Erick Erickson Of Red State, CNN, Exposed As Homophobic, Racist, By Jon Stewart, Change.org
Blogger Erick Erickson’s homophobic, racist, disgusting diatribes are inconsistent with the high standards of journalism CNN portends to uphold.
A few weeks ago while I was on vacation, the exceptional Michael A, Jones, Change.org’s Gay Rights blogger, took on CNN and its decision to hire one of the most right-wing bloggers, Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com. In, “CNN’s Anti-Gay Hiring FAIL,” Michael wrote,
“Say there’s a political commentator out there who has called women’s rights activists Nazis, called Michelle Obama a “Marxist harpy wife,” said that President Obama only won his Nobel Peace Prize because of “affirmative action,” and called the U.S. Department of Education’s Safe Schools Czar “profoundly sick and immoral” because of his sexual orientation. Should this guy be rewarded with a promotion?”
“Given the state of political cynicism these days, do we really need someone who has called former Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat fucking child molester” on one of the largest news channels in the world? The answer is, overwhelmingly, NO.”
“And who can forget Erickson’s comments advocating that Tea Party folks go down to their state legislator’s office and beat their representatives and senators to a bloody pulp. Specifically, Erickson was referencing Washington state legislators. “At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?”
Michael offers many more examples, but you get the drift. So did almost 5,000 Change.org readers, who signed his petition. You should too. Please, sign the Change.org petition, “Tell CNN: Keep Anti-Gay, Racist, Sexist Commentators Off the Air.”
Now, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart joins the conversation about the epic fail that was hiring Erick Erickson. Watch:
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I tried taking on Erickson myself, in December of 2008. In his personal blog, “Confessions of a Political Junkie” Erick Erickson wrote a piece titled, “Gay Rights Proponents Act Like the Third Reich.” In it, Erickson writes,
“Yes, I know about Goodwin’s law, but comparing gay rights activists to the Nazis is fitting. They’ve gone from being persecuted to persecuting. Of course, they’ll say it is all in the fight for their civil rights — much like the Nazis needed to go after people to make things right.”
(Gotta love how he starts with the “Goodwin’s Law” part, especially since it’s Godwin’s Law…)
On his blog, I responded. Here is the conversation (Erickson is “Erick-Woods”):
David Badash on December 5th, 2008
Erick,
Let me get this straight: If a homosexual tries to stand up for his civil rights, he is acting like a Nazi? Is that what you’re saying? I’d like to understand better your thoughts. Perhaps you could clarify a bit more, or provide some more examples?
Thanks.
Erick-Woods on December 5th, 2008
David, how exactly is trying to have people fired because their wives gave money to a ballot measure standing up for a civil right?
Oh, and it is not a civil right.
David Badash on December 6th, 2008
Erick,
My point is simply this: You’re a lawyer. You know full well that far-reaching over-generalizations are in no one’s interest, are generally incorrect, and are at best unfair. Now, amend your rhetoric to read “SOME gay rights activists have gone from being persecuted to persecuting.†MAYBE I’ll give you some latitude.
But you also know, as a lawyer, that your words are inaccurate, incorrect, and, given your reach and position, dangerously incendiary.
I hope you’ll be clearer, more accurate, and work toward making things on both sides of this argument better. If not, you’re just attempting to monetize people’s emotions, a rather dishonorable vocation, don’t you think?
Erick-Woods on December 6th, 2008
Ironic that I’m being lectured on my speech on this.
And then, responding to another reader’s comments:
Erick-Woods on December 7th, 2008
“And more importantly when did the use of these tactics get elevated to Nazi style?”
When the gay rights movement turned into a gay reich movement. All dissenters must be driven from their jobs, churches must be torn down, the IRS must be sicked on non-profit institutions, etc.
Like I said, Erickson has no place on CNN.
(H/T to timzero4 for the video.)
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New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments in court Tuesday morning without the jury present after prosecutors in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office accused Donald Trump of violating his gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social account.
