Is Donald Trump a Russian oligarch?

John Stoehr
March 23, 2022

US President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a meeting on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7, 2017 (AFP).

The former president keeps telling on himself. During an appearance Sunday on Jeanine Pirro’s radio show on WABC, Donald Trump expressed, yet again, his sympathy for Russia’s reigning kleptocrat.

"He's got a big ego," Trump said of Vladimir Putin. “I think what's going on now is hard. I understand he's gotten rid of a lot of his generals."

They wanted to rebuild the Soviet Union. That’s what this is all about to a large extent. And then you say, what’s the purpose of this? They had a country. You could see it was a country where there was a lot of love and we’re doing it because, you know, somebody wants to make his country larger or he wants to put it back the way it was.

Sympathy, yes, but there’s more.

Sympathy is practical.

Whenever Trump is asked to comment on Putin’s 2014 capture of the Crimean peninsula or his invasion of Ukraine now, he gives these odd statements – odd because they never feature principles of freedom, sovereignty, or any other aspect of the postwar international order.

His attention is drawn, instead, to strength and weakness, power and powerlessness. In that binary worldview, Putin (and by proxy Trump) is always strong, Putin’s enemies (and by proxy Trump’s enemies) are always weak. Good and bad, right and wrong, mean nothing. What matters is what can be done immediately to satiate the insatiable need.

Fascism is practical like that.

As Nathan Crick, author of Dewey and the New Age of Fascism, told me: The Nazis saw practical as “immediately practical and [it] served the most basic needs of life in a tangible and objective way. I need money, I need a home, I need cheap oil prices, I need coffee, I need a family, I need land. Fascism is practical because it basically steals all of this and redistributes it to the chosen people as if they made it themselves.

“It’s basic gangsterism, which is certainly practical.”

Bear this in mind as I tell you something I hope will make all of this make more sense. When I say “all of this,” I mean everything:

Putin’s theft of the Crimean peninsula; Trump’s business interests in Moscow; his run for president; the Kremlin’s cyberwar against Hillary Clinton; Trump’s extortion of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy; his first impeachment; the J6 insurrection; Trump’s second impeachment; and now the invasion of Ukraine and Trump sympathy for the invaders.

Instead of thinking about Trump as a real estate magnate, a reality-TV star, or a former president, it’s perhaps more accurate to think of him as a caporegime, or mafia captain. Putin is The Boss. That would suggest Trump, like Roman Abramovich, is one of Putin’s “oligarchs.”

Oligarchs are practical. After they steal money, they hide it.

In America.

The US financial system is one of the most secretive and least transparent in the world. Dirty money is often disguised in real estate deals. The problem is so bad in places like Manhattan that lawmakers are pushing for reform. Brad Hoylman, a New York state senator repping Manhattan, said Sunday of proposed transparency laws that:

“These oligarchs who have stolen money from the Russian people are propping up Putin in the meantime. That money needs to be exposed and returned rather than wage a war against the Ukrainian people.”

Dirty money is also funneled through shell companies linked to super PACs linked directly or indirectly to candidates for public office for the purpose of influencing electoral outcomes in the Kremlin’s favor. Such candidates, it’s widely believed true, including the former president.

“Russian money is unquestionably flowing into the US for political influence,” Anna Massoglia, the editorial and investigations manager at Open Secrets, a nonprofit based in Washington, DC, told me. “There have also been instances in which Russian money flowed into US elections through shell companies as a part of illegal conduit schemes.” (The interview below is with Anna. She knows everything about this.)

Buying influence.

Buying a president.

“It’s basic gangsterism,” Nathan said. Which is practical.

Do we know concretely that Russian money is flowing into campaigns for public office in the US?

Russian money is unquestionably flowing into the US for political influence but the question of whether Russian money is flowing into campaigns for public office is more complex. Foreign nationals are barred from giving money to influence outcomes in US elections.

We have tracked political contributions from foreign agents who were hired to represent Russian interests in the US as well as contributions from associates of foreign oligarchs, which is generally permissible so long as they are not acting as proxies for Russian foreign nationals.

There have also been instances in which Russian money flowed into US elections through shell companies as a part of illegal conduit schemes.

So there is a circuitous paper trail from Russia to Washington. Along the way, the origins of the money are increasingly obscured?

Absolutely.

Russian foreign nationals seeking to influence US elections have a wide range of options through which they can funnel foreign money in support of candidates for public office – with little or no detection.

The 2020 election alone attracted more than $1 billion from shell companies and nonprofits that do not disclose their donors.

It would be nearly impossible to total up how much so-called “dark money,” routed through nonprofits that don't disclose their donors or shell companies, comes from Russian sources. Dark money lacks disclosure, making the source of funds untraceable.

This means foreign nationals are not only able to quietly steer money into swaying the outcome of US elections but they can potentially buy access to public officials, helping them push agendas in the states.

What's the Republican-Democrat ratio?

We can tell how much money from undisclosed sources goes to groups spending to support Democrats versus Republicans.

