Musk in Die Welt MUST READ!

ELON MUSK'S HATE & EXPLOITATION DERIVES FROM HIS SOUTH AFRICAN 

HERITAGE - NOT DEMOCRACY! 

THIS IMPERILS AMERICA'S FUTURE! 

PROMOTING NAZIS, DISINFORMATION, LIES REVEALS MUSK'S IGNORANCE 

& THE THREAT HE POSES! 

MUSK HAS NO ECONOMIC COMPREHENSION!

Musk in Die Welt

Joyce Vance Dec 29

It did not take long for Eva Marie Kogel, the opinion editor at Die Welt, Germany’s paper of record, to decide what the right thing for her to do was. Die Welt ran an editorial from Elon Musk praising Germany’s extremist far-right political party AfD and calling it the country’s future. Kogel announced her resignation.

Musk’s piece in Die Welt came on the heels of a December 20 tweet where he posted, "Only the AfD can save Germany."

AfD translates to “Alternative for Germany.” The party was started by “Euroskeptics,” opposed to the single European currency, in 2013, but has taken a hard right turn since then. It has been classified as a home for right-wing extremism but is gaining ground in parts of the country. Unlike our two-party system in the U.S., Germany has at least eight serious political parties. As the country heads toward parliamentary elections in February of 2025, AfD is polling in second place, which translates into about a 1/5 share of the vote.

Musk, in Trumpian style, dismissed the view that AfD is a right-wing extremist organization as “clearly false.” But German courts, in May of this year, backed the German security service’s decision to investigate the party as an extremist group. Part of the concern centered on the activities of AfD’s leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, Bjoern Hoecke. In 2017, he condemned Berlin’s Holocaust memorial as a “monument of shame,” and called for a rejection of the negative light the country views its Nazi past in, saying it should make a “180-degree turn” in how that era is assessed.

In elections in September of 2024, AfD became the majority party in Thuringia, the first far-right party to succeed in an election in Germany since 1945. The party “has embraced anti-immigration, Islamophobic, and xenophobic positions, as well as anti-LGBTQ+, anti-environmental, and pro-Russian positions, among others,” according to the American-German Institute.

Musk has grotesquely misrepresented the position of the AfD. And while his foray into German politics might seem peripheral to the concerns we face in this country, it is not. His willingness to lie about the views of an extremist political party is disturbing given the role he is about to assume in this country, parallel to but outside the boundaries of accountability for people who work in our government. If he will do it there, deliberately misleading people about what a party’s rise to power would mean for a country, there is no reason to believe he will be honest in his dealings here. It’s important for people who may not already understand that to be exposed to the facts about what’s going on here.

No matter what Musk claims, the AfD is most definitely not Obama’s Democratic Party. That’s what he tweeted when Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy pointed out that Musk’s support of AfD was support of a party that had aligned itself with Nazi ideology. Musk tweeted that AfD policies were “identical to those of the US Democratic Party when Obama took office!” Just to make sure everyone understood what he was saying, Musk continued, “I don’t think there is a single difference.” In fact, of course, there are all kinds of differences, and the overlap between AfD and the Democratic Party’s platform when Obama took office is a virtual null set. But that obvious reality didn’t keep Musk from misrepresenting while calling Murphy a liar. It would feel tremendously high school if it wasn’t so serious.

In Die Welt, Musk wrote, “The AfD is committed to a controlled immigration policy that prioritises integration and the preservation of German culture and security.” It’s an all too familiar refrain for Germans. “A nation must preserve its core values and cultural heritage in order to remain strong and united.”

Musk left his native South Africa at age 17 for a brief stay in Canada before entering the U.S. He became an American citizen in 2002 after spending a decade working in the country. He has business interests in Germany, which may explain his interest in who wins the next election there. He said those investments gave him the right to give voice to his opinion.

Much of the impetus for AfD’s advance and for Musk’s support of it seems to center around Germany’s immigration policy. To understand the dynamic, you need to know that Germany has absorbed large numbers of refugees and other immigrants, and that the impact on the country has been predictably tremendous. In 1980, when I was in school in Germany, there was an acceptance of the need for “gastarbeiters,” foreign workers who filled gaps in Germany’s labor pool. Humanitarian crises in the last half century have fueled migration, and Germany has been at the forefront of helping people, as when then-Chancellor Angela Merkel announced an open door policy in 2015. AfD, and now Musk, are speaking to less tolerant Germans, using anti-immigrant animus in hopes of provoking a sharp right political turn.

In March of this year, the AP reported, “The EU received 1.1 million asylum requests in 2023, the highest number since 2015. Germany got by far the largest number of claims — more than 300,000 — mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey. The country has also taken in more than a million Ukrainian refugees displaced by Russia’s invasion.”

