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Erickson, Erick w

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talk radio, bigot, hit man? provocateur? troll

ntbcw cfg wi guy

note evang never trumper who voted for him in 2016

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RWW HUH? 9 26

A group of white guys have subtly inserted themselves into conservative institutions and church organizations. They all embrace racial grievances. To varying degrees, they embrace white nationalism, antisemitism, and even Nazi sympathies. They are getting added to conservative institutional boards, attempting to purge churches, and are desperate to indoctrinate young conservatives into fascist ideology. They even surround the Vice President of the United States. Some of them believe the United States is at a tipping point, and they want to push it over the edge and rebuild it in their image. You might think it does not affect you, but, in time, you will see their efforts in your church pews, in your kids’ brains, and in your politicians’ mouths.

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Listeners keep calling in to right-wing radio shows to complain about Trump’s policies

Written by Gideon Taaffe

Research contributions from Isabella Corrao, Jane Lee, Helena Hind & Alicia Sadowski

Published 03/20/25 mma

In the past several months, right-wing radio shows have been receiving calls from audiences who are unhappy with the Trump administration’s policies. Listeners are sharing their stories of family members losing jobs, discussing anxiety about the economy, and expressing their disagreement with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance’s handling of the Ukraine-Russia war.

Right-wing radio shows are getting negative calls from their audiences, but some hosts have dismissed the outrage

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MMA

On January 6, 2021, as a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol and halted Congress’ counting of electoral votes, Fox News host Brian Kilmeade dashed off a desperate text to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

“Please, get him on TV. Destroying everything you have accomplished,” he wrote of Trump, who had summoned the enraged crowd to Washington, D.C., and incited it with lies that the 2020 election had been stolen as part of a plot to subvert that election.

Kilmeade expressed a drastically different view on Monday, as a new Congress prepared to count the electoral votes that would return Trump to the Oval Office.

In one of Fox & Friends’ few references to the January 6 insurrection that morning, he mocked Democrats who “want to point out how different” today’s events will be “from four years ago” when “democracy was in danger.”

Kilmeade added that the American people think that January 6, “as bad as that day was, it’s a small part of the Donald Trump story” and that it would be “put to bed even further after today happens.”

The Fox & Friends host is one of an array of right-wing media figures who said at the time that the January 6 insurrection was a calamity, that the rioters were criminals, and that Trump himself bore responsibility for their actions. But over the past four years, they have participated in the right’s Great Forgetting, making their peace with Trump’s attempted coup and supporting his return to the presidency.

“Remember what yesterday’s attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol was like. Very soon, someone might try to convince you that it was different,” The Atlantic’s David Graham wrote the next day. “The health of the republic depends both on what swift consequences come—for Trump and for others—and also on how people remember the participants’ actions later on.”

Graham’s warning proved prescient. As the attack unfolded and in its immediate aftermath, many media figures on the right joined those on center and left in condemning the attack — and Trump’s work to incite it — in the strongest possible terms. But they did not sustain their initial response.

“Shoot the protestors,” influential commentator Erick Erickson wrote that afternoon. He added that Trump should receive immediate consequences that would end his political career: “Waive the rules, impeach. Waive the rules, convict. Waive the rules, deny the ability to run for election again.”

Four years later, Erickson offered this take: “First, Happy January 6th to all who celebrate. Note to the media: The exit polling in November showed that most voters do not care. That you will try to make them care today is another reason trust in the media is beneath that of Congress itself.”

Fox chief political analyst Brit Hume likewise denounced Trump at the time for having “fueled the worst suspicions of his supporters with wild claims that the election was stolen. And now we see the result.” But on Election Day 2024, he declared this “a BS issue” because “the thing was over in a matter of hours.”

Erickson and Hume are among a long list of right-wing media notables who condemned January 6 — and even Trump for bringing it about — but came around to implicitly or explicitly support his return to the presidency, even as he showed no remorse for his own actions and valorized the rioters.

Rupert Murdoch, whose right-wing media empire is one of the most potent forces in Republican politics, wrote in an email to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on Inauguration Day 2021 that Trump’s election lies had been “pretty much a crime” that made January 6 “inevitable.” He added: “Best we don't mention his name unless essential and certainly don't support him."

On Fox, numerous hosts condemned the criminal acts of the mob and said its members deserved punishment, with some even describing such denunciations as morally necessary.