Traditionally, dark money benefitted Republican candidates more but the tables turned during the 2018 election cycle. Since then, we have seen dark money benefit groups backing Democrats more than Republicans but it still flows into groups on both sides of the aisle. It is still early in the election cycle so we are likely to see more money continue to pour in that may benefit one side over the other, though.

It's legal for lobbyists representing foreign clients, even Russian ones, to give donations so long as they aren't giving on behalf of that client.

But political contributions are a way for donors to curry influence. Giving significant sums of money could give a lobbyist representing a foreign client an advantage when they meet with elected officials.

Most lobbying firms have ended work with Russian clients at this point. As of today, the only entities still registered to actively represent Russian interests under the Foreign Agents Registration Act are LLCs that have been paid as part of Russia's propaganda campaigns.

Maffick LLC, a social media digital content company (that was labeled a “Russian state-backed entity” by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube), registered as a foreign agent of Russia’s state-owned media agency in December. It has since terminated their contract, however.

The remaining entities registered as foreign agents of propaganda outlets connected to Russia are Reston Translator LLC, RM Broadcasting LLC, Ghebi LLC, and T&R Productions LLC but that may change if new restrictions are put in place since RT America shut down.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy once said, “I think Putin pays Trump.” Given what you know, how likely is that to be true?

There are multiple reported instances where Russian money has allegedly flowed into groups spending in support of Trump.

Lev Parnas – the former business associate of the former president’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani – was convicted on charges related to steering $325,000 from a Russian national through a shell company to a super PAC supporting Trump. Parnas' former business partner, Igor Fruman, pleaded guilty to soliciting money from a foreign national.

There are other examples as well.

Two Republican operatives were indicted last September on charges of allegedly funneling money from a Russian national to the Trump campaign’s joint fundraising committee.

This example is not as clear-cut but the NRA's ties to Russia were probed. The gun-rights group ultimately admitted to taking Russian money but claimed the money wasn’t used for political purposes.

This is particularly noteworthy since a report from Senate Finance Committee Democrats found that the NRA acted as a “foreign asset” for Russia in the leadup to Trump’s 2016 election. For context, the NRA spent more than $31 million boosting Trump in the 2016 election.

Any evidence of recipients knowing they’re getting Russian money?

I am not aware of any recent cases where we know the politicians were aware they were getting Russian money but we only know what has been disclosed, not what is happening behind the scenes.

A politician facing allegations of knowingly taking foreign contributions is US Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, a Republican from Nebraska. He’s accused of meeting with a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire who prosecutors say funneled money through straw donors to him.

Federal campaign finance has a “straw donor” ban that makes it illegal to give money under someone else’s name. One example would be if an individual takes money from a foreign national, then passes it along to politicians, causing the individual’s name to be reported in campaign finance filings instead of the foreign national’s name.

Funds may also be routed through shell companies in some cases, meaning the companies’ name is reported in campaign finance filings rather than the name of who is actually funding the contribution.

This could hide contributions from foreign nationals who are legally barred from giving money to influence US elections.

John Stoehr is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative; a contributing writer for the Washington Monthly; a contributing editor for Religion Dispatches; and senior editor at Alternet. Follow him @johnastoehr.

BuzzFeed cutting jobs, top editors leaving news division
By TALI ARBEL

FILE - The entrance to BuzzFeed in New York is seen on Nov. 19, 2020. In news announced Tuesday, March 22, 2022, BuzzFeed is reorienting and shrinking its news division as the digital media company best known for its lighthearted quizzes strives to increase its profitability. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

BuzzFeed is shrinking and shifting the focus of its Pulitzer prize-winning news division as the digital media company, best known for its lighthearted lists and quizzes, strives to increase its profitability.

The New York-based company is offering voluntary buyouts in its high-profile, 100-person newsroom and some top editors are leaving. They include Mark Schoofs, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed News, and deputy editor in chief Tom Namako, who announced a move to NBC News Digital on Tuesday. Ariel Kaminer, the executive editor for investigations, is also leaving.

BuzzFeed News is unprofitable but has won awards, including its first Pulitzer last year, and its staff has been regularly poached by traditional news organizations. BuzzFeed spokesman Matt Mittenthal said about 35 people were eligible for the buyouts, but the company doesn’t expect all of them to take one.

Buyouts will be offered to news staffers on the investigations, inequality, politics and science teams, as BuzzFeed focuses more on big breaking news and lighter content.

“We’ve had freedom to chase wild, impossible stories,” tweeted Rosalind Adams, an investigative reporter at BuzzFeed News. “It’s a sad day to watch @BuzzFeedNews move away from valuing that work.”

Beyond the newsroom buyouts, the company also said it is cutting 1.7% of its staff. In a January filing with securities regulators, Buzzfeed said it had 1,524 U.S. and international employees, so the cuts would amount to roughly 25 people.