“This is not about xenophobia, but about ensuring that Germany does not lose its identity in the pursuit of globalisation,” Musk wrote.

In his efforts to defend AfD against claims it is Nazi-like, Musk singled out party leader Alice Weidel, who has a same-sex partner originally from Sri Lanka. “Does that sound like Hitler to you?” Musk admonished people who would “condemn the AfD as extremist” against being “fooled by the label attached to it.”

Musk’s willingness to dismiss the similarities and to advocate for AfD to take over Germany is deeply disturbing. The suggestion that having a gay leader somehow means the party can’t hold the extremist views it explicitly advocates for is simply wrong. And it is disingenuous. Musk fails the lesson of history: while the Nazis persecuted homosexuals, sending about 15,000 gay men to concentration camps, it was an open secret that Hitler’s right-hand man, the hyper-masculine Ernst Röhm, who headed the Brownshirts, was homosexual. One gay leader doesn’t mean anything here.

Die Welt’s incoming editor-in-chief, Jan Philipp Burgard, offered an opposing view that ran alongside Musk’s column. Burgard wrote that while Musk might be correct about the problems Germany faces, the argument that only AfD can fix things is “fatally wrong.” He pointed out that AfD supports rapprochement with Russia, including trade restoration and an end to sanctions, and that the party supports appeasing China and leaving the European Union. Burgard wrote that leaving the Union would be a “catastrophe.” (Jens Spahn, a member of the center-right CDU party and former health minister, tweeted that about 40% of Germany’s foreign trade is with EU partners and that without that relationship, the country’s economy would collapse.) Burgard also lambasted Hoecke, the leader of AfD in Thuringia, for his repeated use of banned Nazi slogans and salutes.

The Association of German Journalists (DJV) protested Musk’s piece, calling it “election advertising” and saying that “the German media must not allow itself to be manipulated into acting as a mouthpiece for autocrats and their friends.”

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1870161068603130256

Last January, support for the AfD appeared to be waning after reports that some of its high-ranking figures were part of a meeting of extremists who gathered to discuss deportation of millions of immigrants, including German citizens. There were mass protests at the time, but some of the outrage seems to have faded despite sustained protests.

Germans protesting the rise of AfD in January carrying a sign that reads, “nie wieder 1933,” a reference to the year the Nazis rose to power with the statement that it must never happen again.

Germany’s immigration problems are real, as are ours at home. But the answer isn’t Nazism or right-wing authoritarianism. It is policymaking, like the compromise bill Democrats offered earlier this year, only to have Trump lead Republicans to reject it so he could keep immigration alive as a political issue to run on. Immigration isn’t an immutable problem that can only be addressed with hate and inhumane policies.

Musk seems to be doing his best to make right-wing extremism salonfähig—German for “presentable” or “acceptable in good company.” He is doing it in our country, and now in Germany too. It is something we should be deeply concerned about as he assumes unofficial, unelected power alongside Donald Trump. Musk called Germany’s right-wing extremist party the country’s “last spark of hope” today. That dangerous ideology is wrong for the Germans, and it’s wrong for us too. Musk’s column has as much to do with us as it has to do with the Germans.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

FAIR: Reuters (Unsurprisingly) Looks Away as Ecuador Tries to Outlaw Opposition Parties

 

