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Erick Erickson Of Red State, CNN, Exposed As Homophobic, Racist, By Jon Stewart, Change.org

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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:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Hires Erick Erickson
www.thedailyshow.com

http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:268725

Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform

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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‘Restore My Account Immediately’: Marjorie Taylor Greene Cries After Twitter Suspends Her Over Anti-Trans Tweets

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U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is lashing out at Twitter owner and CEO Elon Musk after the social media company, she says, suspended her official government account for seven days for posting apparently anti-transgender tweets. At least four of her tweets appear to have been deleted.

Rep. Greene appears to have been promoting an unverified claim that “Antifa” and transgender activists are planning a “Trans Day of Vengeance.” Fox News is also claiming there is a “Trans Day of Vengeance,” and a website the report links to says it will be on April 1.

“My Congressional account was suspended for 7 days for exposing Antifa, who are organizing a call for violence called ‘Trans Day of Vengeance.’ The day after the mass murder of children by a trans shooter. Restore my account immediately,” Greene demanded, tagging Musk, Twitter Safety, and the head of Twitter Safety, Ella Irwin.

There is no evidence that “Antifa” which is not an actual group, has anything to do with the alleged Trans Day of Vengeance.

The Independent adds Greene made “unfounded” claims “about the Nashville school shooting being a product of ‘Antifa’ and ‘trans-terrorism.'”

According to The Hill, Congresswoman Greene tweeted a poster of the alleged event, and Twitter removed the post, so she repeatedly reposted it, only to have Twitter remove it.

Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, tweeted: “We had to automatically sweep our platform and remove >5000 tweets /retweets of this poster. We do not support tweets that incite violence irrespective of who posts them. ‘Vengeance’ does not imply peaceful protest. Organizing or support for peaceful protests is ok.”

On her personal Twitter account, Greene also promoted a similar, baseless claim:

“In the wake of a transgender shooter targeting a Christian school and murdering kids, every American should know the threat of Antifa driven trans-terrorism. Twitter should not whitewash the incitement of politically motivated violence,” she said, pointing to another of her tweets that had been removed.

Greene on Monday made anti-trans remarks in the wake of the the Nashville shooting.

“How much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville school shooter taking? Everyone can stop blaming guns now,” she said.

Currently, numerous right-wing and far-right wing Twitter accounts are linking the alleged Trans Day of Vengeance to Monday’s horrific Covenant Presbyterian elementary school shooting in Nashville, where three nine-year olds and three adults were shot to death. The shooter allegedly identified as transgender, according to Nashville police.

 

 

 

 

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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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