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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

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

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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.

 

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Right Wing Pundit Says Homeless Veterans Were ‘Born and Bred’ to Create ‘a Human Wall’ on Southern Border

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1 month ago

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July 13, 2019

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“This is what they’re born and bred to do, so why not let them continue to do that?” Josh Bernstein asks, while degrading homeless vets by saying, “you’re giving them values.”

Earlier this week, radical right-wing commentator Josh Bernstein appeared on Bill Deagel’s “NutriMedical Report Show,” where he called not only for a complete ban on all immigration but also urged President Trump to hire thousands of homeless veterans to guard and seal off the Southern border until Trump’s border wall can be built.

“I think we need a moratorium on all legal immigration completely for at least five years, if not ten years,” Bernstein said. “We’ve got to eliminate birthright citizenship, we’ve got to eliminate chain migration, we’ve got to eliminate the visa lottery, we’ve got to eliminate all carrots and treats, if you will, for people to come here. And obviously building and constructing the border wall and then deporting as many criminal aliens as humanly possible.”

“I think they should quadruple the size of the Border Patrol and they should put them down on the border,” he added. “They should be stationed down on the border until the border wall is built. And I mean stationed down across the entire 1,900 miles … There is no reason we can’t have military all along the border in a big, long line.”

“A human wall, if you will,” Bernstein proposed. “You think of how many homeless veterans there are living in California and elsewhere. These people are on the streets after fighting for our country. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to grab all of them and offer them a job with a decent salary and decent pay to man our Southern border? They would be happy to do it. They’d be so thrilled to be able to do that, to protect and to serve our country again. This is what they’re born and bred to do, so why not let them continue to do that? Again, you’re helping the homeless situation; you’re getting the homeless veterans off the streets, you’re giving them values, you’re giving them self-worth, you’re making them feel like whole beings once again. I think that that’s a really good thing to do. And it solves the problem of either hiring or recruiting more Border Patrol; just use ex-military down there.”

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.

Image via Wikimedia

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Fox News Segment Goes Off the Rails as Anti-Gay Hate Group Head Promotes ‘Health Hazards of Homosexuality’ Book On-Air

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2 months ago

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June 14, 2019

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Laura Ingraham Invites Anti-Gay Extremist to ‘Debate’ Issue of Drag Queens Reading Children’s Story Books to Kids – He Compares Them to Pole Dancers and Porn Stars

Drag Queen story hours are “popping up all over the country,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned viewers Thursday night. To “debate” the issue Ingraham invited the head of the California chapter of an anti-gay hate group to discuss the issue of national importance: drag queens reading children’s story books to kids at local libraries.

“The bottom line is this: you have adult homosexual men, adult entertainers, going in to a public library, reading to children,” MassResistance of California head Arthur Schaper told “Ingraham Angle” viewers. “I mean, that alone should not only be setting off alarms but people should be demanding this to be canceled even before it starts.”

“We’re not talking about diversity here, we’re talking about deviance. We’re talking about perverse and destructive lifestyles being animated or advertised to children as if it’s normal,” Schaper, an anti-immigrant and anti-gay activist who runs his chapter with a known white nationalist, said. “We’re talking about degenerate, perverse ‘entertainment,'” Schaper concluded.

MassResistance appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of active anti-LGBT hate groups.

Ingraham, who has a long history of attack the LGBT community, tried to reel her guest in, but Schaper continued.

“We’re talking about drag entertainment here. Drag entertainment. This is adult entertainment to put it mildly,” Shaper said. “Why stop there? Why not have pole dancer story hour? How about having porn actor story hour?”

Ingraham, who balked at Shaper’s questions, went on to say that drag queen story hours are an organized “attempt to advance a particular agenda.”

At the end of the six-minute segment Schaper held up and tried to advertise a book titled, “The Health Hazards of Homosexuality,” which is authored by MassResistance.

Ingraham chastised Schaper – not for the incendiary book but for holding up props.

She told the audience that “people have legitimate concerns” about drag queens reading books to kids and she’s just “trying to figure out what’s really going on.”

“What is the point of doing this with kids?” Ingraham asked, as if some how drag queens are dangerous.

Some took to social media to denounce Ingraham’s and Schaper’s attempt to attack LGBT people and drag queens, especially during Pride month.

Watch:

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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

WATCH: US Congressman Says Women Who Have Abortions Have ‘Committed Murder’ and ‘Absolutely’ Should Be Punished

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3 months ago

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June 6, 2019

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Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Wright of Texas says women who have abortions should “absolutely” be punished because they have “committed murder.”

“As far as I’m concerned they’ve committed murder,” Rep. Wright said while walking in Washington, D.C.

“So do you think they should be punished for that?” a member of the pro-choice group Reproaction asked  the congressman, as Talking Points Memo reports.

“Of course they should – absolutely,” Rep. Wright replied. He does not specify if he believes in the death penalty or what “punishment” would be appropriate for for having an abortion.

The 66-year old freshman congressman previously served as chief of staff for the infamous GOP Rep. Joe Barton, so he has little history on policy.

But the website OnTheIssues, which tracks Members of Congress and others,  lists him as a a hard-core conservative, and reports he believes life begins at conception.

Watch:

 

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