Tila Tequila, the former reality show figure is apparently really into this alt-right thing.
Like really into it.
This is Tila Tequila’s actual Twitter cover photo right now.
As the Daily Beast points out, perhaps Tequila was the highest profile “celebrity” that the alt-right could come up with at its weekend conference in Washington, D.C.
“I went full circle from the liberal stuff, and all that…I wouldn’t want my daughter growing up in that,” Tequila said to the The Daily Beast at the conference. “I’m becoming more conservative ever since I became a mother,” she continued. “I wouldn’t want porn all over the internet [for instance]…Law and order, I think that’s very important to have. Most people are so used to being all about their ‘freedom,’ so they becomes these little crybabies. They can’t live by laws and rules. Civilization needs to be civilized.”
The conference was attended by a few hundred mostly white men.
Tequila’s support for the alt-right shouldn’t be totally shocking to us though. This is the same person that Instagramed out a picture of her baby wearing a Hitler mustache.
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Millennial Intel: Why The Burundi Crisis Might Delegitimize The African Union
Burundi is a country in Sub-Saharan Africa that is both adjacent to, and smaller than Lake Victoria.
It might then come as a surprise that this tiny country could become a headache for the supranational African Union (AU). Following the announcement of incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza’s run for a third term, which is in violation of Article 96 of the Burundian Constitution, protests and violence broke out.
These responses included an attempted coup d’etat on May 13th. In addition to the spike in violence since President Nkurunziza’s third mandate went into effect, over 217,000 Burundians have fled the country. This has lead to a deteriorating human rights situation condemned by the Vatican, and was met with targeted sanctions from the United States.
The AU responded on Dec. 17th, noting that in Burundi there were instances of “arbitrary killings and targeted assassinations, arbitrary arrests and detentions, acts of torture, suspension and arbitrary closure of some civil society organizations and media”, and concluded that the appropriate response was an initial deployment of six months (renewable) of 5,000 peacekeepers, though with the option to deploy more.
Predictably, the Government of Burundi was not thrilled by the prospect of its sovereignty being brought into question during a violent constitutional crisis.
The AU peacekeeping force has thus far not received the approval of the Burundian government, who called it an “invasion and occupation force”.
This presents several problems for the AU. The first is that the Crisis in Burundi may spiral into a greater regional issue, due to asylum seekers, and spread of violence.
Either the AU convinces the Burundian Government to accept Peacekeepers, deploys them of their own accord, or do nothing. As the first seems unlikely at the moment, the AU would have to choose between two options that delegitimize the AU to varying degrees.
The second problem is the fact that Burundi is the second largest contributor to ongoing AU peacekeeping missions. With over 5,000 troops in Somalia, Burundi’s continued cooperation in the African Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is put in jeopardy by both the violence on the home front, and conflict of interest with the AU.
Whatever the outcome, AU leaders will have critical decisions to make in the coming days that could decide just how important a role the IGO plays on the African Continent.
Cover Photo Credit: Dave Proffer/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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In Hong Kong, Young Demosistō Activists “Greet” Chinese Official In Tense Encounter
Chairman of the Standing Committee of the People’s National Congress, Zhang Dejiang spent three days in Hong Kong, between May 17th and May 19th.
Zhang is a member of the Chinese Politburo (the central governing organization of the CCP and therefore the country), and chief official in affairs related to both Macau and Hong Kong.
Zhang was met with some resistance from democracy advocates, including the youth led organization Demosistō.
Activists took actions to voice their displeasure with Zhang, such as displaying large banners with pro democratic messages.
Large scale protests were largely foiled by the impressive security measures taken, which ranged from utilizing divers and scores of police, to confiscating yellow towels and umbrellas; symbols of the 2014 Occupy Movement that gripped Hong Kong.
Read More: Here’s Why This Hong Kong College Student Scares The Shit Out Of The Chinese Government
The most dramatic of these protests was a premeditated “ambush” of Zhang’s convoy outside his hotel.
Several Demosistō members took part in the attempt, standing on the side of the highway or in the median. The police response was swift.
#NathanLawKwunChung@demosisto was pressed down to ground and others were oppressed by police during protest#HongKong pic.twitter.com/ku2fkMRtWq
— Joshua Wong Chi-fung (@joshuawongcf) May 17, 2016
The activists were detained for a short while, reportedly receiving further abuse, as shown below.
They brought Wong (who earlier told me they were trying to stage ‘HK’s Tank Man’) to the ground after this pic.twitter.com/TRSlJDUXH8
— Nash Jenkins (@pnashjenkins) May 19, 2016
Though all the activists were released today, the trouble seems to have not ended in relation to this incident.
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Demosistō’s Facebook page reports that five activists related to this display had their residences raided by police.
Zhang has been described as a rising star of the CCP by the Brookings Institute, having studied at Kim Il-Sung University, and been integral in Chinese policy towards that country in the early 1990s.
During Zhang’s visit, he made claims that the CCP was not attempting to subvert Hong Kong’s unique identity, or the principle of “one country, two systems”.
Despite these reassurances to the group of banquet invitees, security officials do not seem to think these arguments are compelling to a significant number of Hong Kongers, due to the significant police presence, and the gluing of bricks to the sidewalk to prevent their use as improvised weapons.
Are you in Hong Kong and have a tip about this story? Send us an email to [email protected]
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: 羅冠聰 Nathan Law/ Facebook Video (Screengrab)
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No Fly For You: NASA Suspends Upcoming Mars Lander Mission
NASA suspended the upcoming launch of a new Mars lander that would probe the interior of the red planet after the agency and its partners were unable to repair a leak in the spacecraft’s seismometer. The Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission was scheduled to launch in March 2016, but the… Read More
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