“Those who truly support President Trump, those that believe they are part of the conservative movement in this country, you do not — we do not support those that commit acts of violence,” offered Fox host and Trump adviser Sean Hannity. “Every good and decent American, we know, will and must condemn what happened at the Capitol.”

“The actions at the United States Capitol three days ago were deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal,” Jeanine Pirro likewise declared. “Anyone watching this must condemn it.”

Fox contributor Mark Thiessen was among the few to single out Trump on the network’s airwaves, saying the then-president had been “responsible for what happened,” and he went much further in a Washington Post column.

“It was one of the darkest moments in the history of our democracy. And Trump is responsible for it,” he wrote. “Trump formed and incited the mob. He stoked their anger with self-serving lies. He betrayed his followers. He betrayed his office. And now he has blood on his hands.”

The organs of the upper-crust right were united in blaming Trump for the attack.

Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal wrote in a January 7, 2021, editorial that Trump should resign the presidency after committing “an assault on the constitutional process of transferring power after an election.” The New York Post editorial board wrote that “while the roots of this madness were many, with some blame across the spectrum, it’s fundamentally on President Trump.” And the editors of National Review said Trump “found a new low” by having “whipped up and urged on a mob toward the U.S. Capitol, where it breached the building and forced his vice president and lawmakers to flee.”

The hosts of the All-In podcast, which became a key venue of the MAGA tech right, were even more scathing at the time, describing Trump as “a complete piece-of-shit fucking scumbag” who had engaged in “insane, deranged, criminal, lunatic behavior” and had “disqualified himself from being a candidate at a national level.”

These comments reflected the widespread initial consensus that January 6 had been horrific — and that Trump had been responsible for it. In the first days following the attack, politicians of both parties, corporate leaders, and the public at large responded with revulsion and demands for consequences.

But that unity ultimately proved fragile. A coterie of Trumpists, led by former Fox host Tucker Carlson, worked diligently to unwind it, reframing the sacking of the U.S. Capitol as either unimportant — or a conspiracy driven by Democrats and the media in which the assailants were the real victims of a crackdown on “political dissidents,” as Fox’s Rachel Campos-Duffy put it last week.

As this fraudulent counternarrative became increasingly widespread, most other conservative media figures eventually chose to join the right’s Great Forgetting. They pretended that a president who they knew had tried to overturn the republic was fit to return to that office. And in so doing, they helped power Trump from his post-January 6 position of disgrace back to the GOP nomination and the presidency.

Trump’s return to office sets the stage for more authoritarian acts. He never repudiated his election lies or the attack they incited, instead valorizing the January 6 “hostages” and promising they will receive pardons as one of his first acts in office. And he is assembling a team to carry out the “retribution” he has promised to inflict on his political foes, including an FBI director who proposed legal action against the conspirators, “not just in government but in the media,” who he claimed “helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”

Trump’s authoritarian impulses may ultimately come to nothing. But with their actions after January 6, the leading lights of the right have already signaled their willingness to accept whatever he does.

//

The Fox News coup

01/06/21

They did it and will do it again – if no one stops them

07/22/22

  1. ### Fox personalities now claim that January 6 prosecutions are political. At the time, many condemned the attack: “Deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal”

05/21/24 MMA

===

oddly honest?

an 10 22

United States Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) on Tuesday accused Google and other "big tech" companies of rigging the November midterm elections in favor of Democrats.

"This is something that appears to be intentional and purposeful. So you have to ask, are they doing this as an in-kind contribution to the Democratic campaigns? Now, our Republican conference has met with Google and also one of our major mail vendors, and the answers we got from Google were not satisfactory," Blackburn complained to Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.

Blackburn's foremost allegation was that Google has been "intentionally" directing Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio's reelection campaign emails into recipients' junk boxes.

READ MORE: [Marsha Blackburn admits she voted against veterans bill to shaft Democrats

"And you take a campaign like Marco Rubio's, where they intentionally suppress his emails – or I should say it's the appearance that they intentionally suppress – they go out on delay and they arrive and they arrive in people's spam folders," Blackburn said. "And it happens repeatedly."

That claim was thoroughly debunked in a July investigation by TheWashington Post. Conservative commentator Erick Erickson even conceded on Substack that the issue was the direct result of sketchy marketing practices and right-wing incompetence:

These are not examples of Google abusing Republican emails. This is an example of Republican consultants abusing emails they have access to and Google and Apple protecting their users from spam. Unfortunately, the Republican consultants have the ears of their leaders and their solution is to pressure Google and Apple to let all the spam go through. They are selling Republican elected officials on the idea that Google is nefariously blocking their emails. The reality is the consultants will not fess up to their abuses. They will not own up to their poor stewardship of email lists. They’ll claim the Democrats are more effective because of tech company biases and not because the Democrats are actually better stewards of an email file.