View article on FAIR's website Reuters (Unsurprisingly) Looks Away as Ecuador Tries to Outlaw Opposition Parties JOE EMERSBERGER     When Venezuela threatened to make parties that boycotted local elections re-register, Reuters (12/20/17) thought that was important news. Ecuador actually suspending opposition parties wasn't as newsworthy. Reuters routinely buries information that would badly damage the reputation of US allies in the Americas. Whether those allies are bureaucrats from the Organization of American States and the dictatorship they helped install in Bolivia (FAIR.org, 12/17/19), violent protesters in Nicaragua (FAIR.org, 8/23/18) or Venezuelan politicians who support lethal US sanctions on their own country (FAIR.org, 6/14/19),  the London-based news service can be counted on to cover for them. In the case of Ecuador, a servile US ally since President Lenin Moreno took office in 2017, Reuters has ignored efforts to prevent Moreno’s strongest opponents from participating in the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for 2021. On Reuters’ website, I found 26 articles in English about Ecuador from June 19 through August 16. None of them are about the Moreno government openly trying to prevent four political parties from running in the 2021 elections. Ecuador’s auditor general, Pablo Celi, demanded on June 19 that the parties be banned, and, a few days later, called for electoral authorities to be fined and fired if they disobeyed him. Back in 2017, the same day Venezuela’s electoral authorities announced that parties that boycotted municipal elections would have to re-register to participate in the presidential election, Reuters (12/20/17) immediately ran an article with the headline “Venezuela May Ban Main Opposition Parties From Presidential Vote.” Days earlier, another Reuters article (12/11/17) had the headline “US Condemns Threat to Ban Venezuela Opposition From Elections.” Quite a lot to 'miss' Celi is strongly implicated in acts of corruption that have recently come to light, and has a dubious legal claim to having his job at all. However, he has been pivotal to Moreno’s criminalization of political opponents, and that’s kept him on the job and on the attack (CounterPunch, 7/1/20). Electoral authorities resisted Celi’s bullying for weeks, but caved on July 19. The four parties were suspended. The key party Moreno has targeted for elimination is Fuerza Compromiso Social (FCS)—the party supporters of former President Rafael Correa joined in order to be able to participate in the 2019 regional elections. (Correa and Moreno belonged to the same left wing party for ten years, Alianza PAIS; Moreno moved the party completely to the right after he was elected president in 2017. See FAIR.org, 2/4/18.) A judge overturned the suspensions on August 2. The electoral authorities’ effort to reverse the judge's ruling failed on August 14. But the electoral authorities had already made another decision that will subject FCS and the other three parties to a special “review” that could still block them from participating in 2021. The “review” is supposed to be completed by mid-September. Moreno’s cabinet secretary, Juan Sebastián Roldán, said in a TV interview (MAXTV Online, 8/7/20) that Correa is part of a “gang” that “must not be feared.” He added menacingly that it’s a “big risk being a Correaist candidate, because the justice system will have its eyes on those who have not yet fled or been convicted.” This is not an idle threat that Roldán made: Numerous Correa allies (including elected officials) have been jailed or driven into exile by Moreno. Moreno’s great betrayal Because Ecuador is a US ally, Reuters (4/7/20) treats the government bringing criminal charges against a political opponent with none of the skepticism it would apply to a similar move by an Official Enemy. Correa was first elected in 2006 and left office in May 2017. Moreno had been vice president for the first six years of Correa’s time in office, and his special envoy to the UN for the remaining four. Understandably enough, voters in 2017 believed Moreno was sincere when he praised Correa lavishly throughout his campaign, saying Correa’s “citizens revolution” had been “legendary.” Within weeks of taking office, it was obvious Moreno had done a complete ideological about-face and implemented the platform of his right-wing opponent, a banker named Guillermo Lasso. A threat to prosecute Correaists was part of Lasso’s platform, and Moreno followed through on it ruthlessly. Moreno’s running mate, Jorge Glas, who immediately opposed Moreno’s right turn, was quickly imprisoned for “illicit association,” based on flimsy evidence and judicial chicanery (CounterPunch, 12/21/18). Moreno has tried to pursue Correa in Belgium using two ridiculous cases. Correa, whose wife is Belgian,  had always said he would live there after leaving office.  Interpol, on human rights grounds, has rejected two different requests by Ecuador to arrest Correa. Moreno similarly followed through on Lasso’s promises to illegally eject Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and to shift economic policy to the right, based on the lie that Ecuador’s public spending and debt had been unsustainably high under Correa (FAIR.org, 10/23/19). Fulfilling yet another campaign promise by Lasso (to restore “institutional independence”), Moreno stacked the judiciary and numerous other control authorities to the satisfaction of Ecuador's traditional powerbrokers (CounterPunch, 10/12/18). All of this pleased Ecuador’s private media, and Western media generally (FAIR.org, 2/4/18, 11/3/18). In April, a Reuters article by Alexandra Valencia (4/7/20) covered for Moreno’s extreme cynicism by deceptively stating that Correa “initially backed [Moreno] in 2017.” That’s like saying that Jesus and Judas had once been friendly acquaintances. Reality asserts itself Overwhelming local and international media support aside, Moreno’s economic policies hurt the population, and the regional election results of March 2019 showed that “Correaists” remained the most serious electoral threat to Moreno and his right-wing allies. That’s remarkable, considering that Correa’s supporters have not even been allowed to register their own political party—hence their decision to participate by joining FCS. They could only participate in 48% of the states and 22% of mayoral elections (CounterPunch, 10/25/19). Moreno’s government took another hit in October 2019, when protests broke out against harsh austerity measures it tried to impose. To salvage their credibility, some anti-Correa collaborators of Moreno’s from the supposed “left” were forced to confront him (CounterPunch, 10/25/19). All of that was before the Covid-19 pandemic struck Ecuador. The government’s response was so incompetent that (based on excess deaths per capita) it’s among the worst in the world. To make matters worse for Ecuador’s right, the gruesome outbreak began in Guayaquil, a port city that’s been governed by the same right-wing party (PSC) since 1992—a fact that explains some weird attempts to put a positive spin on the city’s catastrophe. An NBC News headline (8/7/20) said: “Guayaquil, Ecuador, Once Had Bodies on the Street Because of Coronavirus. Now It's Helping Others.” I should note that a Huffington Post article (8/5/20) by Travis Waldron and Nick Robins-Early did make a quick mention of Moreno’s attempt to ban Correaists from the 2021 elections—albeit very deep into a lengthy article whose emphasis was largely on demonizing Venezuela’s government. Journalist Phil Gunson, who has been whitewashing the US-backed opposition in Venezuela for decades, was quoted extensively. Alliance makes a world of difference Moreno is not struggling to contain a violent opposition backed by a superpower, as Nicolás Maduro is in Venezuela. On the contrary, Moreno is trying to prevent voters from punishing Ecuador's very pro-US right-wing parties, whose platform he adopted. Correaists aren’t asking the US to strangle Ecuador’s economy or invade the country, nor are they asking the bloodsoaked Elliott Abrams to bribe and coerce Ecuador’s military to perpetrate a coup. They just want to participate in the upcoming elections. Unfortunately, Reuters’ priorities are clearly US priorities—which means covering for US allies at the expense of journalistic integrity. Featured image: Reuters depiction (10/17/19) of Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno (photo: Henry Romero). ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to Reuters here (or via Twitter: @Reuters). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.

