Day: July 4, 2024

Like a rotting disease, the tendrils of fascism that have been stretching across the world have come at last to France. Eighty four years ago France was invaded by a tyrannical, fascist despot named Adolf Hitler. Today they are taking a dangerous step in Hitler’s direction. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party has secured the lion’s share of votes in the first round of France’s parliamentary elections.

After the first round of voting on Sunday, National Rally had a strong lead at 33.14%. That was followed by the left-wing’s New Popular Front coalition at 27.99%. That left Ensemble, which includes President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party, trailing behind at 20.76%.

France has what’s known as a semi-presidential system, where a prime minister is elected separately from the president. This current vote will decide the prime minister. Macron was re-elected president in an earlier vote. Le Pen’s 28-year-old protégé and party leader Jordan Bardella enjoys a comfortable lead in the contest for prime minister. If he wins on July 7, it will be only the third time in France’s history that the president and prime minister were members of different parties.

This new coalition of parties has an eerie resemblance to Germany in 1933. Germany’s 84 year old president Paul Von Hindenburg was compelled to appoint Hitler as the Reichskanzler, an office similar to that of prime minister. Hitler leveraged that office to later gain the presidency after Hindenburg’s death, then slowly consolidated power until he became Germany’s absolute dictator.

Le Pen’s National Rally party is principally an anti-immigration party. From the beginning she has exploited the inherent xenophobia of the rising tide of worldwide fascism and bigotry. Her party has nearly doubled its vote in two years, becoming the dominant party in France.

For centuries the rich and powerful have exploited hatred of foreigners as a trick to redirect blame for their own part in contemporary economic hardship. Today’s climate of worldwide inflation is ideal for promoting unrest across Europe and America, and French fascists and MAGA Republicans alike have been quick to sound the xenophobic alarm as a trick to gain power.

The worldwide trend toward fascism isn’t just ultimately bad for all nations and their people, it’s bad for the environment. These days fascistic regimes are automatically climate change deniers. As fascism takes its ugly grip on the world, the prospect for solving the world’s climate crisis grows dimmer and dimmer. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe. Donate to Palmer Report

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(NewsNation) — A 17-year-old Michigan boy, missing for about three months, has been found safe in Miami thanks to a chance encounter with someone doing a live stream on Twitch.

Troy Coleman went missing in May from Mt. Morris Township, Michigan, which is about 80 miles northwest of Detroit. Troy did not have medications he takes for mental health problems that his brother, Trent, described as schizophrenic.

Then, on the streaming platform Twitch, a content producer who goes by the name of FaZe Lacy was streaming with a friend known as Clix last week in Miami. During that stream, Lacy focused on a shirtless boy in green trunks mingling with the crowd.

A few days later, Lacy found this note in his email: “Hello, my name is Trent Coleman and my missing little brother from Michigan was on Clix and Lacy’s stream in Miami. He is not on drugs, he is schizophrenic. He has been missing for three month and his case was put on homicide in Michigan.”

Lacy assumes the homicide comment to mean that police believed that Troy was the victim of a homicide. On his X page, Lacy said it looks like the story has a happy ending.

“Yesterday on stream he came up to me and Clix and now his family knows he is alive and in Miami. I wasn’t sure if I should make this public but I’m hoping somehow this helps him be found for his family,” Lacy wrote.

The Flint Township Police Department confirmed that the boy seen on the stream is Troy Coleman. On its Facebook page, the department wrote: “A heartfelt THANK YOU to everybody who shared the missing person information about Troy Coleman. He has been found safe in Miami, Florida and we are working with local authorities to arrange his safe return to Michigan to be with his family.”