The reality though is easy to notice.

But Blackburn is still pushing the false narrative, telling Bartiromo that "you have to look at how big tech is trying to use their power, just as they did in 2020, to help to manipulate the result."

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE:**Right Wing religious extremist Erick Erickson blasted for claiming if Epstein had raped teen boys liberals would support him**

beware brochure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erick_Erickson

Erick Woods Erickson (born June 3, 1975; 46 years ago) is a conservative evangelical American radio host and blogger. His three-hour weekday talk show is heard on flagshipstation WSB 95.5 FM and 750 AM in Atlanta, and is syndicated to other radio stations around the U.S. He also runs the blog The Resurgent. Previously, he served as the editor-in-chief and the CEO of the conservative political blogRedState.[2] He was also a political contributor for CNN and does political commentary for the Fox News Channel.

Early life and career[

Erick Woods Erickson was born in Jackson in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates when he was five, and returned to Jackson when he was fifteen.[3][4] Erickson attended the American School of Dubai, previously known as the Jumeirah American School. His father worked for Conoco Oil[5] as an oil company production foreman.[6] Erickson received a bachelor's degree from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and a J.D. degree from Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law. He is an inactive member in good standing of the State Bar of Georgia.[7]

Macon city council[

Erickson was elected on November 6, 2007 to a four-year term as a Republican member of the Macon, Georgia city council.[8] He resigned his office on February 16, 2011, partway through his first term to pursue a job with WSB radio in Atlanta;[9] The Macon Telegraph noted his poor attendance as a council member before his resignation.[10]

Political commentator[

RedState[

Erickson, who had been blogging on RedState since 2004,[11] joined the conservative blog in 2005.[12] He later served as its editor-in-chief. Erickson was CEO of RedState, Inc. While working at RedState, Erickson developed a reputation as one of the most influential American conservatives.[13] Erickson's "Morning Briefing" e-mails grew from 498 subscribers when they began in February 2009 to nearly 70,000 by January 2010. The Washington Post noted that "The ability of a single e-mail to shape a message illustrates the power of the conservative network." The article described Erickson as one of the American conservative movement's "key national players".[14]

Erickson wrote the "Confessions of a Political Junkie" blog and is former editor-in-chief of the "Peach Pundit" blog. His first book, Red State Uprising: How to Take Back America (co-authored with Lew Uhler), was published by **Regnery Press** in September 2010.[15][16] Later that month, Erickson said that growing up his parents refused to serve "Asian food" on December 7, the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.[17] Erickson's mother appeared to deny the claim to a journalist.[18] Erickson criticized the report, citing his mother's age.[19]

In 2014, RedState was sold by RedState, Inc. to Salem Media Group.[20] In December 2015, Erickson left his position at the site to focus on his radio show.[12]

Television and radio[

From 2010 to January 2013, Erickson was a political contributor at CNN.[21][22] Erickson later joined FOX News as a contributor.[23]

In January 2011, Erickson began hosting a local evening radio show on WSB Radio 95.5/750, replacing Michael Savage. Erickson moved to the slot vacated by Herman Cain when he announced his 2012 presidential bid. In 2014 and 2015, Erickson guest-hosted the national broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show numerous times. Rush Limbaugh died on February 17, 2021, and Erickson took over the late host’s three-hour midday time slot on March 21, 2021. Toward the end of Erickson's career at RedState, he began to increase his focus on his radio show, which is now syndicated by the Cox Media Group to other conservative talk radio stations around the U.S.[20] He eventually quit the site to work on the radio program full-time.[12][20]

The Resurgent[

In January 2016, Erickson launched the conservative website The Resurgent.[24]

Political views and controversies[

The Daily Telegraph of London put Erickson on its "List of Most Influential US Conservatives", giving him a rank of 69th most influential in 2007 and 65th in 2010.[25] According[20] to the 2007 newspaper article: "Erickson epitomises the new power of the internet. A small-government fiscal and social conservative based in the South, he taps into and influences the Republican 'base' that the GOP's 2008 candidates are courting."[26] According to The Atlantic, Erickson's conservatism is more traditional (as opposed to libertarian) and "deeply informed by his evangelical faith".[13] Erickson emphasizes small government, strong national defense, and the primacy of the traditional family.[13]

