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The highly decentralized alt-right movement has primarily been known as an online phenomenon. If the organizers behind this weekends Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia have it their way, that will soon begin to change.

Led byformer Daily Caller contributor Jason Kessler, a number of perpetually feuding far-right groups are rallying together to protest the citys decision to remove a monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Charlottesville is one of several cities across the American South that have chosen to relocate public memorials to the failed secessionist movement.

Among the right-wing groups and individuals that are coming together are the Traditionalist Worker Party, a neo-fascist political party that organizes within lower-income white communities; The Right Stuff, a podcast network for self-described fans of Adolf Hitler; Occidental Dissent, a neo-Confederate blog; AltRight.com, a website set up by white nationalist editor Richard Spencer; and Anthime Gionet, a former BuzzFeed writer who has since joined up with the alt-right.

Organizers of this weekends event are hoping to draw thousands of demonstrators, a much larger crowd than the small number of people who typically attend far-right political rallies and conferences, even ones that arenot sponsored by explicitly racist groups. In July, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Charlottesville thatattracted fewer than 50 participants,along with several hundred counter-protesters.

The difference this time may be the assistance of several old-school racist groups such asthe National Socialist Movement, an American Nazi political party as well asthe neo-ConfederateLeague of the South.

The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi blog that attracts a far larger audience than any of the organizations and individuals mentioned above is also getting involved. Typically, the sites owner, Andrew Anglin, has refrained from encouraging his readers to attend conferences and rallies. The Stormer has made an obvious exception in the case of Unite the Right, featuring manyposts urging fans to attend. Due to the sites infamous reputation, however, Kessler and other rally organizers are not publicizing the Stormers involvement.

Pepe [the Frog] memes are all fine and good, but if we really want to turn the heads of the idealist youth and win them over to our side, we need to get out in the streets, and we need to do it bigly,Benjamin Garland, one of the blogs authors, wrote last week, referring to the cartoon characterwhich has been adopted by far right online activists.

Next stop: Charlottesville, VA. Final stop: Auschwitz, Garland added.

Its unclear how many people will actually show up for the event. Charlottesville officials appear to be expecting a larger number of protesters and counter-protesters than the 400 people specified in the permit the city had originally authorized. On Monday, the city told Kessler, the principal organizer of Unite the Right, that he would have to move his rally from Emancipation Park formerly called Lee Park, and the site of the disputed statue to McIntire Park, a larger facility.

Kessler has refused the citys order on the grounds that his event is about protesting the removal of the Lee statue and therefore must not be relocated. He has vowed to hold the rally at its original time and place. On Wednesday, the ACLU of Virginia announced that it and the Rutherford Institute would represent Kessler in a legal challenge to the citys ruling.

At the very least, the city must explain in more than just generalities its reasons for concluding that the demonstration cannot safely be held in Emancipation Park,Claire Guthrie Gastaaga, executive director of ACLU Foundation of Virginia and John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, wrote ina joint letterto Charlottesville officials.

Otherwise, it appears that the citys revocation of the permit is based only upon public opposition to the message of the demonstration, which would constitute a violation of the organizers fundamental First Amendment rights.

Some left-wing groups have criticized the ACLU for its position. In an email to Salon, an anonymous activist associated with the anti-fascist website Its Going Down condemned the civil liberties group.

Liberals mobilizing to defend fascists on free speech grounds increases interest in their views by conferring legitimacy on them, the representative wrote. This plays directly into fascist organizing goals, allowing them to drive a wedge between their opponents using free speech as a smokescreen. By tolerating racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, so-called free speech advocates are complicit in the acts of terror fascist organizing makes possible.

Critics of the event will hosttheir own gatheringson Friday and Saturday, including local religious organizations, the University of Virginia, and the Charlottesville chapter of Black Lives Matter. With several rally speakers encouraging their followers to bring concealed carry firearms, city officials are warning residents that the event may turn violent.

With large crowds of individuals with strongly held and potentially opposing beliefs, there is also the potential for conflict, the citys communications director, Miriam Dickler, said. Those who live and work in the area of these events should exercise their best judgment on the day of the rally and should avoid the area if they have concerns.

