Tag: George Soros

Republican elected officials are peddling a conspiracy theory that George Soros is paying protesters

AlterNet logoTexas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a statewide elected Republican official, has posted multiple memes and comments on his Facebook page in recent days falsely claiming that billionaire George Soros orchestrated nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.

The posts are similar in nature and tone to some of the racist posts by local GOP officials in recent days that suggested the killing of Floyd in Minneapolis police custody was done with the intent of starting a race war or to erode black support for President Donald Trump. The posts from those local officials have prompted calls for resignation from the state’s top GOP officials.

One post from Miller on Sunday included an image of Soros with accompanying text that read, “Climate change didn’t work. Impeachment didn’t work. The virus didn’t work. Start the race war.” Continue reading.

Rep. Louie Gohmert falsely says George Soros helped take property from fellow Jews

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) is coming under criticism for falsely claiming in an interview that billionaire philanthropist George Soros, known for his funding of liberal and pro-democracy groups, “helped take the property” owned by fellow Jews.

Patrick Gaspard, president of Soros’s Open Society Foundations, sent a letter to Gohmert on Thursday afternoon asking him to apologize for the “disturbing and false anti-Semitic slur.”

In an interview Thursday morning with Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney, Gohmert spoke about Google’s plans to build a censored search engine in China. At one point in the interview, Gohmert pivoted from discussing the tech giant to making accusations against Soros, who is frequently the subject of conspiracy theories and in October was among the prominent critics of President Trump to whom a Florida man allegedly mailed pipe bombs.

View the complete December 6 article by Felicia Sonmez on The Washington Post website here.

The far-right continues to spread the conspiracy theory that inspired the synagogue shooter

The notion that Jews are behind a nefarious plot to engineer a migrant invasion is still circulating in right-wing media

In the month since a far-right gunman massacred 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh, PA, synagogue, seemingly driven by a conspiracy theory that Jews were orchestrating an invasion of the United States by migrants, this deadly false narrative has continued to spread as a talking point on right-wing platforms.

The alleged gunman, Robert Bowers, used social media site Gab (a “haven for white nationalists”) to post a derogatory statement about Jewish refugee-resettlement organization HIAS. He accused the organization of bringing “invaders” into the U.S. before unleashing his deadly attack against those worshipping inside the Tree of Life synagogue. And when he was captured, he claimed Jews were “committing genocide” of his people. Since the deadly incident, rhetoric accusing Jews of committing so-called “white genocide” by supporting immigration into the United States seems to continue to proliferate unchecked.

This week, a Twitter account called @InvasionPlot cropped up and began posting photos and names of Jewish scholars, journalists, student activists, and public officials, among others, and highlighting the individuals’ pro-immigrant and pro-refugee views. The Twitter bio says “this didn’t happen by accident,” and the account garnered thousands of followers before it was suspended.

 

GOP presses ahead in casting Soros as threat amid criticism that attacks are anti-Semitic


The billionaire philanthropist has long been a point of conversation for Fox network hosts and guests alike. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)

Republicans pressed ahead in casting financier George Soros as a threat, shrugging off criticism that the attacks are anti-Semitic, days after a fervent supporter of President Trump was charged with sending a mail bomb to Soros’s home and a gunman opened fire at a Pittsburgh synagogue.

The National Republican Congressional Committee continued airing an ad Monday criticizing a Minnesota Democratic candidate and Iraq War veteran over his job at a foundation funded in part by Soros. The Michigan Republican Party promoted a digital ad depicting Soros among forces “looking to rig Michigan’s elections.”

On Friday, hours before the arrest and charges in the mail bomb case, the GOP nominee for Florida governor described what he called the threat posed by “Soros-backed activists.”

The attacks on the 88-year-old Soros, a multibillionaire who has underwritten left-leaning civic groups and political campaigns in the United States and abroad, come amid a larger effort by Republicans to portray protests on the political left as “mob” tactics as they seek to rouse base voters. But the attempted bombing of Soros and other prominent Democrats, and Saturday’s synagogue attack, have placed references to Soros in a darker light.

View the October 29 article by Mike DeBonis on the Washington Post website here.

Someone is taking Trump’s angry rhetoric very literally

Words matter.

Donald Trump Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images

In the midst of the 2016 campaign, a bit of punditry was born: Take Trump seriously, not literally. Two years later, Trump has done — or tried to do — everything he literally promised on the campaign trail, and on Wednesday morning, there was more chilling evidence that words matter, and that people listening to the president may be taking him very literally.

On Wednesday morning, the Secret Service announced it had intercepted packages containing “potential explosive devices” addressed to former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in New York and President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C. Not long after, the CNN New York offices were evacuated after a suspected explosive device, addressed to former CIA director and MSNBC contributor John Brennan, was found in the mailroom.

Suspicious packages were also being investigated Wednesday afternoon at the Sunrise, Florida office of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — the former chair of the Democratic National Committee — and an office building shared by the San Diego Union-Tribune, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), and several other businesses, in San Diego, California.

View the complete October 24 article by Addy Baird on the ThinkProgress website here.

The Coincidence of Bomb Recipients, Trump and Far-Right Rhetoric

White House ducks questions about president’s win-at-all-costs polarizing approach

People at a Make America Great Again rally in Tampa. Credit: Joe Raedle, Getty Images

ANALYSIS | The recipients of explosive devices sent this week have so far shared a commonality: harsh criticism by President Donald Trump and far-right followers.

But White House officials were in no mood Wednesday to entertain the notion that the president’s descriptions of Democrats as “evil” and news organizations as the “enemy of the people” might have helped lead a bomber to build devices and mail them to Democratic mega-donor George Soros, former President Barack Obama, 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and CNN. A building in Miami that houses an office for former Democratic National Committee head Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was also evacuated Wednesday.

Trump’s aides declined to comment beyond a statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemning what she called “attempted violent attacks recently made against President Obama, President Clinton, Secretary Clinton, and other public figures.”

View the compete October 24 article by John T. Bennet on the Roll Call website here.