Trump's Retweets of British Hate Group's Anti-Muslim Videos Causing Membership to Soar

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President Donald Trump’s retweets of three anti-Muslim videos from the deputy leader of a far-right, anti-immigrant British group has reportedly caused membership applications for the group to soar.

Paul Golding, leader of the ultra-nationalist organization Britain First, bragged to the British newspaper The Times that they had received hundreds of applications to join in the 24 hours after Trump’s retweeted the videos from Jayda Fransen, the group’s deputy leader, to his nearly 44 million followers.

“We have had hundreds of new membership applications and our organic Facebook reach has increased by hundreds of thousands,” Golding, who was jailed last year from violating a court ordered ban on entering any mosque in England and Wales, said.

The group’s membership was previously estimated at less than 1,000, according to the paper, so getting hundreds of additional members in just a day is a very big deal.

Fransen, who’s apparently out on bail for religiously aggravated harassment, said Trump’s retweets amounted to an endorsement of their (thoroughly misleading) content.

WHAT ELSE?

• Because the new natural order of things is that they stupider with every passing day, the White House responded—again—to CNN saying they were boycotting its annual Christmas party for members of the media by inviting more than a dozen behind-the-scenes staffers at the network.
• An undocumented immigrant was acquitted in the killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco. Steinle’s death became a flashpoint in the debate around immigration and sanctuary cities, and Donald Trump predictably used it to tweet yet again about why we need to build a border wall:

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