Judge Merchan did not rule from the bench, but is expected to announce his ruling possibly as early as later Tuesday. Prosecutors asked for Trump to be held in contempt, and outlined four possible responses. Merchan refused one response but agreed three were possible.
Among them, Merchan might fine Trump and issue a stern warning that could threaten jail time if he violates the gag order in the future.
From the bench, Merchan had directed attorneys to create a timeline of events to show if Trump was reacting to what the ex-president’s attorneys called “attacks.”
“We’re gonna take one at a time, otherwise it’s going to get really confusing,” Judge Merchan said to Trump lead attorney Todd Blanche, as Lawfare managing editor Tyler McBrien reports. McBrien noted the judge “wants to get the timeline of these posts, reposts, and replies clear.”
RELATED: Fox News Host Suggests Trump ‘Force’ Court to Throw Him in Jail – by Quoting Him
Trump’s attorneys appeared to suggest if his posts are “political” they should not be subjected to the gag order, which bars Trump from making “public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding.”
“Blanche says that the witnesses are making money, documentaries, TV interviews about Trump, all while Trump is gagged and threatened with jail if he responds,” McBrien also reported. “Merchan wants to get into what was actually said rather than interpret and ‘read between the lines.'”
Blanche earlier had insisted Trump was aware of what the gag order requires.
“‘Just to set the record very straight and clear: President Trump does know what the gag order’ allows him to do and not do,” MSNBC contributor Adam Klasfeld reported.
One of the larger issues discussed appears to be Fox News segments made by host Jesse Watters. One aired hours before then-juror number two asked to be excused, saying they no longer felt they could be impartial.
MSNBC’s Katie Phang posted this exchange between the judge and Trump’s lead attorney:
“Now, Merchan asks Blanche about what Jesse Watters, in fact, said.
Blanche: No.
Merchan: “So your client manipulated what was said and put it in quotes?
Blanche: I wouldn’t say it was a manipulation.
Merchan: This isn’t a repost at all. Your client had to type it out. Use the shift-key and all.”
It did not go well for Trump and his legal team.
At one point Judge Merchan told Blanche, “You’re losing all credibility.” McBrien reports when Merchan said that, “there was an audible gasp from the press.”
Former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal weighed in:
Very very ominous for a judge to say Trump’s lawyer has lost all credibility with the court. https://t.co/yAKk5HzFby
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) April 23, 2024
“This isn’t quite like watching a full blown car accident, but it’s certainly like watching a fender bender,” McBrien also noted.
“This is going very badly for Trump already,” reported Courthouse News’ Erik Uebelacker. “Judge Merchan is losing his patience with Blanche, who can’t seem to prove that any of Trump’s attacks are ‘responses.'”
Attorney George Conway went further: “Blanche is flailing. This is painful to watch. Merchan is cutting him to shreds.”
Continuing, Conway wrote (not in quotation marks) Merchan said: “I’ve asked you several times to show me the post that the defendant was responding to. You haven’t done so once.”
He called the judge’s remark “BRUTAL.”
READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide
“Basically, Blanche is pretty much arguing there’s a ‘running for president’ exception to the gag order that has been specifically directed at the man running for defendant,” Conway adds. “Merchan now getting pissed at Blanche’s unresponsiveness and evasiveness.”
Klasfeld also characterized the exchanges as “brutal.”
“Merchan says he’s going to ‘reserve decision on this,’ after brutal arguments for the defense.”
Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of hush money to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which could be deemed election interference.
Image via Shutterstock
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake is promoting a conspiracy theory suggesting Hillary Clinton wants to assassinate her. Her remarks came just one day before she lost her attempt to have the Supreme Court review what some have called her conspiracy-theory fueled lawsuit about electronic voting machines.
“Lake, who filed the lawsuit during her failed campaign for governor in 2022, challenged whether the state’s electronic voting machines assured ‘a fair and accurate vote.’ Two lower courts dismissed the suit, finding that Lake and former Republican state lawmaker Mark Finchem had not been harmed in a way that allowed them to sue,” CNN reported Monday.
