Peter Thiel’s midterm bet: the billionaire seeking to disrupt America’s democracy

Re-energized this election cycle, the tech entrepreneur joins other mega-donors apparently out to undercut the political system

Peter Thiel’s midterm bet: the billionaire seeking to disrupt America’s democracy

Related:

The Right’s Would-Be Kingmaker (archived, as it’s behind a paywall)

Anti-Globalist?! He invests in businesses, worldwide!? I doubt that it would be possible without globalization! 🤷🏼‍♀️

Brazilian Anarchist expert reveals Social War behind key Lula / Bolsonaro Vote

Brazilian Anarchist expert reveals Social War behind key Lula / Bolsonaro Vote

Despite the glowing picture that progressives and social democrats paint of Lula, it was under the PT (Worker’s Party) that Brazil’s government made its turn toward austerity. Given that this will likely be a second term in office for him, how effective do you think left organizations and movements will be at wringing concessions from a Lula-led PT government?

No Russian Shadow Over Italy. Con Giorgia Meloni Rome Confirms Itself As Washington’s Most Faithful Ally

They are wrong in Kremlin if anyone thinks that Italy will become the EU’s weak link vis-à-vis Russia. The center-right coalition won in the elections on 25 September. A success far beyond the expectations of Giorgia Meloni, the right-wing passionate who grew up in the myth of “good” fascism and Tolkien as a natural leader. The center-right that is about to govern Italy is made up of three different political groups. The real winner of the dispute is the “Fratelli d’Italia”, the party founded a little over ten years ago by Giorgia Meloni, Ignazio La Russa and Guido Crosetto. Heirs of the post-fascist tradition, the women and men led by Meloni have always been on the margins of society. They are the heirs of the tradition of the Italian Social Movement, the party that was liquidated in the mid-nineties after Mussolini’s rejection of nostalgia.

No Russian Shadow Over Italy. Con Giorgia Meloni Rome Confirms Itself As Washington’s Most Faithful Ally

Steve Bannon at the head of the new Mont-Pelerin society: How can neo-fascism be neo-liberal?

BY RODRIGO LUGONES – 09-23-2022

The ideologue of Trumpism promotes a right-wing movement that aims to reorient the political and economic management of the world towards an extreme liberal right.

Steve Bannon at the head of the new Mont-Pelerin society: How can neo-fascism be neo-liberal? (Original in Spanish)

Related:

Bannonism

Article was “fact-checked” by me. Everything checked out, except that Nina Rosenwald founded the Gatestone Institute. Although, Rebekah Mercer was on the Board of Governors.

FACTSHEET: GATESTONE INSTITUTE (archived)

In 2016, Gatestone partnered with The Rebel, a Canadian media company “with a history of bigotry and anti-Semitism,” to produce a series of 12 “cross-branded videos.” The videos feature “misinformation expertDaniel Pipes and Geert Wilders, and promote “paranoid, apocalyptic far-right themes vilifying Muslims and refugees.” A 2017 article in The Independent, found that Gatestone was one of two “US right-wing foundations” that have sponsored Wilders’ trips to America.

Between 2014-2016, the Mercer family foundation, run by Rebekah Mercer, contributed $250,000 to Gatestone. In April 2017, journalist Eli Clifton revealed that “Mercer had been listed as a member of the board of governors” of Institute. Following inquiries from news outlets, Gatestone deleted any mention of Mercer on its board.

Mail fraud? Biden’s postal inspectors tracked pro-gun activists

The U.S. Postal Service monitored protesters across the country, snooping on Americans focused on issues involving guns and President Biden’s election, according to records obtained by The Washington Times.

“We determined that certain proactive searches iCOP conducted using an open-source intelligence tool from February to April 2021 exceeded the Postal Inspection Service’s law enforcement authority,” the Postal Service watchdog said in a March audit. “Furthermore, we could not corroborate whether other work analysts completed from October 2018 through June 2021 was legally authorized.”

Mail fraud? Biden’s postal inspectors tracked pro-gun activists

H/T: John Crump News

Welcome to the club!

Book Review: How the West Brought War to Ukraine

by David Gordon – September 07, 2022

Review of How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How US and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe, by Benjamin Abelow, Siland Press

The Ukraine war has generated great controversy, but of one point there can be no doubt, and Benjamin Abelow, a physician with a longstanding interest in public affairs, has properly emphasized this in his brief and excellent book. The policy of the United States toward the war, and more generally toward the Russian regime of Vladimir Putin, has been one of direct confrontation rather than peaceful accommodation. It is hardly a surprise that supporters of a noninterventionist policy have criticized the United Sates for this, but a number of those in the foreign policy “establishment” have done so as well, and Abelow has been able to secure the endorsement of some of these for his book. Jack Matlock Jr., for example, the last American ambassador to the Soviet Union, writes that the book is a “brilliant, remarkably concise explanation of the danger that U.S. and NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] military involvement in Ukraine has created.”

How the West Brought War to Ukraine