Nazis Based Race Laws on U.S. Jim Crow Policies

To get to the rowore of race in America today, read this new book by James Whitman. Whitman is the Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale Law School. Prepare to be as startled as this respected legal scholar was when he came upon a meticulous record of a meeting of top lawyers in Nazi Germany after Hitler’s rise to power. Not only did those lawyers reveal a deep interest in American race policies, the most radical of them were eager advocates of using American law as a model. Scholars and historians have argued for years about whether American’s own regime of racial oppression in any way inspired the Nazis.

Not only does Whitman throw a bright light on the debate, to this reader he settles it once and for all. Carefully written and tightly reasoned, backed up every step of the way with considered evidence and logic, Whitman reminds us that today is yesterday’s child, and that certain strains of DNA persist from one generation to another.

Inside Russia’s alliance with white nationalists across the globe

Over the past few years, Russia’s links with the Western far-right have popped up in any number of socio-political developments, on both sides of the Atlantic. Fake social media accounts and marches with tiki torches. Presidential elections and international conferences. Propaganda overlap and relations with those circling the White House.

While Marine Le Pen, whose National Front obtained a loan outright from a Russian bank, failed in her bid to lead to France, and while the jury’s still out on the effect the fraudulent Russian Facebook and Twitter accounts actually had, it’s clear that the ties between Russian operatives and far-right activists and movements throughout the West have strengthened recently. But getting a handle on the depth, as well as the impact, of the links between the Kremlin and the white nationalists and fundamentalists who would inject Putinist illiberalism into the West has proven difficult.

German ambassador warns that internet controls could harm companies, isolate China

China’s internet restrictions have struck a “new blow” against foreign companies working there, Germany’s ambassador said on Monday, warning that such moves could undermine Beijing’s political and commercial ties with the world.

China’s ongoing clampdown on cyberspace has seen WhatsApp, the messaging service run by Facebook, periodically unavailable in the past few weeks ahead of twice-a-decade Communist Party Congress that opens on Wednesday.

Twitter suspends Rose McGowan while Nazis post freely

Update: Twitter released a statement explaining that McGowan had been temporarily locked out of her account because one of her posts "included a private phone number, which violates our Terms of Service." The tweet in question included a full email address and phone number.

Actor Rose McGowan, the star of "Charmed" and "Planet Terror," has had her account suspended from Twitter for unknown reasons. McGowan, who the New York Times reports reached an out-of-court settlement with producer Harvey Weinstein after he allegedly raped her in 1997, has been an outspoken critic of the disgraced movie mogul and sexual harassment within and without of the film industry in the past.

Twitter Bots Distorted the 2016 Election—Including Many Likely From Russia

The day Donald Trump was elected president, nearly 2,000 Twitter accounts that had pumped out pro-Trump messages in the run-up to the vote suddenly went dark. Then, in spring 2017, these bot-controlled accounts reemerged to campaign en français for Marine Le Pen in the French election, and then once again this fall, to tweet auf Deutsch on behalf of the far-right party in Germany’s election.

The Barriers Stopping Poor People From Moving to Better Jobs

MERCED, California—Seccora Jaimes knows that she is not living in the land of opportunity. Her hometown has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, at 9.1 percent. Jaimes, 34, recently got laid off from the beauty school where she taught cosmetology, and hasn’t yet found another job. Her daughter, 17, wants the family to move to Los Angeles, so that she can attend one of the nation’s top police academies. Jaimes’s husband, who works in warehousing, would make much more money in Los Angeles, she told me. But one thing is stopping them: The cost of housing. “I don’t know if we could find a place out there that’s reasonable for us, that we could start any job and be okay,” she told me. Indeed, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Merced, in California’s Central Valley, is $750. In Los Angeles, it’s $2,710.

Russia pushes Texas secession and ‘white power’ rallies on social media — and it’s still happening

A Russia-backed Facebook group that promoted a “fascist and proud” anti-Islam rally in Texas is now promoting secession on another social media platform.

The May 2016 protest drew nearly 100 demonstrators to a Houston mosque, where armed white supremacists shouted “white power” as they waved Confederate flags, reported Think Progress.

Why Black-White Economic Disparities in a Very Progressive State Are Called the 'Worst in the Country'

In 1960, black families in Minnesota made about 74% of what white families made. Today, they make about half of what white families make. More than 30% of the state’s African American population lives in poverty, compared with a shrinking 5% of whites.

The disparities in Minnesota “are the worst in the country,” says Me’Lea Connelly, executive director of the Association of Black Economic Power. Disparities in “housing, prison… other socio-economic markers,” are already bad, and getting worse. “Whites are able to take advantage of a strong economy, and blacks are disenfranchised.”

Brexit Will Mean Job Losses In The City Of London, Warns RBS Chairman

Brexit will cause “considerable” damage to the United Kingdom’s economy, the chairman of RBS has warned.

Sir Howard Davies said today that jobs would be lost in the City of London as a result of referendum result.

FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.

