CBS News - Angela Merkel replaces Hillary Clinton as prime target of fake news

[TomCADem]

What is it about powerful women that creates so much hate in Trump and his alt-right/Russian loving supporters?

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/angela-merkel-replaces-hillary-clinton-as-target-of-fake-news/

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has become a target of websites spreading fake news, misleading stories and conspiracy theories ahead of her country’s election, according to an analysis compiled by BuzzFeed News.

A website called Your Newswire, which was responsible for spreading the “Pizzagate” conspiracy about Hillary Clinton and a pizzeria in Washington, D.C., claimed Merkel took a selfie with one of the terrorists in the Brussels attack, the report said, when it was actually a refugee.

Another website, Anonymousnews.ru, published recent fake stories about German NATO officers arrested in Aleppo for collaborating with members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), reported BuzzFeed, which also said the website contained pro-Kremlin propaganda and has also made claims about the CIA being behind 9/11.

The report said some of the other websites posting fake news include Junge Freiheit, which is a weekly newspaper that has been endorsed by the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

[bravenak]

1. Funny how they go after women with such force

[JHan]

2. Yep. It's pathetic.

[bdamomma]

4. exactly

you know I don't like to play the gender card but there have been in history some wonderful women leaders.
sad what are they (insert gender) afraid of?

[LisaM]

5. Yes, isn't it just?

Misogyny? What misogyny?

[KittyWampus]

8. It's not just women. Making that comment is ludicrious in this context.

[bravenak]

9. Not really

I said with such force. They seriously just made shit up about both women.

[JI7]

27. exactly, just look at how they were ok with Trump's sexual assault

[bravenak]

28. Locker room talk

[dionysus]

31. They are tiny dicked (metaphorically if not literally) little cowards who

could never win a fair fight. So they will always go after people who they percieve as weaker or cant defend themselves.

Thats how bullies roll...

[bdamomma]

3. I would leave that woman alone.

I wouldn't mess with Germany that is Putin's next conquest.

[Alice11111]

7. She is the leader, the grown up, in the western world now.

Plus, shes a woman on top of that. Look out for Putin, and his puppet, Trump.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. Anonymousnews.ru?

The .ru means Russia. Merkel was born in East Germany. She knows how to deal with douche bags like Putin.

[Alice11111]

17. Yeah, she's savvy and tough,

...but so was hillary. I admire her. Wow, she has come far. Hopefully, the US election will make it easier to call Putin and fake News out.

[NightWatcher]

10. I think it's more about attacking democracies than women

They just happen to be in charge.

[TomCADem]

13. Sexism, meet racism: Trumps Angela Merkel comments expose the collision of misogyny and ...

This isn't the first time that both Merkel and Hillary have been targeted in a similar manner by Trump's supporters...

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/19/where-sexism-and-racism-meet-trumps-angela-merkel-comments-expose-the-overlap-between-antifeminism-and-white-supremacy/

Sexism, meet racism: Trump’s Angela Merkel comments expose the collision of misogyny and white supremacy

Donald Trump has a new obsession: comparing Hillary Clinton to Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany. During a Monday speech, Trump denounced the “massive immigration” to Germany under Merkel, for which he blames crime rising “to levels that no one thought would they would ever see.” He followed up this speech with press releases and a hashtag aimed at equating Clinton and Merkel.

The choice is an odd one on its surface because most Americans don’t have an opinion about Merkel, even when they know who she is. But as Alice Ollstein of Think Progress persuasively argued on Wednesday, the meme makes more sense when one considers that white supremacists definitely know who Merkel is, because they hate her:

To white nationalist communities that fervently support Trump, Merkel has been a popular villain. Sites like the Daily Stormer, the White Genocide Project, American Renaissance, and The White Resister have posted constantly about her since the Syrian refugee crisis began escalating earlier this year. They have accused her of making a “deliberate attempt to turn Germany from a majority White country into a minority White country.” They have called her a “crazy childless bitch,” an “anti-White traitor,” and “a patron saint of terrorists.” They have asked, in articles about Merkel, “Why would you allow a woman to run a country, unless you were doing it as a joke?”

It’s yet another example of how Trump is mainstreaming white supremacist sentiment. But by making two women the center of an attack, he is also highlighting the way that antifeminism and white supremacy are tied into each other, since people in alt-right, white supremacist circles like to blame feminism for what they see as the “decline” of the white race.