In a statement to students and staff, University of Virginia president Teresa A. Sullivan urged opponents of the neo-fascist rallyto stay away:

I urge students and all UVA community members to avoid the August 12 rally and avoid physical confrontation generally. There is a credible risk of violence at this event, and your safety is my foremost concern.

Moreover, to approach the rally and confront the activists would only satisfy their craving for spectacle. They believe that your counter-protest helps their cause. One advocate of the rally said, We should aim to draw the SJWs [social justice warriors] out in Charlottesville and create a massive polarizing spectacle in order to draw as huge a contrast as possible. They will reveal themselves to be violent, intolerant, opposed to free speech, the insane enforcers of political correctness, etc. The organizers of the rally want confrontation; do not gratify their desire.

The Unite the Right rally may not see large-scale violence, however, since Virginia law prohibits the wearing of masks in public. Oftentimes, when provisions of this nature are enforced by police in conjunction with controversial political rallies, opposing sides do not engage in violent activities. The states National Guard said it will be monitoring the situation and rapidly respond if requested by local law enforcement.

The eventhas not exactly achieved its objective of unifying all of the far rights disparate elements. Michael Madden, the owner of a popular Facebook page calledConfederate Keepers charged Kessler with obsessing about race instead of history:

The Confederate Keepers will not be at the rally on Aug. 12th. We do not agree with Jason using our heritage to spread his hate. We are about love and spreading education on the war for southern independence. He is using Gen Robert E Lees monument at LEE PARK because he knows he will get media attention. Yes he has the right to free speech, but that doesnt mean our southern heritage groups need to stand next to a known hate group. I highly condemn this rally as should everyone else. Ive watched Jason for some time now and he talks about the statues maybe two mins then bashes other races. People of all races fought for the south. That statue and the Confederate battle flag is not just white heritage but black, Indian, Spanish, etc. Ive had a few debates on this subject. I agree move it out of Lee Park because hate has no room in our heritage. My ancestors fought beside blacks, Spanish, Indians, etc. They fought for a free south, smaller government and states rights. To the ones showing up, I wonder what youre gonna do when he turns his subject to hate on your race? This rally shouldnt happen!

The web forum /pol/ hosted on 4chan (which is even more popular than the Daily Stormer) has been divided on the event, with many posters criticizing it as a trick by law enforcement officials into getting anonymous extremists to reveal their identities. Others have argued that local police will allow left-wing activists to engage in acts of assault without repercussions.

Let me guess, the Cops will be disarmed too or given meme weapons just so the lefties can cause damage with out fear of retaliation, one 4chan poster wrote.

Posters on the /pol/ spin-off hosted on 8chan have generally dismissed the rally as a phony effort to make money from gullible right-wingers. Others on the board have argued that taking white nationalist activism public before it has become more popular would attract dangerousattention from federal law enforcement and from liberals.

The whole premise behind the Unite the Right rally is fucking idiotic. You know what happens when you Unite the Right? You give the left a clear enemy to rally themselves with, an 8chan /pol/ poster wrote on Tuesday.

Since much of the pro-white memes have come from /pol/, be it [4chan] or this /pol/, leftists have not been able to fight back since we are anonymous. There was no clear enemy for them.

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Alt-right shindig: Neo-fascists plan giant rally to support Confederate flag what could go wrong? - Salon

The filmmakers behind the Pattinson-starring thriller discuss Pattinson's weird gifting habits, the laws they broke on set, and the state of bank robbery in 2017.

The first thing you notice about the Safdie brothers is that they are gung-ho. Formally credited on their various projects as Joshua and Ben Safdieand gregariously introducing themselves to everyone in the room as Josh and Bennyour GQ shoot has barely begun when Josh hops onto his brothers shoulders for a series of goofy photos. "He has amazing lower-body strength," laughs Josh as they grin for the camera.

And you cant help but think: These cheery, friendly young dudes are the filmmakers behind two of the decades most harrowing cinematic portraits of New York City? The Safdie brothers are best known for their 2014 drama Heaven Knows What, which was famously derived from the real-life experiences of star Arielle Holmes, a homeless heroin addict whom the Safdie brothers met while working on a still-unreleased passion project about Manhattans Diamond District. (They swear its their next project.)

Good Time, the Safdie brothers latest, shares Heaven Knows Whats interest in the impoverished side of New York City rarely explored in modern-day cinema. But it trades the gauzy, impressionistic structure of Heaven Knows What for the trappings of a white-knuckle thriller, and casts Robert Pattinsonan honest-to-god movie starin the lead role. (You can read our GQ cover story with Robert Pattinson here.)

