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American Family Association: ‘Nobody Is Any More Hateful’ Than ‘Big Gay’ Bloggers

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Buster Wilson yesterday unleashed a hate-filled invective against highly-respected and often-cited LGBT and progressive civil rights organizations, claiming “there is nobody out there that is any more hateful” than “Big Gay” bloggers.

“Think Progress, The New Civil Rights Movement, Right Wing Watch, how many other places, how many supported groups in what Bryan Fischer has aptly named the Big Gay movement, think themselves wiser, smarter, more proficient in life than God almighty or the great Apostle Paul,” Wilson, General Manager of the American Family Association‘s radio network, told listeners.

“For they take anybody, even pastor Louie Giglio, with the influence that this man has in the world today, they think that anybody, even this man, if they say what the Bible says about homosexuality that they are a dangerous, lying, hateful individual and you should shun them,” Wilson claimed, referencing Giglio, the Georgia pastor who stepped down from consideration after being chosen by the Presidential Inaugural Committee to deliver the benediction.

“Make no mistake about it church, that’s where we are today. We are at the place, maybe we’re not thrown in jail for it like pastor Youcef Nadarkhani in Iran, maybe we’re not slaughtered or beheaded for it yet, but make no mistake about it, if you stand and proclaim what the word of God says about certain things, primarily about homosexuality, you are going to be ostracized, you are going to be mocked and ridiculed, you are going to be called names, you are going to be marginalized and you are going to be cast out.”

Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch, who first reported Wilson’s comments, adds:

After warning that Christians will be made out to be “lying, hateful” people, he later proclaimed that gay rights bloggers are “lying, hateful people” as “there is nobody out there that is any more hateful than these people are.”

“I know for certain, Think Progress is neither,” Wilson quipped. “They neither think nor are they progressive, in the traditional sense of the word. These people are hate-filled, mean-spirited, lying, hateful people. If you can take pastor Louie Giglio and marginalize him so much that he looks evil you are some kind of character.”

“I don’t know how to process that these groups that are so—they call us a hate group. Let me tell you something, there is nobody in the nation that is more hateful than The New Civil Rights Movement, Right Wing Watch and Southern Poverty Law Center and now you can add to the list in my opinion, Think Progress, there is nobody out there that is any more hateful than these people are.”

Wilson rightly notes that his organization, the highly-funded American Family Association, which supports a radio network of almost 200 stations across more than 40 states, reaching millions of listeners daily, has been certified as an anti-gay hate group by the venerable and highly-respected Southern Poverty Law Center.

In order to be included in the SPLC’s hate group list, an organization is tracked, often for years and is proven to repeatedly spread lies and hate against a group of people.

The New Civil Rights Movement does not spread lies and hate — in fact we do exactly the opposite: we reveal facts and use the exact words of people like Wilson’s top spokesperson, Bryan Fischer, to expose the agenda of misinformation, lies, and hate these groups spread.

One final note: Wilson refers to Think Progress, The New Civil Rights Movement, Right Wing Watch, and the Southern Poverty Law Center as “supported groups.” While it’s certainly true we are very grateful to have the support of millions of readers, unlike our esteemed colleagues — including Think Progress, an arm of the Center for American Progress (CAP), Right Wing Watch, an arm of People for the America Way, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, an amazing institution founded over 40 years ago – The New Civil Rights Movement is not “supported” by external funding. Other groups have large endowments, take in huge donations and have people in charge of fundraising.

The American Family Association via their website, for 2011 reported almost $18 million in income (“revenue”) including over $16 million in donations.

The New Civil Rights Movement exists through a lot of hard work, a group of excellent and dedicated writers who selflessly contribute their work, all of which net a very small income via the ads you see, and the donations our readers and supporters generously give. For last year, we took in about point one percent (0.001) of that.

I hope you appreciate our work, and if possible, I hope you can help keep The New Civil Rights Movement going by considering a donation of whatever you can.

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘Troubling Questions’: Experts Slam Ginni Thomas’ Group That Waged Cultural War Against the Left via Web of Dark Money Orgs

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Legal experts are responding to bombshell reporting from The Washington Post revealing Ginni Thomas, the spouse of a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, who had unprecedented access to the Trump White House and Oval Office, for years headed a secretive right-wing activist organization funded through a web of dark money groups, whose purpose was to wage a culture war against the left.