Donald Trump[

During a CNN interview after a Republican Party debate hosted by Fox News on August 6, 2015, Donald Trump had said that Fox News anchor and debate co-moderator Megyn Kelly had "blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever" while questioning him during the debate. The next day, Erickson disinvited Trump from a RedState gathering held in Atlanta,[27] calling Trump's remark "a bridge too far" and that even "blunt talkers and unprofessional politicians should not cross" certain lines, including decency.[27] The following day, Trump released a statement stating that Erickson had a history of making controversial statements for which he has had to apologize, and that he, Trump, was an outsider who did not fit into Erickson's agenda.[28]

Erickson described Trump as "a racist" and "a fascist", and insisted, "I will not vote for Donald Trump. Ever."[29] In February 2019, Erickson endorsed Trump for re-election in the 2020 presidential election.[30]

Gender[

In 2013, Erickson was criticized for saying in an interview on Fox Business Network that males dominate females in the "natural world" and it was only "science" for men to be the breadwinners for their families.[31]

Guns[

In December 2015, Erickson posted a picture of a bullet ridden copy of The New York Times that he had shot at. That day's edition contained a front-page editorial in favor of gun control.[32][33]

Erickson spread a false story by RedState which claimed that 17-year old Parkland, Florida school shooting survivor David Hogg was not actually at the Parkland school when it was attacked.[34] He later described Hogg as a "bully" after Hogg called for an advertiser boycott of right-wing Fox News host Laura Ingraham when she mocked him for not getting into a number of universities.[35][36]

LGBT rights[

In 2017, Erickson signed a manifesto, the Nashville Statement, which condemned homosexuality and transgender identity, saying that homosexual and transgender identity was not according to God's plan.[37]

Attacks on public figures[

In April 2009, Erickson described retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter on his Twitter account as "the only goat fucking child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court". In an appearance on The Colbert Report, Erickson said the statement was "not my finest hour."[25] Erickson called Texas state senator**Wendy Davis**"Abortion Barbie".[13] In a blog post, Erickson considered whether President Obama was "shagging hookers" and wondered whether Michelle Obama (whom he called a "Marxist harpy") "would go Lorena Bobbit [sic] on him should he even think about it."[13]Erickson argued that President Obama won the Nobel Prize because of an "affirmative action quota."[38] Erickson compared the Obama administration's health care communications director Linda Douglass to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.[39]

Augusto Pinochet[

In November 2018, Erickson tweeted that foreign aid to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico would be more effectively spent installing "Pinochet types" in these countries. He added that the US should "support strong leaders who support free market reforms and promote economic stability, even if with a heavy hand". When challenged on this proposal, Erickson replied "I'm hoping for some helicopters in this plan", a reference toDeath flights in Chile during Pinochet's regime.[40]

Kathryn Sikkink, a professor in International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, responded to Erickson's remarks. She noted that "Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who committed massive human rights abuses," and thatErickson got the "facts exactly backward. Recent history and social science don't show that authoritarian regimes stop people from fleeing across borders. They show that they make more people want to flee."[41]

Book[

In 2017 he published a book Before You Wake: Life Lessons from a Father to His Children.[42]

ref

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/conservative-circles-scams-abound

former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) has used his mailing list as a lucrative tool for many years, and it’s a habit he’s apparently reluctant to break. Even after the Arkansas Republican gave up his Fox News program, apparently to pursue another White House campaign, Huckabee continued to send out emails with “really questionable ads.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R) isn’t running for anything, but as discovered last week, he’s also using his list to send out spam-like messages that appear to be scams.

It’s against this backdrop that Kenneth P. Vogel had a great piece this week on the rise of “scam PACs” that target conservative donors.

Since the tea party burst onto the political landscape in 2009, the conservative movement has been plagued by an explosion of PACs that critics say exist mostly to pad the pockets of the consultants who run them. Combining sophisticated targeting techniques with fundraising appeals that resonate deeply among grass-roots activists, they collect large piles of small checks that, taken together, add up to enough money to potentially sway a Senate race. But the PACs plow most of their cash back into payments to consulting firms for additional fundraising efforts.

