Category Archives: The far right

The former refugee who wants to cut immigration, and become the first female Dutch PM

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Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, new leader of the Netherlands’ VVD party, is a talk show darling. Will that be enough to take her to the very top?

She is a former child refugee who wants to reduce immigration, has opened the door to the far right and could be the Netherlands’ first female prime minister. At a packed party conference in Rotterdam on Saturday, Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, leader of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), launched her campaign for November’s elections with a call for liberty and security.

“From my parents, I learned to cherish freedom and stand up for others when their freedom was threatened,” she said. “But we face losing ever more of this ‘oxygen’, with ever less understanding for one another and politics operating increasingly from distrust. It’s not for nothing that our manifesto is called: giving space, defining borders.”

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Rupert Murdoch often wishes Donald Trump dead, Michael Wolff book says

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Media mogul has become ‘a frothing-at-the-mouth’ Trump critic, Fire and Fury author writes in new book, The Fall

Rupert Murdoch loathes Donald Trump so much that the billionaire has not just soured on him as a presidential candidate but often wishes for his death, the author Michael Wolff writes in his eagerly awaited new book on the media mogul, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty.

According to Wolff, Murdoch, 92, has become “a frothing-at-the-mouth” enemy of the 77-year-old former US president, often voicing thoughts including “This would all be solved if … ” and “How could he still be alive, how could he?”

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Rupert Murdoch thought $787.5m Dominion suit would cost Fox $50m, Michael Wolff book says

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Trump tell-all author returns with tale of Fox News strife which also includes prediction Ron DeSantis will be Republican nominee

In winter 2022, at a hideaway in St Barts, Rupert Murdoch directed “sudden fury” at Donald Trump, who he thought would lose the 2024 Republican presidential primary to Ron DeSantis, but who the media mogul also said was likely to cost him “fifty million dollars”, through a lawsuit regarding Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.

The lawsuit was filed by Dominion Voting Systems, over Fox News’s broadcast of Trump’s lies. Settled this April, it cost Murdoch considerably more than he predicted: $787.5m, to be precise.

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Florida man arrested over allegedly hanging swastika flags from bridge

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Jason Brown, 48, linked to neo-Nazi group, charged with criminal mischief after police said hate banners were hung in Orlando

Florida authorities have arrested a man after he allegedly hung extremist hate symbols including swastikas over a bridge.

On Wednesday, the Florida department of law enforcement (FDLE) announced that 48-year-old Jason Brown of Cape Canaveral was arrested for allegedly hanging swastikas and other antisemitic banners along the Daryl Carter Parkway overpass in Orlando and charged him with criminal mischief.

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Far-right fanatic given 17 years for role in Brazil coup attempt

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Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira, 51, is first rioter to be tried for January assault on Latin America’s largest democracy

Brazil’s supreme court has sentenced a far-right fanatic to 17 years in prison for his role in the failed attempt to topple the country’s leftwing government on 8 January this year.

Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira, 51, a sanitation worker from São Paulo, was the first rioter to face trial for January’s dramatic assault on Latin America’s largest democracy.

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Revealed: far-right venture capitalist has contracts with US for ammunition

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Nathaniel Fischer co-owns ammunition company that has contracts with federal government totaling $78,678

A far-right figure who is involved in a secretive invitation-only fraternal organization, whose founder has spoken of being at war with the US government, is also part-owner of an ammunition company that has contracts with the federal government and law enforcement, the Guardian can reveal.

Nathaniel Fischer – a venture capitalist, former Claremont Institute fellow and president of the Dallas lodge of the secretive Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR) – is also part-owner of Texas-based ammunition manufacturer S1 Armory, which trades as Stand 1 Armory.

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Son of prominent conservative activist convicted on US Capitol attack charges

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Leo Brent Bozell IV convicted on charges that he invaded Senate floor to try to disrupt certification of Biden’s victory

The son of a prominent conservative activist has been convicted of charges that he stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, bashed in a window, chased a police officer, invaded the Senate floor and helped a mob disrupt the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.

Leo Brent Bozell IV, 44, of Palmyra, Pennsylvania, was found guilty on Friday of 10 charges, including five felony offenses, after a trial decided by a federal judge, according to the federal justice department.

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US ‘university’ spreads climate lies and receives millions from rightwing donors

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PragerU is not accredited but has become a key tool in pushing false claims to youngsters – and raked in $200m from 2018 to 2022

A rightwing media outlet promoting climate-change denialism and other “anti-woke” staples to young students and adults via social media has become a fundraising Goliath, raking in close to $200m from 2018 to 2022 with big checks from top conservative donors, tax records reveal.

Founded in 2009 by the conservative talkshow host Dennis Prager, the eponymous Prager University Foundation is not an accredited education organization. But via online media its PragerU Kids division has become a key tool in spreading false claims to young people with short videos aimed at undercutting widely accepted science that climate crisis disasters are accelerating due, largely, to fossil-fuel usage.

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Virginia library at risk after rightwing push to defund it over LGBTQ+ books

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Samuels Library set to close on 1 October after far-right community members claimed LGBTQ+ books were pornographic

A public county library in Virginia is at risk of shutting down after a group of far-right community members launched a campaign to defund it on accusations it held “pornographic books” though in fact the works usually just explore LGBTQ+ themes.

Samuels Library in Front Royal’s Warren county is set to close on 1 October as public funding has been withheld by the Warren county board of supervisors since July, cutting off crucial financial support.

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Two Proud Boys members get lengthy prison terms for Capitol attack

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Dominic Pezzola sentenced to 10 years while Ethan Nordean received an 18-year sentence for roles in 2021 insurrection

Two members of the far-right Proud Boys militia group who took part in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol with the intention of keeping Donald Trump in the White House were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on Friday.