In Good Time, Pattinson plays Connie Nikas, a blue-collar criminal grinding it out in New York City. When a bank robbery goes wrong, and his intellectually disabled brother (played by Benny Safdie) ends up in prison, Connie desperately scrambles to scrape together enough money to bust him out. Its a sympathetic story built around a consistently unsympathetic protagonist, and its hard to overstate how good Pattinson is in the role. Imagine a Drive that has no interest in making its violent, amoral protagonist look cool, or a heist movie about how much it sucks to be a criminal.

After several projects together (including the essential sports documentary Lenny Cooke), the Safdie brothers have worked out a brisk, economical division of labor. Josh wrote Good Time with longtime collaborator Ronald Bronstein. Benny costars. And both Josh and Benny are credited as directors. Conflicts are minimal and easily resolved. "Thats the beauty of working with someone youve known literally your whole life. Someone youve had bloody fights with," says Josh. "I can be very blunt."

And with their highest-profile to date arriving in theaters on Friday, the Safdie brothers have no interested in slowing down. "I dont think theres such a thing as 'work as hard as you can.' I think you can work harder," says Josh. "Always. With this movie, in particular, we worked very hard."

Joshua: Rob Pattinson just reached out to us and said, "Heywhatever youre doing next, I want to be a part of it." His initial impetus to reach out to us came from just a photo still, on the internet, from Heaven Knows What. He felt this kind of inner, innate connection to his purpose.

Ben: He said he would do catering for us. He didnt say, "I need to be the star of a movie."

Joshua: We met with him. I wasnt interested in using him as a cameo or a supporting player. He has the face of a star. He doesnt want to be a star; he just is one. And thats the best type.

Ben: The goal, for Rob, was to disappear. He said, "I want to disappear. Thats why I want to work with you guys. I dont want people to watch saying, 'Oh, thats Rob Pattinson.'" And when people watch the movie, they go, 'Oh, my God. Is that Rob Pattinson?'"

Joshua: [During the opening scene], this movie star comes in and throws the door openalmost like he did to our lives. "Hey. Lets get moving." And then, literally, the movie doesnt stop.

Joshua: Theres no good reason to rob a bank. Its the most romantic idea, to go and rob a bank. And the fact that people do rob banks, in 2017, is an example of life imitating art. In most bank robberies, you see people run away with two or three thousand dollars, because there are policies now: "Ill give you the money thats in the till, but thats it."

Ben: You can be in a bank and not even know its being robbed.

Joshua: Banks realize that if they get an insurance policy, they can write off two or three thousand-dollar losses, and its much cheaper than getting a full-time armed guard. Thats why you dont see armed guards in banks anymore.

Ben: Nate Silver did a whole thing: "Is it a viable living to rob banks?" He broke it down, hour-by-hour: Rob a bank, or work at McDonalds? And in the end, it was basically the same. The math just doesnt add up.

Joshua: We originally cast Eric Roberts [to play a bail bondsman]. We shot it, and edited it, and realized, "HeyI dont think this unbelievably expositional scene can survive the artifice of a movie star." So we cast an actual bail bondsman. And he improvised one line while on the phone. In his mind, hes getting details from the court, and he goes, "Lovely." Theres no one on the other line! Only an actual bail bondsman could do that part. And that masks the exposition thats happening.

Ben: When the bondsman dials a number, it needs to look like muscle memory.

Joshua: In Heaven Knows What, Arielle Holmes had a whole life she could pull from at any moment. Her preparation was her life. Thats why people work with nonprofessional actors. With a professional actor, we take that conceptbut now we have to build an entire life for you to have within you. Almost trick you into becoming another person. So for Rob specifically, we wrote an insane character biography, starting minute one of birth, and literally minutes before his entrance into the movie.

Josh: Rob was on Howard Stern. He was probably a little flustered. And he put out an impression of us that sounded like insanity. Like hed been thrown to the Tasmanian Devil. He thinks we induce mania and chaos into our set. We dont induce anything! I mean, we do but we dont want chaos.

