@SMohyeddin Sept 27, 2025:
Doctor in Gaza tells me there are hundreds of people in the streets with nowhere to go. No food. No shelter. Entire families sleeping on the streets. Says situation is apocalyptic. People are being hunted by quadcopters too, that are shredding people in street massacres.
The UK steps in (The sure have a way with words)
By Oliver Kornetzke August 18, 2025
Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul- all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been- arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soul- it sh*ts out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.
@laura-babcock.bsky.social
Trump has just issued an order to crush Americans who display these “extremist” beliefs. It’s the list of a Fascist regime and they are making it public. It’s not subtle.
Don’t ever tell me America is a free country or safe to travel to under this regime. Wake up.
The worst is happening.
Excellent article on Trump’s new Nazi directive below.
@northwitch.bsky.social:
Subject to his interpretation, that could be literally anyone.
Which is, of course, the point.
@thesaanichdaily.bsky.social:
The Americans are the ones that wanted pre clearance to stop asylum claims, etc
@wanderlustdude.bsky.social:
The sad thing is that taking on Trump’s fuckery is about the only thing that Canadians will agree on. And Carney just pisses away this opportunity. Instead of progressive structural change to mitigate the coming crises, we get a doubling down of American-style cuts & privatisations
@parismarx.com:
If it wasn’t already clear the direction AI policy was going under Mark Carney and Evan Solomon, this task force makes it clear.
The inclusion of the chair of Build Canada, whose members openly pushed for a Canadian DOGE and Poilievre government earlier this year, is just one of many examples.
@jaycockburn.bsky.social:
I mean, the AI minister left the CBC in an art dealing scandal. I never expected him to have a strong moral position on intellectual property laws.Carney was involved in that scandal, it’s why he urged Solomon to run, and put him into this position. Triple evil.
@jdavey.bsky.social:
It’s becoming clear that when Carney spoke of fossil fuel “stranded assets” 10 years ago, he meant it as a problem. And that AI is the solution.
@antilinguist.bsky.social:
He’s trying as hard as he can to justify exploiting the resources of Canada. Creating energy hungry sectors so he can strip mine more.
@beanjammin.bsky.social:
Crypto and AI both consume enormous amounts of energy to produce something of dubious value. Fossil fuel interests love that.
@nintarii.bsky.social:
Predicting the boondoggle when the AI bubble bursts and Canadians demand to know how much money has been wasted on this initiative.
@unraveledlissa.bsky.social:
Zero representation for copyright or creator voices. Shocker.
@anabrandusescu.bsky.social:
The Paris AI Summit: Deregulation, Fear, and Surveillance Me and @resieber.bsky.social discuss ways in which new public-private partnerships on AI would increase private sector power and a hollowing out of the state, and set a dystopian future for state and corporate led surveillance.
2025 02 17: The Paris AI Summit: Deregulation, Fear, and Surveillance
The re-emergence of Herr Hideous Harper:
@GenXGirl1994 Sept 26:
Netanyahu meets with US Influencers (most likely on Israel’s payroll) to discuss how they can brainwash evangelicals back to supporting Israel
He explains the most important war for Israel is on social media & their 2 top targets are:
- TikTok
- X
… ADL uses the IHRA definition of antisemitism which makes criticism of Israel, antisemitic. ADL is now making the case that fighting antisemitism is the same as fighting terrorism.
In other words, if you criticize Israel, you are a terrorist.
This isn’t new since Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther (which derives it’s info from Israeli NGOs) makes the same claim.
@ShadowofEzra:
Israeli politician Yair Golan openly declares that the next step is imposing strict controls on social media, blocking anything authorities label as “propaganda.”
He insists this is a global issue and calls on the United States to lead the way in pushing the same kind of censorship.
Golan specifically names X, demanding it silence voices he considers a worldwide threat.
@GenXGirl1994 Sept 27, 2025:
MEET NETANYAHU’S PRO-ISRAEL INFLUENCERS
These are 7 identified influencers who met with Netanyahu to plan for their Israeli propaganda campaign as part of Israel’s 8th Front War.