Also on Monday Law&Crime reported that when she filed her lawsuit, a Dominion Voting Systems spokesperson “rejected Lake’s cybersecurity claim, telling Law&Crime it was ‘implausible and conspiratorial.'”
Democracy Docket, founded by top Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, called it “the end of the road for a conspiratorial lawsuit,” and Lake and Fincham, “election deniers.”
READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow
Lake, a far-right conspiracy theorist who has yet to concede the 2022 election, which she lost to Democrat Katie Hobbs, has a history of pushing exaggerated and baseless claims.
On Sunday, as MeidasTouch Network reported, Lake promoted an old, anti-Clinton conspiracy theory but twisted it to try to make it appear she was in danger from former U.S. Secretary of State and former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Lake on Newsmax listened to a clip of Secretary Clinton calling Trump’s fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin a “bromance,” and saying the ex-president is “just gaga over Putin, because Putin does what he would like to do: kill his opposition, imprison his opposition, drive, you know, journalists and others into exile, rule without any check or balance.”
Then Lake promoted a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory by responding, “Oh, boy. Oh, that’s really rich coming from a woman like Hillary Clinton, who’s, how many of her friends have just like, mysteriously died or committed suicide?”
“I mean, honestly, that’s rich of her. What President Trump wants is to root out the corruption and deliver our government back to We The People and she looks very nervous. She talked about her friend Mark Elias, Mark Elias has meddled in in his and his cohorts have meddled in the elections.”
She called Democratic policies, “destructive, deadly and frankly, in some ways, diabolical,”and added, “it’s almost comical that Hillary Clinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.”
READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
“I just want to say as I’m as I’m speaking about this topic, I want everyone out there to know that my brakes on my car have recently been checked and they work. I’m not suicidal. And Hillary, I don’t mean any harm to you. Please don’t send your henchmen out to me. We understand what you’re about. ”
Watch below or at this link.
.@HillaryClinton is talking about Trump wanting to kill his opponents.
We call that projection.
While on the subject of Hillary, I want everyone out there to know that the brakes on my car work just fine. I’m not suicidal.
I’m very happy to be alive & working to save Arizona… pic.twitter.com/Mhj84g5bVu
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) April 22, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide
MSNBC top host Rachel Maddow, inside Manhattan’s Criminal Courthouse on Monday declared Donald Trump appeared “old and tired and mad,” as she delivered observations about the ex-president on trial for 34 counts of falsification of business records alleged in the alleged pursuit of election interference to protect his 2016 presidential run.
Trump “seems considerably older, and he seems annoyed. Resigned, maybe, angry. he seems like a man who’s miserable to be here,” the award-winning journalist told MSNBC viewers Monday afternoon.
“I’m no body language expert,” she conceded, “and this is just my observation. He seemed old and tired and mad.”
The New York Times’ Susanne Craig, from inside the courthouse Monday morning reported: “Trump is struggling to stay awake. His eyes were closed for a short period. He was jolted awake when Todd Blanche, his lawyer, nudged him while sliding a note in front of him.”
The Biden campaign was only too happy to pick up and report Craig’s observation, adding “feeble.”
A feeble and tired Donald Trump once again falls asleep in court pic.twitter.com/ShcnxYI8jH
— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) April 22, 2024
Former Obama senior advisor David Axelrod, pointing to his piece at The Atlantic, wrote of Trump: “He has charmed & conned, schemed & marauded his way through life. He was bred that way. But the weariness & vulnerability captured in courtroom images betray a growing sense in Trump that he could wind up as the thing his old man most reviled:
A loser.”
Watch Maddow’s remarks below or at this link.
Maddow: Trump seems old and tired and mad pic.twitter.com/kQuHrBo4v1
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 22, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow
‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory
‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’
‘Cutting Him to Shreds’: ‘Pissed’ Judge Tells Trump’s Attorney ‘You’re Losing All Credibility’
‘I’m Not Suicidal’: Kari Lake Pushes Hillary Clinton Murder Conspiracy Theory
‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow
‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument
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