BuzzFeed’s shares have dropped more than 40% since the company went public in early December via what’s known as a SPAC, merging with a company that already trades, rather than an IPO.

The company had a solid year in 2021, it reported Tuesday in its earnings release. Its revenue rose 24% to $397.6 million, thanks to increases in e-commerce and ad revenue, and its profit more than doubled, to $25.9 million.

But it expects revenue to drop in the current quarter if it includes the acquisition of Complex Networks, a group of pop culture sites BuzzFeed acquired last year. The layoffs separate from the news division will come from BuzzFeed Video and the editorial side of Complex.

BuzzFeed also acquired HuffPost in early 2021, and laid off several dozen of its staffers shortly after.

On BuzzFeed’s earnings call Tuesday, CEO Jonah Peretti said the company is accelerating its investment in vertical video, the smartphone format used on the increasingly popular video sharing site TikTok.

As for the news division, it “will need to get smaller,” and “prioritize the areas of coverage our audience connects with most,” Peretti said in a memo to employees.

On the earnings call, he said that the company needs to make BuzzFeed News “a stronger financial contributor to the larger business,” and doing so will involve focusing on big breaking news, culture and entertainment, celebrities, and “life on the internet.”

Shares in Buzzfeed Inc. rose 32 cents, or 6.5%, to close Tuesday at $5.27.

How right-wingers embraced Russia's 'bizarre' conspiracy theory about Ukraine

Lindsay Beyerstein
March 22, 2022

A picture taken on June 27, 2014 shows Russia's President Vladimir Putin at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow (AFP Photo/Yuri Kadobnov)

The conspiracy theory that Russia invaded Ukraine to stop Anthony Fauci from engineering the next Covid-19 has turned the US far-right against Ukraine and for Russia

The evolution of this bizarre fantasy can teach us a lot about how the US rightwing incubates and adapts Russian propaganda for domestic consumption.

Russia’s approach to propaganda has been likened to a firehose.

Its strategy is to spew countless narratives across a huge number of platforms without regard for internal coherence or even plausibility.

Then wait to see which catch on. Then build on those successes.

When Russia claimed to have captured secret US bioweapons labs in Ukraine, many observers assumed Russia had lifted the idea directly from American conspiracists. After all, Putin hadn’t said a word about biolabs ahead of his invasion of Ukraine.

However, the myth that the US is funding secret biolabs in Ukraine is part of a years-long Russian disinformation campaign.

These allegations are Russia’s latest attempt to smear a US program to help former Soviet republics.

The program began as an effort to eliminate stockpiles of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons left over from the Soviet Union. It later transitioned into ongoing help with peaceful biological, veterinary and public health research.

In 2018, Russia baselessly accused the US of running a secret bioweapons lab in the former Soviet republic of Georgia based on the lab’s participation in the same entirely non-secret program.

Unlike the US and most other countries, Russia does have an active chemical and biological weapons program. It has been falsely accusing the US of having bioweapons for decades, a propaganda strategy that experts say is geared towards undermining the taboo against biological weapons.

If Russia can convince the rest of the world that the US is secretly making bioweapons under the guise of non-proliferation, it makes Russia seem less deviant by comparison.

Ukraine, the US, the United Nations, the European Union and non-proliferation groups are unanimous: Ukraine does not have a biological weapons program.

Biological weapons are of negligible military value, especially if your goal is to defend your own homeland against an invading army.

Ukraine’s entire military has a smaller budget than the NYPD. The idea that Ukraine would waste its limited defense dollars on bioweapons rather than missiles and jets doesn’t pass the laugh test.

Investigative tech journos Ben Collins and Kevin Collier excavated the digital prehistory of the biolab smear for NBC News.

The first known mention cropped up on the right-wing social media platform Gab in mid-February, 10 days before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

It received little traction at the time. However, on the day of the invasion, the number of references to Ukrainian biolabs jumped to hundreds, and kept climbing.

The big breakthrough came the following week when a QAnon-linked Twitter account called @WarClandestine shared the same graphic that had appeared on the original Gab post.

There’s clearly a feedback loop between Russian propaganda and its enablers on the US far-right.

On March 9, the Russian Foreign Ministry claimed to have captured evidence of US-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine. Tucker Carlson jumped on the story that very day. Two days later, Russia went to the United Nations to accuse the US of weaponizing migratory birds in Ukraine, hoarding deadly bat parasites that could fall into the hands of terrorists and trafficking in the blood of Slavs to make “ethnically-specific” biological weapons. Carlson used Russia’s presentation as a news hook, eliminating the crazy-sounding references to birds, bats and Slavs. Later Carlson falsely claimed that a US undersecretary had confirmed the existence of US-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine. In fact, she’d acknowledged that there are labs in Ukraine that may contain pathogens that shouldn’t fall into Russian hands. In fact, these labs are not secret and almost any scientific or medical laboratory that studies or tests for diseases could have pathogens we wouldn’t want the Russians getting ahold of, especially now that they’re reaching for any justification to frame Ukraine as a bioweapons producer.

