Kanye West barred from entering Australia over Hitler song, Tony Burke says
The home affairs minister, Tony Burke, disclosed on Wednesday that the government had revoked the rapper's visa after his song referencing the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was released independently in May.
Burke inadvertently revealed the news about West – who has legally changed his name to Ye – during an interview with the ABC's Afternoon Briefing program when the minister was asked about the visa cancellation of an Israeli-American tech advocate who wrote 'Islamophobia is rational'.
Burke said he would not let anyone who tried to argue that either Islamophobia or antisemitism was 'rational' enter Australia to go on a speaking tour, given the purpose of the visa in question was to 'give public speeches'.
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'Most of the visas that have been cancelled under this section have been where someone was seeking to make a public speech,' he said. 'The only one I can think of where it wasn't for public advocacy – the visa – but we cancelled it anyway, would be Kanye West.'
Burke said Ye, whose wife, Bianca Censori, is from Melbourne, had been coming to Australia 'for a long time' and had family here.
But Burke alleged Ye had 'made a lot of offensive comments that my officials looked at again once he released the Heil Hitler song and he no longer has a valid visa in Australia'.
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Asked if it was 'sustainable' to keep the ban in place given the possibility for international concerts, Burke replied: 'I think that what's not sustainable is to import hatred.
'Every visa application gets reassessed by my officials each time,' Burke continued. 'I'm not taking away the way the act operates but even for the lowest level of visa, when my officials looked at it, they cancelled that following the announcement of that song.'
A spokesperson for the home affairs department said it did not comment on individual cases, but all non-citizens who wanted to travel to Australia must satisfy the 'character' requirements under the Migration Act.
'The Australian government will continue to act decisively to protect the community from the risk of harm posed by individuals who choose to engage in criminal activity or behaviour of concern, including visa cancellation or refusal where appropriate,' they said.
Guardian Australia attempted to contact Ye for comment through his fashion label, Yeezy.
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The Guardian
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Revealed: the far-right, antisemitic men's club network spreading across US
A nationwide US network of dozens of far-right, men-only fraternal clubs has what members describe as 'literally hundreds' of participants who include past and currently serving military personnel, lawyers, civil servants, and prominent antisemitic influencers, a Guardian investigation can reveal. The Old Glory Club (OGC) – which has at least 26 chapters in 20 US states and until now has drawn little attention – exemplifies the alarming rise of organized racist political groups in the past few years but especially during the rise of Donald Trump and his return to the White House. The OGC network has held conferences, meetups and other events. Key members like podcaster Pete Quinones use their platforms to push far-right ideas about Jewish people and immigrants. Other members have used their platforms to respond to political events, and to advocate measures including 'cancellation insurance' for members whose extreme political views might impede their professional lives. Harry Shukman, a researcher at UK anti-fascist non-profit Hope Not Hate, who last month published an exposé on the OGC-affiliated Basketweavers organization in the UK, told the Guardian: 'Groups such as the OGC are a new breed of extremist organisation which aims first to build an offline social network before taking over society.' He added, 'They seek to lower the bar to participating in the far right, and by doing so have proved attractive to a cohort of mostly male members, some of whom have never before undertaken any form of activism.' Heidi Beirich, co-founder and chief strategy officer of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said the OGC 'appears to be another major new network of racists, too many of which are springing up in the era of Trump'. She said the group was 'pushing violent ideologies, including race hate and antisemitism and has links to prominent figures on the far right'. The OGC was incorporated on 16 June 2023, according to Virginia company records, but the organization took shape over more than a year through in-person conferences and online networks. The Old Glory Club Substack began publishing in October 2022, with an X account launching the same month. Podcast aggregators show Old Glory Club podcast content appearing online by November 2022 at the latest. At that time however, the organization appeared to be conceived as mostly a collaborative effort at content production. In a November 2022 podcast the pseudonymous YouTuber and central OGC figure known as Charlemagne told far-right podcaster Auron Macintyre – now an on-air personality at Glenn Beck-founded Blaze Media – that OGC was 'a group of American gentlemen who have decided to organize a social club … to publish content and … try and figure out a new political settlement for Americans'. Also in October 2022, another pseudonymous YouTuber, the Prudentialist, appealed for donations to OGC in a podcast, saying that the money 'will one day be used for mutual aid for our friends that get doxed or fired or affected by natural disasters and other acts of God'. By April 2023, the Prudentialist was presenting OGC in podcasts as part of an effort by the far right to 'create networks of patronage [and] political support' in order to 'maintain not just some semblance of power, but … anti-fragility against a state that wants you broke, dead or transitioned' He added that OGC would offer opportunities for members to 'meet, host conferences and … to support people in the future who like that firefighter in Virginia was fired for simply donating to Kyle Rittenhouse's legal defense fund', an apparent reference to the fallout from 2021 Guardian reporting on donors to Rittenhouse's legal defense whose identities were revealed in leaked data from a Christian crowdfunding site. Other key members advocated a strategy of decentralization for the far-right to create enduring activist institutions. In a 10 July 2022 republication of his speech at that year's rightwing Tennessee Scyldings conference, charter member and frequent OGC spokesman Ryan Turnipseed lamented the fact that Spain's authoritarian fascist dictator Francisco Franco – a touchstone for the contemporary far right – had 'failed to secure his line of succession' despite propaganda and purges. 