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At last weeks Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), the annual conservative confab that in recent years has hosted a growing number of American extremists, organizers made the unexpected step to take a hard stance on the white nationalist Alt-Right seeking to inject itself into the conservative mainstream.

Organizers disinvited gadfly provocateur Milo Yiannopolous before the conference began when video surfaced showing the former Breitbart tech editor casually dismissing pedophilia. Then, on Sunday, as Richard Spencer was speaking with reporters about the so-called deep state being opposed to the president and creating something like a civil war, security guards interrupted, stripped Spencer of his credentials and escorted him from the building.

Spencer was quick to attack the conservative establishment as out of touch with the rising Alt-Right. But tucked in his comments was that mysterious phrase the deep state.

Spencer was tapping into a term that has grown in popularity in news coverage over the last month, as well as on the radical right, as the Trump administration appears to make good on chief strategist Steve Bannons promise to destroy all of todays establishment. Foreign Policy,Salon, andGlenn Greenwalds investigative website The Intercept have all discussed the idea. Even neoconservative Bill Kristol, founder of The Weekly Standard, recently referenced the deep state.

Perhaps it is no surprise, but many oftheAlt-Right figures even if they feel they are increasingly at odds with the GOP now point to the deep state as the principal enemy of Trumps America.

The concept of the deep state is not new. Historically associated with countries such as Turkey, and sometimes called a state within a state, the term refers to government bodies like the armed forces, political foundations, police and administrative agencies that work to undermine a countrys civilian leadership, regardless of party affiliation.

The entire idea took root when the Trump administration, stumbling amid leaks to a news media it has named as the opposition party, accepted the resignation of retired Army Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who had been named national security adviser. It was revealed that Flynn misled Vice President Mike Pence and other top White House officials about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

Within days, pundits and extremists alike responded. Global affairs journals like Foreign Policy declared, The Deep State Comes to America, while extremists, including Eric Striker on the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, sounded an age-old racist alarm.

In an article titled America vs [sic] ZOG: Ex-NSA Official Promises Rogue Agents Will Overthrow Donald Trump, Striker defined the deep state as a Jewish attempt to attack the president. And mirroring the style of site founder Andrew Anglins increasingly bold requests of Trump, Strikercalled on the administration to respond with force.

"Will the deviants and Jews in the deep state succeed? Trump must immediately start cleaning house with grand juries, massive purges, and make examples of Jew journalists like Michael S. Schmidt and Adam Entous currently making the cable news rounds bragging about committing a felony (publishing illegally procured intelligence). The only way the people of America can take back control of our government is through Trump taking an iron fist to the criminal network that wishes to retain its rule over some evil globalist mongrel empire, and restoring power to the executive branch as it was meant to be. If the President relents for even five minutes, they will destroy him."

Even in the paranoid universe of conspiracy theories on the far right,the deep stateis now being referred to by progressive and conservative commentatorsas a known reality in Trumps America. It is a simultaneousfaith in the future and fear of the present.As southern white nationalist Brad Griffin summarized theidea on Occidental Dissent, We have two governments, one elected and the other unelected, which are at war with each other.

In his 2016 book, The Deep State: the fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government, veteran congressional staffer Mike Lofgren warned that the deep state was rising in the United States and argued it was the big story of our time. Thedeep state, he said,was the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism and the militarization of the American economy.

In a separate essay Anatomy of a Deep State published last week, Lofgren added:

There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power.

It is difficult to say what will come of such a bizarre political theory as the Trump administration enters its second month in office. The progressive left, and even some conservatives, hope the deep state will be the ultimate guardrail to slow Trumps unique brand of scorched earth politics. But to dismiss the deep state in America as merely a passing fad is to dismiss just how deep the idea has migrated into the mainstream.

It is there, after all, that the idea is increasinglypitting the radical right and the slowly acquiescing conservative mainstream against anyone who disagrees.

As Republican consultant Ed Rogers, a political consultant and a veteran of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush White Houses, warned in an op-ed published in The Washington Post, To me, the deep state is real. The alt-right is not.

[A]s best I can tell, the alt-right is just a new way for the left to call Republicans racists and Nazis without actually having to say those terms out loud. To me, the deep state is real. The alt-right is not. The deep state may not be fully developed quite yet, but as the Democrats regain their footing and begin to coordinate and try to further and further damage the presidents credibility, it will have a detrimental impact on how our democracy functions and will further erode the publics trust in government.