Netanyahu instructed them to:
- Target TikTok & X
- Christians who criticize Israel are Woke Reich
@thetnholler.bsky.social:
WATCH: Here’s where Netanyahu says the purchase of TIKTOK is important so Israel can “battle” for public opinion
(Sure sounds like they plan to manipulate the algorithm, with the help of the Trump allies buying it — and sounds like Elon is helping them too)
@kat86.bsky.social:
Time to delete Tik Tok
This article is a terrifying must read and reread:
Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”, New directive targets “anti-Christian,” “anti-American,” and “anti-capitalism” opinions by Ken Klippenstein, Sep 27, 2025
Trump displays NSPM-7 at the Oval Office on Thursday
With the mainstream media distracted by the made-for-TV drama of James Comey’s indictment, Trump has signed a little-noticed national security directive identifying “anti-Christian” and “anti-American” views as indicators of radical left violence. Called National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, it’s being referred to as “NSPM-7” by administration insiders.
“This is the first time in American history that there is an all-of-government effort to dismantle left wing terrorism,” Trump’s homeland security advisor Stephen Miller said, referring to the issuance.
To the extent that the major media noticed the directive at all, they (even C-SPAN!) incorrectly labeled it an “executive order,” like this week’s designation of “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization.
Come on, C-SPAN
The mainstream media is hopeless in the face of the complexity and secrecy of the national security state.
It’s hard to overstate how much different NSPM-7 is from the over 200 executive orders Trump has frantically signed since coming back into office.
An executive order publicly lays out the course of day-to-day federal government operations; whereas a national security directive is a sweeping policy decree for the defense, foreign policy, intelligence, and law enforcement apparatus. National security directives are often secret, but in this case the Trump administration chose to publish NSPM-7 — only the seventh since he’s come into office.)
Previous national security directives have been controversial, even politically earthshaking. In 1980, for example, President Jimmy Carter signed the Top Secret Presidential Directive 59 (“PD-59”) directing new nuclear warfighting policies that persisted until the end of the Cold War. When revealed, PD-59 caused a public furor.
Declassified copy of PD-59 | Carter Library
Similarly, President George W. Bush signed a series of classified national security directives after 9/11, the most famous of which authorized NSA’s unlawful domestic intercepts, a directive that wasn’t publicly revealed until four years later.
In NSPM-7, “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” President Trump directs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies and departments to fight his version of political violence in America, retooling a network of Joint Terrorism Task Forces to focus on “leftist” political violence in America. This vast counterterrorism army, made up of federal, state, and local agents would, as Trump aide Stephen Miller said, form “the central hub of that effort.”
NSPM-7 directs a new national strategy to “disrupt” any individual or groups “that foment political violence,” including “before they result in violent political acts.”
In other words, they’re targeting pre-crime, to reference Minority Report.
The Trump administration isn’t only targeting organizations or groups but even individuals and “entities” whom NSPM-7 says can be identified by any of the following “indica” (indicators) of violence:
- anti-Americanism,
- anti-capitalism,
- anti-Christianity,
- support for the overthrow of the United States Government,
- extremism on migration,
- extremism on race,
- extremism on gender
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family,
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and
- hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.
“The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” the directive states (emphasis mine).
A “pre-crime” endeavor, preventing attacks before they happen, is core to the post-9/11 concept of counterterrorism itself. No longer satisfied to investigate acts of terrorism after the fact to bring terrorists to justice, the Bush administration adopted preemption. Overseas, that led to aerial assassination by drones and “special operations” kill missions. Domestically, it led to a counter-terrorism campaign whose hallmark was excessive and illegal government surveillance and the use of undercover agents and “confidential human sources” to trap (and entrap) would-be terrorists.
Now, with Donald Trump’s directive retooling the counter-terror apparatus to go after Americans at home, this means monitoring political activity, or speech, as an investigative method to discover “radicalism.” (Contrary to other national security documents all during the post-Watergate era, NSPM-7 doesn’t even mention the First Amendment or the fundamental right of Americans to organize and protest.)
The focus on speech is evident throughout NSPM-7. The directive says that political violence is the result of “organized campaigns” that often begin (with the left) dehumanizing targets in “anonymous chat foras, in-person meetings, social media, and even educational institutions.”