A POLITICO analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission covering the 2014 cycle found that 33 PACs that court small donors with tea party-oriented email and direct-mail appeals raised $43 million – 74 percent of which came from small donors. The PACs spent only $3 million on ads and contributions to boost the long-shot candidates often touted in the appeals, compared to $39.5 million on operating expenses, including $6 million to firms owned or managed by the operatives who run the PACs.

I’m reminded of a line Chris Hayes used a couple of years ago, which continues to ring true: “[M]uch of movement conservatism is a con and the base are the marks.”

Eric Hananoki added soon after, “Media Matters has previously documented how conservatives have scammed their followers. [Erick Erickson], for example, was caught sending a plagiarized email (from Ann Coulter) endorsing a newsletter which purported to reveal a ‘secret’ system to become ‘instant millionaires.’”

And just yesterday, Ben Dimiero noted, “Erick Erickson’s email list subscribers have received a bizarre array of pitches from conspiracy theorists and dubious practitioners warning of the impending death of millions of Americans and promising ‘cures’ to cancer, Alzheimer’s, and aging.”

To be sure, there are some specific differences among these dubious appeals. The Politico piece, for example, highlighted the activities of suspicious political action committees, while the Huckabee, Gingrich, and Erickson examples focus on use of regular ol’ email lists, outside of PAC control.

But the bottom line remains the same: a dynamic now exists in which many conservatives are receiving dubious messages through lists operated by Republican leaders they trust.

The basic idea isn’t entirely new – for decades, groups and political figures sent out direct-mail letters, which regularly included unsavory appeals for cash – but the old model relied on slow and expensive distribution through the mail. It’s cheaper, faster, and easier for these unsavory schemes to be put in motion electronically.

Kevin Drum, meanwhile, asked the question that was on my mind:

So here’s my question: why is this so much more common on the right than on the left? It would be nice to chalk it up to the superior intelligence of liberal audiences and call it a day, but that won’t wash…. One possibility is that a lot of this stuff is aimed at the elderly, and conservatives tend to skew older than liberals. And while that’s probably part of the answer, it’s hardly satisfying. There are plenty of elderly liberals, after all – certainly enough to make them worth targeting with the same kind of fraudulent appeals that infest the right.

Another possibility is that it’s basically a supply-side phenomenon. Maybe liberal outlets simply tend to be less ruthless, less willing to set up scam fundraising organizations than conservative outlets. In fact, that actually does seem to be the case. But again: why?

I honestly have no idea, so let’s open it up to some discussion. Why do these scams seem so much more common on the right than the left?

Explore:

The MaddowBlog, Elections, Erick Erickson, Fundraising, Mike Huckabee, Money in Politics and Newt Gingrich

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mma

The right-wing media ecosystem is broken

While the most powerful and influential conservative commentators rallied around Immanuel, some substantially more marginal right-wing figures pointed out that it’s not a great idea to make a doctor who believes in demon sex the voice of the movement.

On Tuesday night,Erick Erickson, a former CNN and Fox News contributor who has seen his influence shrink during the Trump era, tweeted that Immanuel’s past views make her supporters a “clown show.”He was quickly smacked down by Jenna Ellis,an attorney who represents the president and his campaign. Ellis also pointed to a recent tweet from Gold claiming her group had just “met with Vice President Mike Pence to request the administration’s assistance in empowering doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine without political obstruction.”

It’s hard to overstate just how broken the right-wing media ecosystem is right now

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https://www.mediamatters.org/erick-erickson

tag

Conservative radio talk show host, pundit, and blogger

Erick Erickson is an anti-LGBTQ and sexist pundit who formerly worked for CNN and Fox News. He used to run the conservative website RedState and is now editor of the right-wing blog The Resurgent.

Featured

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A Look Back: Erick Erickson's History Of Inflammatory And Inaccurate Statements

01/29/13 11:57 AM EST

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GOP 2016 Contenders Are Courting Erick Erickson, The Anti-Gay Pundit With A “Pattern Of Being Disrespectful To Women”

08/03/15 2:30 PM EDT

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Chuck Todd and Meet The Press sanitize Erick Erickson's garbage

10/28/18 1:25 PM EDT

The Latest

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Erick Erickson deletes tweet celebrating Asian American reporter's offense at racist coronavirus comment

03/17/20 2:59 PM EDT

Tucker Carlson coronavirus

Medical journal Lancet disavows coronavirus conspiracy theories after being cited alongside right-wing disinformation

02/28/20 1:48 PM EST

Silhouettes of people with "400 years"

The NY Times’ 1619 Project discusses slavery’s impact on American society. Conservatives are not happy.

