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Fischer Takes Credit For Forcing ‘Homosexual Activist’ Grenell To Quit

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Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney’s gay spokesperson who resigned hours ago after pressure from conservatives, actually resigned because of Bryan Fischer, according to Bryan Fischer, who today on his radio program took credit for leading the charge that resulted in Grenell’s resignation. Fischer, who has said that gays are “Nazis,” called Grenell’s resignation “a huge win” because the Fischer-led group of anti-gay conservatives, the religious right, and anti-gay so-called “family” groups, were able to get Grenell to quit and taught the Romney campaign a lesson.

READ: Breaking: Gay Romney Spokesman Grenell Quits After Conservative Attacks

Think Progress noted that “Fischer had led the charge against Grenell’s appointment, attacking him for being a “homosexual activist” whose behavior is “offensive to God.”

“Mitt Romney has been forced to say, look, I overstepped my bounds here, I went outside the parameters here, I went off the reservation with this hire,” Fischer said, adding that “Mitt Romney’s not going to admit that.”

And there he does have a point.

There are those that are claiming the Romney camp is trying to use the resignation as an effort to not appear anti-gay, which is ludicrous on its face, albeit they did hire Grenell in the first place.

Molly Ball at The Atlantic offers this excellent report:

To the activists who had cheered Grenell’s hiring — he was apparently the first-ever openly gay spokesman for a Republican presidential campaign — the news came as a blow.

“It is unfortunate that while the Romney campaign made it clear that Grenell being an openly gay man was a non-issue for the governor and his team, the hyper-partisan discussion of issues unrelated to Ric’s national security qualifications threatened to compromise his effectiveness on the campaign trail,” said R. Clarke Cooper, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, who served alongside Grenell at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. “Ric was essentially hounded by the cacophony of the far-right and left,” Cooper added.

Added Jimmy LaSalvia, executive director of GOProud: “The bottom line is it’s a sad day in America when the best and brightest are unable to do their jobs because a small fringe is so fascinated with their personal lives. Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins and the anti-gay-for-pay crowd seem more interested in making sure people can’t work in this country than our country’s national security interests.”

These activists were reluctant to pin blame on the Romney campaign for giving in to the anti-gay backlash, and the Romney campaign was clearly seeking to avoid the impression that it caved to pressure and pushed Grenell out because of his sexual orientation. Romney’s campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, said in a statement: “We are disappointed that Ric decided to resign from the campaign for his own personal reasons. We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill.”

More than one Republican insider I spoke to wondered if Grenell, who had also drawn controversy for his off-message tweeting and combative persona, hadn’t instead turned out to be a poor fit for the tightly disciplined, personality-averse Romney operation. If that’s the case, Grenell’s attempt to point the finger at voices of intolerance within the GOP may be a self-serving excuse.

Whether or not that’s the case, though, the episode stands to hurt Romney by making him appear captive to the most extreme elements of the Republican base. That was the immediate response from the left to Grenell’s resignation: “If Romney will cave to the far-right fringe on this, is there anything he won’t give them when they ask?” said Michael Keegan, president of the liberal group People For the American Way. Teddy Goff, the digital director for the Obama campaign, tweeted: “Today we learned that in the year 2012, a Republican nominee for President can’t have a gay person as spokesman.”

When I originally reported on Grenell’s hiring, Michelangelo Signorile, the gay activist and journalist, told me he didn’t think the move would help Romney any among gay voters, who would be more concerned with the candidate’s stances on policies important to them. But, he noted, it would be a signal to many non-gay moderates that Romney, on some level, shared their values of tolerance and inclusion. Now, deservedly or not, Romney has sent the opposite message: that he’s unable to stand up to the voices of intolerance within the Republican Party.

Fischer called Grinell a “homosexual activist” despite the fact that Grinell has not seemingly raised a finger to support civil rights for the LGBT community.

Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese issued the following statement today in response to the resignation of Richard Grennell, Mitt Romney’s openly gay spokesman:

From the moment Richard Grennell signed on as Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy and National Security Spokesman, he faced a torrent of unfounded criticism from the far right. Not once did the Romney campaign condemn these attacks and support Grennell.

Mitt Romney capitulating to the demands of extremist anti-gay groups is nothing new. He has donated to the rabidly anti-gay National Organization for Marriage and the Massachusetts Family Institute. He has even signed a NOM vow that binds him to appoint only anti-gay judges and establish a McCarthy-era commission to investigate the activities of those who support LGBT equality. The fact that Grennell is gone so quickly after a right-wing uproar is a troubling harbinger of the kind of power that anti-gay forces would have in a Romney White House.

Bryan Fischer and the voices of hate: 1. Reason, equality and American values: 0.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=AGc6ldB8i44%3Fversion%3D3%26hl%3Den_US

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Trump Declares War on ‘Woke Leftist Ideologues’ as He Moves to Reshape Entire US Military

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President Donald Trump has made clear he intends to remake the culture of the entire U.S. Military, starting at the very beginning.