Ben: There was one day when we didnt have a permit to shoot a shot when Rob was running away. We had permits for the street, but not permits to drive in the street, with a car driving alongside him. But we were like, "Ugh, we need this shot."

Josh: And were working with union guys who are like, "We cant do this." But we can.

Ben: So we grab the monitor, and stand in the middle of street, and were blocking all the traffic.

Josh: It was like three blocks of traffic just honking their horns.

"The way he performed that running the look on his face pure fear."

Ben: And Rob takes off and runs, and we got the shot. We got three shots! We did it, we got it, we moved on, and that was the end of it. Great day! And then we read Rob saying, "God, these guys. They just block traffic. Risk their lives!"

Josh: We werent risking our lives. Nobody was going to hit us. Having 20 cars laying on their horns does actually induce a certain level of chaos. But we were like, we had to get this. No fucking up. All he had to do was run.

Ben: For us, it was a practical thingbut for Rob, it added this energy.

Josh: The way he performed that running the look on his face pure fear.

Josh: That was a complete coincidence. We wrote "SpongeBob SquarePants," and Nickelodeon was like, "Get out of here."

Ben: At the time [we filmed Good Time], Pepe was like, a funny meme.

Josh: We had cartoonist friends that knew [Pepe creator] Matt Furie, and he was like, "Yeah, sure, sounds great." And its not until were editing the movie that the campaign takes holdand Trump is tweeting out Pepe the Frog. And the ADL is saying that Pepe the Frog is a hate symbol. I wrote to Matt Furie and said, "This is crazy," and he said, "Yeah, its destroying me."

Josh: Its still in the box. I live in a rental. I told my landlord, "Hey, I got this toilet," and had to explain what this toilet was. He was very confused about why I wanted a new toilet, because they recently installed a very nice toilet. So the new toilet is still in the boxconceptually, next to my unopened bottle of Prosecco and my unlit Cuban cigar. Which Ill celebrate with. When I die.

Ben: Hes going to be buried on the toilet, drinking the Prosecco, smoking the Cuban cigar.

Josh: Im definitely going out like Elvis. Ive read entire books on the can. Novellas. The only side effects are hemorrhoids.

Ben: And those are just a pain in the ass.

Go here to read the rest:
The Safdie Brothers Swear Good Time Didn't Almost Turn Robert Pattinson Into Roadkill - GQ Magazine

Like many moderate conservatives throughout the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election, Id shrug off claims from the left of hate, racism, xenophobia, etc., that were supposedly being perpetrated by conservatives and the rising Trump campaign. Sure, I thought, media figures like Sean Hannity stirred the culturally sensitive melting pot of American culture with their provocative headlines, but they were just the classic incendiary talk show hosts who you see on both sides of the aisle.

While those claims were shrugged off by the GOP base as the usual political rhetoric, few noticed a shadowy group of far-right outsiders that were muddying the conservative waters by blurring establishment conservatism with their own radical views. And when the source of the hate became evident, conservatives and liberals alike scratched their heads in bewilderment as far-right nationalism surfaced from the depths of the internet.

For years, members of the alt-right were culminating into a coalition of radical far-right nationalists who were flirting with ideas of pro-white nationalism, anti-semitism and a general opposition to any form of political correctness. In 2016, these individuals broke out onto the main political scene. While their ability to hold the attention of major news sites may be dwindling if not gone, the alt-rights influence on mainstream conservatism is a subtle yet concerning one.

A lot of alt-right activity is internet-based, so it would be quite difficult to easily point out a member of the alt-right unless they were supporters of people like Richard Spencer: head of the National Policy Institute and the self-proclaimed leader of the alt-right. Participants of this movement populate internet forums such as 4chan and Reddit with messages that promote white nationalism, anti-semitism and basically anything anti-politically correct.

Members of the alt-right spend their time on these message boards reinforcing their white nationalist identity among themselves as a reaction to increasing multiculturalism in American society and fear of a white minority in the coming years. They are a wildly scattered group consisting of pro-Western nationalists, pro-white nationalists, neo-Nazis and many other far-right offshoots. They are united in their many controversial beliefs including racial superiority, misogyny, anti-semitism, anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism.