Since Carlson is the agenda-setter for the US far-right, his pronouncements help to amplify and codify the key elements of the conspiracy theory.

Russia is keenly aware of what Carlson is doing. A leaked memo shows that the higher-ups in Russian state TV consider it essential to feature Carlson as much as possible.

Tucker Carlson whines about the media after Trump allows Biden transition: ‘The 2020 election was not fair’

Tucker Carlson whines about the media after Trump allows Biden transition: ‘The 2020 election was not fair’Tucker Carlson (Screengrab)


Lindsay Beyerstein covers legal affairs, health care and politics. An award-winning documentary filmmaker, she’s a judge for the Sidney Hillman Foundation. Find her @beyerstein.

It's science: Trump voters are dumb

Chauncey Devega, Salon
March 23, 2022

Two female Trump supporters (Screen cap).

The United States is experiencing an existential democracy crisis, with leading Republicans and millions of their voters and supporters either tacitly or explicitly embracing authoritarianism or fascism. Democrats, for the most part, have not responded with the urgency required to save America's democracy from the rising neofascist tide.

American society was founded on white settler colonialism, genocide and slavery. This unresolved "birth defect" at the foundation of the American democratic experiment meant that the country was racially exclusionary by design, from the founding well into the 20th century. At present, American politics is contoured by asymmetrical political polarization, in which Republicans have moved so far to the right that the party's most "moderate" members are far more extreme than the most "conservative" Democrats. This makes substantive compromise and bipartisanship in the interests of the common good and the American people almost impossible.

Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Trump supporters and Trump-loathers, increasingly do not live in the same neighborhoods or communities. In all, they largely do not socialize with each other, or have other forms of meaningful interpersonal relationships in day-to-day life.

To the degree that "race" is a proxy for political values and beliefs, the color line functions as a practical dividing line of partisan identity and voting. Religion is also a societal space that is divided by politics. For example, public opinion research shows that white right-wing evangelical Christians have increasingly embraced authoritarian views, conspiracy theories and other anti-democratic and antisocial values.

As the new Faith in America survey by Deseret News & Marist College highlights, the basic understanding of the role of religion in a secular democracy has become so polarized that 70% of Republicans believe that religion should influence a person's political values, where as only 28% of Democrats and 45% of independents share that view.

Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, also do not consume the same sources of information about news and politics. Conservatives now inhabit their own self-created media echo chamber, which functions as a type of lie-filled and toxic closed episteme and sealed-off universe. The creation of such an alternate reality is an important attribute of fascism, in which truth itself must be destroyed and replaced with fantasies and fictions in support of the leader and his movement.

America's struggle for democracy and freedom against authoritarianism is taking place on a biological level as well. Social psychologists and other researchers have shown that the brain structures of conservative-authoritarians are different than those of more liberal and progressive thinkers. The former are more fear-centered, emphasizing threats and dangers (negativity bias), intolerant of ambiguity and inclined to simple, binary solutions. Conservative-authoritarians are also strongly attracted to moral hierarchy and social dominance behavior.

Recent research by Darren Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University, demonstrates that America's democracy crisis may be even more intractable than the above evidence suggests. In his recent article "Cognitive Sophistication, Religion, and the Trump Vote," which appeared in the January 2021 edition of Social Science Quarterly, Sherkat examined data from the 2018 General Social Survey and concluded that there are substantial negative differences between the thinking processes and cognition of white Trump voters, as shown in the 2016 presidential election, as compared to other voters who supported Hillary Clinton or another candidate, or who did not vote at all.

Sherkat observes that Trump support has been linked to religion and level of education, but until now not to "cognitive sophistication," which was found "to have a positive effect on voting, but a negative effect on choosing Trump." He notes that "philosophers and political elites have debated the potential effects of mass political participation" for generations, concerned "about the unsophisticated masses coming under the sway of a demagogue." In effect, this debate was always about the quality he calls cognitive sophistication, since citizens who lack it "may not be able to understand and access reliable and valid information about political issues and may be vulnerable to political propaganda":

Low levels of cognitive sophistication may lead people to embrace simple cognitive shortcuts, like stereotypes and prejudices that were amplified by the Trump campaign. Additionally, the simple linguistic style presented by Trump may have appealed to voters with limited education and cognitive sophistication. Beginning with [T.W.] Adorno's classic study of the authoritarian personality, empirical works have linked low levels of cognitive sophistication with right-wing orientations....

Trump's campaign may also have been more attractive to people with low cognitive sophistication and a preference for low-effort information processing because compared to other candidates Trump's speeches were given at a much lower reading level…. While much of the Trump campaign's rhetoric and orientation may have resonated with the poorly educated and cognitively unsophisticated, those overlapping groups are less likely to register to vote or to turn out in an election.

