A far right wing anti-vaxx, anti-mask commentator who threatened to shoot anyone who even tried to vaccinate him against the coronavirus only to say recently he had contracted COVID-19 is lashing out at those on the left he says mocked him. In an obscenity-laden tirade Josh Bernstein went as apoplectic as anyone can while battling the grave disease and the exhaustion he admits comes with it.

Last week Bernstein called his bout with COVID “brutal,” and “unbearable,” but on Saturday Newsweek reported he contacted them to say his COVID test came back negative. Despite that, in his latest video he appears in what he called his COVID quarantine room appearing to talk about what having the disease “taught” him.

Bernstein claims in the clip below that “left wing ________” wished him “death,” and claims that list includes Newsweek and Right Wing Watch. NCRM found no evidence those publications did so.

Back in April Bernstein promised a “lead injection” to anyone who tried to inject him with the vaccine.

“Resist the vaccine at all costs,” Bernstein told his audience back in the spring. “Resist microchips, stop wearing facemasks, go outside. breathe in some fresh air, get some exercise, eat right, get your sleep, all that good stuff, enjoy your life. And let me worry about the government and everybody else trying to destroy your freedoms,” he said. “I’m not getting an injection, I’m not getting microchip. And if anybody tries to do it to me or I’m sure, millions of Americans out there, guess what, they’re going to get a lead injection instead.”

In March of last year Bernstein falsely blamed Democrats and China for the coronavirus pandemic, forcing a USA Today fact-check debunking his claim.

NCRM won’t publish the transcript of Bernstein’s rant, given the extremely offensive obscenities he spews, and we urge caution to those who choose to listen.

Anti-vax right-wing commentator Josh Bernstein has been sick with COVID and stuck in quarantine for the last week and he *is not* handling it well. (Fun fact: We can’t recall having been sworn at this much before.) pic.twitter.com/EwfMpg0Nyc

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) September 27, 2021

Steve Schmidt, Lincoln Project co-founder and Republican strategist-turned-Democrat, expressed concern about the latest authoritarian attack leveled on the United States’ democracy as he urged Americans to push back against their threats.

Speaking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Schmidt laid out the main issue with former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie.”

“The front of that fight is a space where the lie is confronted with the truth. That is the battleground. And it plays out in 1 million ways,” Schmidt said. “But a democracy cannot survive in a world where the lie and the truth stand equally. The system that we have is based on a compact that requires faith in belief and trust. It’s how we share power with people that we disagree with. We acknowledge that we live in a complex world where people have different perspectives.”

He continued, “And we have to accommodate those views. In the 21st century, I believe that there was a consensus that has unraveled in start really short period of time, that you can trace all the way back to the beginning of the country, in the name of political power — also, the same people claiming that they’re doing it in the name of freedom are seeing that that preservation of freedom means maintaining our power. Not necessarily abiding the results of the election. And when you get into that territory, you’re in a scary space.”

Steve Schmidt on the GOP authoritarian threat, "The front of that fight is a space where the lie is confronted with the truth. That is the battleground. And it plays out in 1 million ways. But a democracy cannot survive in a world where the lie and the truth stand equally." pic.twitter.com/QDGMf5Adyb

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) September 25, 2021

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the nation’s most radical abortion ban, a far-reaching voter suppression law, and legislation that allows Texans to carry handguns without a permit or training. He responded to a surge in COVID-19 delta variant cases by blocking local vaccine and mask mandates, and he mobilized state police and national guard troops to “seal” the border with Mexico. But none of that is enough for some Trump-loving Republicans. Former Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis recently declared on her radio show that Abbott is “not a real Republican” while endorsing Abbott challenger Don Huffines in the state’s Republican primary.

Ellis endorsed Huffines in a video released last Thursday and interviewed the far-right candidate on the Sept. 15 edition of the “Jenna Ellis Show,” where she declared Abbott to be a “Republican in name only” while describing Huffines as a “true, actual Republican.” Ellis also attended a Sept. 15 brunch event hosted by Huffines’ wife.

Ellis reminded listeners that she is “not a fan” of the Republican National Committee or “any of the RINOs,” adding, “And we as conservatives, as faith-based Christians, as people who just care about this country, we need to make sure that we are advocating for, supporting, endorsing the true actual Republicans.” Ellis and Huffines criticized Abbott for not taking more aggressive action on the border sooner, and Ellis claimed, not very credibly, that “it has really also concerned me to see the LGBT movement that has basically been broadly endorsed by Abbott.”

Despite being turned out of office by voters in 2018, Huffines, a wealthy Dallas-area developer and former state senator,  announced his candidacy for governor in May. Huffines’ campaign website is a parade of far-right rhetoric on “election integrity,” “critical race theory,” “social media censorship,” and more. In a section labeled “Texas Values,” Huffines declares:

We will stop bowing down to the federal courts. This is Texas. We don’t care what John Roberts thinks. He and other sellouts on the Supreme Court have proven that they cannot be trusted to protect our liberty or state sovereignty.

“The Marxists and the socialists have taken over our education system, our seminaries, our politics, and our media, of course,” Huffines said, adding that “the real fundamental role of government is to protect the citizens from government.” He told Ellis, “We’ve got to awaken the sheep.”

Huffines told Ellis that the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border is “a premeditated attack on Texas by the Biden administration.”

“The power of the governor is almost unlimited if you’re willing to use it for our Constitution,” Huffines told Ellis, pledging to stop all inbound commercial traffic from Mexico until that country secures its side of the border.

Ellis asked Huffines to talk about the importance of pastors and churches being involved in politics. “If we can get everyone out of the pews and vote their faith, we will never lose an election,” Huffines said, adding that “this is a battle of good versus evil.” He claimed that Democrats want to bring tyranny to the U.S. “today” and that “RINO Republicans” are headed in the same direction.

Huffines’ website pledges that he will “reject any attempts to mandate, force, or coerce any medical test, procedure, or product, including vaccines or masks, on Texans,” calling it an “insult” to even suggest that vaccines be made mandatory. He said Abbott’s initial COVID-19 shutdowns were an assault on liberty and a “catalyst” for Huffines getting into the race.

Huffines spoke at the American Conservative Union’s July 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, where he made similar claims and said that “almost all” Republicans who call themselves conservatives are “liars.”

In 2017, Huffines was part of an array of right-wing funders who backed a last-minute campaign by religious-right activists to save the Senate candidacy of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Ellis is far from the only Trump-loving wing of the GOP to support Huffines. Another former Trump staffer, Katrina Pierson, is backing Huffines, who has also been endorsed by Sen. Rand Paul, with whom he traveled on a “private” trip to meet with Russian officials in 2018. Huffines may have to compete for support from the Trumpist wing of the party with the former Texas GOP chair, Allen West, who also announced his candidacy for Texas governor this July.

This article was originally published by Right Wing Watch and is republished here by permission.
Image: Gov. Abbott celebrating after signing a near-total ban on abortion.