Global affairs journals like Foreign Policy declared, The Deep State Comes to America, while extremists, including Eric Striker on the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, sounded an age-old racist alarm.

In an article titled America vs [sic] ZOG: Ex-NSA Official Promises Rogue Agents Will Overthrow Donald Trump, Striker defined the deep state as a Jewish attempt to attack the president. And mirroring the style of site founder Andrew Anglins increasingly bold requests of Trump, Strikercalled on the administration to respond with force.

"Will the deviants and Jews in the deep state succeed? Trump must immediately start cleaning house with grand juries, massive purges, and make examples of Jew journalists like Michael S. Schmidt and Adam Entous currently making the cable news rounds bragging about committing a felony (publishing illegally procured intelligence). The only way the people of America can take back control of our government is through Trump taking an iron fist to the criminal network that wishes to retain its rule over some evil globalist mongrel empire, and restoring power to the executive branch as it was meant to be. If the President relents for even five minutes, they will destroy him."

Even in the paranoid universe of conspiracy theories on the far right,the deep stateis now being referred to by progressive and conservative commentatorsas a known reality in Trumps America. It is a simultaneousfaith in the future and fear of the present.As southern white nationalist Brad Griffin summarized theidea on Occidental Dissent, We have two governments, one elected and the other unelected, which are at war with each other.

In his 2016 book, The Deep State: the fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, veteran congressional staffer Mike Lofgren warned that the deep state was rising in the United States and argued it was the big story of our time. Thedeep state, he said,was the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism and the militarization of the American economy.

In a separate essay Anatomy of a Deep State published last week, Lofgren added:

There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power.

It is difficult to say what will come of such a bizarre political theory as the Trump administration enters its second month in office. The progressive left, and even some conservatives, hope the deep state will be the ultimate guardrail to slow Trumps unique brand of scorched earth politics. But to dismiss the deep state in America as merely a passing fad is to dismiss just how deep the idea has migrated into the mainstream.

It is there, after all, that the idea is increasinglypitting the radical right and the slowly acquiescing conservative mainstream against anyone who disagrees.

As Republican consultant Ed Rogers, a political consultant and a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses, warned in an op-ed published in The Washington Post, To me, the deep state is real. The alt-right is not.

[A]s best I can tell, the alt-right is just a new way for the left to call Republicans racists and Nazis without actually having to say those terms out loud. To me, the deep state is real. The alt-right is not. The deep state may not be fully developed quite yet, but as the Democrats regain their footing and begin to coordinate and try to further and further damage the presidents credibility, it will have a detrimental impact on how our democracy functions and will further erode the publics trust in government.

Original post:
'Alt-Right' Fears 'Deep State' Retribution Against Trump - Southern Poverty Law Center

I had never heard of Milo Yiannopoulos until recently, perhaps because I dont visit some of the websites where his musings are published.

Milo, as he calls himself because of the difficulty some have pronouncing his last name, was disinvited from this weeks Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) annual gathering of the right in Washington. Apparently the organizers were not bothered by Milos association with the so-called alt-right. CPAC withdrew the invitation only after a video surfaced showing him apparently endorsing man-boy relationships that qualify under the definition of pedophilia. Yiannopoulos has resigned as an editor at Breitbart.com and apologized for his remarks.

The editors of National Review, as well as other traditional conservative publications and individuals, criticized CPAC for inviting Yiannopoulos to speak. The conservatism of Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr. and Ronald Reagan was about ideas, not emotion and exclusion. Reagan, whom the modern right likes to claim as one of its own, was an optimist. Even when he criticized the lefts policies, he almost always presented a superior alternative. He wanted to attract as many people to his worldview as possible by winning the argument and converting opponents, whom he always regarded as fellow Americans and friends, even when he disagreed with them.

Today, conservatism has become known in the eyes of many for what and who it is against, not what and who it is for. Yes, part of this is due to media stereotyping, but not all. Traditional conservatism has been a positive we can do better, an inspiring and uplifting philosophy that motivates rather than denigrates.

In his 1993 book The Politics of Prudence, Russell Kirk set down principles he believed should define conservatism. Among them were the following: an enduring moral order; an adherence to custom, convention and continuity guided by the principle of prudence; the principle of imperfectability, meaning we dont look to government to create perfect men and women, or a perfect society, thus rejecting utopianism; the belief that freedom and property are closely linked; conservatives uphold voluntary community and reject involuntary collectivism; the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions; permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.

That last one bears elaboration, and Kirk offers it: The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that give us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

One sees this in the debate over the Constitution between liberals, who believe it to be a living document, subject to constant change and updating, and conservatives, who believe it a rock of stability that serves as a guide even in the face of rapid technological and cultural change. Just as a GPS must have a starting point in order to arrive at an intended destination, so too must America have a source from which it can plot its direction and not get lost on the journey.

