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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

AZ GOP Censures J6 Committee ‘Star’ Witness – Its Own House Speaker: ‘No Longer a Republican in Good Standing’

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The Republican Party of Arizona has formally censured the Speaker of the House, Republican Rusty Bowers, declaring he is “no longer a Republican in good standing,” and “unfit to serve” one month after he was a “star” witness in a nationally-televised hearing held by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.

Dr. Kelli Ward, the chair of the Arizona GOP and a Trump acolyte who attempted to have the vote counting stopped on election night, made the announcement late Tuesday. Ward posted the resolution that does not mention Bowers’ testimony but makes claims that accuse him of bipartisanship, and calls on “all registered Republicans to expel him permanently from office in the impending primary election.”

Last month Speaker Bowers testified that numerous top Trump allies, and Donald Trump himself, spoke with him after the election in apparent attempts to pressure him to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, a state Joe Biden won. Among those he said spoke with him were Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), according to The New York Times.

READ MORE: January 6 Committee Issues Strong ‘Demand’ in New Subpoenas – Including to Far Right Republican Kelli Ward

“Mr. Bowers also recalled speaking to Mr. Trump, making clear to the president that he ‘wouldn’t do anything illegal for him,’ as one questioner, Representative Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, said,” The Times reported. “Nonetheless, another lawyer advising Mr. Trump, John Eastman, called Mr. Bowers in early January and urged him to schedule a legislative vote to ‘decertify the electors, because we had plenary authority to do so.'”

Speaker Bowers “also told the House select committee about the harassment he experienced outside his home from Trump supporters in the weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, in which he was called a ‘pedophile’ and other epithets.”

The Times described Bowers as speaking “about the Constitution in reverential and spiritual terms,” saying he “had tears in his eyes as he described his gravely ill daughter enduring some of the harassment outside their house. (She died in late January.)”

READ MORE: Stop ‘Gun Grabber’ Mark Kelly ‘Dead in His Tracks’ Urges Arizona GOP Party Chair

The resolution censuring Bowers accuses him of “supporting a bill giving tax payer funded in-state tuition to illegal aliens at our state universities which is a direct violation of the Republican Platform and numerous resolutions passed by the State Committee which oppose policies that promote and reward illegal ‘sanctuary cities’ and lawlessness.”

It also charges that “Bowers joined Democrats to sponsor a one-billion dollar education spending bill (HB 2039.) without a single committee hearing while simultaneously opposing and killing a bill to permanently reinstate the Pledge of Allegiance in our childrens’ schools”

Other charges state: “Bowers was the only Republican opposed to the bill (HB 2294.) establishing that only two genders should be named on all government documents,” and “Bowers sponsored one of the most horrific attacks on the Republican Party Platform plank on religious liberty by sponsoring a bill with Democrats (HB 2802.) that makes sexual orientation and gender identity a protected class forcing public schools and businesses to allow men identifying as women in womens restrooms and locker rooms, removing parental rights preventing parents from identifying the help that their own child may need in accordance with their religious beliefs and a prohibition of religious-based resources on subjects of sexual identity and orientation.”

Before being censured Speaker Bowers, who is now running for the state Senate, said Monday it will take a “miracle” for him to win the election.

 

 

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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.

Image via Shutterstock

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BIGOTRY

Texas to Investigate Anonymous Complaint Teachers Used Trans Student’s Pronouns

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After a Moms for Liberty member claimed that teachers at a Texas high school used a trans student’s new name and proper pronouns, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an investigation.

On February 13, Denise Bell of the right wing, anti-LGBTQ group Moms for Liberty, addressed the Houston Independent School Board. She read a statement that she said came from the parents of a trans student at Bellaire High School. The parents were upset that teachers used the student’s new name and pronouns, according to Erin in the Morning. The anonymous statement Bell read said that the change happened without parental consent, and “goes against our Christian faith, the advice of [their] therapist and quite frankly common sense.”

Bell then claimed that the school district was “purposely and secretively transitioning minors.”

READ MORE: GOP Candidate Complaining She Wasn’t Allowed to ‘Have Kids Laugh At’ Transgender Students in Viral Video Draws Rebuke

State Representative Steve Toth—who represents a different district than the school is in—informed Abbott of the complaint in a letter on February 26. Two weeks later, Abbott replied to Toth’s letter, revealing he told the Texas Education Agency to investigate the Bellaire High School, accusing the teachers of helping “to ‘socially transition’ a student—violating the express wishes of the child’s mother,” which Abbott called “inappropriate and potentially unlawful.”

Abbott directed the TEA to not just determine whether or not the teachers did indeed use the trans student’s name and pronouns, but also open a full investigation into the school. TEA was told to find out if the school had also violated “policies concerning sexual education curriculum, parental consent for communications with students, mental health services or guidance to students, and parent grievances”; if any school employees had “engaged in misconduct”; and whether any student “has been subjected to abuse or neglect.”

That last one has a footnote on “abuse or neglect,” referring to a statement from President Donald Trump’s March 4 speech in front of a joint session of Congress:

“A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband, while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns—‘they/them’ pronouns, actually—all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.”

This is not the first time Abbott and his administration have attacked the state’s trans community. In his “State of the State Address” this year, he said that teachers who discuss gender transition with students should be fired, according to KTRK-TV. Texas has also banned trans students from sports as well as the use of puberty blockers in cases of minors experiencing gender dysphoria, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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AMERICA FIRST?

Tim Walz: ‘Racism’ Motivates MAGA Movement to Pardon Derek Chauvin

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t mince words when asked what the motivation was for the new movement among MAGA Republicans to convince President Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020.

“Racism. It’s racist. OK? That’s what I believe,” Walz said in an interview with Semafor published Wednesday.

The calls to pardon Chauvin started with an online petition earlier this month, according to The Independent. The pardon push picked up steam this week when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire launched a webseries, “The Case of Derek Chauvin.” Shapiro claims the officer was convicted on “extraordinarily scanty evidence,” saying Floyd did not die from having Chauvin’s knee on his neck for over nine minutes, but rather from drugs in Floyd’s system and heart disease.

READ MORE: Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22-and-a-Half Years for Murder of George Floyd – Less Than Maximum Possible Sentence

Walz, however, disputes this interpretation of events.

“This was a man who murdered George Floyd on TV,” Walz said, adding that a pardon “would undermine the faith in the system.”

The White House, however, has denied that a Chauvin pardon is in Trump’s plans. Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t even heard about a push to pardon Floyd’s killer, and on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated that a pardon is “not something he’s considering at this time,” according to The Grio.

However, some commentators, like The Hill’s Juan Williams are skeptical, pointing out that Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted of killing a Black man in the first days of his second term.

In 2020, after the killing, Trump condemned Chauvin.

“We all saw what we saw. It’s hard to conceive anything other than what we did see. It should have never happened,” Trump said.

If Trump were to pardon Chauvin, it would be largely moot. Presidents can only pardon those convicted on federal charges. Chauvin was convicted on both federal and Minnesota state charges. In the event Trump cleared the federal charges, the main thing that would happen is that Chauvin would be moved from the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas to a Minnesota state prison.

Minnesota sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years for murder; on the federal level, he was sentenced to 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Barring a federal pardon, the two sentences are running concurrently, not consecutively.

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