To give a sense of how broad this formulation is, Trump’s earlier designation of Antifa as a domestic terrorist group was accompanied by a White House fact sheet singling out people who “celebrated” Luigi Mangione, the alleged killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December. As I wrote at the time, this describes a lot of Americans!
Trump’s new national security memorandum also alludes to Mangione but adds to it even larger categories of potential targets.
NSPM-7 is fundamentally a law enforcement directive, and it dispenses with the complications of using the active duty military or the National Guard in pursuit of political violence. It directs the Department of Justice to focus the FBI’s approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTFs) to the new mission. The FBI network of task forces comprises over 4,000 members—including FBI personnel and task force officers (or TFOs) from more than 500 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies, including special agents, police officers, intelligence analysts and surveillance technicians. First established in New York City in 1980 to systematize FBI and NYPD cooperation, today there are task forces around the country, including at least one in each of the FBI’s 55 field offices.
For the Trump White House, the beauty of using an already existing network is that it bypasses Congressional oversight and scrutiny and even obscures federal activity to governors and legislatures at the state level. States, cities, and local police have already signed Memoranda of Agreements with the feds to fight terrorism and officers are already assigned as task force officers.
NSPM-7 says the JTTFs “shall investigate” potential federal crimes relating to “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.” It authorizes the JTTFs to investigate individuals, organizations, and funders “responsible for, sponsor, or otherwise aid and abet the principal actors engaging in the criminal conduct.”
“The Attorney General shall issue specific guidance that ensures domestic terrorism priorities include politically motivated terrorist acts such as organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder,” NSPM-7 says. Civil disorder?
I don’t want to sound hyperbolic but the plain truth is that NSPM-7 is a declaration of war on anyone who does not support the Trump administration and its agenda. Yes, it repeats the word “violent” over and over to purport only to go after citizens who are moved to take up arms, but it also directs monitoring and intelligence collection to map and target the new “evildoers,” to borrow a Bush label he took from the Bible just days after 9/11.
The partisan focus couldn’t be more obvious.
“The real problem is this: since Charlie [Kirk] was murdered — a friend of mine, assassinated — nothing’s changed on their side,” White House counter-terrorism czar Sebastian Gorka told Newsmax after NSPM-7 was signed. “Not one leader —not one left wing thought leader, member of Congress, Senator — nobody has said we distance ourselves from the violent rhetoric.”
“The left refuses to rid themselves of the justification for violence,” Gorka continued, “and as such, President Trump is taking measures to protect us from the violent rhetoric that becomes snipers and bullets.”
Michael Wallace:
And so there it is. Opinions in a free country make you an extremist and terrorist so decreed the regime. Folks, we are in a full throated fascist government.
Randy:
Totalitarian and autocratic also.
“Nice republic if you can keep it” someone once said.
Dallas:
This orange babyhanded chudlord is living inside his phone, oblivious to the fact that 2/3rds of the country is done with his nonsense. As scary as this is, he is flailing and in full free-fall. Thank you for the coverage!
Discount Gentleman:
It really troubles me that people are still living in the fantasy that Trump is weak. He is completely unopposed in Washington. I don’t think it’s Trump, it’s his handlers. He is the face of Amerikkka, the face of greed, the face of hate and murder, and the face of kid rape, and many humans love to and or lust to rape kids – that’s Trump’s allure to the masses, and his handlers know it. And more importantly, he is the face of extreme stupidity and supreme cruelty which many humans worship because it makes them feel intelligent, and kind (our species is cruel and causes infinite suffering, that’s why religions hold so much power over humans). Trump is unopposed throughout most of the cowardly greedy world – people think if they bow to him, they’ll get something for nothing, another addiction in many humans. Epstein and Pedophile haven Israel play/played a key role in this billionaire Nazi take over of USA, UK, Canada, Germany, etc., the world. Trump has the courts in his pockets too – racist misogynistic likely kid raping Nazi judges – the worst kind.He has the entire apparatus of the federal government at his beck and call, many state governments backing him, major corporations are supporting him or cowed into silence (my own law firm has taken the position of “stay silent on everything and hope to be ignored”). He is extremely powerful and is moving extremely quickly to violently suppress anything and everything in this country that could ever constitute or contribute to alternate loci of political power.He is indeed, and he is viciously demented and cruel, and most of the world is still stuck on believing our species is made in god’s image, that we are “good” for all our kid raping and cruelty. Most refuse to believe how evil he and his handlers are, notably Putin and Netanyahu. Israel’s genocide and the billionaires’ killing tech being experimented on in Palestine and neighbouring countries is the warm up. There is purpose the USA Nazis and tech billionaires are destroying all social fabrics to bring in unmitigated suffering – disease, starvation, rape, torture, the ICE Gestapo brutalizing anyone they please and likely kidnapping many to rape dead. Brutalized starving people eagerly swallow up fascism and turn on their own. There is no heaven. There is no hell. There is just hell on earth oozing from humanity which Trump and his ilk thrive on.