Their activities have been gaining momentum since 2008, but recent populist uprisings across the globe including those at home have propelled the alt-right into the mainstream. They generated millions of memes that supported nationalist icons like Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and most importantly, Donald Trump. The most notable was Pepe the Frog, a disheveled-looking frog who would often be displayed to resemble Trump. They referred to their efforts as meme magic, believing that plastering the frog anywhere possible would carry Trump and other nationalist leaders to victory.

When it started to spill into the social media feeds of everyday Americans, the media naturally condemned the alt-rights provocative online activity while simultaneously bringing attention to the groups endeavors: ultimately, and unknowingly, fulfilling the alt-rights initial goal of generating media interest. Their newfound infamy unfortunately started to blur the lines between conservatives and their far-right counterparts.

But when Trump won the election, the commotion died down and all of the political radicals, including the alt-right, were once again overshadowed by the usual Washington noise that comes with a new president. Yet circumstances were different for the alt-right. Similar to their unnoticed leap into mainstream conservatism, they quietly stuck around and continued to spread their influence online: this time on platforms that hosted thousands more viewers than the murkier internet forums of 4chan and Reddit.

Scrolling through my Instagram Explore page, months after the rise and fall of the alt-rights popularity, I noticed a few strange posts from different conservative accounts that generally posted jokes I thought of as sensible. One account had posted 80s retro aesthetic pictures containing phrases like not all men are equal, power and a generation of revenge, with pictures depicting the moon landing, a gladiator and a skeleton in Nazi fatigues, respectively. There was a final picture titled Right Wing Death Squad, a reference to death squads being a result of an increasingly leftist state, according to an alt-right 4chan forum. It turns out I was looking at posters promoting fashwave, a nostalgic form of dubstep in a retro style reminiscent of the neo-Nazi music wave of the 80s.

That same day I noticed the familiar account had posted questionable statistics listing the IQs of different races, claiming that certain negative personality traits of the listed racial groups stemmed from those numbers. Unsurprisingly, they were from the National Policy Institute, which is essentially the main think tank of the alt-right. To my confusion, I noticed similar comments on both posts congratulating the account for finally becoming red-pilled, which is alt-right slang for opening ones eyes to see their pro-white nationalist version of reality.

To see mainstream conservatives sharing pictures advocating neo-Nazism or white nationalism was quite unsettling; things were dramatically different from the times the alt-right were spreading a cartoon frog around the internet. Conservative hotspots that used to host topics like health care or tax policy were now debating news articles and related content that read: Illegal Aliens and Violent Crime: Some Amazing Facts, African Who Attacked Church Deported from Italy: Im a Muslim, Its My Duty to Destroy Christian Symbols and Hillary, Soros and the political genocide of Christianity.

Sources from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and any media outlet with journalistic standards have been branded as fake news and replaced with sites like Breitbart and The Daily Stormer, who push these inflammatory headlines for the sake of angering and energizing their alt-right followers. It is clear that the alt-right hasnt left mainstream conservatism; they have used the conservative base to latch on like parasites benefitting from an audience of millions.

The continued online presence of the alt-right should alarm conservatives. This far-right fringe group is slowly influencing a generation of budding conservatives by introducing subtle humor that has the potential to turn them on to the idea of a pro-white nationalist America. If their influence continues to spread even further across the mainstream they will eventually replace known conservative principles like limited government and individual liberty with principles that promote white nationalism. Conservatives should make a preemptive effort to clearly separate themselves from the alt-right so they may never fully spread their radical views into the mainstream and promote a false image of modern conservatism.

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The alt-right parasite: How fringe groups latched on to mainstream ... - Virginia Tech Collegiate Times

Members of 4chan's /pol/ board, the hotbed of the alt-right, are pretty active in Britain, as the conspiracy theories around Grenfell Tower fire and the terror attack at Ariana Grande concert show.

But this time they have stepped up their game.

Hackers from /pol/ claimed responsibility on 4chan for breaking into a billboard in the heart of Cardiff's busy shopping district and using it to broadcast swastikas, images about Islam, a Big Brother message from George Orwell's 1984 and a photo of Donald Trump as alt-right meme Pepe the Frog.

Members of the channel boasted about the op in several posts, saying they'd be "broadcasting images of your choice" and inviting people to "post memes you want to be on the big screen in the thread".

As you can see, a fake declaration that the area was under Sharia Law ended up on the billboard:

South Wales Police said they received a number of calls related to the incident. "We alerted the city council and will investigate any crimes which may have been committed," a spokesman said.