Ethan Nordean, described by prosecutors as a leader of the extremist group, received an 18-year sentence for crimes that included seditious conspiracy, committed when thousands of Trump supporters overran the Capitol building.

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Proud Boys member receives 10-year prison sentence for US Capitol attack – as it happened

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Dominic Pezzola’s sentence is less than 20-year term prosecutors proposed while Ethan Nordean will also be sentenced. This blog is now closed

We’re expecting Joe Biden to soon speak about the government’s August employment report that came out a few hours ago, which shows employment growth remaining steady in the world’s largest economy, despite the sting of high interest rates, as the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani reports:

The US jobs market is holding steady as interest rates sit at a 22-year high, with US employers adding 187,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

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Former Proud Boys leaders sentenced to 17 and 15 years for US Capitol attack

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Joseph Biggs, who played leading role on January 6, gets 17 years in prison and former chapter leader Zachary Rehl 15 years

Two former leaders of the far-right Proud Boys extremist group have each been sentenced to more than a decade in prison for spearheading an attack on the US Capitol to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 presidential election.

The 17-year prison term for Joseph Biggs, a Proud Boys organizer, and 15-year sentence for Zachary Rehl, a leader of the group, were the second and third longest sentences handed down yet over the 6 January 2021 attack.

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‘A success for Kremlin propaganda’: how pro-Putin views permeate Italian media

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With pro-Russia commentators regularly appearing on TV, Italians are less likely to back Ukraine than people in most other EU states

Whenever Nello Scavo returns from Ukraine, he is overcome with frustration. As a war correspondent for the Italian national newspaper Avvenire, he knows the first question people will ask him is: “Is it really as bad as they say?”

“Sometimes I think that only if I come back badly injured will people start taking me seriously,” he told the Guardian. “It’s as if they don’t believe that Russia is massacring civilians. The problem is that Vladimir Putin has always enjoyed wide sympathy in Italian politics and public opinion, with the Kremlin always enjoying effective propaganda here.”

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California elementary school evacuated over bomb threat after rightwing harassment

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Chabot elementary in Oakland received racist and threatening emails, forcing 50 students and staff to vacate the premises

A California elementary school was evacuated on Tuesday in response to a bomb threat, days after the school was targeted online by rightwing extremists over a playdate event.

Chabot elementary in Oakland received the threat over email before school started on Tuesday, forcing roughly 50 students and staff members to evacuate, authorities said. Police found no explosives after searching the school using dogs from the bomb detection team.

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Marine Le Pen could become next French president, says interior minister

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Gérald Darmanin sounds alarm over far-right leader as he positions himself as centre-right candidate

The French far-right leader Marine Le Pen could win the next presidential election in 2027, the interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, has said, as he positions himself as a potential candidate for the centre-right.

“The fact of the matter is that in five years’ time, a victory for Madame Le Pen is quite probable,” Darmanin told La Voix du Nord, in an interview published on Friday.

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Sarah Palin says US civil war ‘is going to happen’ over Trump prosecutions

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Former vice-presidential nominee condemns prosecutors over ‘travesty’ and says ‘we’re not going to keep putting up with this’

A second US civil war is “going to happen” if state and federal authorities continue to prosecute Donald Trump, the former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin said.

“Those who are conducting this travesty and creating this two-tier system of justice, I want to ask them what the heck, do you want us to be in civil war? Because that’s what’s going to happen,” Palin told Newsmax on Thursday night.

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Hawaii fires: spread of conspiracy theories reveals tech firms’ failings

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From secret ‘energy weapon’ starting fires to a global cabal razing the town for an experiment – false theories are fast gaining ground

In the aftermath of the devastating wildfires in Maui, misinformation and conspiracy theories have spread online, underscoring the shortcomings of social media firms’ enforcement policies following disasters.

Conspiracy theories including that the fire was started intentionally by a secret “energy weapon” and that a shadowy cabal of global elites set the blazes purposefully to clear the land for their own nefarious uses have gained popularity.

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‘Gigantic step backwards’: far-right gains in Chile threaten abortion rights

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Concerns mount as ultraconservative Republican party’s ‘right to life’ proposal could be enshrined in constitution

The hard-won right to an abortion in Chile is at risk of being overturned, activists have warned, as the country’s far right moves to enshrine protection for “the life of the unborn child and maternity” in a new constitution.

Concerns have grown over the ultraconservative Republican party’s plans to pare back reproductive rights in Chile as it now holds significant sway in the fate of the country’s constitutional saga.

“Clearly, there is great concern over the risks to women and children implied by the suggested amendments, which threaten the most basic rights of human beings,” said Lieta Vivaldi, the director of Alberto Hurtado University’s gender and social justice programme.

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US government seeks 33 years for ex-Proud Boys leader over Capitol attack

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Request for Enrique Tarrio sentence comes as another convicted member of far-right group goes missing days before court date

The US justice department is seeking 33 years in prison for Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy in one of the most serious cases to emerge from the attack on the US Capitol, according to court documents.

The harsh sentence request came as it emerged that Christopher Worrell, another member of the extremist group, has disappeared, days before he was due to be sentenced on Friday

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Names and addresses of Georgia grand jurors posted on rightwing websites

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Sheriff’s office said investigators are working with local, state and federal agencies to track down origins of threats in Fulton county

Law enforcement officials in Georgia said they’re investigating threats targeting members of the grand jury that indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 of his allies, after private information about jurors was published online.

On Thursday, the Fulton county sheriff’s office announced that it is “aware that personal information of members of the Fulton county grand jury is being shared on various platforms”.

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