Original post:
'Alt-Right' Fears 'Deep State' Retribution Against Trump - Southern Poverty Law Center

I had never heard of Milo Yiannopoulos until recently, perhaps because I dont visit some of the websites where his musings are published.

Milo, as he calls himself because of the difficulty some have pronouncing his last name, was disinvited from this weeks Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) annual gathering of the right in Washington. Apparently the organizers were not bothered by Milos association with the so-called alt-right. CPAC withdrew the invitation only after a video surfaced showing him apparently endorsing man-boy relationships that qualify under the definition of pedophilia. Yiannopoulos has resigned as an editor at Breitbart.com and apologized for his remarks.

The editors of National Review, as well as other traditional conservative publications and individuals, criticized CPAC for inviting Yiannopoulos to speak. The conservatism of Russell Kirk, William F. Buckley Jr. and Ronald Reagan was about ideas, not emotion and exclusion. Reagan, whom the modern right likes to claim as one of its own, was an optimist. Even when he criticized the lefts policies, he almost always presented a superior alternative. He wanted to attract as many people to his worldview as possible by winning the argument and converting opponents, whom he always regarded as fellow Americans and friends, even when he disagreed with them.

Today, conservatism has become known in the eyes of many for what and who it is against, not what and who it is for. Yes, part of this is due to media stereotyping, but not all. Traditional conservatism has been a positive we can do better, an inspiring and uplifting philosophy that motivates rather than denigrates.

In his 1993 book The Politics of Prudence, Russell Kirk set down principles he believed should define conservatism. Among them were the following: an enduring moral order; an adherence to custom, convention and continuity guided by the principle of prudence; the principle of imperfectability, meaning we dont look to government to create perfect men and women, or a perfect society, thus rejecting utopianism; the belief that freedom and property are closely linked; conservatives uphold voluntary community and reject involuntary collectivism; the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions; permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society.

That last one bears elaboration, and Kirk offers it: The conservative knows that any healthy society is influenced by two forces, which Samuel Taylor Coleridge called its Permanence and its Progression. The Permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that give us stability and continuity; without that Permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The Progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that Progression, a people stagnate.

One sees this in the debate over the Constitution between liberals, who believe it to be a living document, subject to constant change and updating, and conservatives, who believe it a rock of stability that serves as a guide even in the face of rapid technological and cultural change. Just as a GPS must have a starting point in order to arrive at an intended destination, so too must America have a source from which it can plot its direction and not get lost on the journey.

In 1962, William F. Buckley Jr. denounced the John Birch Society as far removed from common sense and urged the Republican Party to purge the movement from its ranks. So too must todays conservatives separate themselves from the alt-right white supremacists and anti-Semites and reclaim traditional conservatism as the authentic brand.

Conservatives can win elections and govern without beyond-the-fringe types like Milo Yiannopoulos. If they cant, they dont deserve to win.

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Conservatives must oust 'alt-right' | Opinions | thepublicopinion.com - Watertown Public Opinion

Why it matters to you

Mobile phone users in Iraq overwhelmingly lack the means to pay for expensive data plans, but a new partnership will give millions of them free access to Wikipedia.

Wikimedias not just the editorial muscle behind the worlds largest crowdsourced encyclopedia if todays announcement is any indication, its quite the philanthropic enterprise. On Tuesday, Wikipedia members in Iraq, the nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation, and Asiacell, one of Iraqs largest mobile operators, announced a partnership thatwill see access to Wikipedia provided free of charge to Asiacells 11 million Iraqi customers.

Its part of Wikimedias ongoing Zero effort, which seeks to provide Wikipedia free of charge on mobile phones. The program, which was launched in 2013, waives fees for subscribers of participating mobile operators so that they may read and edit Wikipedia without using any of their mobile data. Its been deployed in Malaysia, Kenya, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Kosovo, Nepal, Nigeria, Ghana, Myanmar, Angola, and Algeria, and collectively spans 68 mobile operators in 52 countries.

More: The visually impaired may soon have an audio version of Wikipedia

Its aimed at addressing what the Wikipedia Foundation claims is one of the greatest barriers to internet access globally: Affordability. An estimated 57 percent of the world cant afford a 500MB monthly data plan at current prices. Ina recent Wikipedia Foundation survey, a majority of participants in Iraq reported that mobile data costs limited their use of the internet.

The Asiacell effort was spearheaded by Sarmad Al Taie, an Asiacell employee and Iraqi volunteer Wikipedia editor. In 2015, Sarmad and his wife, Ravan Al Taie, organized workshops in Erbil, the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan, to teach people in Iraq how to edit Wikipedia. Later that year, the burgeoning community launched Iraqi Wikimedians user group, the first Wikimedia affiliate group recognized by Wikipedias broader global community of editors.