The council then reached out to BlowUP Media, the company that runs the billboard, and it has since been turned off.

See more here:
Alt-right hackers take over billboard to broadcast swastikas and Trump as Pepe the Frog - Mashable

I like to call myself that, because it really triggers people when I do, Mike Cernovich said, his voice tinny but robust with wry satisfaction, when I asked if he thinks of himself a journalist. People get angry, he added. I consider myself a writer, foremost a nonfiction writer. And I write about whatever interests me, and lately, the drama of all the things happening in D.C. interests me. So, in that regard, Im definitely a journalist in the sense that I am breaking news and writing news that other people dont have.

Had Cernovich said that a year ago, there would have been reason to laugh.

Back then, he was a mens-rights activist and self-help guru beloved by the alt-right trolls populating social media with Pepe the Frog memes and anti-Semitic, racist, and misogynistic missives. His major contributions to the political discourse included run-of-the-mill pro-Trump propaganda, like labeling the presidential debates rigged, as well as more creative messaging, like perpetuating rumors that Hillary Clinton (who remains alive as of press time) was near death due to some unholy combination of Parkinsons and syphilis. On his blog, Danger and Play, Cernovich promoted the conspiracy that would become known as Pizzagate, the story that prominent Democrats connected to Clinton were part of a child sex-trafficking operation headquartered in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant that does not have a basement. There was a map to probably, probably child trafficking or something like that, probably the sex cult shit. Thats why it was coded, he speculated on Periscope on November 4, 2016, after studying a leaked email to Clintons campaign chairman John Podesta that included a puzzling reference to a map. These people are fucking sick, man.

But Cernovich is taking a different, arguably savvier approach to expanding his profile and influence in Donald Trumps America. Hes become less reflexively pro-Trump and denounced the alt-right, preferring the term new right while acknowledging that his ideology is a complex terrain that can mostly be defined as a hybrid of populism and nationalism. Hes distanced himself from Pizzagate, claiming in our discussion that hes not responsible for how, in his words, that thing went off the rails, because I never named a pizza parlor. And hes refocused himself on using his substantial platform more than 325,000 Twitter followers, plus millions of viewers on Periscope and YouTube to break news that mainstream journalists are forced to chase, confirm, and, increasingly, cite.

A question you hear often in Washington these days isWho, exactly, is talking to Mike Cernovich? Among the D.C. press corps there is a palpable curiosity about his sources inside the West Wing and on the National Security Council. In just the past few weeks he broke the news of Reince Priebuss firing and was the first to report on and obtain a memo outlining Anthony Scaramuccis White House press strategy.

Ive been playing a tighter game, Cernovich told me. People keep their distance and I respect that. But I think now that when I tweet things out and people actually go and chase down what Im tweeting, especially with national security stuff, they find out that there is at least something there. Sometimes it might be an unconfirmed rumor, but Im not sitting here thinking, Oh, what can I write on Twitter that I made up in my mind? It is actual, real stuff that people are talking about within the intelligence community, or whatever people want to say. You have to earn credibility, you have to earn respect, you have to earn trust.

But who is trusted these days, and who gets to be a Real Journalist? The president got elected after a campaign that was as much about rebranding the monolithic media as fake news as it was about rejecting his political opponent. According to a June 28 Gallup poll, only 27 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in newspapers. Television and digital news fared even worse. Yet the numbers are bleaker for the White House. According to an August 7 CNN poll, just 24 percent of Americans trust what they hear from officials, while 30 percent say they trust nothing at all. It makes sense, then, that personalities have become more popular than institutions, and that someone like Cernovich has found a grassroots audience for the information he collects that contributes to their shared beliefs about the world. The minor outrage when he was granted a pass to enter the White House briefing room missed the point entirely.

Cernovich explained a rather cinematic process by which he obtains his tips and information, like if Inspector Gadget, not Robert Redford, had walked into the dimly lit garage inAll the Presidents Men. Most of the stuff I do is shadowy anyway: Meet people in parks, nobody brings a cell phone, which is important, he said, because deep state can detect if you and I are in the same room, thats all shown by a cell phone. They know right away whos meeting. So, when youre meeting with really top sources or whatever, you dont want your cellphones to ever be within range of each other because that can be found. And all of that is being monitored, of course, but theyll deny that never, never spy on journalists. Bullshit! Thats all being monitored.

