Steve Bannon weighs in on UK burqa debate
Republican strategist Steve Bannon weighed into British politics Sunday in a wide-ranging interview in which he defended former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s comments about Muslim face veils and praised a controversial British farright leader.
The former aide to PresidentDonaldTrump saidJohnson had “nothing to apologize for” and should not “bow at the altar of political correctness” after he was criticized for saying women who wear burqas look like “letterboxes” and “bank robbers.”
Johnson made the comments in a newspaper column that argued against banning full-face veils, as Denmark has done.
“Excuse me, didn’t he actually support the wearing of the veil?” Bannon told the Sunday Times. “His entire argument revolves around not wanting to ban the burqa, but arguing that he agrees that it’s an oppressive garment and that there is no scriptural basis for it in the Quran, which is true. I think the substance got lost because of his throwaway line.”
Johnson has been criticized by Muslim groups and politicians, including Prime Minister Theresa May, who urged Johnson to apologize. Johnson’s representatives have said he won’t apologize.
“The hysterical mainstream media can never separate the ‘signal from the noise’— fortunately, the populists can,” Bannon said.
Bannon has said he wants to establish a Europe-wide movement uniting populist and nationalist voters in the European elections next year. He has said he plans to spend 70 percent of his time in Europe following the November midterm election in the United States.
Johnson, a former mayor of London, is one of Britain’s best-known politicians and is often cited as a potential candidate for prime minister. He quit May’s Conservative government last month in a dispute over the country’s departure from the European Union, accusing the prime minister of killing “the Brexit dream” with plans to continue close economic ties with the EU after the U.K. leaves the bloc in March.
Bannon suggested that Johnson need not copy Trump to be successful.
“Boris j ust needs to be Boris — true to his nature and his calling — and I think he has potential to be a great prime minister, not a good one,” he said.
Bannon also prai sed another controversial U.K. figure — Tommy Robinson, founder of the now-defunct English Defence League. He compared Robinson to rapper Kanye West, describing him as a rising star and a “force of nature.”
Robinson, 35, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, is a self-styled commentator who has given Britain’s far-right media the verve it has lacked. His YouTube channel has accumulated more than 6 million views, including videos purporting to show him fighting migrants in Italy and being attacked by masked men outside a McDonald’s restaurant in London.
He was recently freed from prison after an appeals court threw out his conviction for contempt of court and ordered a retrial. The case stems from allegations that Robinson used social media to broadcast details of a trial that was subject to blanket reporting restrictions.
His supporters said he was jailed because of his far-right political beliefs.
“Tommy is not just a guy but a movement,” Bannon said. “He represents the working class and channels a lot of the frustration of everyday, blue-collar Britons ... He is a force of nature.”
The hardest part of stealing a commercial plane from an international airport was already over for Richard Russell. Russell, a ground services worker for Horizon Air, was permitted to get very close to passenger aircraft. And part of his job was to drive the tractor that backed the aircraft into position for takeoff. He spun a plane around Friday evening without raising suspicion and climbed aboard with 76 empty seats behind him. He would have flipped overhead switches and set the propellers of the Bombardier Q400 spinning before he roared away from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
It’s not clear whether Russell, 29, had ever really flown a plane before. But that flight was his last.
Russell flew wild loops over Puget Sound, screamed low over frightened onlookers and had existential — and, at turns, bizarre — chats with air traffic controllers as two Air Force F-15 jets gave chase. Then, about an hour after he took off, Russell plunged into sparsely populated Ketron Island 25 miles southwest of the airport, sparking an intense fire.
He is presumed dead in the crash, but no one else is thought to be injured or killed, and the fighter jets did not fire on him, authorities said. The FBI is investigating the stunning heist, which has raised concerns about the security of commercial aircraft and mental health issues among airline workers nearly 17 years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
It has also suggested that Russellwas more complicated than the easygoing persona of his known online footprint. Now a family is left to reckon with tragedy, while strangers find grim inspiration in his final act.
Public acts of violence — like mass shootings — often reflect the perpetrator’s troubled, dark past.
But there appears to be no manifesto, no digital trail of warning signs from Russell. He grins in selfies at work. He and wife Hannah started a bakery in Oregon in their early 20s, according to a 2012 story in a local paper depicting a happy, determined couple. In one blog, he describes aspirations to land a management job or join the military.
And in recordings of conversations with air traffic controllers, Russell jokes and laughs, though he is at times contemplative and raw. He appears regretful about the pain he knows will inevitably visit his family.
The Russell family released a statement Saturday evening, saying they were “stunned and heartbroken” over the incident and the loss of a man they called Beebo.
“It may seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, but Beebo was a warm, compassionate man. It is impossible to encompass who he was in a press release. He was a faithful husband, a loving son, and a good friend,” the family said in the statement, read by friend Mike Mathews, ABC reported.
In a video he posted for a college class in December, Russell jokes about the mundane duties of his job.
“I lift a lot of bags. Like a lot of bags. So many bags,” he says. Someone plucks a bag off a conveyor belt. “Oh, a purple one!” Russell exclaims.
It was worth it, he says, to conveniently travel to Alaska, where he grew up, to visit family.
Speculation has swirled over Russell’s intent. He could have envisioned an aerial joyride and return to the ground. Or he could have had grim plans to take his own life. Russell told air traffic controllers that he was a “broken guy” with a “few screws loose,” but also that he wanted to avoid injuring innocent people.
His family’s brief statement did not address any potential mental health issues. Authorities described him as “suicidal.”
How did he like that? It’s not clear. Authorities said they did not believe he had a pilot’s license. Gary Beck, the chief executive of Horizon Air, told reporters Saturday that the acrobatics and maneuvers, including barrel rolls and one loop that brought Russell feet from the water’s surface, were “incredible.”
Russell told controllers mid-flight that he played video games in preparation, but it was not clear whether he meant flight simulators — some of which are commercially available and depict exhaustive and realistic measures to start an aircraft.
His conversation with controllers reveals limited experience. At one point, he explains he doesn’t know how to follow instructions to “punch in” data or how to assess his fuel consumption after takeoff.
Videos posted to social media show the other side of his skills. He tilts the wings and rumbles low over Puget Sound.
“To be honest with you, commercial aircraft are complex machines. They’re not as easy to fly as, say, a Cessna 150,” Beck said. “I don’t know how he achieved the experience that he did.” learn to fly