As part of his research, Sherkat evaluated the political decision-making and cognition of Trump's voters, using a 10-point vocabulary exam. In a guest essay at the website Down with Tyranny, he explains what this vocabulary test revealed about white Trump voters:
Overall, the model predicts that almost 73% of respondents who missed all 10 questions would vote for Trump (remember, that is controlling for education and the other factors), while about 51% who were average on the exam are expected to vote for Trump. Only 35% of people who had a perfect score on the exam are predicted to be Trump supporters.

Notably, this very strong, significant effect of verbal ability can be identified within educational groups. While non-college whites certainly turned out more heavily for Trump, the smart ones did not — only 38% of those with perfect scores are expected to go for Trump, and only 46% of non-college graduates who scored a standard deviation above the mean. The same is true for college graduates — low cognition college graduates were more likely to vote for Trump. ...

What is really depressing isn't just the poles of the vocabulary exam, it's the average. The mean and median of the scale is 6 — so half of white Americans missed 4 of the easy vocabulary questions.

Sherkat's research also explored how religion impacted support for Donald Trump among white voters: "This study confirms that white Americans with fundamentalist views of the Bible and those who embrace identifications with sectarian Protestant denominations tended to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 election."

Belief that the Bible is the literal "word of God" also impacted Trump voting: "Viewing the Bible as a book of fables is also significantly predictive of vote choice, with secular beliefs reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 80 percent when compared to literalists, and reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 52 percent when compared to respondents who view the Bible as inspired by God."

In an email to Salon, Sherkat offered additional context and implication on the relationship between white Christianity, American neofascism and cognition:

The problem of the contemporary American fascist right is rooted in education and information. And this problem is not simply about attainment of some quantity of education, but of the quality and content of education, how that leads generations of white Christian Americans to process information about a wide range of issues. The segregation academies that proliferated in the mid-1960s and accelerated in the 1970s have taught millions of Americans a radically skewed version of American and world history and encouraged a continued segregated society. The homeschooling movement augmented this division, and further denigrated the value of knowledge.

White fundamentalist Christians have always segmented their communities from the rest of America, and even exert considerable control over public educational institutions, particularly in rural areas and in the states which embraced slavery. White fundamentalist Christians distrust mainstream social institutions like education and print media, and they actively seek to eliminate public education and to provide alternative sources of information. As a result, people who identify with and participate in white Christian denominations and who subscribe to fundamentalist beliefs have substantial intellectual deficits that make them easy marks for a wide variety of schemes — from financial fraud to conspiracy theories.

If you can't read the New York Times, you're going to believe whatever you hear on talk radio or on television. It's simply impossible for people with limited vocabularies and low levels of cognitive functioning to make sense of the complex realities of the political world. And we now have a population where for 55 years substantial fractions of white people have gone to private fundamentalist Christian schools that leave them both indoctrinated in Christian nationalism and ill-prepared to process any additional information. Worse, we now have over a million children in a given year who are homeschooled by parents who are uneducated white fundamentalists — and that total has been pretty constant for three decades since the homeschooling movement blossomed.

What does this mean for the present and future of American democracy in this time of crisis? Sherkat cited the "disturbing ... influence of anti-intellectualism on American public life," which lends "performative power to ignorant elites":
Spouting off obvious untruths is no longer a mark of shame, because even basic historical and contemporary truths are not recognized. We seem to have a stable set of about 30% of Americans, 35% of white Americans, who are oblivious to political realities and incapable and unwilling to come to terms with any of our key social problems. The increasing control over public education by right-wing fanatics is entrenching ignorance and intellectual laziness in future generations. It does not bode well for the future of American democracy.

Donald Trump and his movement did not create all these American authoritarians and aspiring fascists. Such people have long been a feature of American society. What Trump and his movement have accomplished in recent years is to empower and normalize a dangerous set of antisocial, anti-human, retrograde and anti-democratic values and beliefs.

Saving America's democracy will require a moral and political reckoning and acts of critical self-reflection on a nationwide scale about the American people's character and values, and about how their leaders and governing institutions have failed them.

Changes in laws and institutions are necessary. But on their own, such interventions will not stop the spread of fascism. A lasting remedy will demand that the country's political, cultural, and educational institutions be renewed, re-energized, and reimagined. The questions Americans must ask themselves are simple yet enormous: Who are we? What are we to become? How can we unite in defense of democracy, the common good and the general welfare? Without real answers to those questions, there will be no democratic renewal in the 21st century -- and fascism wins.

Anti-abortion conservative admits to paying for abortion decades ago: 'It was wrong when I did it'

WHAT WAS WRONG WAS THE AFFAIR THAT PRODUCED THE NEED

Travis Gettys
March 23, 2022

Mark Robinson's delivering a speech. (Screenshot/YouTube.com)

A hardline anti-abortion conservative has admitted that he once paid for the mother of his "unborn child" to have an abortion.

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson made the admission in a 2012 Facebook comment that has resurfaced as he readies an expected gubernatorial run after he was elected last year as the highest-ranking state Republican in executive office on a "pro-life" platform, reported WRAL-TV.