We were having this conversation on what he called his main number, which is not the number his sources contact him on. Thats a device that doesnt have any association to me or my phone records or anything. So, if somebody found that phone, whats the proof? And people are calling me from burner cell phones. And its all on Signal. So, good luck with that, people!

He admitted, My op-sec is fucking paranoid. When I tell people about it, at first they dont believe it because it sounds so elaborate or whatever.

His sources within the White House and the administration more broadly, he claimed, number in the dozens. He repeated himself for emphasis, duhhhzenz.

A lot of people are afraid to lie to me, he said, because they know that if they lie to me and they burn me, that I would seek revenge. And I would seek revenge in a way that maybe a traditional journalist wouldnt seek revenge. He added that he would do so, legally, lawfully, I wouldnt break any laws or anything. I would start snooping around in that persons life, man.

Still, bullshit tips do fall into his lap. But his process for vetting a source tends to weed those out quickly. This amounts to asking the source to tell him information until he feels hes heard enough to determine if theyre credible, something he says he does sometimes without even learning the persons name.

Cernovich claims that on April 2 an anonymous source called him on Signal to tell him that former national security adviser Susan Rice had requested the disclosure of the identities of Americans including many related to the Trump campaign and transition in raw intelligence reports, a process known as unmasking. He wrote up the tip on Medium, and then watched as it took off on social media, with help from the Drudge Report, Kellyanne Conway, and Donald Trump Jr., the presidents son, who suggested that were the media not rigged, Cernovich would receive a Pulitzer Prize.

The press, however, didnt give him much credit for his scoop. A single anonymous source does not typically meet the threshold for publishing news at most media outlets, for starters. And then there was the issue of taking Cernovich seriously at all, given that his earlier work included stuff like a video where a sickly muppet rendering of Clinton collapsed and rose from the dead repeatedly. So when Bloomberg Viewreported the same news on the morning of April 3, citing U.S. officials familiar with the matter, it was treated differently with total legitimacy.The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal,the New York Post, andthe Washington Times, either unaware or dismissive of the fact that Cernovich was first, wrote that Bloomberg had broken the story.And when Cernovich was cited, byNBCfor instance, it was typically within the context of stories that downplayed the newsworthiness of Rices actions the implication being, if the Pizzagate loon is the one with the intel, perhaps the intel isnt all its cracked up to be.

But by late July, everything had changed, both in how Cernovich perceived the Trump White House, and in how the press perceived Cernovich.

At 3:29 p.m. on July 28, Cernovich took to Twitter to report that a source close to POTUS informed him, Reince has been told hes out. The president himself would not announce the decision until 4:49 p.m., while sitting aboard Air Force One on a tarmac in Washington. And although other reporters would go on to say theyd heard rumors of the decision before it came down, Cernovich had the advantage of operating without the barrier of an editor or publisher or any other organizational structure that might inhibit speed but also lower the odds of a fuck-up.

The reason that Im so fast at what I do is Im not saying that Im getting stories that nobody else has the difference is that if a tip goes out to five people, and I know that its a reliable source, I just tweet it out, he told me. If youre at a respectable news organization, that would be considered irresponsible. So, me, Im just like, Oh. Sounds good. This is a vetted source. Im rocking and rolling. Lets get out and get the conversation going.

On August 2, when he reported the details of what he called The Mooch Memo a document created by the erstwhile White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci before his firing, detailing his plans for a comms strategy other reporters hurriedly confirmed the news and obtained their own copies of the document. CNN noted, It was first published by right-wing media personality Mike Cernovich on Medium. As did Slate, Newsweek, and the New York Daily News, among many others. After Cernovich reported last week that Scaramucci was planning to hold some kind of press event in the wake of his firing, Bloomberg backed up the rumor before CNN reported the specifics of the online town hall scheduled for last Friday (which Scaramucci eventually canceled).

Would you want to go work in the Trump White House after what happened to Mooch today? Cernovich asked his internet audience on July 31, after Scaramucci was fired. If you say yes, youre telling me that you dont really have any options in life. Youre telling me that youre desperate for power, or you dont really have options in life. Otherwise, why in the world would you give up anything for the White House?