08/19/19 1:38 PM EDT

rushlimbaugh12.jpg

Conservative media dismiss NY Times report showing the El Paso shooter echoed their anti-immigrant rhetoric

08/12/19 4:41 PM EDT

Right-wing-evangelicals-Pete-Buttigieg-progressive-Christians.png

Right-wing evangelicals are using Pete Buttigieg to attack progressive Christians

04/12/19 1:51 PM EDT

tuckercarlson-learntocode.jpg

How a myth about journalists telling miners to “learn to code” helped people justify harassment

01/31/19 10:57 AM EST

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Chuck Todd and Meet The Press sanitize Erick Erickson's garbage

10/28/18 1:25 PM EDT

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Why is this man on my TV?

10/02/18 10:07 AM EDT

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Right-wing media figures are defending Trump’s lies about the Puerto Rican death toll

09/13/18 3:35 PM EDT

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Former Fox News employee Erick Erickson says the network is featuring the voices that Trump wants to hear

04/08/18 1:28 PM EDT

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“My Shirts Aren't Going To Iron Themselves” : Conservatives Launch Attacks On Women’s March

01/21/17 2:52 PM EST

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Reporters Savage CNN For Hiring Former Trump Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski

06/23/16 4:04 PM EDT

Erick Woods Erickson (born June 3, 1975) is a conservative American blogger and radio host. He hosts the radio show Atlanta's Evening News with Erick Erickson, broadcast on 750 WSB (AM), and runs the blog The Resurgent. Previously, he served as the editor-in-chief and the CEO of the conservative political blog RedState[1] and was a political contributor for CNN.

Early life and career:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Erick Woods Erickson was born in Jackson in East Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates when he was five, and returned to Jackson when he was fifteen.[2][3] Erickson attended the American School of Dubai, previously known as the Jumeirah American School. His father worked for Conoco Oil[4] as an oil company production foreman.[5] Erickson received a bachelor's degree from Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and a J.D. degree from Mercer University Walter F. George School of Law. He is an inactive member in good standing of the State Bar of Georgia.[6]

Macon city council:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Erickson was elected on November 6, 2007 to a four-year term as a Republican member of the Macon, Georgia city council.[7] He resigned his office on February 16, 2011, partway through his first term to pursue a job with WSB radio in Atlanta;[8] The Macon Telegraph noted his poor attendance as a council member before his resignation.[9] While he was in office, Macon police officers considered forming a union. To counter it, Erickson urged that the police department be dissolved.[10]

Political commentator:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

RedState:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

Erickson joined the conservative blog RedState in 2005.[11] He later served as its editor-in-chief. Erickson was CEO of RedState, Inc. While working at RedState, Erickson developed a reputation as one of the most influential American conservatives.[12] Erickson's "Morning Briefing" e-mails grew from 498 subscribers when they began in February 2009 to nearly 70,000 by January 2010. The Washington Post noted that "The ability of a single e-mail to shape a message illustrates the power of the conservative network." The article described Erickson as one of the American conservative movement's "key national players".[13]

Erickson wrote the "Confessions of a Political Junkie" blog and is former editor-in-chief of the "Peach Pundit" blog. His first book, Red State Uprising: How to Take Back America (co-authored with Lew Uhler), was published by Regnery Press in September 2010.[14][15] Later that month, Erickson said that growing up his parents refused to serve "Asian food" on December 7, the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.[16]Erickson's mother appeared to deny the claim to a journalist.[17] Erickson criticized the report, citing his mother's age.[18]

In 2014, RedState was sold by RedState, Inc. to Salem Media Group.[19] In December 2015, Erickson left his position at the site to focus on his radio show.[11]

Television and radio:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

From 2010 to January 2013, Erickson was a political contributor at CNN.[20][21] Erickson later joined FOX News as a contributor.[22]

In January 2011, Erickson began hosting a local radio show on WSB Radio 750/95.5, replacing Michael Savage. Erickson eventually moved to the slot vacated by Herman Cain when he announced his 2012 presidential bid. In 2014 and 2015, Erickson guest-hosted the national broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show on numerous times. Toward the end of Erickson's career at RedState he began to increase his focus on his radio show, which was owned by Cox Media Group.[19] He eventually quit the site to work on it full-time.[11][19]