“I'm not saying abortion is wrong cause I said so it's wrong cause God says so,” Robinson posted in a comment linked to his personal Facebook page. “It's wrong when others do it and it was wrong when I paid for it to be done to my unborn child in 1989.”

Robinson referred to abortion as "murder" at a January 2021 anti-abortion rally and has made repeated statements opposing a woman's right to choose throughout his political career.

WATCH: Whoopi Goldberg goes off on Lindsey Graham for turning on Judge Jackson: 'You should be ashamed of yourself'

“Once you make a baby, it’s not your body anymore — it’s y’all’s body," Robinson said at the North Carolina Republican convention in June 2021. And, yes, that includes the daddy,”

Robinson did not respond to requests for comment by Wednesday morning, and the state GOP declined to comment.

"As it is a personal matter, NCGOP will not be commenting," said North Carolina GOP spokesman Jeff Moore. "We will defer to Lt. Gov. Robinson."

French far-right presidential candidate Zemmour faces suit over denial of Nazi anti-gay crimes
Agence France-Presse
March 23, 2022

French far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour addresses a press conference in Paris on Wednesday BERTRAND GUAY AFP

French far-right presidential candidate Eric Zemmour is being targeted with legal action by gay rights groups, who say he denied that homosexuals were rounded up and deported during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II.

Six gay rights associations told AFP on Wednesday that their criminal complaint for "denial of crimes against humanity" stemmed from Zemmour's campaign manifesto, "France has not said its final word," published in September.

In it, Zemmour agreed with another politician who claimed that deportations of homosexuals to concentration camps were a "legend".

Zemmour "distorted history to support his homophobic positions," the associations alleged in their complaint.

People close to the candidate retorted that "it is not Zemmour's words that are cited in the book," and called the legal move a smear attempt ahead of the first round of voting in the presidential election on April 10.

"Pro-LGBT" groups feared the candidate's stance against gay "propaganda in our schools," his team added.
ADVERTISEMENT

Meanwhile Zemmour's lawyer Olivier Pardo said he had not yet seen the legal complaint.

Seen by AFP, the complaint from the gay rights groups says that "deportation of homosexuals during World War II is an established historical fact" acknowledged by past French leaders including President Jacques Chirac and confirmed by recent scholarship.

"In France, at least 500 men accused of homosexuality were arrested, of whom at least 200 were deported during the German occupation," they said.
'Remigration'

Zemmour, 63, has for his part cited past declarations from Jewish associations that deported homosexuals were actually targeted as members of other persecuted categories, like Jews or members of the anti-Nazi resistance.

The candidate has in the past escaped conviction for another complaint of denying crimes against humanity, after he said that Marshal Petain, head of the Nazi vassal state based in Vichy during World War II, had "saved" French Jews.

An appeals court is set to render a new judgement in that case after the presidential vote.

Also Wednesday, Zemmour presented an outline of his budget plans if he were elected, claiming that he could find 20 billion euros ($22 billion) of savings by removing state aid to foreigners from outside the EU.

But the authority responsible for such payouts has said that the total for Europeans and non-Europeans combined was less than half the figure in 2019.

Zemmour's spending priorities would include defense, internal security, the legal system and health -- though his calculations did not include plans announced this week for a "remigration ministry" that he vowed would deport a million people within five years.

The idea of "remigration" is borrowed from white nationalist thinking, in line with Zemmour's belief in the conspiracy theory of a "great replacement" of white Europeans by immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

Ukraine's biggest zoo caught in the crossfire

Agence France-Presse
March 23, 2022

Leopard in Ukraine Zoo (BULENT KILIC AFP)

The Mykolaiv Zoo bills itself as the best in Ukraine, but now the 4,000 wild animals it holds are trapped in a whole new sense, with Russian rockets landing among them.

As air raid sirens wail across the city, which holds a key river crossing Russian troops need to pursue their push towards Ukraine's top Black Sea port of Odessa, a leopard brushes nervously against the bars of his cage.

It is difficult to tell whether the Amur leopard, "the rarest subspecies" of the big cat, is rattled by the piercing sound or the unusual sight of strangers, more than three weeks after the zoo was closed to visitors, said zoologist Viktor Dyakonov.

The first rocket that landed on the zoo, on February 27, tore up the walkway between the tiger and polar bear enclosures, and is now on display in the museum of the zoo founded more than 120 years ago.

No one was wounded, neither among the staff nor the animals.

But the episode was "very stressful", with a tank battle 600 meters (650 yards) from the zoo, said the museum's director, Volodymyr Topchyi.

Since then, three more rockets have landed in the zoo, including one in an aviary.

The other two landed near the zoo's administrative offices and staff said they were cluster munitions the Russians call the Uragan or "Hurricane".

The United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have condemned the use of cluster munitions by Russian forces, particularly in northeastern Ukraine, a type of weapon that is banned by the 2008 Oslo Convention which Moscow never signed.