Federal agents used a confidential U.S. witness working inside the Russian nuclear industry to gather extensive financial records, make secret recordings and intercept emails as early as 2009 that showed Moscow had compromised an American uranium trucking firm with bribes and kickbacks in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FBI and court documents show.

Dark Victory in Raqqa

In August, in the living room of an abandoned house on the western outskirts of Raqqa, Syria, I met with Rojda Felat, one of four Kurdish commanders overseeing the campaign to wrest the city from the Islamic State, or ISIS. Wearing fatigues, a beaded head scarf, and turquoise socks, Felat sat cross-legged on the floor, eating a homemade meal that her mother had sent in a plastic container from Qamishli, four hours away, in the northeast of the country. In the kitchen, two young female fighters washed dishes and glanced surreptitiously at Felat with bright-eyed adoration. At forty years old, she affects a passive, stoic expression that transforms startlingly into one of unguarded felicity when she is amused—something that, while we spoke, happened often. She had reason to be in good spirits. Her forces had recently completed an encirclement of Raqqa, and victory appeared to be imminent.

I Left Vancouver Because Vancouver Left Me

“I can’t live in a place where the definition of success is ‘I’m not drowning!’”

We’d been arguing, my partner and I, for months in that way that couples do when life stresses have been piled on so high that you lose sight of the fact that you’re on the same team. Our occasional outbursts had become a cannibalistic routine of repetitive gripes we unleashed on each other on an almost daily basis. But this statement was a sudden left turn, an arrow of truth that hit me square in the heart.

U.S. Commandos Lurk in Countries That Surround Russia, Continuing to Raise Tensions

“They are very concerned about their adversary next door,” said General Raymond Thomas, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), at a national security conference in Aspen, Colorado, in July.  “They make no bones about it.”

The “they” in question were various Eastern European and Baltic nations.  “Their adversary”?  Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Big Tech’s biggest weakness is its biggest strength

Big Tech’s money-making machine — its billion-dollar digital advertising empire — is quickly becoming its Achilles’ heel.

Executives from Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) are heading to Capitol Hill Tuesday and Wednesday to testify at three separate U.S. congressional hearings about the role of Russian-backed ads in potentially swaying last year’s presidential vote. Accusations about similar activity also routinely sprung up during Europe’s busy electoral season in 2017, with digital misinformation and other false reports going viral on social media.

The Kurds Are Right Back Where They Started

In a televised address on October 29, the president of the Iraqi Kurdish region, Masoud Barzani, declared that he would step down from his post. It remains unclear whether Barzani, son of the legendary founder of the Kurdish national movement, Mustafa Barzani, would reemerge as leader in a different guise, but clearly his announcement was not part of a well-laid plan.

$5.41 per inmate per day: Bad food, small portions fueling prison tensions, federal watchdog finds

Canada's prison watchdog says small portions and inferior quality food are driving heightened tensions and a black market economy behind bars.

In his annual report to Parliament, Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger said spending cuts in 2014 resulted in a fixed daily food budget of $5.41 per inmate.

Thousands attended protest organized by Russians on Facebook

Thousands of Americans attended a march last November organized by a Russian group that used social media to interfere in the 2016 election.

The demonstration in New York City, which took place a few days after the election, appears to be the largest and most successful known effort to date pulled off by Russian-linked groups intent on using social media platforms to influence American politics.

The new numbers on fake Russian social media accounts are staggering

At 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, representatives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google will take questions from a Senate Judiciary subcommittee probing Russia’s disinformation push during the 2016 election. The hearing, entitled “Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online: Working with Tech to Find Solutions”, will feature Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google Director of Law Enforcement and Information Security Richard Salgado, as well as a pair of analysts.

'A complete joke': Laid-off Sears workers say hardship fund cash amounts to nothing after EI cut

Laid-off Sears Canada workers say the hardship fund set up to help them is pointless because any payout counts as income, so it's deducted from their employment insurance benefits.

"You have to give it back. We are getting absolutely nothing," says Vera Asselin, a former inventory analyst at the company's head office in Toronto.

"It's a complete joke."

Turkey forces clash with Tahrir al-Sham in Syria

Turkish forces have clashed with Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham fighters in Idlib province on the Syria-Turkey border, activists and a monitor reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Sunday that the Turkish troops exchanged fire with the rebel alliance near the village of Kafr Lusin.

Russia threatens US media with retaliatory restrictions

American media outlets could soon see new operational barriers in Russia as punishment for U.S. scrutiny over Russian state-funded outlet RT, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry told Russian broadcaster NTV on Sunday.

The U.S.’s oversight and pressure on RT gives Russia the right to retaliate in kind, Maria Zakharova insisted, citing a Russian law dating back to 1991, according to Reuters.

The Occupied Territories Are the Biggest Prison on Earth

Fifty years after the Six-Day War, the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip shows no end in sight. Acclaimed historian Ilan Pappé provides a comprehensive and damning account of the occupation in his new book, The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories, based on groundbreaking archival research and eyewitness accounts. Order your copy today by making a donation to Truthout!