The Post reports the organization, Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty, took in nearly $600,000 in anonymous funds to fuel its efforts to battle “cultural Marxism,” as Ginni Thomas, who headed the group, called their mission.

Thomas had stepped away from her previous non-profit right-wing activist group “amid concerns that it created potential conflicts for her husband on hot-button issues before the court,” The Post says, and yet, she led Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty, which creates the same concerns. Where is the money coming from? What is the group doing with it? How much crossover is there between her activism and the group’s targets and efforts, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ work?

According to The Post, in tax filings of its think tank sponsor, Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty is described as an “informal, unincorporated nonprofit association which serves as an incubator for ideas across a network of conservative leaders, cultural entrepreneurs, and cultural influences.”

READ MORE: ‘Heist’: Ginni Thomas Tells J6 Committee Election Was Stolen, Says She Never Discussed Efforts to Overturn With Spouse

It appears great efforts were made to ensure the donors to Thomas’ Crowdsourcers group would not be able to be publicly identified.

“In 2019, anonymous donors gave the think tank Capital Research Center, or CRC, $596,000 that was designated for Crowdsourcers, according to tax filings and audits the think tank submitted to state regulators. The majority of that money, $400,000, was routed through yet another nonprofit, Donors Trust, according to that organization’s tax filings. Donors Trust is a fund that receives money from wealthy donors whose identities are not disclosed and steers it toward conservative causes,” The Post explains.

Thomas, who is reportedly active in another secretive far-right wing group, the Council for National Policy, brought two well-known far-right wing activists from CNP into Crowdsourcers for Culture and Liberty: former Trump attorney, ally, and advisor Cleta Mitchell, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.

The New York Times last year described the Council for National Policy as an organization that “brings together old-school Republican luminaries, Christian conservatives, Tea Party activists and MAGA operatives, with more than 400 members who include leaders of organizations like the Federalist Society, the National Rifle Association and the Family Research Council.”

But despite all the obvious red flags, an attorney for Ginni Thomas, Mark Paoletta, told The Washington Post she was “proud of the work she did with Crowdsourcers, which brought together conservative leaders to discuss amplifying conservative values with respect to the battle over culture.”

READ MORE: Ginni Thomas ‘Intertwined’ With ‘Vast’ Campaign Pressuring Supreme Court to Overturn Roe: Report

“She believes Crowdsourcers identified the Left’s dominance in most cultural lanes, while conservatives were mostly funding political organizations,” Paoletta also told The Post.

“There is no plausible conflict of interest issue with respect to Justice Thomas,” he claimed.

Others disagree.

U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who is also an attorney, responded to The Post’s report by mocking Paoletta’s claim there is no conflict of interest.

“Donors Trust was central to the far-right Court-packing operation, and now they pass secret donor funds to a justice’s spouse, but ‘no plausible conflict of interest’? Please.”

Sen. Whitehouse went on to explain his additional concerns.

“Plus, remember that the secrecy conduits like Donors Trust keep the *public* from knowing what’s happening, but nothing prevents the secret donor from telling the spouse or the justice, ‘Hey, that money that secretly came through to you — that’s me.'”

Adam Smith, Vice President for Democracy Initiatives at the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), observed: “Seems like the spouse of a Supreme Court Justice shouldn’t be able to hide the source of huge donations that could be from people with business before the court.”

READ MORE: Ginni Thomas’ Attempts to Influence Overturn of Election Even Wider Than Previously Known

CREW’s President, Noah Bookbinder, a former federal corruption prosecutor, adds: “Hundreds of thousands in anonymous donations to an activist group led by Ginni Thomas, spouse of a Supreme Court justice, raises all kinds of troubling questions about who could be influencing decisions that affect all of us.”

Attorney and Slate Magazine senior writer covering courts and the law, Mark Joseph Stern, pushed back against any idea the nearly $600,000 funding came from small donations.

“Ginni Thomas’ various political ventures have never had any small/grassroots donors. They have ALWAYS been funded by a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals and organizations who are very obviously trying to curry favor with her husband,” Stern said.