In 1962, William F. Buckley Jr. denounced the John Birch Society as far removed from common sense and urged the Republican Party to purge the movement from its ranks. So too must todays conservatives separate themselves from the alt-right white supremacists and anti-Semites and reclaim traditional conservatism as the authentic brand.

Conservatives can win elections and govern without beyond-the-fringe types like Milo Yiannopoulos. If they cant, they dont deserve to win.

Follow this link:
Conservatives must oust 'alt-right' | Opinions | thepublicopinion.com - Watertown Public Opinion

The Atlantic

White House sees damage from 'alt-right' Hamilton Spectator President Donald Trump can no longer dodge and distract from the cold reality that his administration has granted a platform for white supremacists and anti-Semites to advance their twisted causes. His failure to lead has helped members of the "alt ... At Las Vegas confab, Republican Jews gingerly find reasons to celebrate Trump's presidencyJewish Telegraphic Agency all 42 news articles »

Read more:
White House sees damage from 'alt-right' - Hamilton Spectator

An anonymously-produced mapwith links to a pro-Trump and pro-Putin accountsays it shows the spread of refugee and migrant crime in Germany. Dont trust it.

By Crofton Black and Abigail Fielding-Smith, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

Last year, an anonymously-produced map started to make its way around German social media. It claimed to show viewers the spread of refugee and migrant crime throughout Germany.

Unlike some of the lurid tales of migrant depravity that have circulated in Germany in recent months and turned out to be false, the interactive map seemed professionally put together. Each pin on it correlated to a police or media report of a crime (we dont document cases simply on the basis of hearsay, its makers claimed). The map, called XY-Einzelfall (a sarcastic riposte to the idea each migrant crime is simply an isolated caseEinzelfall in German) got more than four million views. One of the XY-Einzelfall (XYE) social media followers tweeted over 80 times as new crimes were added to the map: The times coming when Germans will need to carry guns for self-protection.

Systematically misleading

But analysis of the maps methodology by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism shows that it is systematically misleading, often attributing crimes to migrants or refugees on the basis of nothing more than a witness statement that the perpetrator was dark-skinned or southern. On top of this, the project vastly overstates the figures on migrant crime through skewed use of statistics.

Tracing XYEs presence on social media also shows it to be far from politically neutral. An account in XYEs name on the Russian social media site VKontakte is rife with the kind of pro-Trump pro-Putin memes which have become the signature of the global alt-right.These are also the dominant affiliations of the Twitter accounts promoting the map.

Facebook is supposed to be cracking down on fake news in Germany, amid fears that the kind of misinformation seen in the U.S. may play a role in this years federal elections. One sensational story about New Years Eve attacks by migrants in Frankfurt was published by the newspaper Bild and picked up by the Daily Express and Daily Telegraph before Bild apologized for publishing a fake story.

But unlike fabricated stories which can be easily fact-checked, the refugee crime maps main business is slick distortion of reality, which is much harder to track. In the more strictly policed media environment of Germany, fake news has apparently taken on more sophisticated forms.

These cases are more problematic than outright fake news, says Jonas Kaiser, an expert on German media at Harvard Universitys Berkman Klein Center. I think these cases are going to rise.

The XYE map first emerged following reports that migrant men had committed mass sexual assaults during Colognes New Years Eve celebrations. Opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel were quick to link the assaults to her decision to accept the million-odd asylum seekers who came to Germany in 2015. The medias initial slowness in reporting the New Years Eve attacks fuelled suspicions of a conspiracy of silence around the issue.

The map gained momentum. By the end of the year you could hardly see Germany for the forest of pins.

XYE was brought to the mainstream medias attention by a blog in the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung, and later cited in the British tabloid Daily Express (MERKELS SHAME: Map reveals shocking extent of migrant sex attacks on women and children).

It was also picked up by the Trump-affiliated news site Breitbart, which accused Facebook of stealthily interfering to stop the map showing up in users news feeds after they had liked it.

The map visualises 8800 separate incidents from 2016while asserting this is only a fraction of migrant/refugee crime cases in that year.

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The crimes represented on the map are outlined in brief summaries and sourced to a mixture of police and media reports.

The maps makers have chosen not to be identified, citing fear of left-wing reprisals. But one of them gave an interview under a pseudonym to the far-right publication Junge Freiheit in April. She said XYE was run by four women and a man.

We dont read between the linesthere must be a clear reference to the perpetrators background in the source material, she said.

The Bureaus analysis however shows the maps portrait of a migrant crime epidemic rests on highly dubious assumptions about the perpetrators origins.

The maps creators like to portray their approach as scientific, mimicking the language of academics and think tanks. In January they released a seven-day analysis of published police reports, with a breakdown of crimes by groups of different origins and a headline suggesting that 84 percent of crimes were committed by migrants.