People need to let go of the fantasy and accept the (bitter) reality if we are to have any hope of resisting this.
SAM:
they’ve been fed the fantasy of voting harder in 2028. apparently, when they said “democracy is on the line” they didn’t really believe it. hence, their sorry presidential candidate.Trump repeatedly told the world how bad his Orange Reich would be to all but rich white raping religious (but only fake christian) males, and that Americans would never vote again if they voted for him and his Nazies
Eric Schlecht:
Spitting in the wind and messing with Jim. Everything this regime does backfires on itself and is evidence in future trials. We need to be careful not to use violence but the resistance is hurting them and inspiring other leaders to fight.
JennyStokes:
Why ‘be careful’ not to use violence.
Get a grip.
Violence is coming for all of you.
Cynthia T Jeffries:
How much more 1984 can you get? The only solution is for all 70% of the country who aren’t rabid Trumpers to loudly and constantly disobey. Even Miller/Trump admin can’t imprison 200 million people.
Marian Gillis:
Bonechilling.
Discount Gentleman:
This is open fascism. Liberals will snicker that it is too vague to be properly enforceable, while Trump’s ever-expanding army of goons (including the literal army deployed to Portland and other cities) makes shows of arrest people to cow everyone else into silence.In my experience, humans are mostly cowards, selfish, greedy fuckers without moral fibre anywhere within, eagerly silenced and compliant if tossed a free crumb or two.
Dierk Groeneman:
Where do you even begin? The Trump admin alone will decide who is American. Anyone not meeting the definition faces serious consequences.
It starts right away with Democrats. Gorka has determined they haven’t sufficiently condemned political violence. Apparently there is some minimum degree of condemnation required to qualify as American.
Andrew Akason:
Somewhere in the depths of Hades J. Edgar Hoover smirks. Bring back the glory days of COINTELPRO! All manner of groups should expect new recruits at their real and virtual doors. Healthy youngish of several genders and ethnicities. Always ready to pay for this thing or that, always able to spend hours at the group’s purposes, always with transportation easily available, and so very eager to talk on and on and on about how cool some sort of dramatic gesture would be. And why yes, they do know somebody who could easily procure this or that illegal thing or expertise. And sure a meeting could be arranged where us inner coolest ones could really get into the possibilities of overt acts.
Discount Gentleman:
COINTELPRO was a secret program, because it couldn’t stand the light of day. This is, in many ways, the opposite of that. It is done in broad daylight, in large part to make everyone complicit.Like Israel
Richard Hennick:
“… White House counter-terrorism czar Sebastian Gorka told Newsmax after NSPM-7 was signed.”
That would be the same Sebastian Gorka “who lost his job [as Trump 1.0 counter-terrorism advisor] after revelations about his public support for, and membership of, several Nazi-allied antisemitic groups in Hungary.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/sebastian-gorka-made-nazi-linked-virezi-proud-wearing-its-n742851
(Someone should probably archive that page before it gets disappeared.)
The above quote and link are both from “Alt Reich” by Nafeez Ahmed, p.250, which happens to be exactly where my bookmark already was. That book was written before Trump 2.0, but it is truly chilling to see so many names from it resurfacing now. A great read, but really needs an index.