Cluster munitions spread explosive bomblets over a wide area, making them an imprecise weapon that can cause extensive injuries among civilians.

As many of the bomblets don't explode upon impact, they can cause death and mutilation among civilians long after hostilities are over.

Too risky to evacuate

Of the some 400 species present in the zoo, nearly half are on the international red list of threatened species, according to Topchyi, the zoo's director.

But their evacuation via the bridge across the Buh river to territory held by Ukrainian forces is not feasible, he said.

"There aren't enough vehicles to transport the animals and the only road towards Odessa is clogged with traffic," said Topchyi.

"And it's still very cold. If we take the giraffes, the elephants and the hippopotamuses ... there's a risk they won't survive," he added.

Topchyi ruled out abandoning the animals, and praised the "heroic" work of about 100 staff members who continue to take care of their charges, even sleeping at the zoo to reduce the number of dangerous trips across the city.

That is the case for zoologist Dyakonov, along with his wife, a veterinarian.

"To come from where I live I have to cross a bridge that is raised and lowered at random times, so there is no certainty that I'll be able to make it to work," he said.

"That's why my wife and I decided to say at the zoo for a while, while the situation is so unstable," he added.

Overall, the zoo's animals are "leading a quiet life" said Olga, a caretaker, as she watched a female hippopotamus, Rikky, snort as she lazily swam around her pool.

"Our animals are eating and reproducing, they're doing fine," said Topchyi.

On March 8, despite intense bombardments, a female leopard gave birth.

"It's springtime, births will begin," he said.

Even though closed to visitors, the public has continued to buy tickets, with people posting on Facebook about their support for the zoo.

MacKenzie Scott donates $275 million to Planned Parenthood
Agence France-Presse
March 23, 2022

MacKenzie Scott (Screen Shot)

MacKenzie Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has donated $275 million to Planned Parenthood, a leading advocate for abortion rights in the United States.

Planned Parenthood said Scott's donation to the group's national office and 21 affiliates was the largest gift from a single donor in the history of the organization, which operates clinics focused on reproductive and sexual health across the country.

Planned Parenthood noted that the gift comes as conservative states roll back abortion rights and the US Supreme Court is poised to potentially overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that held that access to abortion is a woman's constitutional right.

"We are incredibly grateful for Ms. Scott's extraordinary philanthropic investment," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).

"As we face the most serious attacks on access to abortion that we've seen in a generation, PPFA is proud to play a vital role in ensuring access to essential health care," she said.

Planned Parenthood said Scott's support will help it "work as hard as ever to ensure equitable access to sexual and reproductive health care and education, especially abortion care."

The donation to Planned Parenthood was announced one day after Scott donated $436 million to Habitat for Humanity and dozens of affiliates of the homebuilding non-governmental organization.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of America announced last week that Scott donated $281 million to the US non-profit devoted to providing programs and support for young people.

Scott is among the billionaires who have signed a pledge to give away the majority of their wealth to charity.

She has already donated billions of dollars to hundreds of different charities and organizations devoted to race, gender and economic equality and other causes.

Scott had a net worth of about $49 billion as of Tuesday, according to a Forbes wealth index.

In a blog post on Wednesday, Scott listed the 465 non-profits that have been given $3.86 billion since June alone.

"As always our aim has been to support the needs of underrepresented people from groups of all kinds," she said. "The cause of equity has no sides."

© 2022 AFP

US says basketball star Brittney Griner 'in good condition' in Russian detention

She is reading Dostoyevsky it said.

OF COURSE SHE IS , SHE IS IN PRISON 

Agence France-Presse
March 23, 2022

Brittney Griner of the United States in action with Sandrine Gruda of France at Saitama Super Arena during their Tokyo 2020 Olympic women's basketball Group B game in Saitama, Japan August 2, 2021. © Sergio Perez, Reuters

A US diplomat was able to visit detained basketball star Brittney Griner who was found to be in "good condition" after more than a month in Russian custody, the State Department said Wednesday.

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist and WNBA champion, was detained at Moscow's airport on February 17 on charges of carrying vape cartridges that contained cannabis oil in her luggage.

"An official from our embassy has been granted consular access to Brittney Griner. We were able to check on her condition," State Department spokesman Ned Price said.

"Our official found Brittney Griner to be in good condition and we will continue to do everything we can to see to it that she is treated fairly throughout this ordeal," he added.

Griner was in Russia to play club basketball before the US season resumed, a common practice for American players, who can earn much higher salaries in foreign leagues than on domestic teams.

After being apprehended, Griner was immediately placed in a detention center, and last week a Russian court extended her arrest until May 19. She faces up to 10 years in prison.

The 31-year-old openly gay basketball star is one of few women who can "dunk" a ball and considered one of the best players in the world.

The arrest came as relations between Moscow and the West hit rock bottom over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Washington fears the player will be used as a pawn in the dispute and has so far kept a low profile in her case.

Last week Russian state news agency TASS said Griner shared her cell with two other people. She is reading Dostoyevsky and a biography of the members of the Rolling Stones, it said.