“Our Service Academies have been infiltrated by Woke Leftist Ideologues over the last four years. I have ordered the immediate dismissal of the Board of Visitors for the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard,” the Commander-in-Chief announced Monday afternoon.  The Boards ensure accountability and civilian oversight at institutions like West Point. “We will have the strongest Military in History, and that begins by appointing new individuals to these Boards. We must make the Military Academies GREAT AGAIN!”

“Trump campaigned on a promise to purge the U.S. military of officers he deemed ‘woke’ and has used the start of his second term to try and rid the Pentagon of diversity initiatives by executive order,” Politico reported. “The purge has begun to extend to the nation’s service academies, where Republican lawmakers have long complained that so-called ‘woke’ literature is seeping into the curriculum. The Washington Post reported on Friday that the U.S. Defense Department had begun restricting access to some books in its school systems. The service academies themselves had already begun disbanding student clubs focused on diversity in response to Trump’s executive orders, with West Point getting rid of a dozen such organizations last week, including the Asian-Pacific Forum Club and the National Society of Black Engineers Club.”

It is unclear if the President can fire members of the Boards of Visitors, who are appointed by the President to serve a term of three years.

READ MORE: The 27 Words the NSA Is Scrubbing From Its Websites: Report

As President Trump’s newly sworn-in national security cabinet members get to work in their new roles, they are making clear their priorities will be his: getting rid of “woke.”

Trump’s announcement on the firings came just one day after U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared he had “met with the leadership” of each service academy last week.

“My message was simple: stick to leadership, standards, excellence, war fighting, and readiness. These are MILITARY ACADEMIES, not civilian universities. I was impressed by the changes already underway and look forward to visiting each institution. Social Justice and DEI are OUT; History, Engineering, and War Studies are IN. We must restore the warrior ethos to the @deptofdefense — and it starts with our future leaders.”

Secretary Hegseth, who officially took office on January 25, was criticized for his remarks after the mid-air collision between a commercial airplane and an Army helicopter that took place near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and claimed all 67 lives.

The next day, Secretary Hegseth tried to blame “DEI” — diversity, equity, and inclusion — for the crash, following President Trump’s lead.

Now, Hegseth is again engaging in “culture war” attacks, this time attacking transgender service members, another attempt to purge “woke” from the Trump administration.

In a memo on Monday titled, “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness,” (the exact same title as a Trump executive order,) the Defense Secretary announced a “pause” for all medical treatments of transgender service members, and a pause on accepting any new transgender service members into the U.S. Military.

Also on Monday, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins posted a statement in line with Republicans’ recent attacks on the news site Politico.

“Ran across a $178,000 contract VA had with Politico and we promptly canceled it. That money can be better spent on Veterans health care!” Secretary Collins wrote.

READ MORE: ‘Stomach Turning’: Trump Defends His J6 Pardons as ‘Great for Humanity’

Longtime veterans’ activist and political commentator Paul Rieckhoff blasted Collins, and issued a warning.

“This is the first action item he [Collins] posts about as VA Sec. The very first. Not suicide, not healthcare improvements, not even bureaucratic changes. He’s taking action against Politico. The Trump administration messaging machine is synched up. And growing this week to include [the] VA. Look for attacks on DEI, trans people and the press any minute now. The culture war at VA under Collins will run in direct parallel with Hegseth at DoD. And it’s all just getting started.”

Rieckhoff has been sounding the alarm bells about Trump’s apparent takeover of the military.

“He’s daring the world to stop him, just like he has his entire life, and they’re not stopping him,” Rieckhoff said Friday night about Trump in a panel discussion on MSNBC.

He also talked about Trump’s “radical extreme agenda of taking over the government and snatching the levers of power,” and warned: “we should be really watching when he says, ‘I’m going for the military.'”

“He went with Hegseth first, he’s going for the Pentagon first because when you break into a house and take it over, you go for the gun closet first,” Rieckhoff remarked. “He knows the military is the most powerful, he knows it’s the most influential. It’s the biggest biggest employer. It’s got the biggest budget, and it’s got the guns, so that’s where he’s going first and he’s leading his entire strategy with and at the Pentagon.”

Before the 2024 election, the liberal political action committee VoteVets, posted video (below) showing how Trump, using the Project 2025 playbook, could take over the U.S. Military and turn it “into his own MAGA military.”

Almost all the suggestions have begun to be implemented.

Watch that video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

 

Image via Reuters

 

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The 27 Words the NSA Is Scrubbing From Its Websites: Report

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The National Security Agency (NSA), a largely clandestine global intelligence-gathering and counterintelligence organization that “prevents and eradicates threats to U.S. national security systems,” is reportedly undergoing a massive “purge” on its public and private websites and internal network, eliminating any site that contains any of a list of 27 words — despite possibly including mission-related work. The operation is an effort to comply with President Donald Trump’s order to eliminate any so-called “DEI” programs or language.

Trump has called DEI — diversity, equity, and inclusion — “illegal,” and in his January 21 executive order alleged that DEI “policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”

According to Popular Information, on Monday the NSA, which is under the U.S. Department of Defense, “is planning a ‘Big Delete’ of websites and internal network content that contain any of 27 banned words, including ‘privilege,’ ‘bias,’ and ‘inclusion.’ The ‘Big Delete,’ according to an NSA source and internal correspondence reviewed by Popular Information, is creating unintended consequences.