In fact, the 84 percent figure is completely misleading. The map-makers have stripped out all crimes in which the perpetrators background is not mentioned from their calculation. The true percentage of crimes in this period committed by migrantsaccording to XYEs own datais 13 percent. There is a further 13 percent of crimes which the XYE say are probably committed by migrants.

We looked at how XYE decided that each pin on the map represents a crime which could have been committed by migrants. They comb police and media reports and pull out descriptions of perpetrators. We found that almost two-thirds of their reported offenders fell into the categories of dark-skinned, southern-looking, foreigner, or refugee. We then selected a random sample of 100 reports within each of these four categories for closer analysis.

We found that in nearly all cases where the perpetrator was described as dark-skinned or southern, there was no evidence in the sources positively identifying them as a migrant or refugee. This was also true of the overwhelming majority of cases in which the offender was described as a foreigner.

Overcrowded asylum centers

In the summaries where the perpetrator is explicitly described as a refugee, there is usually evidence supporting this claim. But even these dont support the idea of a migrant crime wave against Germans. In more than a third of the hundred sample cases in this category that the Bureau analysed, the crimes consisted of fights or other incidents within Germanys overcrowded asylum centers.

One of the cases in this category was a disturbed 17-year-old Afghan boy who was considered at risk of suicide after he tried to throw himself out of a window.

Another involved a fire alarm going off in a refugee hostel due to someone smoking. There was no damage or injuries.

In at least one case represented on the map as a refugee crime, the asylum seeker was actually the victim of the attack, not the perpetrator.

Matt Ashby, a crime-mapping expert at Nottingham Trent University and former policeman, was critical of XYEs methodology.

For a start, Ashby explained, it would make more sense to base the data on people who had actually been charged with a crime, because eye-witnesses are notoriously unreliable.

Ive taken a huge number of statements from victims or witnessessometimes theyll get it wrong in terms of whether someone was black or white, he said. If its just based on a witness description you cant make any meaningful statement about who committed that crime.

His concerns were echoed by Dr. Theo Kindynis, a criminologist at the University of Roehampton, London, who has researched the history of crime mapping. Kindynis told the Bureau that there were some very basic, fundamental, epistemological and methodological issues with the map, citing for example its reliance on media reports.

Even if the data on which the map was based was accurate, it makes little sense without other data with which to contextualise it. For instance, what proportion of overall crimes do these account for? How do the crimes committed by refugees or migrants compare (proportionally) with those committed by native or citizen residents of a given area? Without that context, the data is useless at best.

While XYEs Twitter and Facebook postings refrain from overt political content, the account in XYEs name on the Russian social networking site VKontakte suggests where their sympathies lie.

VKontakte is not subject to the kind of content controls that Facebook has agreed to deploy in Germany, and XYEs page is populated with pro-Putin and pro-Trump memes, jokey riffs on the Third Reich, and depictions of Chancellor Angela Merkel as a gap-toothed black man or radical Muslim.

It is not clear whether XYE was set up by Merkels political opponents as a propaganda tool, or whether it reflects the work of motivated individual citizens. In the age of social media those distinctions are starting to blur.

Online supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump coordinated their efforts to push his agenda in the run-up to the election. These supporters are now increasingly interested in Germany. Trump himself has said that Merkels immigration policy was a disaster that caused German crime to rise to levels that no-one thought they would ever, ever see, and has asked his administration to start compiling a list of crimes by migrants in America.

Some of his supporters see a mirror of Trumps populist insurgency in the anti-immigrant party Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD), which is hoping to gain seats in the German parliamentary elections this fall. The internet forum Reddit, which Trump supporters used as a platform in the U.S. election, now has a Make Germany Great Again section in support of the AfD.

Twitter is far less influential in Germany than it is in the U.S., but there are signs of an online network coalescing around the AfDs anti-immigrant message and XYEs map.

The Bureau analyzed activity around XYEs Twitter account over 10 days in January 2017. Just 10 followers were responsible for more than a quarter of the accounts 15,000 retweets during this period.

Among those 10 accounts, only one name was more prominent in their tweets than their adversary Angela Merkel, and that was Donald Trump.

Some of their most popular hashtags over this 10-day period, aside from references to the AfD, were Trump, Fakenews? and MerkelMussWeg [Merkel Must Go].

The local branch of the AfD in the town of Dreieich in Hessen has a banner on its home page alerting people to the XYE map, as an example of what is being withheld from citizens.

Although the map has been circulated mainly within the right-wing world, it and others like it have the potential to play an important role in the migration debate in Germany.

Harvards Jonas Kaiser argues that such seemingly scientific material helps legitimise an anti-immigrant political position. Things like the XYE map tighten the right-wings identity, Kaiser says. Fake news may not have an impact on the German election, but unreliable maps could.

Read more:
German Alt-Right Loves This Fake 'Refugee Crime' Map - Daily Beast