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‘Ghouls’: Fox News Blasted for Declaring Jews ‘Survived’ the Holocaust by Being ‘Useful’

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On the heels of Fox News hosts defending Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis‘ new education standards requiring children to be taught slavery was beneficial to slaves, one Fox News host is now saying Jews survived the Holocaust by being “useful.”

Critics are outraged.

On Friday, Fox News host Jesse Watters in a segment called “Spinning History,” declared, “No one is arguing slaves benefited from slavery.”

“No one is saying that. It’s not true,” he insisted, before he then said it: “They’re teaching how Black people developed skills during slavery in some instances that could be applied for their own personal benefit.”

As HuffPost noted, social media users caught Watters in his own spin.

On Monday, the Fox News crew was back defending DeSantis’ new education standards, which specifically state that middle schools must teach that enslaved people “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

READ MORE: ‘Expendable Widgets’: DeSantis for Years Has Been Such a Bad Boss Former Staffers Formed a Support Group – Report

Again, it was Watters coming to the defense of America’s system of slavery in a segment attacking Vice President Kamala Harris, who traveled to Florida to denounce DeSantis’ new education requirements.

“This is well documented among historians,” said Watters, who has a history of racist rhetoric.

“This is historical fact that slaves did develop skills while they were enslaved and then used those skills as blacksmiths, as in agriculture, tailoring, in the shipping business, to then use to benefit themselves and their families once they were freed. That’s not controversial,” he insisted. “It actually speaks to the resilience and the aptitude of the enslaved African Americans who were at the time, able to better themselves and able to improve their situation. Despite brutal, brutal conditions, horrific and abhorrent conditions.”

Then, Fox News’ liberal co-host Jessica Tarlov weighed in. Mentioning that she is Jewish, she asked, “Would someone say about the Holocaust, for instance, that there were some benefits for Jews, right while they were hanging out in concentration camps, ‘you learned a strong work ethic, right? Maybe you learned a new skill.'”

READ MORE: Americans Have Forgotten How Bad the Trump Years Were – And ‘This Time They’re Coming in With a Plan’: New Republic

Co-host Greg Gutfeld essentially answered yes.

“Did you ever read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’?” he asked. “Viktor Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills. You had to be useful – utility – utility kept you alive,” he declared.

Tarlov wasn’t having it.

“I’m talking about middle schoolers here, and there’s a lot of concern about what age people are prepared to understand complex issues. I’m not sure that 12 is the right age to start hearing things like, ‘and when you were enslaved here in America…'”

Brynn Tannehill, author of “American Fascism: How the GOP is Subverting Democracy,” responded to Watters’ remarks by saying, “These freaking ghouls would defend the Holocaust as a job training program if Hitler had a ‘-R’ next to his name on the ballot in 1933.”

Attorney, political commentator, and former South Carolina state lawmaker Bakari Sellers wrote: “If slavery was so good, why didn’t white folk volunteer. This is asinine.”

Calling Watters’ remarks a “disgrace,” Sherrilyn Ifill, the former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) blasted the Fox News host.

“What really galls is behaving as though slavery existed from 1860-1865. As opposed to a system well over a hundred years in which you, your children, their children, & their children labored every day from ‘can’t see to can’t see’ subject to rape & abuse.Skills. Ugh.”

READ MORE: DeSantis Campaign’s ‘Slavery, Anti-Gay Video, Alleged Nazi Symbol’ Controversies Criticized Amid Call for More Firings

Conservative commentator Bill Kristol suggested Gutfeld’s co-workers to boycott their own show.

“Everyone else at Fox fine with Gutfeld suggesting Jews sent to concentration camps could survive ‘by being useful?’ How can any of his fellow panelists show up tomorrow to sit there next to him?”

Tannehill also responded to Kristol’s remarks, noting, “We’ve hit, ‘The Holocaust wasn’t all bad and we need to teach both sides,’ haven’t we?”

CNN host W. Kamau Bell also blasted Gutfeld: “These people show us over & over again that they are the worst & least serious people. & yet there seems to be no mechanism for unplugging their microphones. There’s no justification for what he said here, other than courting hateful ideology fattens his bank account.”

Andrew Weinstein, who served as President Biden’s U.S. Public Delegate to the United Nations and “helped craft” a “high-profile forum on global antisemitism” at the UN, writes, “Greg Gutfeld argued on Fox tonight that Jews in concentration camps survived the Holocaust by ‘having skills’ and ‘being useful.’ This is vile, untrue, and an insult to the millions of victims of Nazi atrocities.”

Political satirist Jeremy Newburger adds, “Two things anger me about Fox News’ @greggutfeld. One is that he suggested Useful Jews survived the Holocaust, as if 6 million Jews were not useful enough, and secondly that he said this in support of the racist argument that Blacks benefitted from slavery.”

The Auschwitz Museum in a lengthy post (full post at the end 0f this article) responded, writing, “While it is true that some Jews may have used their skills or usefulness to increase their chances of survival during the Holocaust, it is essential to contextualize this statement properly and understand that it does not represent the complex history of the genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany.”

The Museum adds, “being ‘useful” did not guarantee safety, as the Nazis eventually decided to liquidate them, leading to the murder of those considered valuable as well.”

Read the Auschwitz Museum’s post below and watch the videos above, or see all at this link.

 

 

 

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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.”

Image via Reuters

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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.

Image via Shutterstock

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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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