'This is a lesson we need to learn,' he added. He proposed a decentralized network of groups, which would allow 'us to draw upon the knowledge and abilities of these groups. We no longer have to wait on a Caesar or a Franco to 'unite the right' into some effective fighting force. Instead, we can be effective with what we have now.' Others stressed the importance of in-person meetups, and directly referenced similar initiatives overseas. According to a July 2022 Substack post by the pseudonymous 'Red Hawk' inviting applications for local chapters, chapters must consist of at least 'five American men over the age of 18', and meet quarterly and annual reporting requirements on membership and finances. Local chapters and the organization as a whole are overseen by an OGC central committee, according to the post and subsequent podcasts. The organization's core members have orchestrated four annual conferences, with the last two happening under the OGC banner. According to speakers on a recorded after-action report on the most recent OGC in-person conference held in May, OGC membership has burgeoned in the last year. They claimed that OGC now has 'literally hundreds' of members, and 'We're so large at this point that we've passed the point where the Central Committee is going to be able to know all or even most of the individual members'. 'Altogether we've built a very, very effective organization' It is not yet clear how the names in company records for the umbrella organization and its chapters correspond with all of the online aliases of key members. But those records do reveal that members include prominent far-right influencers, current and former US military members and police officers, court officers and contractors with US government security clearances. The Guardian has contacted all named members for comment. Turnipseed is a charter member of the OGC umbrella organization, a frequent contributor at its Substack, a frequent podcaster, and has spoken at OGC and Skyldings conferences. Previously, Turnipseed was excommunicated in May 2024 by First Lutheran church in his native Ponca City, Oklahoma, after a viral 2023 Twitter thread criticizing the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod's new catechism for accommodating progressive political positions, briefly making him a cause celebre for the online far right. In February 2023, Turnipseed had been identified by antifascist researchers as a member of what they called a rising 'white supremacist faction within the Lutheran faith'. Later that month the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod called for the excommunication of those 'propagating radical and unchristian 'alt-right' views'. Not long after his excommunication, Immanuel Lutheran church in Wichita, Kansas, defied the ban by accepting Turnipseed into membership. Other OGC chapter members have connections with the wider world of rightwing politics. Matthew Pearson of Tampa Bay, Florida, is listed on the initial filings of the Yellow Dog Pack, a Florida OGC chapter. Pearson is a writer for two Christian Nationalist publications, American Reformer and Truthscript, where he has praised a book that says Christians should be anti-gay, and commended the social theories of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. Other members are connected with the armed forces and defense contractors. Evan Dale Schalow, 25, of Midlothian, Virginia, is listed as a charter member of the OGC in Virginia company records. According to his LinkedIn bio, Schalow has also been a horizontal construction engineer in the Virginia national guard since 2022 and before that he was an ROTC cadet while at Longwood University from 2020. According to the same biography he has US government secret security clearance. The Guardian emailed the Virginia national guard to confirm Schalow's service but received no response. Harvey Pretlow Rawls III is named as a charter member of the Old Glory Club and the Vetus Dominicum Club chapter in Virginia company records. According to his LinkedIn page, Rawls is also a systems engineer at HII, the US's largest military shipbuilder. The same page indicates that he has an active secret clearance, the second tier of US security clearances, which can take up to a year to investigate and approve. The Guardian contacted HII about his role at the company. Michael R Gibbs of Phenix City, Alabama, meanwhile, is the only person listed on the initial filing of the Magnolia League, an OGC chapter in Alabama. According to his LinkedIn page he served as a sergeant in the US Marine Corps between 2008 and 2013, and then as a deputy in the Muscogee county sheriff's office between 2014 and 2016. The same page says he is now a buyer for firearms company Remington. Two members of OGC Indiana chapter the Tippecanoe Society, meanwhile, are lawyers who have spent time in government service. Kyle Lindskog of Zionsville, Indiana, is now a freelance attorney, according to his LinkedIn biography, but between 2015 and 2018 he was a city attorney in St Petersburg, Florida. Paul Scott Lunsford Jr of Carmel is an intellectual property attorney at a firm he founded, but between 2006 and 2010 he was an operations officer in the US navy. 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And you may want to include another group in that.' In other recent podcasts, Quinones has proffered elaborate anti-Semitic conspiracy theories often promoted by white supremacist groups. In one podcast he worried about the far-right being persecuted for its beliefs about Jews. 'You start, you know, persecuting people who are you know, starting to ask the Jewish question,' he said. The 'Jewish question' is an antisemitic framing of Jewish presence in society as a problem requiring a 'solution,' and has historically been used to justify persecution and genocide, including in Nazi Germany. Since 2022, Quinones has also collaborated in making content for the Old Glory Club network, and has promoted it on his own show. On an Old Glory Club post-election livestream in November, Quinones referred to Black voters with a racial slur favored by white nationalists, saying: 'The North American street ape is hopeless.' He used the same slur a month later in response to a video of a black teenager. Shukman, the Hope Not Hate, researcher said: 'The Old Glory Club and its affiliates like the Basketweavers may claim to provide community, but the truth is they conceal a much more sinister aim.' He added: 'We have seen that the leaders of these groups can be vicious and degrading to junior members, especially maladjusted young men. The OGC's senior figures also have a track record of making deeply racist statements and affiliating with known far-right activists. '
Telegraph
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Telegraph
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