Russian media: Detention of WNBA’s Griner extended to May 19

Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner (42) looks to pass as Chicago Sky center Candace Parker defends during the first half of game 1 of the WNBA basketball Finals , Sunday, Oct. 10, 2021, in Phoenix. Griner was arrested in Russia last month at a Moscow airport after a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges. The Russian Customs Service said Saturday, March 5, 2022, that the cartridges were identified as containing oil derived from cannabis, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The customs service identified the person arrested as a female player for the U.S. national team and did not specify the date of her arrest. 

(AP Photo/Ralph Freso, File)

PUBLISHED: March 17, 2022 
By DOUG FEINBERG

Russian media reported that the detention of WNBA star Brittney Griner was extended until May 19, a development that could see the two-time Olympic champion being held for at least three months before her case is resolved.

The case of the 31-year-old Griner, one of the most recognizable players in women’s basketball, comes amid heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Griner was detained after arriving at a Moscow airport, reportedly in mid-February, after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges allegedly containing oil derived from cannabis, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.

“The court granted the request of the investigation and extended the period of detention of the U.S. citizen Griner until May 19,” the court said, according to the state news agency Tass.

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.

A person familiar with the situation told the AP that Griner’s legal team has seen her multiple times a week and she is doing “OK.” The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing legal proceedings.

The U.S. State Department has been “doing everything we can to support Brittney Griner to support her family, and to work with them to do everything we can, to see that she is treated appropriately and to seek her release,” spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday at a briefing. He cited privacy considerations in not giving out more details.

Ekaterina Kalugina of the regional Public Monitoring Commission, a state-backed panel in Russia that monitors prisoners’ conditions, told Tass that Griner was sharing a cell with two other female detainees accused of narcotics offenses.

Griner’s cellmates spoke English and were helping her to communicate with staff at the pretrial detention facility and to obtain books, Kalugina said.

“The only objective problem has turned out to be the basketball player’s height,” Tass quoted Kalugina as saying of the 6-foot-9 (206-cm) Griner. “The beds in the cell are clearly intended for a person of lesser height.”

Griner has won two Olympic gold medals with the U.S., a WNBA championship with the Phoenix Mercury and a national championship at Baylor. She is a seven-time All-Star. The WNBA season opens May 6.

She was one of a dozen WNBA players who played in Russia or Ukraine this past season. All except Griner have left since Russia invaded Ukraine.

Griner has played in Russia for the last seven years in the winter, earning over $1 million per season — more than quadruple her WNBA salary. She last played for her Russian team UMMC Ekaterinburg on Jan. 29 before the league took a two-week break in early February for the FIBA World Cup qualifying tournaments.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined a growing contingent of family, friends and officials calling for her release with a “Free Brittney” tweet Wednesday.

Griner’s group has been trying to work quietly for her release and declining to talk publicly since her arrest was made public earlier this month.

Griner’s wife, Cherelle, thanked everyone for their support but also has said little else on social media.

“Everyone’s getting the strategy of say less and push more privately behind the scenes,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told the AP on Wednesday. ”It’s the strategy you get from the State Department and administration. It’s our No. 1 priority in talking with her agent and strategists.”

The State Department has cited privacy considerations for not releasing more information about Griner’s situation despite the intense public interest in the case. Indeed, federal law prohibits U.S. officials from providing personal information about any American citizen arrested or otherwise detained overseas without their express written consent.

There are very limited exceptions to the rules in the 1974 Privacy Act that also forbids the public release of passport records of U.S. citizens. One exception is when the subject of an inquiry has signed a document known as a Privacy Act Waiver that allows the State Department in Washington and diplomats at U.S. embassies and consulates abroad to discuss specific information.

Griner is not the only American currently detained in Russia. Marine veteran Trevor Reed was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020 on charges he assaulted police officers in Moscow, and Michigan corporate security executive Paul Whelan is serving a 16-year sentence on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government have said are false. U.S. officials have publicly called for Moscow to release them.

HOMOPHOBIC SERIAL KILLINGS

Pakistan: Transgender shot dead in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Mardan district

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa [Pakistan], March 18 (ANI): A day after five trans women were shot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Mansehra, the province witnessed yet another killing of a renowned transgender in Mardan district.

As per police officials, Chaand was killed while her friend Mehboob sustained injuries during a firing incident on Thursday, reported The Express Tribune.

As many as 70 transgender persons were killed in the last few years, but not a single accused has been convicted, said a social activist.

Social activist of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's transgender community Arzu, while condemning the incident, told The Express Tribune that the government has failed to give security and rights to the marginalised community.

Recently, the transgender community protested against local police authorities, saying that they face threats every now and then.

On Monday, the police arrested a suspect for his involvement in an attack on five transgender persons in Mansehra.

Earlier in February, two transgender persons were allegedly shot dead by unidentified assailants in Gujranwala. 

(ANI)