Connect with us

NOT HOW THIS WORKS

Trump Anti-Discrimination Official Who Wrote Racist Posts Accuses His Critics of Anti-Conservative Discrimination

Published

on

‘Blankenstein Must Be Fired’

A senior Trump appointee at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is under fire after racist and anti-equality blog posts from 2004 were discovered by The Washington Post. Eric Blankenstein, who makes $259,500 a year, is responsible for enforcing laws against financial discrimination. He says that in the eyes of his critics he’s guilty of “governing while conservative.”

“Writing under a pen name in 2004,” The Post reports, Blankenstein  “questioned whether the n-word was inherently racist and claimed that the great majority of hate crimes were hoaxes.”

In a prior report earlier this week, The Post also reported that in one of those 2004 blog posts, “Blankenstein wrote that a proposal at the University of Virginia to impose harsher academic penalties for acts of intolerance was ‘racial idiocy.’ He questioned how authorities could know the motivation of someone using a racial slur.”

“Fine . . . let’s say they called him n—– ,” he wrote, spelling out the slur. “. . . would that make them racists, or just a——-?”

Blankenstein also wrote that “hate-crime hoaxes are about three times as prevalent as actual hate crimes.”  

He also complained that “as with hate crime legislation, they are making it illegal to have a thought.”

And in a chilling statement, Blankenstein also wrote: “Until a hood wearing KKK member is caught, why should the honor system be changed?”

One of Blankenstein’s subordinates says the “tone and framing” of the blog posts “are deeply disturbing to me as a woman, African American, advocate for LGBTQ rights, and human being.”

Those concerns came from Patrice A. Ficklin, a career staffer and director of the Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity, via a mass email sent to hundreds of agency employees, The Post reports. They also came after Blankenstein asked her to write a positive note in support of him in response to an earlier Washington Post report.

Ficklin is calling into question Blankenstein’s ability to perform his job responsibilities.

“After the article appeared, I began to read his posts and was struck by how they reminded me of debates we’ve had with Eric on supervisory and enforcement matters,” she wrote.

“And while he has been collegial, thoughtful and meticulous, I have had experiences that have raised concerns that are now quite alarming in light of the content of his blog posts — experiences that call into question Eric’s ability and intent to carry out his and his Acting Director’s repeated yet unsubstantiated commitment to a continued strong fair lending program under governing legal precedent,” she wrote.

Blankenstein, in response to calls for his ouster, is alleging anti-conservative discrimination by his critics.

“The need to dig up statements I wrote as a 25 year old shows that in the eyes of my critics I am not guilty of a legal infraction or neglect of my duties, but rather just governing while conservative.”

Others are also calling for Blankenstein’s ouster, including Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s founder, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“Eric Blankenstein has done everything he can to keep the CFPB from doing its job, gutting the Office of Fair Lending and failing to file a single anti-discrimination lawsuit since he arrived at the agency in December,” Warren said in a statement. “Now we know why — Blankenstein must be fired.”

 

Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

NOT HOW THIS WORKS

Caitlyn Jenner Slammed for Claiming She’s Qualified to Be Governor Because She’s ‘Sold $1 Billion of Exercise Equipment’

Published

on

Republican Caitlyn Jenner‘s latest interview is driving more criticism of her campaign for governor of California.

Asked what training she has that would make her qualified to be governor Jenner told CNN, “I have been in the entrepreneurial world.”

“People think that that you’ve been in show business, think of you as a reality star, certainly I’ve done that. But entertainment is a business. And you have to run that business. But I’ve also done other things,” Jenner insisted.

“You know, we sold a billion dollars of exercise equipment on television. Aviation companies. I’ve just always been involved being an entrepreneur.”

Her background did not seem to impress many, especially after Donald Trump’s presidency.

 

 

Continue Reading

NOT HOW THIS WORKS

Top Trump Allies in Full Freak-Out Mode Threaten Facebook Over Board’s Ban: ‘Supreme Court Should Overturn’

Published

on

After the Facebook Oversight Board released its decision that banning then-President Donald Trump over his comments on the January 6 insurrection – including determining that he had “created an environment where a serious risk of violence was possible” – was appropriate, top Trump allies are in full outrage mode.

Mark Meadows, the former Chair of the powerful House Freedom Caucus and former Ranking Member of the powerful House Oversight Committee who traded all that to become President Trump’s fourth and last White House Chief of Staff, went ballistic, threatening the social media giant.

“It’s a sad day for America,” Meadows told Fox News. “It’s a sad day for Facebook because I can tell you a number of members of Congress are now looking at do they break up Facebook, do they make sure that they don’t have a monopoly?”

Charlie Kirk, the head of the pro-Trump activist group Turning Point USA, which took in $28.5 million in the fiscal year ending June 2019, is close friends with Donald Trump, Jr., and once “interviewed” President Trump (photo).

Kirk seemed to think that the Facebook Oversight Board is part of the U.S. federal courts system (it is not), and that based on exactly no law, the U.S. Supreme Court should intervene to overturn the “outlawing” of Trump by an independent committee to a private company.

House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy accused Facebook of shilling for Democrats.

Every day almost all of the top 10 shared links, thanks to Facebook’s algorithms, are from the far right:

Sen. Ted Cruz, who just had dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, fear-mongers that there’s nothing to stop Facebook from silencing liberals, ignoring the fact that no liberals have ever incited an insurrection.

Sen. Tom Cotton called it “Orwellian,” ignoring that what’s actually Orwellian is Donald Trump declaring that “The Big Lie” will now mean the election was “fraudulent.”

 

Continue Reading

NOT HOW THIS WORKS

Trump-Loving God-Fearing MyPillow CEO Claims First Amendment Right to Lie About Voting Tech Companies

Published

on

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is building a high-profile legal team to defend him against a billion-dollar defamation suit that he hopes will land before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The staunch Donald Trump ally has hired veteran First Amendment attorney Nathan Lewin and is getting advice from Alan Dershowitz for his defense against Dominion Voting Systems, which alleges that Lindell defamed the company with baseless claims about the 2020 election, reported The Daily Beast.

“I want to take this all the way to the Supreme Court,” Lindell has repeatedly said. “I’m not stopping.”

The 85-year-old Lewin helped prosecute Jimmy Hoffa for Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department, and later represented Jodie Foster, former attorney general Edwin Meese, President Richard Nixon and John Lennon, and Dershowitz — who defended Trump during his first impeachment — gave a preview of Lindell’s defense.

“Our position is that Dominion is the government, for purposes of the First Amendment,” Dershowitz said. “The government delegated to them the most important governmental function, mainly counting votes in a presidential election, and they are therefore subject to criticism in the exact same ways that the government would be subject to criticism in that situation, and criticism of how the government conducted a presidential election is the highest bar protecting the First Amendment right to criticize such action.”

Dershowitz is not an attorney of record in the case, but he confirmed that he’s been helping Lindell’s team craft a defense.

“I’ve been on conference calls repeatedly with [Lindell’s] legal team, sometimes Lindell is on, sometimes he’s not,” Dershowitz said. “My role is to come up with ideas as they pertain to the First Amendment. I give them cases, and I suggest First Amendment theories — my role is limited to advising on the First Amendment issues at hand.”

 

Image via Facebook

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.