Criticizing the president in terms like that is part of his evolution. One way that Ive changed is that if six months ago I had gotten a big story that wouldve hurt Trump, I probably wouldnt break that story, he said. I would have given that story to somebody else to break. But now, Id probably break that story. He told me his decision to be less pro-Trump than I was is about trust, and his realization that although he has a political agenda, being truthful will necessarily mean disagreeing with the president sometimes. This means trust from the public and the rest of the media. I want people to know, Hey, if youre reading my stuff, I do have an agenda. I do have a bias. But what you read is gonna be within the realm of truth, he explains. It also means trust from his sources, who believe he is acting genuinely, and, in a way, transparently.

He added, I wouldnt say all journalism is activism, but I would say most journalism is activism and he includes in that assessment his own work, the objective of which is to get out stories that advance my view of the world. Even with his shift toward a kind of professionalism, that worldview does still include what you might call conspiratorial beliefs, like that some all-powerful they installs pedophiles into elected office as a means of controlling their actions through blackmail.

Recently that has meant leading the charge against National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. To Cernovich and those of his new-right-whatever-we-are-calling-it-now ilk, McMaster is a globalist warmonger who stands in opposition to the Trump ethos including the surgical removal of National Security Council officials allied with his predecessor, Michael Flynn, and the chief White House strategist, Steve Bannon (whom McMaster removed from the NSC principals committee earlier this year).

Cernovichs reporting on the NSC has concerned McMaster, according toThe Atlantic. During a meeting last month,The Atlanticreported, McMaster mentioned Cernovich by name. He did bring it up and said, This guys been targeting our people, he is posting personal information that has to have come from the inside, a source close to McMaster told the publication.

In our conversation, Cernovich elaborated on what he meant by reporting on things within the realm of truth by pointing to a rumor about McMasters personal life. Because this rumor is so pervasive, according to Cernovich, nobody would accuse him of making it up out of thin air. He said he believes its acceptable to report on a rumor if its a reliable source, because in that case, I dont consider it a rumor. I consider it true. If anything, that might be too tabloid, and I dont have an issue with tabloid-style journalism at all. He does have what he called a platform rule that amounts to: If youre nobody, Im not gonna make you somebody.

I wont do that kind of journalism, he said, But if youre a public figure and youre in the game in the way McMaster is, thats a little bit different. Even lower-level staffers, he said, could be saved by the platform rule, because at a certain point, its just kind of fucking with a persons life with no good reason. Thats bad karma.

The Senate Majority Leader suggests Trumps impatience led to Trumpcares defeat. Trump thinks McConnell is just making excuses.

Subtle.

It may be just a small straw in the wind, but a Democrat won in one of those midwestern small town districts Trump won, despite GOP culture-war ads.

He has a brain tumor right now that vote occurred at 1:30 in the morning, some of that might have factored in, Senator Ron Johnson said.

The president nearly blunders into war completely by mistake.

Two LGBTQ legal organizations filed a lawsuit on their behalf.

At a time when the president could use some calm, pacific advice in dealing with North Korea, one leading spiritual counselor is egging him on to war.

The home, which was recently bought at auction, is now listed on Airbnb with amenities such as a giant cut out of Donald in the Living Room.

Robert Mueller apparently convinced a judge that there was probable cause to believe Trumps excampaign manager had committed a crime.

The president shook up a tight three-way race for the GOP Senate nomination by endorsing Mitch McConnells candidate just days before the primary.

Trumps suggestion comes as he rejects his drug commissions recommendation to declare a national emergency.

A standoff with no good options is made worse by the unpredictability of Kim Jong-un and the American president.

Meanwhile, Sebastian Gorka announces that were living through a modern Cuban Missile Crisis, and so all criticism of the president must cease.

The U.S. and China have different goals, and Russia is happy to take a back seat.

The Truman Show solution.

That probably wont stop President Trump from going after the special counsel and the other prosecutors on his team.

Even if he wasnt planning to escalate a dangerous situation, that was the effect.

The alt-right favorite is distancing himself from Trump and rebranding as a journalist because it really triggers people.

While many people think Congress is enriching itself, its actually too poor in policy knowledge and resources to do much more than take orders.

Tensions are ramping up on the Korean peninsula.

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Mike Cernovich Pivots From Pizzagate to Not-So-Fake News - New York Magazine