Category Archives: The far right

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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US publisher of pro-fascist books revealed as military veteran

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Bailey Ross, reported air force reservist and former Coast Guard service member, linked to Agartha Publishing in South Dakota

The Guardian has identified a trainee nurse and reported US air force reservist called Bailey Ross as the proprietor of a white nationalist publisher in South Dakota.

Ross was also a paid-up member of a white nationalist organization that marched at Charlottesville while enlisted in the United States Coast Guard.

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Far-right outsider takes shock lead in Argentina primary election

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Former tantric sex coach and Donald Trump admirer Javier Milei has said he thinks the climate crisis is ‘a socialist lie’

A former tantric sex coach who plans to do away with Argentina’s public health and education systems, disband the central bank, dollarise the economy and allow people to sell their organs has moved a step closer to becoming the next president of Argentina after a landslide win in open primaries.

In a surprise result that has upended Argentina’s political universe, the libertarian candidate Javier Milei took 30% of the vote on Sunday with his Liberty Advances party, outpacing the hard-right candidate Patricia Bullrich of United for Change, who came second with 28%.

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Infighting at top of Spain’s far-right Vox party as spokesperson quits

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Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, a founding member, marginalised by hardliners close to party leader

An internal war has broken out at the top of Spain’s far-right Vox party after its poor showing in last month’s general election when it lost nearly half of the seats it won in 2019.

Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, a founder member and the party’s spokesperson, resigned on Tuesday, saying he would not be taking up his seat in parliament.

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Italy’s ‘Attenzione pickpocket!’ social media star found to have far-right links

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Monica Poli, a social media star for challenging petty thieves, is a councillor for Lega, which backs anti-Roma policies

Her bellowing cry – “Attenzione pickpocket!” – has turned her into a social media superstar, with videos featuring her crusade against petty crime racking up millions of views, spawning a trove of flattering news profiles and even a handful of dance tracks that riff on her signature catchphrase.

This week, however, it emerged that Monica Poli, TikTok’s celebrated citizen vigilante who publicly shames pickpockets by alerting tourists to their presence, is a councillor for Italy’s far-right Lega (League) party. Led by Matteo Salvini, the party has long been linked to draconian policies and incendiary rhetoric targeting asylum seekers, immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community.

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Ireland’s far-right party in crisis amid claims of stolen gold

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Confusion over whether Justin Barrett remains leader of National party after his allegations of theft

It has the ingredients of a Frederick Forsyth thriller: stolen gold bullion, political intrigue, betrayal and a sprinkling of Adolf Hitler.

The saga of Ireland’s far-right National party and its vault of gold bars, however, has played out more like an Armando Iannucci farce.

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Italian parliament approves bill to criminalise surrogacy abroad

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Surrogacy is already illegal in Italy, while IVF is only available for heterosexual couples

The Italian parliament has approved a bill criminalising people who go abroad to have children via surrogacy, a measure described as “a disgrace”.

The bill, passed in the chamber of deputies with 166 votes in support and 109 against, is aimed only at Italians and envisages fines of up to €1m (£856,690) and jail terms of up to two years for those who break it.

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Sound of Freedom passed the $100m mark. Who’s really watching the movie?

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The ‘QAnon adjacent’ film, co-opted by the right wing, has a ‘pay it forward’ scheme resulting in sold-out shows but empty theaters

Sound of Freedom, the religious, “QAnon adjacent” child-smuggling film that has enthralled conservatives across the US, passed the $100m mark in ticket sales on Thursday.

But as the movie continues to cause controversy – with its star touring conservative media to peddle conspiracy theories about unnamed persons harvesting chemicals from children’s blood and anti-trafficking experts criticizing the film’s entire premise – questions are also being asked about who is actually watching it and whether that many people are watching it at all.

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How Spain’s conservatives joined forces with far-right Vox

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Some in Extremadura region see local outcome as latest example of People’s party putting pragmatism over principles

Towards the end of last month, María Guardiola, who leads the conservative People’s party (PP) in the Extremadura region of south-west Spain, gave a speech in which she tore into the far-right Vox party for its denial of gender-based violence, its demonisation of migrants and its attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.

Guardiola was far from alone in her aversion to Vox’s views and tactics. The party’s most recent stunt in the run-up to Spain’s general election this Sunday – which could put the far right in government for the first time since the return to democracy after the Franco dictatorship – had been the unveiling in Madrid of a massive banner showing a giant hand tossing symbols representing feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, Catalan independence, environmental programmes and communism into a bin.

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‘It’s party time’: Jair Bolsonaro opens themed online store

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Products include ‘party kits’ with hats, cake decorations and banners bearing Brazilian ex-president’s face

Some politicians go on lucrative speaking tours when their days in power are done. Others start foundations, distill whiskey, raise cattle or buy luxury sheds.

Jair Bolsonaro has chosen a different path and opened a shop where, for the price of a hardback, you can order a Bolsonaro-themed birthday pack complete with party hats, cake decorations and a plastic banner carrying a festive message from Brazil’s former president.

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Spaniards worried about far-right Vox party sharing power, poll finds

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More than 60% express concern over Vox entering coalition government after 23 July election

More than 60% of Spaniards are worried about the prospect of a coalition government that includes the far-right Vox party, according to a survey published less than two weeks before the country’s snap general election.

The Ipsos poll, conducted for Spain’s La Vanguardia newspaper, found that 42.1% of those surveyed were very worried by the idea of Vox sharing power with the conservative People’s party (PP), while 18% were quite worried.

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White nationalist publisher’s data exposed in Amazon cloud leak

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Data from Greg Johnson’s Counter-Currents sheds light on how organization promotes its ideology online

A data leak from the website of a white nationalist publisher has revealed recordings, published and unpublished documents, and hitherto-private interview recordings that shed light on the way in which the organization promotes its ideology online.

The internal data from Counter-Currents, a publishing house co-founded and run by notoriously secretive far-right ideologue Greg Johnson, was exposed in an Amazon cloud storage container that was left unlocked on the open internet.

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Intel executive ‘actively responsible’ for driving anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in Africa, say campaigners

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Greg Slater is co-founder with his wife Sharon of Family Watch International, a US group accused of financing propaganda about sexual and gender diversity

A group of human rights organisations in Africa renewed their calls this week for the American multinational Intel Corporation to dismiss a senior employee over his alleged involvement in fanning the growing anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment in several countries, including Kenya and Uganda.

In a change.org petition, supported by more than a dozen organisations, the rights groups claim that Greg Slater, Intel’s vice-president of global regulatory affairs, has been “actively responsible for exporting, financing, and spreading hate, homophobia” on the continent for decades, through the American conservative organisation, Family Watch International.

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Finland coalition in chaos as far-right minister quits over ‘climate abortion’ remark

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Vilhelm Junnila, already criticised for Nazi ‘joke’, found to have called for abortions in Africa to combat climate crisis

The new Finnish coalition government has been plunged into crisis, as a key minister was forced to resign after it emerged he had called for Finland to support abortions in Africa to combat the climate crisis.

Vilhelm Junnila, of the far-right Finns party, resigned after a week of fiercely criticised revelations, including that he made jokes about “Heil Hitler” and had given a speech at an event attended by neo-Nazis.

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