“Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory [of] Bernie Sanders, who had kin murdered in the Holocaust, analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France?” asked Anand Giridharadas of his fellow MSNBC colleague when he appeared on MSNBC’s AM Joy.

From The Daily Beast:

Matthews’ latest remarks have led to progressives calling on MSNBC to fire the veteran host. The Hardball anchor isn’t the only one who has found himself in hot water over his anti-Bernie rhetoric. MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson faced swift and loud backlash after he dismissed the “island of misfit black girls” who supported Sanders.

Naked Capitalism's John Siman reviews Joanthan Tepper and Denise Hearn's The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition, in which Tepper (who does research that is sold to asset managers) condemns capitalism's current state while rejecting Thomas Piketty (who says that capitalism inevitably elevates the already-rich, not the people who create wealth by doing useful things) and Karl Marx. Read the rest

The nonprofit organization to which I belong recently put the personal data of around 410,000 people on the internet, connected to interactive street maps of where they lived. The data includes their full names, date and place of birth, known residential address, and often includes their professions and arrest records, sometimes even information about mental or physical handicaps. It also lists whether any of their grandparents were Jewish. Read the rest

In 1942, Hitler paid a secret visit to Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland and Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces in honor of Mannerheim's 75th birthday. Read the rest

In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, London Business School organizational behavior scholars Niro Sivanathan and Hemant Kakkar used empirical methods to find the socioeconomic circumstances that predict when voters will elect "dominance-style" strongman leaders like "Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Rodrigo Duterte, Nicolás Maduro and Recep Erdogan." Read the rest

In Highway to Hitler, Nico Voigtländer (UCLA) and Hans‐Joachim Voth (University of Zurich)'s 2014 paper analyzing the impact of the massive infrastructure investment in creating the Autobahn, the authors conclude that the major spending project was key to Hitler's consolidation of power. Read the rest

The Russian Bank Deposit Insurance Agency has demanded repayment by French National Front leader Marine Le Pen -- daughter of open neo-Nazi and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen -- of €9m borrowed from the First Czech-Russian Bank, which is now defunct. Read the rest

Anne Frank's father, Otto, edited Frank's diary before publishing it. He also endowed two foundations -- one Swiss, one Dutch -- to administer her legacy. Read the rest

A Boing Boing reader has gotten ahold of a controversial Norwegian magazine article documenting the history of the Scandinavian right, tracing the connections between the Third Reich collaborators and the present-day anti-immigrant movement -- it's an article that was suppressed by Norway's new far-right government, which used threats against the publisher to get it withdrawn. Read the rest

Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a letter by Tom Perkins (the "Perkins" in the venture capital firm "Kleiner Perkins") in which he compared rhetoric about the unjust riches of the "1 percent" to the events of Kristallnacht, the overture to the Holocaust. In a terrific editorial, Josh Marshall explains why the hyper-rich turn into such crybabies when it's pointed out that they've gamed the system so that they grow richer and richer while everyone else gets poorer: Read the rest

From the Dec 20, 1924 issue of the New York Times: Adolph Hitler's rehabilitation is now complete, and he is "no longer to be feared."

Hitler Tamed By Prison Read the rest

Here's ex-president George HW Bush's public letter of resignation from the his lifetime membership to NRA, sent after Wayne "Armed guards in schools" LaPierre gave a speech blaming gun laws for the Oklahoma City bombing, implying that the victims were "jack-booted thugs" "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms."

Al Whicher, who served on my [ United States Secret Service ] detail when I was Vice President and President, was killed in Oklahoma City. He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country -- and serve it well he did...

...I am a gun owner and an avid hunter. Over the years I have agreed with most of N.R.A.'s objectives, particularly your educational and training efforts, and your fundamental stance in favor of owning guns.

However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us.

Letter of Resignation Sent By Bush to Rifle Association

(via Reddit) Read the rest

Lavie Tidhar writes, "Adolf Hitler's I Dream of Ants is World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar's graphic novel collaboration with British artist Neil Struthers. Originally serialised in the pages of now-defunct magazine Murky Depths, it is the story of a man named Adolf Hitler who becomes obsessed with the ants 'infesting' his suburban home."

Read the rest

UK conservative MP Aidan Burley has apologised for any offense given by his attendance at a stag party in France where some attendees dressed up like members of the SS, chanted "Himmler Himmler Himmler" and "Eichmann Eichmann Eichmann," taunted French waiters by asking (in thick German accents) where in the Third Reich they hailed from, and toasted "the ideology and thought process of the Third Reich." Read the rest

Glenn Beck has found new depths of depravity to plumb, this time by comparing the campers who fell victim to Anders Behring Breivik's murderous rampage to "Hitler Youth," because they were attending a "political camp." The camp in question is a 60-year-old annual event that where young people gather "learn about and be part of democracy." Which is weird, because that isn't very similar at all to the Hitler Youth, a paramilitary organization that "instill[ed] the motivation that would enable HJ members, as soldiers, to fight faithfully for the Third Reich."

"There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing," Beck stated in the first minute of his syndicated radio show Monday.

Glenn Beck hits 'new low'; compares Norway victims to Hitler Youth

(via Reddit)

(Image: Glenn Beck, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from gageskidmore's photostream) Read the rest