Worldwide, Wikipedia is recognized as an important learning resource, but it also offers a platform toshare knowledge with the world, a company spokesperson said. Edits from any country contribute to the worlds common knowledge repository, seen by hundreds of millions of people every month [] With this partnership, Asiacell customers will be able to edit Wikipedia without mobile data charges adding to and improving articles in their preferred language and sharing knowledge of Iraqs rich cultural history, heritage, and its people with the rest of the world

More: Beneath every presidential candidates Wikipedia page lies a vicious tug-of-war

News of Wikipedia Zeros expansion comes on the heels of the Wikimedia Foundations accessibility efforts. In May 2016, the nonprofit embarked on a joint project with the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden that adds text-to-speech synthesis for certain parts of article entries, allowing them to be read aloud. Its slated to be off the ground by 2017, at which time English, Swedish, and Arabic speakers will be able to hear as well as read Wikipedia posts.

More here:
Asiacell Grants 11M Iraqi Subscribers Access to Wikipedia | Digital ... - Digital Trends

The youth component of Russias parliament has come up with a new initiative to improve Russias image online by submittingthousands of articles to Wikipedia that carry full and truthful information about the achievements and exploits of the Russian people. The Youth Parliament of the Russian Federation State Assembly announced the Virtual Front campaignbecause Wikipedia carriesdestructive and falsified information about Russia.

The chairman of the Youth Parliament, State Duma deputy Natalia Kuvshinova said at a recentpress conferencein Moscow thatthe campaign was not only meant to produce10,000 articles, but to also raise Russians awareness about unreliable information on the internet and social networks.

The project would help clean dirt from the media, saidDeputy General Viktor Vodolatsky.

The Youth Parliament was created to promote legislative regulation of the rights and interests of Russian youth in the State Duma, and has organized other patriotic campaigns in the past.

The coordinator of the initiative Kseniya Selezneva, told Vocativ that they want to highlight Russian achievements in history and write about heroes of the Great Patriotic War [Russians term for World War II]. According to their Vkontakte page, they want to write not only about historybut also about modernRussian heroes. She said the project was being carried out by volunteers and their enthusiasm.

According to Wikipedia statistics, there are currently over 1.3 million in the Russian language compared to some 5.3 million in English.

This isnt the first Russian project aimed at improving Russias online image. Last week, Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Ministry of ForeignAffairs saidthe Ministry would begin collecting fake news of leading western media. Her comments were followed by remarks fromDefense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who recentlysaidRussia has created an information warfare directorate within the defense ministry toengage in counterpropaganda.

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Russians Want To Make Wikipedia More 'Truthful' And Patriotic - Vocativ

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The University of Colorado, Boulder is hosting a feminist Wikipedia edit-a-thon to fix what it sees as a gender gap in Wikipedias articles and to resist the Trump administration.

The five-hour event at UC Boulder is part of an international effort called Art+Feminism by New Yorks Museum of Modern Art to improve the representation of women on Wikipedia, as reported byArtNews. As of 2011, women comprised less than 15 percent, approximately, of the sites editors, according toThe New York Times.

Its a mix of people, but they usually come with the goal of righting a wrong, said Stacey Allan, who hosted an edit-a-thon last year, according to The Frame. They will come with someone in mind that they were shocked to find didnt already exist on Wikipedia, and they want to make sure they correct that today.

Wikipedia is something that belongs to all of us. Its not a privately held resource, its content isnt motivated by the whims of any owners, said Art+Feminisms organizers. When you have a government actively pushing alternative facts, improving the reliability and completeness of Wikipedia is an important act of everyday resistance.

The Museum of Modern Arts edit-a-thon will also host Kimberly Drew, its social media manager, to talk about fake news and the process of finding reliable sources.

Despite its wide reach, Wikipedia suffers from a gender gap, says the UC Boulder page. And its content is skewed by the lack of womens voices.

Were gathering women and allies together to celebrate womens cultural achievements and edit Wikipedia articles about women in the arts.

The event welcomes Wikipedia editors of any skill level and especially encourages black women and women with varying gender identities to participate. While New Yorks Museum of Modern Art will be hosting a central edit-a-thon, others will be hosted at locations worldwide, such as Ontario and Washington, D.C.

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Feminists Plan Mass-Editing Party To 'Correct' Wikipedia - Daily Caller