Tag: fascism

Nazi Trump burns Voice of America. “Massive gift to USA enemies”

UPDATE

Lee Heidhues 3.20.2025

Wall Street Journal editorial – 3.20.2025

The reaction to Nazi Felon Trump’s dismantling of Voice of America has been Swift. Regrettably, Trump will get away with this blatant censorship. And there’s more to come.

A headline from Trump’s first term in 2017. I knew eight years ago it would get worse.

Al Jazeera headline 3.18.2025

Chinese state media revel in demise of Voice of America, Radio Free Asia

Shutdown of US-funded news outlets ends more than 80 years of uncensored news broadcasts in China.

Lee Heidhues 3.15.2025

Step by step the felon Nazi Donald Trump is destroying the free press. Just like Adolf Hitler did in Germany shortly after he became Chancellor in 1933. Are books next?

Book burning in Nazi Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empty_Library

On April 6, 1933, the Nazi German Student Association’s Main Office for Press and Propaganda announced a nationwide initiative “against the un-German spirit”, climaxing in a literary Säuberung, or cleansing, by fire.[2] Local chapters of the group were charged with the distribution of literary blacklists that included Jewish, Marxist, Socialist, anti-family, and anti-German literature and planned grand ceremonies for the public to gather and dispose of the objectionable material.[3]

In Berlin, the German Student Union organized the celebratory book burnings that took place on May 10, 1933, on a dreary, rainy evening.[2] 40,000 people crowded into the Opernplatz (as it was then known) as 5,000 German students proceeded past them, holding burning torches to ceremonially ignite the pile of books seized for the event.[4] Joseph Goebbels, Germany’s Reich Minister of Propaganda, spoke at the event, declaring that “the era of exaggerated Jewish intellectualism is now at an end… and the future German man will not just be a man of books… this late hour [I] entrust to the flames the intellectual garbage of the past.”[3][5] Thirty-four additional book burnings took place across Germany that month.[3]

Excerpted from France 24 3.15.2025

The head of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which started broadcasting into the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, called the cancellation of funding “a massive gift to America’s enemies.”

Nazis burning Books – May 10, 1933

“The Iranian ayatollahs, Chinese communist leaders, and autocrats in Moscow and Minsk would celebrate the demise of RFE/RL after 75 years,” its president, Stephen Capus, said in a statement.

Hundreds of reporters and other staff at VOA, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and other outlets received a weekend email saying they will be barred from their offices and should surrender press passes, office-issued telephones and other equipment.

Trump, who has already eviscerated the US aid agency and Education Department, on Friday issued an executive order listing the US Agency for Global Media as among “elements of the federal bureaucracy that the president has determined are unnecessary.”

Kari Lake, a firebrand Trump supporter and former Arizona news anchor who was put in charge of the media agency after she lost a US Senate bid, wrote — in an email to media outlets she supervises — that federal grant money “no longer effectuates agency priorities.”

A White House press official, Harrison Fields, took a much less legalistic tone in a post on X, simply writing “goodbye” in 20 languages, a sarcastic jab at VOA’s multilingual coverage.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250315-trump-freezes-voa-radio-free-asia-radio-free-europe

Top photo: President Dwight Eisenhower speaks on Voice of America – circa 1950’s

AfD in the German Bundestag. Hitler, Hate and Hooligans

SAN FRANCISCO

Lee Heidhues 2.26.2025

The gang of Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) Neo-Nazis are the type people The Felon Donald Trump, Elon Musk and JD Vance cheered on during the recent German election.

AfD the descendants of The Third Reich

Deutsche Welle continues to report on last Sunday’s German elections.

The far right “Nazi Curious” Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) captured 152 seats in the 630 member Bundestag.

Deutsche Welle found several of the most incendiary AfD members who will now have an outsized influence in formulating German policy; some of which involve hate speech and neo-Nazi activity in a country ravaged by Adolf Hitler during his 12 year reign.

Deutsche Welle 2.26.2025

https://www.dw.com/en/afd-in-the-bundestag-hitler-hate-and-hooligans/g-71754221

Details about each AdF Bundestag member were found on Wikipedia.