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PFAW: Reject Kavanaugh's protegee for D.C. Circuit Court

I'll cut to the chase here: instead of prioritizing relief for hardworking American families in the midst of a once-in-a-generation public health and economic crisis, Trump and Mitch McConnell are trying to ram through the confirmation of a far-right judicial nominee to a lifetime appointment who isn't even 12 years out of law school.

Justin Walker is an anti-healthcare, right-wing extremist and Brett Kavanaugh acolyte who is unfit for the federal bench.

McConnell and Trump's crusade to stack our courts with far-right extremists like Walker knows no bounds -- not even in this moment of crisis.

Sign our petition urging the Senate to reject the Walker nomination now!>>

Mitch McConnell has promised to get back to work on pushing this nomination through as soon as the Senate returns from recess-- prioritizing these nominations over adequate funding to support Americans out of work, essential workers, our first responders, and the states, which are bearing the brunt of the response effort for the pandemic.

Justin Walker, notable mentee of Brett Kavanaugh, is being put up for this position because he's young and his record shows his dedication to destroying our right to healthcare and to dismantling vital health and safety protections, the separation between church and state, and other core tenets of our democracy. Walker is just the latest unqualified and dangerous nominee Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell have rushed to confirmation.

As Walker was confirmed for his first judgeship in Kentucky last year, he prioritized loyalty to the president and his buddy Kavanaugh over protecting our institutions and government. He called for an unprecedented investigation into how Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's allegations against Kavanaugh became public record and even called into question the independence of investigative bodies like the FBI. He has also championed what he said was Kavanaugh's opposition to the Affordable Care Act.

Walker is not remotely qualified for a lifetime appointment to what is known as the nation's second highest court in the land, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Can you sign the petition now?

Thank you for your advocacy and hoping you and your family remain well in these challenging times.

In community,

Charlie, PFAW

THANK YOU for your support of People For the American Way! 

Radical Right extremists are trying to turn back the clock on a century of advances in civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the social safety net and more… With Donald Trump in the White House, they’re waging an all-out assault on the fundamental pillars of our country – democracy, checks and balances, a fair and independent judicial branch, and core values like fairness, equality, and justice for all.

PFAW is fighting back every day with:

✔ Grassroots organizing
✔ Lobbying and advocacy
✔ Research and education
✔ Voter mobilization
✔ And more…

But we can’t do this vital work without the robust grassroots financial support of our members and activists.

PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY: Republicans know that voters are coming for them … and they’ll do anything to keep them from the polls.

Republicans know that voters are coming for them … and they’ll do anything to keep them from the polls.

You just saw it in Wisconsin, where Republican state lawmakers insisted on making voters put their health and the health of others on the line to turn out and cast in-person ballots. Right-wing justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court – in a decision written by Brett Kavanaugh – sided with Republicans against Wisconsin voters.

But guess what? Wisconsin voters DID turn out. And the Right Wing LOST the very election they were trying to rig by suppressing the vote!

People are actually risking their health, and perhaps their lives, to cast their ballots against Trump Republicans, and that sort of motivation on our side is a NIGHTMARE for the GOP.

