#clare lopez

Eli Clifton at The Guardian:

Top Republican donor and TikTok investor Jeff Yass is connected to over $16m in funding to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups that have advocated for a US war with Iran and other militaristic policies in the Middle East, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Responsible Statecraft.

Media reports on Yass, the billionaire co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a trading and technology firm, have focused on his outsized role in the Republican party, to which he is now the largest political donor in the 2024 election cycle, contributing more than $46m thus far. Yass has also emerged as the biggest funder of a group targeting progressive representative Summer Lee in her primary race, suggesting an interest in influencing Democratic primary outcomes, not just in boosting Republicans. But little has been reported about his involvement in funding groups advocating a pro-Israel US foreign policy, hawkish US policies in the Middle East and support for theorists whom experts described as extreme anti-Muslim conspiracists.

Leading Yass’s philanthropy in the foreign policy space is $7.9m contributed to Jerusalem Online University between 2014 and 2019 by a grant-making group at which he once served as one of three directors. A Jewish Daily Forward investigation into the group in 2011 found that the website promotes itself as a source of educational materials about the Middle East and Israel, but the website’s actual message is far more biased, the Forward found. “On its website and its promotional materials, Jerusalem Online U hardly portrays itself as a center for neutral academic inquiry,” the Forward wrote. “In fact, it boasts an explicitly pro-Israel mission that seems distinctly at odds with academic principles. In one advertisement for its services, the Jerusalem Online U site’s blog features a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling Congress last May that ‘Israel is what is right’ about the Middle East. The words ‘Be a Part of What’s Right’ appear on screen as he speaks.”

The contributions came from the Claws Foundation, an entity at which Yass served as a director alongside Arthur Dantchik, a co-founder of Susquehanna, and attorney Alan P Dye. Dye did not return calls for comment. The Kids Connect Charitable Fund – which does not list Yass or Dantchik as directors but listed the Claws Foundation as a “related tax-exempt organization” in an IRS filing and was identified as an arm of both men’s philanthropy by Haaretz – contributed another $3.48m to Jerusalem Online University’s parent organization, Imagination Productions. The Claws Foundation also issued a $10,000 grant to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces in 2011 and $35,000 in grants, between 2010 and 2011, to the Center for Security Policy, an anti-Muslim and conspiracy theory-promoting group founded by Frank Gaffney, whom the Southern Policy Law Center describes as “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes” and the Anti-Defamation League describes as a chief promulgator of the conspiracy theory “that the US government has been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and that a number of political figures have actual ties to the group”. The Center for Security Policy vice-president, Clare Lopez, has said: “When Muslims follow their doctrine they become jihadists.”

In 2013 to 2014, the Claws Foundation sent $250,000 to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, another central promoter of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories. Horowitz, whom the group is named after and who serves as its president, once complained that Muslims were a “protected species in this country” and said he was “wait[ing] for the day when the good Muslims step forward” at a Brooklyn College event in 2011. “The fact Yass is donating to Gaffney and Horowitz’s organizations shows how extreme his politics are,” said Tommy Vietor, former national security council spokesperson under President Obama. “They are beyond Trump. They are OG conspiracy theorists. Gaffney in particular.”

[...] Trump has a track record of shifting positions on Israel and Iran to align with political mega-donors. Only after securing the nomination in 2016 did Trump pivot to more militaristic positions in the Middle East – committing to withdrawing the US from the JCPOA, moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and supporting an unconditionally pro-Israel US approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – positions in lockstep with his biggest political patrons in the general election, the late Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam.

The development and popularization of language, memes, and narratives is central to political warfare. Terms like “diversity”, “equity”, “social justice”, and “systemic racism” began to appear in American society, first among leftist fringe elements in the universities, but then with increasing frequency across popular culture and social media. The meaning of these terms, however, was not as ordinary Americans might expect. Rather, these words were code language, used to mask the actual revolutionary Marxist objectives of the insurgency. Those objectives remain exactly as first laid out in “The Communist Manifesto” of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848: “abolition of private property”, “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax”, “centralization of credit in the hands of the state”, “centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State”, and “free education for all children in public schools”. The means by which the destruction of our Constitutional Republic and free market capitalist system are to be achieved bear quoting as well:

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.

Eric Hananoki at MMFA: 

Thomas Homan, a Fox News contributor and former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director, is scheduled to speak at a conference this week that will feature QAnon conspiracy theorists Michael Flynn and Lin Wood, who both have a history of endorsing political violence. South Carolina State Treasurer Curtis Loftis (R) is also set to speak at the event.

The United Patriots Alliance will host Rock the Red 2021 on June 4 and 5 at Embassy Suites by Hilton in Greeneville, South Carolina. General admission tickets are $167 and adult VIP tickets are $347. The conference describes itself as “the premier event in SC that educates, motivates, and activates citizens and patriots from around the country to get involved in the affairs of their local, state, and national governments.”

One of the keynote speakers is Flynn, a disgraced former Trump national security adviser and QAnon supporter. He recently spoke at a QAnon-themed conference and endorsed a Myanmar-like military coup in the United States. (Following heavy criticism, Flynn backtracked on his comment.)

Other speakers at the South Carolina conference include:

Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood. His recent activity includes pushing false claims about the 2020 election and writing on Parler on January 7, “Get the firing squads ready. [Then-Vice President Mike] Pence goes FIRST." He is also a QAnon conspiracy theorist.

Right-wing commentator Tracy Beanz. She is one of the main people who popularized QAnon. She recently won a position as state representative for the Horry County GOP in South Carolina.

Right-wing commentator Clare Lopez. She is an anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist who has worked for the anti-Muslim Center for Security and Policy.

Business owner Alfie Oakes. He has claimed on Facebook that COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter are hoaxes and helped fund trips to the January 6 event in Washington, D.C, that led to the insurrection at the Capitol.

Video of Clare Lopez speaking at the Americans First, Task Force, event

On Thursday, April 6, the Americans First, Task Force, hosted an event at the DEC in Aberdeen to address refugees in Aberdeen from a conservative viewpoint. The speaker at this event was Clare Lopez of the Center for Security Policy. Earlier I posted about the protesters of this event. This post will focus on the video I shot at this event. As with most of these events I record, I will post these…

“Rethinking Their Attitudes On McCarthy”: Republican Support For McCarthyism Is Sometimes Literal

Exactly three years ago this week, a reporter from the Dallas Morning News told Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) he’s been compared at times to Joe McCarthy. Cruz said that criticism “may be a sign that perhaps we’re doing something right,” which seemed like a curious response given the context.

Asked specifically, “Is McCarthy someone you admire?” Cruz wouldn’t answer. “I’m not going to engage in the…

THE VIDEO YOU MUST WATCH ....CIA / Prof. Clare Lopez VIDEO on OBAMA ... WATCH https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQf20ep5BxU