MATTHIAS HELFERICH. During his election campaign, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) banned Helferich from holding political office. Helferich had described himself in messages as the “friendly face of the ns [sic],” referring to National Socialism. Helferich also called himself a “democratic Freisler,” referring to a Nazi-era judge. Helferich later said that his statements were meant as parody: “If you are confronted with Nazi accusations as frequently as AfD politicians, you compensate for that in private spheres. You ridicule it.”
MAXIMILLIAN KRAH: is a German lawyer and politician. He has served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2019 as a member of right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD). In April 2024, Krah gained international attention when the German Prosecutor General arrested his assistant, suspected of spying for China by passing on information about negotiations and decisions in the European Parliament to China’s intelligence service. This and comments Krah made about the Nazi era in a subsequent media interview were seen by observers as having triggered the decision by the European parliamentarian group Identity and Democracy (ID) to exclude the AfD from membership on 23 May 2024. Since then, Krah has sat with the non-attached members.
JAN WENZEL SCHMIDT became member of AfD in 2014. One year later he was co-founder of the rightwing extremist youth organization Junge Alternative (young alternative for Germany) and became their first chairmen. In 2016 he was elected to the Landtag of Saxony Anhalt. He became member of the Bundestag in 2021.
STEPHAN PROTSCHKA became member of the bundestag after the 2017 German federal election. He is a member of the Committee for Food and Agriculture. In 2019 he was involved in controversy after funding and supporting a memorial in Poland honoring German soldiers in WWII and the Nazi paramilitary organization Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz. The construction of the memorial was partially initiated by the neo-Nazi organization Junge Nationalisten which is being monitored by the German intelligence services. Polish courts started an investigation against Protschka for supporting Nazism and defamation of victims of the Holocaust. In 2024, Protschka agreed to pay a 12,000 euro fine in exchange for prosecutors dropping charges related to his calling Bavarian state premier Markus Söder “a traitor to the country” and “Södolf” at a political event in 2023.
DARIO SEIFERT a German politician who was elected member of the Bundestag in 2025. From 2012 to 2014, he was a member of the Junge Nationalisten, The youth wing of the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD).
SEBASTIAN MUNZENMAIER. German politician  AfD and a member of the German Bundestag since 2017. Since 2023 he has been deputy parliamentary group leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the BundestagIn July 2017, Münzenmaier and many other people were charged with  grievous bodily harm and attempted theft of fan trophies at the Mainz District Court . In 2012, he was alleged to have been involved in an attack by members of the 1. FC Kaiserslautern ultra and hooligan scene on fans of 1. FSV Mainz 05. This was preceded by a series of insults by Mainz ultras that had been practiced for years to denigrate the Kaiserslautern idol 
Fritz Walter. The masked hooligan group had ambushed and attacked buses of Mainz fans, which also contained children. The Kaiserslautern fans were chased away by the defensive Mainz fans with sticks and bottles. During the scuffle, Mainz fans are said to have suffered lacerations and broken fingers from punches. A representative of the Mainz ultras testified in court that the incident was a typical “beating” among ultras. The press has been critical of the legal investigation . According to Münzenmaier’s defense attorney , the defendant’s apartment was searched immediately after the crime . The police found 
a telescopic baton , a balaclava and “trophy” photos of masked hooligans with opposing fan paraphernalia. Three of Münzenmaier’s co-defendants pleaded guilty at the beginning of the main hearing,  Münzenmaier denied the charges. 
 On 18 October 2017, the district court sentenced him to a suspended prison sentence of six months with a probationary period of three years and a fine of 10,000 euros. Both Münzenmaier and the public prosecutor’s office appealed against the verdict .  In December 2017, the German Bundestag lifted Münzenmaier ‘s immunity to allow the proceedings to continue.  On 17 December 2018 , he was sentenced in the appeal proceedings before the Mainz Regional Court to a fine totaling 16,200 euros.
Elon Musk the AfD Neo-Nazi cheerleader

Top photo: Trump and Alternative for Deutschland (AfD). Kindred souls of Neo-Nazism