 So Republicans are doing everything they can to prevent making voting more accessible with simple solutions like expanded vote by mail and more early voting, and they’re trying to create chaos in key battleground states by encouraging their own supporters to rebel against stay at home orders!

This is why we’re working to ensure that every eligible voter is able to cast a ballot that counts, by fighting back against voter suppression, by securing billions of dollars for election security funding in coronavirus relief legislation, and with direct voter outreach. But we need to raise another $21,000 in the next 48 hours to do it.

Donate now to renew for 2020 and stop Trump Republicans from using the coronavirus to steal this election – your impact will be TRIPLED!>>

It’s become clear that to Republicans, everything is an opportunity for a power grab – even an unprecedented public health crisis.

In Wisconsin, even with health experts advising people to stay at home and extreme shortages of poll workers due to the pandemic, Republicans would not push back Election Day or expand absentee voting to allow voters to cast their ballots by mail.

That meant forcing voters to violate social distancing and brave severely overcrowded polling places – especially in the state’s Democratic stronghold of Milwaukee, which also has the state’s highest concentration of minority voters. Milwaukee usually has 180 polling places open, but on Election Day earlier this month, there were five.

We’re fighting for voters all across the country, but states like Wisconsin – and Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina – where the presidential election and some key U.S.  Senate races will be decided, are where Trump Republicans are prioritizing their voter suppression efforts. So we’re working with partners to recruit an army of organizers and volunteers in those states to talk to voters directly about how to cast absentee or mail-in ballots, take advantage of early voting, or generally find the best options for them to ensure their votes are counted based on what voting methods are available in each state.

We’re talking about one-on-one conversations – by phone, text, email, and video chat, during the current social distancing – and real relationship-building, to make sure voters are getting the information and encouragement they need, from people they trust, to request, properly complete, and return their absentee and mail-in ballots or take advantage of the safe and secure in-person voting options available. And with the number of voters we need to reach, this work is happening NOW and needs to KEEP happening all the way through Election Day.

Can you help fund our efforts with a 3X-MATCHED donation today, before the match funds expire?

Triple your impact with a 3X-MATCHED donation immediately>>

Republican voter suppression is nothing new but it’s sickening to see how they’re exploiting the pandemic and taking it to a whole new level to attack democracy and deny Americans their right to vote.

In a crisis like this, people’s true character comes out. For the most part, we’re seeing incredible resilience and resolve from Americans. People are sacrificing like they never have, supporting their neighbors and their communities through this hardship. Many – including People For the American Way members like you – are calling and petitioning Congress to make sure the most vulnerable among us get the resources they need to survive this crisis.

But right-wing Republican politicians and activist leaders are showing their true character too – and it’s not pretty. They’re even using their own supporters as pawns in a deadly game for their own political ends, encouraging them to violate stay at home orders and turn out to crowded in-person protests against the social distancing policies that scientists and public health experts say we need!

Part of Trump’s dismal failure in this crisis has been passing the buck to governors and state officials. But in a shockingly cynical twist, Trump and his far-right allies are using responsible governors’ leadership in this crisis to scapegoat them for the necessary social distancing policies that are painful for voters. Naturally, since this is about holding political power, these Trump Republican efforts, led by the corporate-funded right-wing groups behind the Tea Party, are heavily focused in purple and red states with Democratic governors – in particular, states that could be 2020 battlegrounds.

Trump ended this past week with a series of tweets that NBC News points out are being seen as a call to armed insurrection by some extremists.

Referencing the right-wing protests in Michigan, Minnesota, Virginia, and several other states, Trump tweeted:

“LIBERATE MINNESOTA!”

“LIBERATE MICHIGAN!”

“LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!”

More evidence that Trump and his enablers are willing to do anything, say anything, create chaos, and even endanger American lives to win. This is what we’re up against.

Thank you for standing with us in this fight. Together, we’ll defend democracy, save the soul of our country, and restore the American Way … but only together.

– Ben Betz, Digital Director

THANK YOU for your support of People For the American Way!  Radical Right extremists are trying to turn back the clock on a century of advances in civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, the social safety net and more… With Donald Trump in the White House, they’re waging an all-out assault on the fundamental pillars of our country – democracy, checks and balances, a fair and independent judicial branch, and core values like fairness, equality, and justice for all. PFAW is fighting back every day with: ✔ Grassroots organizing ✔ Lobbying and advocacy ✔ Research and education ✔ Voter mobilization ✔ And more… But we can’t do this vital work without the robust grassroots financial support of our members and activists. Please help fund the fight for progress and stand against right-wing extremism with an urgently needed donation to PFAW today>>

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