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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

GOP Nominee for Virginia Governor Rubbing Elbows With Virulently Anti-LGBTQ Groups Just Weeks Before Election

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Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia, spoke at a gala Saturday held by the virulently anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice Family Foundation, Blue Virginia first reported. And on Friday, the Republican hopeful will speak at the Pray Vote Stand Summit hosted by the Family Research Council, another anti-LGBTQ organization so extreme the Southern Poverty Law Center has deemed it a hate group.

Youngkin appeared at the Family Foundation event alongside GOP candidate for lieutenant governor Winsome Sears and the hard-right Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase, who posted to Facebook a photo of herself and Youngkin in attendance. Among the sponsors of the event was Alliance Defending Freedom, a multimillion dollar litigation-and-legislation shop for the religious right that has attacked a women’s right to choose and LGBTQ rights.

Like ADF and FRC, the Family Foundation has fought against same-sex marriage for years, suggesting after Virginia’s 2014 marriage equality decision that allowing same-sex couples to marry would harm children. The group has also supported so-called “conversion therapy,” harmful practices that seek to change a person’s sexual or gender orientation. A blog post from June declares, “OBJECT TO THE LGBTQ+ AGENDA, GO TO THE CLOSET!” while encouraging readers to vote for executive and legislative candidates who would block Virginia schools from teaching more comprehensive sex-ed and LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum. A promotional video on the group’s website showcases the hostility toward the LGBTQ community that the group fosters; a pastor of the Smith Memorial Baptist church said it shocked and angered him when he was notified of an “LBGTQ”—his spelling, not ours—“person coming to speak to all of our elementary schools.”

At the heart of the Family Foundation’s mission is to instill government policy with its fundamentalist views.

“We believe there is no square inch in all the universe over which God has not claimed ‘Mine’, and that includes the arenas of civil government and public policy where we spend much of our time,” the Family Foundation’s website reads. “We advocate for policies based on Biblical principles that enable families to flourish at the state and local level.” Those “biblical principles” in The Family Foundation’s reading include the following:

1) Human life, from fertilization until natural death, is sacred, and the right to life is fundamental to all other rights.

2) Marriage, as a lifelong union between one man and one woman, is an institution of God and a foundation for civil society.

3) Gender, beautifully expressed as either male or female according to God’s immutable design, is an important biological and social reality that must be respected by all.

Youngkin has tried to portray his candidacy as moderate, but his courting of groups like Family Foundation and Family Research Council in addition to his refusal to say whether he supports marriage equality suggest that his candidacy is more extreme than he would let on.

Indeed, his political ally Chase—a Trumpian Republican who called on former President Donald Trump to declare martial law, hobnobbed with the Oath Keeper’s Stewart Rhodes before the insurrection, and attended the so-called Stop the Steal rally held on Jan. 6 before praising the insurrectionists as “Patriots who love their country”—has been campaigning for Youngkin since she failed to win the GOP nomination for governor.

Pushing Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, Chase created a national “election integrity caucus” of state legislators to push for “forensic audits” of election results in all 50 states, following the model of the notorious “audit” carried out in Arizona. Just days before Chase joined Youngkin at the Family Foundation event, Right Wing Watch’s Peter Montgomery reported that Chase joined the religious-right group Intercessors for America to encourage its followers to elect Youngkin and continue to push the big lie that the election was stolen: “the best number one solution for Virginia to have better election integrity is to elect a Republican governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and replace all the members in the House so that we have a Republican majority.”

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

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News

Arizona State Senator Proposes Health Study Looking Into ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’

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President Donald Trump and his allies have long accused critics of suffering from the imaginary ailment Trump Derangement Syndrome. Now, an Arizona state senator wants the local health department to conduct a study on the made-up disease.

State Sen. Janae Shamp introduced Senate Bill 1070 on Monday, asking Arizona’s Department of Health Services to “conduct or support research” on TDS, “including its origins, manifestations and long-term effects on individuals, communities and public discourse.” If the bill were passed into law, the department would have a year to submit a report on its findings.

READ MORE: ‘Monstrous’: Trump Blasted for Blaming Rob Reiner’s Death on ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’

Shamp’s bill defines Trump Derangement Syndrome as “a behavioral or psychological phenomenon that is characterized by intense emotional or psychological reactions to Donald J. Trump, his actions or his public presence as observed in individuals or groups.” From there, the bill lays out its reasoning—mainly a laundry list of Trump’s accomplishments, including reducing the corporate tax rate by 14%, eliminating “22 regulations for every new one in 2017”, and “affirming biological truth in federal policy to protect family values.”

“Despite these contributions to America’s prosperity, security 26 and values, ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ (TDS) has emerged since his 2016 campaign,” Shamp wrote.

“TDS has led to significant social harm, with Americans who 33 support President Trump or his policies reporting discrimination, 34 intimidation or ostracism in professional, academic and social settings, 35 further eroding community cohesion,” she added.

The bill borrows heavily from a House bill proposed by Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), according to Tucson.com. It is unknown what chances Shamp’s bill has of passing the Arizona Senate; Davidson’s bill died in committee. But even should it pass, it is unlikely to be signed into law by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

When asked if Hobbs would sign the bill, her spokesperson laughed and told a KTVK-TV reporter “You can quote me on that.”

