Connect with us

RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

‘100% MAGA’ Alabama Senator: Democrats Call Them ‘White Nationalists’ – ‘I Call Them Americans’

Published

on

Far-right Republican U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, already under fire this week for blocking 184 top U.S. Armed Forces nominations and promotions to protest the Biden administration’s support of women in the military accessing abortion, is drawing more outrage after declaring support for white nationalists in the U.S. military.

“Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white extremists or white nationalists, people that don’t believe in our agenda,” Sen. Tuberville told Alabama Public Radio WBHM, as AL.com reports. “We cannot start putting rules in there for one type and one group and make different factions in the military because that is the most important institution in the United States of America and [to] our allies is a strong hard-nosed killing machine, which is called our military.”

WBHM’s Richard Banks asked Tuberville, “You mentioned the Biden administration trying to prevent white nationalists from being in the military. Do you believe they should allow white nationalists in the military?”

“Well,” Tuberville replied, “they call them that. I call them Americans.”

READ MORE: Kevin McCarthy’s Long History of Protecting George Santos: Now He Won’t Move to Expel Until ‘Outcome’ of Trial (Video)

During the 5-minute WBHM interview, Tuberville also attacked transgender women playing women’s sports.

“Given all the initiatives you’re working on in the Senate, why put so much focus on this topic? Compared to other issues that affect Alabamians?” asked Banks.

Tuberville first won in 2020 with the endorsement of Donald Trump, defeating Democratic U.S. Senator Doug Jones. He is an election denier who minimized the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and who voted to oppose certifying the election for President Joe Biden.

Also Monday, Tuberville claimed the entire nation is affected by transgender women and girls playing sports.

“It’s gonna affect everybody all over the country and the problem they’re having in the next couple of weeks is Joe Biden has, he’s legislating from the White House and he’s basically doesn’t care about women’s sports and timeline,” Tuberville falsely claimed, apparently unaware that as President, Biden has the constitutional authority to mandate how and under what requirements federal dollars are spent.

“He’s gonna take a sledgehammer to it because this next couple of weeks, he’s going to executive order any school in 2023, starting this year, if you do not abide by his law in terms of males playing against women in sports, you will lose your federal funding.”

WBHM added several fact-checks to Tuberville’s false statement, including one for his claim about white nationalists in the military.

READ MORE: While Employed and Running for Congress George Santos Allegedly Received Thousands in Unemployment Benefits: Nassau D.A.

Although Tuberville apparently supports white nationalists in the military, WBHM reports: “Concerns about white nationalists in military ranks extend before Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. For instance, an October 2020 Pentagon report to Congress detailed the military’s efforts to keep extremists, particularly fascists, out of the military.”

Last fall, just before the election, at a Trump rally in Nevada, Tuberville made racist remarks.

“The Democratic Party, they have the majority, they could stop this crime today. They said, some people say ‘well, they’re soft on crime.’ No, they’re not soft on crime, their program, they want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit,” he said. “They are not owed that.”

On Tuesday, after news of Donald Trump being found liable for sexual assault and defamation, among other allegations, in a civil court trial that also ordered him to pay $5 million to E. Jean Carroll, Tuberville defended the ex-president.

HuffPost senior politics reporter Igor Bobic had tweeted, “GOP Sen. Tuberville says the NY verdict against Trump ‘makes me want to vote for him twice.'”

The Alabama Senator responded with a simple tweet suggesting he is all-in on Donald Trump:

100% #MAGA,” Tuberville wrote.

 

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.

law

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

Published

on

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

Continue Reading

BIGOTRY

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

Published

on

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.

Image via Shutterstock

Continue Reading

AMERICA FIRST?

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

Published

on

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.

Image via Shutterstock

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.