Richard Hennick:
PS https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/opinion/the-islamophobic-huckster-in-the-white-house.html
Well, I guess I’d be guilty on at least three of those Ten Commandments (not saying which ones). It looks like even posting a comment on this substack counts against me, along with the rest of you who are reading it.
As if I needed any more reasons not to cross the southern border from home here in Canada, for the indefinite future…I will never go to Nazi USA again, actually, I will never travel again anywhere internationally – it’s too risky being diverted to USA from anywhere, and travel is too polluting and harmful to life.
Sterling Dunham:
One of the scariest implications of this to me is how the security apparatus will enforce this EO after Supreme Court decisions like Colorado v Seymour from 2023. They’re going to use google searches like “unionizing” or “united health insurance price hikes” to justify surveilling people for “anti-capitalist” views. Good thing we have young Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Gerry Connolly* who I’m sure will speak coherently about it.
Cyn Mich:
Gerry Connolly is Deceased.
Sterling Dunham:
Yes he earned his asterisk!
Discount Gentleman:
Anyone remember when Trump fired all the JAGs in the US military? Just thought about that today for no reason.
Lori:
I am convinced this is pretext to start arresting any kind of protestors or any kind of push back against next steps.
RealNoDeuces:
It’s not great, but if anti-Christian laws mean zionists go to jail, i guess it is ok.Most fake christians are Zionists, Trump won’t harm them until near the end
Clif Brown:
A person came up to me as I was demonstrating on the street, a woman smiling sweetly the entire time she talked to me. She wanted to know if I am demonstrating on my own or if there is a group I work with or could recommend. It was likely a harmless interview, but…
In the year I have been demonstrating against Zionism it has become obvious that I cannot be removed by the police. No longer do Zionists call them about me. But NSPM-7 appears to be going after organizations. If it could be established that I am working with some organization that Trump doesn’t like, then the chances of shutting me down would increase. Food for thought for anyone considering doing what I am doing. Take action with what I write here in mind.
Our president has gone off the rails.When was he ever on the rails? If you haven’t already, check out any candidates running for the seats in Congress for your district or state, determine if they are anti-Trump/anti-Zionist and, if so, start helping their campaigns. They will be faced with campaign advertising that will be the best that money can buy. Your financial contributions will be swamped by corporate and billionaire contributions for Republicans. By all means do not support anyone who is running as a Democrat for that reason alone; there are plenty of DP candidates that are not for we the people.
Trump appears to be building up an entirely phony claim that we are in a national emergency that will allow him to declare martial law to prevent the midterm elections next year. Just like his fellow war criminal Netanyahu, he is capable of anything to keep himself in power, using his authority as chief executive as a personal tool. As the tide has turned against him, he will become more frantic to stop we the people from removing him from the White House and he and his Nazi judgeshas proven himself to act regardless of law.
Trump is an internal menace to the United States greater than any the country has faced before and he is aided by the astronomical wealth of supporters of a foreign country, Isrealand Putin. All Americans should be alarmed that over a year remains before his control of Congress can be ended, and a terrible 3 years before he can be shown the White House door. Get active, NOW.Trump could die tomorrow, and the Nazis will march on. He is vicious, but his handlers are much more so and unfortunately, most of them are much younger
Michael McSharry:
We need to remember that Stephan Miller is an ultra Zionist extremist and that his boss thinks that the sun shines out of his ass.
His angle on this is to stop any criticism of the Netanyahu project in Gaza so you can imagine the AIPAC threats being made to all the legislators who have been bribed/ blackmailed into supporting Israel no mater what. And in Canada, serving Israel abut also the USA NazisSo in effect the US is being driven towards civil war by the Israeli Zionist government and nobody cares.
JennyStokes:
Come on Trump……keep going with your “Executive Orders.”
I have said this time and time again BUT Americans don’t seem to think they will be prosecuted!
IF you have half a brain (you people) get your guns out and start a Revolution.
NOBODY is safe in the US and if you think you are…………GOOD LUCK.