In this Truthout interview, Ilan Pappé, author of The Biggest Prison on Earth, argues that Israel’s model for the occupied territories is not an eventual two-state solution. Rather, Israel has built a model of a permanent open-air prison for Gaza and the West Bank.

Catalonia's Self-Defeating Independence Declaration

The Catalan parliament voted Friday overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Spain, reaffirming the result of the contested independence referendum the region held nearly four weeks ago. The vote marked a major escalation in Catalonia’s territorial dispute with Spain’s central government in Madrid. “We shall constitute the Catalan Republic as an independent, and sovereign, democratic, and social state of law,” the motion read.

But of course it won’t be that simple.

Supreme Court ruling removes barrier for year-round ski resort on sacred First Nation land

Building a large ski resort on B.C. land considered sacred to a First Nation does not breach religious rights, the Supreme Court of Canada said in a decision released Thursday.

The landmark decision could pave the way for development of the Jumbo Glacier resort in the Kootenays region of British Columbia, despite strong objections from the Ktunaxa Nation.

Weaken from Within

Let us review, if only in brief, some of the facts as they are presently understood. Two years ago, a shadowy company based in Russia called the Internet Research Agency began buying Facebook ads in bulk. An estimated 11.4 million people across the United States saw these ads, both before and after the U.S. presidential election. Many millions more read the messages and conspiracy theories circulated by hordes of angry bots, hecklers, and trolls on social media, obscure blogs, and web sites. These messages were largely in the service of advancing the political aims of Donald Trump. We do not—cannot—know precisely how much they affected the choices of voters, but we can state that these exertions were deliberate and systematized, part of a sprawling effort that many now believe could only have been orchestrated by one country: Russia.

Balfour Declaration at 100: From Ramallah to Pretoria

People in various parts of the world have staged protests on the centenary of Britain's Balfour Declaration, which promised a homeland for the Jewish people and paved the way for the occupation of Palestine.

Thousands gathered in Ramallah, administrative capital of the occupied Palestinian territories, on Thursday to march to the British cultural centre, according to official Palestinian media.

Judge rules no jail time for Bergdahl

Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl will not serve any prison time for walking off his post in Afghanistan in 2009, a military judge ruled Friday.

The judge, Col. Jeffrey Nance, sentenced Bergdahl to a reduction in rank to private, a payment of $1,000 per month for 10 months and a dishonorable discharge, according to multiple reports.

Nance made no other comments, according to The Associated Press.

Why Putin Won’t Be Marking the Hundredth Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution

On November 7th, the dwindling tribe of Communist Party loyalists and nostalgists will commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. Vladimir Putin, however, has made it clear that the centenary is not an occasion for state celebration. While the foreign press has published countless perspectives on Lenin and Trotsky, Soviet Communism, and the global influence of those revolutionary days, as far as the Kremlin is concerned, November 7th in Russia should be an ordinary working day. Why that’s so is at the very center of Putin’s political outlook and his view of the history of the Russian state.

The Great College Loan Swindle

On a wind-swept, frigid night in February 2009, a 37-year-old schoolteacher named Scott Nailor parked his rusted ’92 Toyota Tercel in the parking lot of a Fireside Inn in Auburn, Maine. He picked this spot to have a final reckoning with himself. He was going to end his life.

Beaten down after more than a decade of struggle with student debt, after years of taking false doors and slipping into various puddles of bureaucratic quicksand, he was giving up the fight. “This is it, I’m done,” he remembers thinking. “I sat there and just sort of felt like I’m going to take my life. I’m going to find a way to park this car in the garage, with it running or whatever.”

Bombshell report reveals Russians altered at least some of leaked Podesta emails

A bombshell new investigation by the Associated Press reveals that Russian hackers altered at least some of the documents they leaked from prominent Democrats last year — although the extent of the alterations is still an open question.

Specifically, one source tells the AP that notorious Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 airbrushed the word “CONFIDENTIAL” on top of a document that did not have that label in order to make it more immediately appealing to reporters. It is not known at this time whether Guccifer also altered the content of the Podesta emails to make them appear more scandalous than they really were.

Russian Propagandists Took a Page Out of America's Racist Political Playbook

By now, it’s common knowledge that Russian companies bought more than 3,000 ads on Facebook, along with countless posts across other platforms. Many, though certainly not all, of those ads featured racist and anti-immigrant messages. It’s impossible to quantify the impact those messages had on vote tallies. On any given day, in any non-presidential election year, social media is crowded with political memes, misinformation and inflammatory content from questionable sources; propaganda is nothing new, and Russia has long been particularly masterful in its application. (So, too, for that matter, has the U.S., never a slouch in the art of political manipulation.) It’s undoubtedly possible that Russia’s deployment of racially divisive digital content, along with a host of other factors, may have helped win the presidency for a dangerous, unqualified liar. It’s also true that a racially divisive digital campaign could only have had impact and influence in a country already rife with bigotry, which savvy Russian actors simply exploited.