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CORRUPTION

Sotomayor Slams SCOTUS Over Ruling ‘Declaring All Latinos Fair Game to Be Seized’ by ICE

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Justice Sonia Sotomayor had harsh words for the Supreme Court in her dissent in a ruling allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to continue to arrest people based on profiling Latinos working low-wage jobs.

Monday morning, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an emergency decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo. The case concerns “Operation At Large,” which deployed ICE agents in the Los Angeles area to car washes, bus stops, farms and other locations believed to be frequented by Latino people who may or may not be undocumented immigrants. On July 11, the Central District Court of California ruled that ICE had to stop Operation At Large until appeals in the case could be heard.

The Court’s ruling contained no official explanation for the ruling, however Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence. In his concurrence, Kavanaugh said the law allowed ICE to “‘briefly detain’ an individual ‘for questioning’” if they have “a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned . . . is an alien illegally in the United States.”

READ MORE: Loyalty Litmus Test? Trump Allies Quietly Prep SCOTUS Short List

Operation At Large, he said, represented “reasonable suspicion” to detain someone on the following factors: “(i) presence at particular locations such as bus stops, car washes, day laborer pickup sites, agricultural sites, and the like; (ii) the type of work one does; (iii) speaking Spanish or speaking English with an accent; and (iv) apparent race or ethnicity.”

He added that “apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion” but could be a “‘relevant factor,” and that if someone detained by ICE turned out to be a citizen, they would be “free to go after the brief encounter.”

Sotomayor disagreed that this is what was happening, citing what had happened to other citizens. Jason Gavidia worked at a Los Angeles tow yard that ICE stopped at. Agents repeatedly asked if he was a citizen. They then took his phone, pushed him against a metal fence, twisted his arm, and took away his identification, according to Sotomayor’s dissent.

“Other Operation At Large encounters have included even more force and even fewer questions. For example, agents pulled up in four unmarked cars to a bus stop in Pasadena; ‘the doors opened and men in masks with guns started running at’ three Latino men who were having their morning coffee, waiting to be picked up for work,” she wrote.

“In Glendale, nearly a dozen masked agents with guns ‘jumped out of . . . cars’ at a Home Depot, and began ‘chasing’ and ‘tackl[ing]’ Latino day laborers without ‘identify[ing] themselves as ICE or police, ask[ing] questions, or say[ing] anything else.’ In downtown Los Angeles, agents ‘jumped out of a van, rushed up to [a tamale vendor], surrounded him, and handled him violently,’ all ‘[w]ithout asking . . . any questions.'”

Sotomayor concluded that Operation At Large and the Court’s decision “all but declared that all Latinos, U. S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction.”

She also condemned the court for not issuing an explanation beyond the concurrence. She alleged that the Court had been eager to “circumvent the ordinary appellate process” when it comes to President Donald Trump and his administration.

“Some situations simply cry out for an explanation, such as when the Government’s conduct flagrantly violates the law,” Sotomayor wrote, adding that Operation At Large and the Court’s ruling clearly violates the Bill of Rights.

“The Fourth Amendment protects every individual’s constitutional right to be ‘free from arbitrary interference by law officers.’ After today, that may no longer be true for those who happen to look a certain way, speak a certain way, and appear to work a certain type of legitimate job that pays very little. Because this is unconscionably irreconcilable with our Nation’s constitutional guarantees, I dissent,” she wrote.

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law

Arkansas Senator Files Bill to Abolish State Library, Give Education Department Control

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The right-wing war on knowledge continues as an Arkansas state senator filed a bill Thursday to abolish the State Library as well as the library board.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), along with State Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford), filed Senate Bill 536 on Thursday. The bill would not just remove all references to the State Library from existing laws, but also put the state’s other libraries under the control of the Arkansas Department of Education.

A previous version of the bill, SB184, would have also shuttered the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees the state’s PBS stations, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

READ MORE: Clean Up Alabama Wants State to Dump ‘Marxist’ American Library Association

The Arkansas State Library is not just a regular library. In addition to providing information to state agencies and lawmakers, it also distributes funding to the other libraries around the state. Under SB536, the Department of Education would take on all its responsibilities. The State Library is officially a part of the Department of Education already, but it operates as an independent organization.

While the proposal may sound like a shuffling-around of duties, the main thrust of the bill is to allow more direct control over the Arkansas library system by controlling the purse strings. The bill would keep libraries from distributing “age-inappropriate materials” to those under 17 years old and sex education materials from those under 12. Libraries would also have to set up a system where those in the community could request that certain items be banned for minors, according to KARK-TV. Those that don’t meet these restrictions will have state funding pulled.

Earlier legislation filed by Sullivan and passed into law includes Act 242, which ended the requirement for library directors to have a master’s degree in library science, the Advocate reported.  Sullivan, however, was unsuccessful with a proposed amendment to another bill that would strip funding from libraries affiliated with the American Library Association—meaning most, if not all of them. That amendment was rejected this week over concerns the language in it was too broad, according to the Advocate.

The ALA has been a target of right-wing politicians and activists upset with its free speech stance and fights against censorship. Sullivan in particular has objected to a provision in the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights protecting library access for all ages, the Advocate reported. He also called for the state’s chapter of the ALA to be defunded—despite the fact that it receives no state funding.

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