Sebastian Gorka Made Nazi-Linked Vitezi Rend ‘Proud’ by Wearing Its Medal By Alexander Smith and Vladimir Banic, April 8, 2017, NBC
Controversy has swirled around Sebastian Gorka, one of President Trump’s top counterterrorism advisers, ever since he attended the president’s Jan. 20 inaugural ball wearing the honorary medal of Hungarian nationalist organization Vitezi Rend. NBC News traveled to Hungary to dig deeper into Gorka’s ties with the group, speaking with members of the organization as well as with locals who knew him when he lived there.
Sebastian Gorka, center, talks with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly, left, before a meeting with President Donald Trump on cyber security at the White House in January.Martin H. Simon/Redux
BUDAPEST, Hungary — A group with alleged historical links to Nazi Germany has told NBC News it was “proud” when President Donald Trump’s deputy assistant wore its medal.
Controversy has swirled around Sebastian Gorka, one of Trump’s top counterterrorism advisers, ever since he attended the president’s Jan. 20 Inaugural Ball wearing the honorary medal of Hungarian nationalist organization Vitezi Rend.
NBC News traveled to Hungary to dig deeper into Gorka’s ties with the group, speaking with members of the organization as well as with locals who knew him when he lived there.
“When he appeared on U.S. television … with the medal of the Vitez Order … it made me really proud,” Vitezi Rend spokesman Andras Horvath said in the Hungarian capital of Budapest. Vitezi Rend is also known as the Order of Vitez.
Three people, including one of Gorka’s former political allies, said he was a well-known member of Vitezi Rend back in Hungary, a charge he strongly denies.
Gorka’s decision to wear the medal — which he said was awarded to his Hungarian-born father — has provoked outrage among Jewish groups.
While in Budapest, NBC News also spoke with Andras Heisler, the Hungarian vice-president of the New York-based World Jewish Congress, who said that wearing the medal “isn’t a good message for a democratic society.”
Under the Direction of Nazis
Vitezi Rend was founded in 1920 by Hungarian ruler Miklos Horthy to award medals to Hungarian veterans of World War I. But the group’s history became murky after the country allied with Nazi Germany in 1938.
Heisler told NBC News that members of the organization were likely complicit in the murder of some of the hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews toward the end of World War II.
During the war, the State Department listed Vitezi Rend among a group of “organizations under the direction of the Nazi government of Germany.” And Horthy, its founder, once said that “I have always been an anti-Semite throughout my life,” according to “The Jews of Hungary,” a 1995 book by Hungarian-Jewish historian Raphael Patai.
The Soviet-allied communist government outlawed Vitezi Rend when they took control of the country after the war. But since then, several private organizations have emerged claiming to be the true successors of the group and its ideals.
Horvath, the spokesman interviewed by NBC News, represents the most prominent modern-day faction. He vehemently denied his organization of 5,000 members is anti-Semitic or extremist, although he conceded that his group has no Jewish members.
According to its followers, Vitezi Rend is merely “a politically independent organization with Christian-conservative values that keeps its military traditions,” said Vitez John Molar-Gazso, the captain of another modern-day faction of the group. “It has never been radical or a fascist group. Its members have always defended the nation’s interests and fought for the Hungarian communities,” he said.
Similarly, Gorka has denied he has ever been a sworn-in member of Vitezi Rend — whose name translates to “valiant order.”
In several statements to the media, he has explained that he wore the medal to honor his late father, Paul Gorka, who was awarded it for his fight against communism during Hungary’s period of communist rule. He has given a similar reasoning for occasionally using the initial “v.” in his name — a mark used by Vitezi Rend members to show the order has been bestowed upon them. He said it was in remembrance of his dad.
Last month, three Vitezi Rend officials told American-Jewish newspaper The Forward that Sebastian Gorka was one of their order.
The reports about Gorka prompted the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, an American civil-rights group, to call for Sebastian Gorka’s resignation, or at least an investigation into his alleged links with the far-right.
“How many ducks in the Trump White House must walk, talk and quack Anti-Semitically before our country wakes up and sees the greater problem?” it told NBC News in a statement. “Who among us wears a medal of a Nazi-sympathetic organization to remember loved ones?”
When asked about the allegations in NBC News’ investigation, Sebastian Gorka dismissed them as “fake news” and pointed to a statement he gave to online Jewish magazine Tablet last month.