Former White House aide and CNN commentator Keith Boykin, also an attorney, called for Justice Thomas to recuse from certain cases: “If Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had to recuse herself from the Harvard affirmative action case, then Clarence Thomas should recuse himself from all the cases on right-wing issues in which his activist wife, Ginni Thomas, is involved.”

 

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Christian Nationalist Group Working to Get Its ‘Biblical Worldview Spread Across the Nation’

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Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed legislation prohibiting transgender people from using public school facilities that match their gender identity. That legislation was crafted by the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a right-wing organization that seeks to elect “godly leaders in our nation at every level” and then use them to “restore the Judeo-Christian foundation of our nation.”

Following the signing of this legislation into law, Jason Rapert, a longtime religious-right activist and ardent Christian nationalist who founded the NACL, took a victory lap, crediting his organization for the law and celebrating its success in pushing back “against the things of the devil in our country.”

As Rapert reported, this legislation had first been proposed by Arkansas school board member David Naylor during an annual NACL meeting and then brought to the Arkansas state legislature by state Rep. Mary Bentley, who serves on the board of the NACL.

On Friday, Rapert interviewed Bentley on his “Save The Nation” program, where she celebrated the NACL’s efforts “to get our biblical worldview spread across the nation.”

“Thank goodness we’ve got some common sense left here in Arkansas,” Bentley said. “[It was because of the NACL] that we were able to get that passed as model policy and bring it forth. I just love seeing grassroots come together and school board members coming to the capitol and going to the governor’s desk and just seeing it all work and flow just exactly how we want to. So, for the folks that are supporting NACL and what we’re doing, this is what we want to do across the country.”

“This is an example of the power of the NACL’s ability with model legislation,” Rapert replied. “This was brought by one of our members, and this policy actually could be immediately adopted by school boards in every school district across this country. If the school board wanted to adopt it, this is the model that they can utilize. And in addition to that, just like you did, go and pass it for the state so that this is going to apply to all the school boards in your state.”

Rapert and Bentley agreed that Arkansas has now blazed the trail on this issue, thereby making it easier for legislatures in other states to enact the same law.

“That’s what happens when you can be a leader,” Bentley asserted. “Once you make a trail, it’s a lot easier for people to follow once you get that trail made.”

“Thank you again for being a part of the NACL,” Bentley declared. “It’s just what we need in this nation right now to have it moving forward, to get our biblical worldview spread across the nation.”

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

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News

Pence Ordered to Comply With Subpoena, Testify Before Special Counsel’s Grand Jury

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Mike Pence, the ex-vice president, must testify before Dept. of Justice special counsel Jack Smith’s grand jury investigating the January 6, 2021 insurrection, a federal judge has ruled, rejecting his claims of executive privilege.

The judge is requiring Pence to answer questions about his conversations with Donald Trump leading up to the insurrection, and to answer any questions related to any possible illegal acts Donald Trump may have committed, according to ABC News’ senior investigative reporter Katherine Faulders and CNN’s Abby Phillip.

Judge James Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “outright rejected Trump’s executive privilege challenge, but ruled more narrowly on Pence speech and debate challenge,” Faulders adds.

The judge, apparently citing Pence’s “speech and debate clause” claim, said “that Pence can still decline to answer questions related to his actions on January 6 itself, when he was serving as president of the Senate for the certification of the 2020 presidential election,” CNN reports.

READ MORE: ‘We’re Not Gonna Fix It’: TN Republican Says Congress Can Do Nothing to Stop Gun Violence – Calls for Christian ‘Revival’

NBC News reports Judge Boasberg “did, however, grant Pence a partial victory as to his argument that he was shielded from having to testify about Jan. 6 because of his constitutional role as part of the legislative branch.”

In what some legal experts dismissed as a faulty argument, “Pence’s legal team had argued that the Constitution’s ‘speech and debate’ clause should prevent special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors from eliciting any testimony about communications or activity related to Pence’s role as president of the Senate in presiding over the certification of the election results.”

Overall CNN calls it “another win for special counsel Jack Smith, who is investigating the Trump-aligned effort to subvert the 2020 election. Smith subpoenaed Pence for testimony and documents earlier this year.”

Pence can still appeal.

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

This is a breaking news and developing story.

This article has been updated to add video.

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