READ MORE: ‘Stomach Turning’: Trump Defends His J6 Pardons as ‘Great for Humanity’

Popular Information’s Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby report that “the dragnet is taking down ‘mission-related’ work. According to the NSA source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media, the process is ‘very chaotic,’ but is plowing ahead anyway.”

A memo announcing the 27 banned words “acknowledges that the list includes many terms that are used by the NSA in contexts that have nothing to do with DEI. For example, the term ‘privilege is used by the NSA in the context of ‘privilege escalation.’ In the intelligence world, privilege escalation refers to ‘techniques that adversaries use to gain higher-level permissions on a system or network.'”

Efforts to comply with Trump’s anti-DEI orders are not limited to the NSA.

“Since Trump took office, thousands of web pages across various federal agencies have been altered or removed entirely. Federal agencies have taken down or edited resources about HIV, contraceptives, LGBTQ+ health, abortion, and climate change. Some web pages have later come back online ‘without clarity on what had been changed or removed.” Popular Information also reported.

“An analysis by the Washington Post of 8,000 federal web pages ‘found 662 examples of deletions and additions’ since Trump took office. The analysis found that words like diversity, equity, and inclusion were removed at least 231 times from the websites of federal agencies, including the Department of Labor, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Transportation.”

READ MORE: ‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

A quick search of the NSA’s public website for the word “transgender” came up with only one hit, a page titled, “50 Years of Pride: Celebrating NSA’s Committment {sic] to Promoting Respect, Individuality, Diversity, and Equality.” That link led to an error page that stated: “The page you are looking for might have been moved, renamed, or may be temporarily unavailable.”

But a search for pages with the words “Diversity,” “Privilege,” and “Pronouns” resulted in numerous positive hits.

Legum posted the list of 27 banned words to social media. They include, Anti-Racism, Racism, Allyship, Bias, DEI, Diversity, Confirmation Bias, Equity, Feminism, Gender, Gender Identity Inclusion, Inclusive, and All-Inclusive, among others.

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

Image via Reuters

 

 

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‘Stomach Turning’: Trump Defends His J6 Pardons as ‘Great for Humanity’

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President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One on Sunday announced that the nearly 1600 people he pardoned after they had been convicted of January 6-related crimes did not assault anyone but had been assaulted by the U.S. government, and his granting those pardons on his first day back in office was “a great thing for humanity.”

Trump was sitting next to a large map of what he announced is now the “Gulf of America,” and had signed an executive order requiring that new designation as the plane flew over what has, for hundreds of years, been called the Gulf of Mexico. Some observers have noted that Trump is also attempting to reshape the narrative of the January 6 insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol by claiming that those convicted of crimes were actually victims.

Reminded by a reporter that he had planned to honor first responders at the Super Bowl, President Trump was asked why he would pardon people who had assaulted first responders.

READ MORE: ‘People Are Really Angry’: Fury Over Musk and DOGE Triggers Spike in Calls to Congress

“I pardoned people that were assaulted themselves. They were assaulted by our government,” Trump insisted, despite countless hours of footage of people he pardoned attacking the U.S. Capitol, and some of them attacking law enforcement officers.

“I pardoned J6 people who were assaulted by our government. That’s who assaulted — and they were treated unfairly, there’s never been a group of people in this country outside of maybe one instance that I can think of, but I won’t get into it, that were treated more horribly than the people of J6,” Trump insisted.

“I didn’t assault, they didn’t assault. They were assaulted, and what I did was a great thing for humanity.”

Just days after Trump handed down the pardons, The New York Times reported that even some of his close allies “opposed granting clemency to those rioters found guilty of violent crimes, especially the more than 600 who were convicted of assaulting or resisting police officers. Of those defendants, nearly 175 used a dangerous or deadly weapon, prosecutors say.”

On January 20, via a presidential proclamation, Trump announced he was commuting the sentences of 14 of some of the worst January 6 offenders, and granting “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

READ MORE: ‘Bring Him Back’: JD Vance Wants Musk to Rehire 25 Year Old DOGE ‘Kid’ After Racist Posts

Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, called the pardons “an attempt to rewrite history and erase an attack on the Constitution and the country.”

Critics are blasting President Trump’s remarks on Sunday, including his claim the people he pardoned had been assaulted by “our government.”

“This administration & the GOP are completely rewriting the events of January 6. The president is doing it here. They pretend all the evidence, footage, confessions, & documents just don’t exist, that we didn’t see it happen. It’s an authoritarian move, & it should terrify us all,” observed T. Kenny Fountain, an associate professor whose bio says he researches extremism, conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and disinformation.

Noted political scientist and professor of politics Larry Sabato called Trump’s remarks “Absolutely stomach-turning.”

Journalist Jim Acosta wrote simply, “Disgraceful.”

Award-winning investigative reporter Phil Williams posted video from January 6 and wrote, “These people were all pardoned.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Inherits Biden’s ‘Astonishing’ Jobs Legacy, But Prices Are Now Climbing on His Watch

 

Image via Reuters

 

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