“I have never been a member of the Vitez Rend. I have never taken an oath of loyalty to the Vitez Rend,” he told the publication. “Since childhood, I have occasionally worn my father’s medal and used the ‘v.’ initial to honor his struggle against totalitarianism.”
He told NBC News he “completely distanced myself” from any white-supremacist or Nazi ideology. He declined to answer specific questions about NBC News’ reporting.
Horvath, the Vitezi Rend spokesman, said Paul Gorka was a senior Vitezi Rend lieutenant for the western Hungarian city of Sopron and its surroundings.
“This is, in the various ranks of the order, an advanced level,” he said, his own Vitezi Rend medal on proud display.
The 69-year-old was speaking on the banks of the Danube river in Hungary’s storied post-Soviet capital, where some buildings still bear bullet-holes from a failed anti-Soviet revolution in 1956.
Paul Gorka “was more than an average Vitezi member ... I had good experiences and conversations with [him],” the spokesman said, his grey hair and trimmed moustache matching his relaxed yet matter-of-fact demeanor.
Although Horvath was unable to confirm that Sebastian Gorka was a member himself, he said it was possible. There are many chapters all over the world, he said, any of which could have conducted the inauguration ceremony.
He explained that the first sons of Vitezi Rend members can either choose hereditary membership or to apply in their own names.
“The membership can be inherited by the children and this membership enters into force when they participate in an inauguration ceremony,” said Molár-Gazsó, the captain of the other Vitezi Rend group.
The Road to Piliscsaba
Sebastian Gorka, 47, was born in London in 1970 to Hungarian parents and gained American citizenship in 2012. Before finding his seat in the president’s inner-circle, he spent years in his parents’ former homeland in the 1990s and 2000s.
After interviewing Horvath and Heisler in Budapest, NBC News drove 14 miles north to the small, sleepy town of Piliscsaba, where several prominent locals alleged that Sebastian Gorka was a member of Vitezi Rend.
The future White House aide ran for mayor here in 2006, but was unable to persuade its population of 7,500 that he was the right man for the job. He came third out of three candidates but only lost by a margin of 39 votes.
“Everybody knew that he was member of the Order of Vitez,” according to Csaba Gáspár, who came in second that day but later became mayor between 2010 and 2014.
This was corroborated by one of Sebastian Gorka’s political allies during that campaign.
”I knew that Sebastian Gorka was a member of Vitezi Rend, even then,” said Dr. Gabor Solti, a respected Hungarian geologist who ran for the town council on Sebastian Gorka’s ticket in 2006. Solti, who served as mayor between 2009 and 2010, is not known to be a member of the group.
Although the three people NBC News interviewed in the town said emphatically that Sebastian Gorka made no effort to hide his membership while he campaigned in the town, they did not provide any evidence of their claims.
Picturesque Piliscsaba couldn’t contrast more with Sebastian Gorka’s current environs of Washington, D.C.
A regular line of cars run along the two-lane road that cuts the town in half, but most are just passing through, stopping for little more than a bathroom break.
A large Catholic church next to a cake shop marks the center of the town, which is surrounded by rolling green hills.
Erika Laszlo also knew Sebastian Gorka during his failed mayoral bid. Back then, she was the chairwoman of a local environmentalist group called For Piliscsaba, and as part of the group’s activities she wrote leaflets about the campaign.
“It was common knowledge he was a Vitezi,” she said, petting her Labrador during a long afternoon at her woodland home. “And for many people this was a shine on the armor, if you like, because it was the old, golden days before the war.”
The Gorkas’ controversial past does not end with the father and son.
In the 1980s, Sebastian Gorka’s mother, Susan Gorka, worked as a translator for David Irving, the discredited British historian who caused outrage by suggesting the Holocaust did not happen, or was at least greatly exaggerated.
A British judge ruled in 2000 that Irving was a “Holocaust denier … anti-Semitic and racist, and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism.” And in 2006, he was sentenced to three years in prison in Austria on charges of denying the Holocaust.
Irving wrote an email to NBC News describing his warm working relationship with Susan Gorka.
“His mother was very helpful, checked translations in the 1980s and tapes of interviews,” Irving said. “My impression of both Gorkas [Susan and Paul] was at all times good.”
