Connect with us

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

US Senate Poised to Confirm 3 Trump Judicial Nominees Who Refuse to Support Landmark SCOTUS Civil Rights Case

Published

on

The Republican-majority Senate this week is poised to confirm three Trump judicial nominees who refuse to say they support a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case on which critical modern-day civil rights are based.

The case: 1954’s Brown v. Board of Education, which essentially codified that “separate but equal” is not equal. Brown strengthened the 14th Amendment, allowing it to become a key tool for civil rights advocates.

Brown v. Board of Education led to the end of legal segregation, or, as the Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund writes in The Washington Post, “legal apartheid in this country.”

(Meanwhile, on Friday, Vox reported: “65 years after Brown v. Board of Education, school segregation is getting worse.)

Another landmark Supreme Court ruling, 2015’s Obergefell v. Hodges, which found that same-sex couples have the same rights and responsibilities to marriage as different-sex couples, is based in part of the 14th Amendment, strengthened by Brown v Board of Education.

So are many other civil rights cases.

And yet, the Trump administration, and its partner in advancing an extremist conservative agenda, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), are pushing through many judicial nominees who, as Ifill’s op-ed suggests, “don’t support the rule of law.”

“Since April 2018, more than two dozen executive and judicial nominees have declined to endorse the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education,” Ifill writes.

“This week — one that marks the 65th anniversary of the landmark ruling that struck down legal apartheid in this country — the Senate is poised to confirm three of those judicial nominees to lifetime seats on the federal bench.” She adds, calling it “simply unacceptable.”

Ifill does not name the three nominees, but one appears to be Wendy Vitter, an anti-abortion and anti-contraception extremist who is currently serving as general counsel of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans. She has never served as a judge, but is nominated to become a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Vitter is also the spouse to former GOP Senator David Vitter.

Here’s a critical portion of her testimony last month in which she refuses to support Brown v. Board of Education:

The other two nominees appear to be Michael Truncale, a nominee to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and Kenneth Lee, a nominee to the Ninth Circuit.

In the GOP-majority Senate, there is little expectation any Republican will vote against Trump’s judicial nominees.

Related Topics:
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.

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Twitter Suspends Right Wing Activist James O’Keefe

Published

1 day ago

on

April 15, 2021

By

James O’Keefe, the activist best known for producing and promoting selectively edited, deceptive videos used to advance a far right wing agenda, appears to have been suspended from Twitter, and that suspension appears to be permanent.

On his verified Instagram account O’Keefe posted a screenshot of the suspension:

The Daily Beast’s Justin Baragona suggests Twitter suspended him for operating fake accounts. He reports Twitter says the suspension is permanent.

O’Keefe is also suing CNN.

“Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe announced on Tuesday’s ‘Hannity’ that he plans to sue CNN for defamation,” Fox News reports.

O’Keefe’s new website, exposecnn.com, requires an email address to access and currently claims: “Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are all suppressing the distribution of our new undercover recordings.”

In September of 2020 The New York Times reported that a “deceptive video released on Sunday by the conservative activist James O’Keefe, which claimed through unidentified sources and with no verifiable evidence that Representative Ilhan Omar’s campaign had collected ballots illegally, was probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort, according to researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington.”

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

Continue Reading

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

$20 Million Pro-Trump ‘Policy’ Group Launches Providing Jobs for Ex-President’s Former Aides and Advisors

Published

3 days ago

on

April 13, 2021

By

Larry Kudlow, Linda McMahon, Rick Perry, Pam Bondi , John Ratcliffe, Paula White, Brooke Rollins, Keith Kellogg, Jack Brewer, and Scott Turner are all getting new jobs at the just-formed America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump nonprofit that’s getting started with a $20 million endowment that the group hopes to double next year.

Axios reports AFPI is “a 40-person nonprofit group” that has the “mission of perpetuating former President Trump’s populist policies.”

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are to be “informal advisers.” Ivanka Trump was required to participate in training as part of a settlement agreement with the State of New York after President Donald Trump personally “misused” funds from his now-shuttered Trump Foundation nonprofit.

The group’s website and inaugural video (below) do not mention former national President Donald Trump by name.

The Axios report does not state on what basis the ten former Trump advisors were chosen or where the $20 million came from. Instead, it reports that there will be 20 “policy” areas.

“The board chair is Linda McMahon, who was administrator of the Small Business Administration, and a member of Trump’s cabinet, after winning fame as a pro-wrestling entrepreneur,” Axios reports. “The vice chair is Larry Kudlow, Trump’s economic adviser, a longtime CNBC personality who’s now a Fox Business host.”

“Paula White, a Trump spiritual adviser, will head a Center for American Values, focused on religious freedom and the Second Amendment,” says Axios.

White is a thrice-married, twice divorced far right religious extremist, a Florida megachurch pastor, a “prosperity gospel” acolyte, and a purveyor of white Christian nationalism, also known as “Christian Trumpism.” She is a longtime spiritual advisor to Trump and delivered the invocation at his 2017 inauguration (photo.)

 

 

Continue Reading

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

MAGA Minister: ‘Tough Guy’ Jesus Was ‘A Man’ Unlike Today’s ‘Effeminate, Almost Homosexual’ Christian Church

Published

4 days ago

on

April 12, 2021

By

Evangelical pro-Trump minister Jeff Jansen denounced the Christian church of the 21st century, calling it “effeminate, almost homosexual,” in comparison to Jesus Christ, who, he says, was “a man,” “a tough guy.”

Jansen, author of “Trump: The Destiny of God’s America: The Great Awakening and Battle for Our Country’s Future,” delivered his declaration “at a ‘Reign’ conference at Ignite Faith Church in Redmond, Oregon, over the weekend, where he bragged that the ushers at his church all carry guns and will not hesitate to kill anyone who even thinks ‘about starting something,'” according to Right Wing Watch’s Kyle Mantyla.

“Jesus wasn’t a wimp,” Jansen told parishoners. “He was a tough guy. He was a man. OK? He was a man. When they were selling in his Father’s house, he went and he braided a whip. Now, that takes time. He’s braiding a whip, and he’s like, ‘I’m coming for you, coming for you.’ … He was very deliberate, and he was mad. He’s a man. He whipped them. Sorry. Just whipped them. ‘Oh, Jesus wouldn’t do that.’ The heck he wouldn’t,” Jansen ssaid.

“He was a man. But the church—the ekklesia, the government of God—has been so neutered and so turned effeminate, almost homosexual,” he added. “I’m just telling you straight up. It’s just ridiculous. Where are the men? Where’s the maleness? Where is the ‘I will defend the children, I will protect the family’? My ushers at my church, they all pack. I mean, they all pack. You come to my place, and you think about starting something, you’re dead. They’ll kill you. They’ll shoot you because they’re gonna protect everybody else. You try to pull something, you’re dead. I said, ‘Listen, guys, if I’m up there preaching and somebody comes up running, make sure you get them. Just kill ’em. Just shoot ’em dead.’”

Watch:

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.