[Fred Sanders]

11. Germany has robust anti-hate speech laws, having learned the hard way that freedom of speech needs

clear limits. At least they have that and thus may not suffer the same fate as America which pretends hate speech is included in freedom of speech.

Who would know better about placing limits on freedom of speech than Germany?

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/03/134239713/France-Isnt-The-Only-Country-To-Prohibit-Hate-Speech

[wildeyed]

12. No, it's because she leads the EU, one of Putin's primary foes.

He wants to force the US and EU to roll back the economic sanctions without him having to leave Crimea. All his targets match up with that goal. Powerful women bother them for sure. They all have serious issues with their own masculinity and strong women make them feel even smaller. But that is ancillary. The main goal is to weaken the sanctions.

[TomCADem]

14. Russia Today - Trump was right to call Merkels immigration policy catastrophic mistake

Here is Russia Today featuring a right winger using Trump to bolster attacks on Merkel. The level of coordination between Russian propaganda and Trump is uncanny.

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/373978-trump-merkel-immigration-mistake/

[wildeyed]

15. Fantastic! RT, Sputnik and all the Russian trollbots are chattering about her now.

Their pro-Assad propaganda couched in anti-ISIL rhetoric makes me want to vomit... Hoping that Germany and EU is better at dealing with the problem than the US.

Interesting is that USA is massing troops in Norway for 'training' exercises now and NATO is building up in Poland. So the things that Trump says are not matching up with what the US government is actually doing. It will be interesting to see how that plays out starting next week.

[TomCADem]

16. Well, He Is Not President Quite Yet...

...Which is pretty scary given the level of uncertainty he is already creating from the sidelines.

[ismnotwasm]

18. Figures

[herding cats]

19. Imagine that, Putin's fake news and troll army going after Merkel

Who could have seen this coming?

Oh, wait...

[Alice11111]

20. Yes, sexism element.Putin:Russians have best whores.

Trump: I can grab anyone's P. His 3 trophy wifes, one hardly speaks has native language, and with all of that money, has not bothered , the evidence woud appear, to get a tutor and practice.
African American men got the right to vote b4 women.
Don't underestimate the FEAR that men like DT and Putin have of women. They have their uses to them, but it is not for their smarts. Women who are leaders are a threat, unless they are RW megaphones, and they will try to annihilate.

[colsohlibgal]

21. Funny How Things Can Work Out

Germany now the democratic beacon of the world powers. The US about to hand the WH over to a meglomaniac like Germany did in the early 30s.

I imagine thousand every minute are realizing they made a tragic mistake voting for that immature loudmouth.

[Alice11111]

22. I wish you were right about the mistake part

I see a few people on the NYTIMES posts say that. However, I think many are the meatheads who have no introspective insight

[Cha]

23. Damn those people who let themselves get

brainwashed by fake "news".

[AgadorSparticus]

24. Well, of course. They took down Hillary already. Mission accomplished. On to the next target

There is organization to this madness. It is well orchestrated. Hopefully Germany will be better prepared for the rise of fake news and the rise of nationalistic bullshit.

[triron]

25. knr

[applegrove]

26. I bet they are using fake great emotive curtness to nitpick her every

move.

[AJT]

29. It's western democracies

not women. The alt-right sites will be fully behind Marie LaPen and spreading fake news about her opponent.

[DetlefK]

30. Everybody calm down: The next Chancellor will either be center-right Merkel or some Social-Democrat.

According to recent polls of the Forsa-Institute:
38% CDU (conservative, center-right, but compared to the US they are still closer to the Democrats than to the Republicans)
21% SPD (Social-Democrats, center-left)
11% AfD (anti-immigrant, far-right)
9% LINKE (socialists, far-left)
9% Greens (environmentalists, liberals, currently infighting between the idealistic and the realistic wing of the party)
6% FDP (capitalists, liberals, center-right)
6% others

So... even if Merkel loses, a Social-Democrat will replace her as head of government.
And the head-of-state (President, little actual power compared to the Chancellor) is always hashed out in backroom-deals to be a boring, solid, non-controversial candidate everybody can live with.

[Stellar]

32. That's just Russia trying to change America from the

inside out. It's frightening to me.