NBC News attempted to ask Sebastian Gorka about his mother’s involvement with Irving but he declined to answer detailed questions.
V is for Vitezi
In addition to wearing the group’s medal, Sebastian Gorka has occasionally used the initial “v.” in his name — short for Vitezi. He claimed this was merely something to honor his father, but experts interviewed by NBC News were in no doubt that it signified his membership.
“I called him Vitez, firstly because he used to call himself Vitez while being in Hungary,” according to Gabor Horvath, managing editor of Hungary’s Nepszava newspaper. “And second to let the readers know that anyone claiming to belong to the order … it means that he is a right-wing conservative.”
Gabor Horvath knew all too well that the “v.” indicated someone was a Vitezi Rend member — his own grandfather belonged to the order. He too could have inherited the title had it not been for his father marrying a Jewish woman and breaking the family lineage.
“In theory I might have been Vitezi myself … not that I wanted to,” he said, speaking in his newsroom back in Budapest. “The original charter of the order prescribed a Christian family life.”
Paul Gorka was born in Budapest in 1930. As a 15-year-old boy in 1944, he “fought with a submachine gun through the ruins of the Hungarian capital,” according to Sebastian Gorka’s 2016 book “Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War.”
He didn’t specify which side his father fought on — Soviet or Nazi — but a large part of Paul Gorka’s life thereafter was dedicated to fighting against the former.
After the war, Paul Gorka joined Hungary’s underground anti-Soviet resistance. He was caught, jailed and tortured, according to his son’s account, but then broke free during the failed revolution of 1956.
It was these anti-Soviet acts that earned him the medal in 1979 that his son would wear to Trump’s ball.
Ardent Nationalism
Miklos Horthy, Hungary’s wartime leader and the founder of Vitezi Rend, remains a hugely divisive figure even today. Some say he attempted to protect Hungarian Jews from the Nazis, others point to a series of anti-Semitic laws he passed and claim his actions led to the deaths of tens of thousands.
Similarly, the actions of Vitezi Rend’s original members are the source of some disagreement.
The spokesmen for the two modern-day factions said their predecessors were not complicit in the deportation of at least 400,000 Hungarian Jews to Nazi death camps in 1944.
But many experts disagree.
“Vitezi Rend had a lot of anti-Semitic, racist members,” according to Heisler, the vice-president of the World Jewish Congress. “The organization had some members who were actors in the killing of the Jews,” as well as taking Jewish property, he said.
Historian Eva S. Balogh fled Hungary to the U.S. in 1956 before gaining her Ph.D. and teaching at Yale. She said that “the likelihood that a good number of the [Vitezi] Order’s members embraced the ideas of Hitler is fairly strong.”
Almost “the entire Hungarian high command belonged to the [Vitezi] Order,” according to Balogh, who also runs the news website Hungarian Spectrum and has written extensively about the Gorkas. She said that these Hungarian elites “were avid supporters of Germany and eager to join Germany’s war efforts.”
Today’s Vitezi Rend members, according to Balogh, follow the same “ethical and moral code” as their predecessors in the 1920s — “ardent nationalism, a fostering of Hungarian military traditions [and] an attraction to right-wing ideologies.”
Aside from the question of whether or not Sebastian Gorka was a member of Vitezi Rend, his credentials as a counterterrorism expert have also been called into question.
Before joining Trump’s team, he served in the British Army Territorial Reserves, worked as an adviser at Hungary’s Ministry of Defense, offered his expertise as a think-tank analyst, and worked as an editor at the right-wing news website Breitbart.
The New York Times has been among his outspoken critics in this regard. A headline in a Times opinion piece described Sebastian Gorka as “the Islamophobic huckster in the White House” and criticized his worldview of seeing “Islam as the problem, rather than the uses to which Islam has been put by violent extremists.”
Gabor Horvath, the Hungarian newspaper editor, agreed.
“Obviously he’s not the expert he claims to be — obviously,” he said. “He got his masters degree and his Ph.D. from the Corvinus University in Hungary. The Corvinus University is not a center for national security studies, certainly not internationally recognized studies of this kind.”