The Resurgent:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In January 2016, Erickson launched the conservative website The Resurgent.[23]

Political views and controversies:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

The Daily Telegraph of London put Erickson on its "List of Most Influential US Conservatives", giving him a rank of 69th most influential in 2007 and 65th in 2010.[24] According[19] to the 2007 newspaper article: "Erickson epitomises the new power of the internet. A small-government fiscal and social conservative based in the south, he taps into and influences the Republican 'base' that the GOP’s 2008 candidates are courting."[25]According to The Atlantic, Erickson's conservatism is more traditional (as opposed to libertarian) and "deeply informed by his evangelical faith".[26] Erickson emphasizes small government, strong national defense, and the primacy of the traditional family.[26]

Donald Trump:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

During a CNN interview after a Republican Party debate hosted by Fox News on August 6, 2015, Donald Trump had said that Fox News anchor and debate co-moderator Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever” while questioning him during the debate. The next day, Erickson disinvited Trump from a RedState gathering held in Atlanta,[27] calling Trump's remark "a bridge too far” and that even "blunt talkers and unprofessional politicians should not cross" certain lines, including decency.[27] The following day, Trump released a statement stating that Erickson had a history of making controversial statements for which he has had to apologize, and that he, Trump, was an outsider who did not fit into Erickson's agenda.[28]

Yet, on February 11, 2019, Erickson endorsed Trump for re-election in the 2020 presidential election.[29]

Gender:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In 2013, Erickson was criticized for saying in an interview on Fox Business Network that males dominate females in the "natural world" and it was only "science" for men to be the breadwinners for their family.[30]

Guns:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In December 2015, Erickson posted a picture of a bullet ridden copy of The New York Times that he had shot at. That day's edition contained a front-page editorial in favor of gun control.[31][32]

Erickson spread a false story by RedState which claimed that 17-year old Parkland, Florida school shooting survivor David Hogg was not actually at the Parkland school when it was attacked.[33] He later described Hogg as a "bully" after Hogg called for an advertiser boycott of right-wing Fox News host Laura Ingraham when she mocked him for not getting into a number of universities.[34][35]

LGBT rights:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In 2017, Erickson signed a manifesto which condemned homosexuality and transgender identity, saying that homosexual and transgender identity was not according to God's plan.[36]

Attacks on public figures:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In April 2009, Erickson described retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter on his Twitter account as "the only goat fucking child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court”. In an appearance on The Colbert Report, Erickson said the statement was "not my finest hour."[24] Erickson called Texas state senator Wendy Davis “Abortion Barbie.”[26] In a blog post, Erickson considered whether President Obama was “shagging hookers” and wondered whether Michelle Obama (whom he called a “marxist harpy”) “would go Lorena Bobbit [sic] on him should he even think about it.”[26] Erickson argued that President Obama won the Nobel Prize because of an “affirmative action quota.”[37] Erickson compared the Obama administration's health care communications director Linda Douglass to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.[38]

Augusto Pinochet

In November 2018, Erickson tweeted that foreign aid to Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico would be more effectively spent installing "Pinochet types" in these countries. He added that the US should "support strong leaders who support free market reforms and promote economic stability, even if with a heavy hand". When challenged on this proposal, Erickson replied "I'm hoping for some helicopters in this plan", a reference to Death flights in Chile during Pinochet's regime.[39]

Kathryn Sikkink, a professor in International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, responded to Erickson's remarks. She noted that "Pinochet was a Chilean dictator who committed massive human rights abuses," and that Erickson got the "facts exactly backward. Recent history and social science don’t show that authoritarian regimes stop people from fleeing across borders. They show that they make more people want to flee."[40]

Book:{:(style="margin-right:0.25em"):}:[edit:{]}:

In 2017 he published a book Before You Wake: Life Lessons from a Father to His Children.[41]

==

tag

https://www.mediamatters.org/people/erick-erickson

12/18 grab

no lnx pix vid

Fox News figures laud Trump’s choice to nominate William Barr as attorney general

Research ››› December 7, 2018 3:42 PM EST ››› BOBBY LEWIS

The path to conservative media success is paved with outrage-bait

We’re all being trolled by attention-starved wannabe media stars

Blog ››› December 3, 2018  ››› PARKER MOLLOY

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

When right-wing pundit Erick Erickson suggested last week that the U.S. cut foreign aid to Central American countries and instead use those funds to “prop up the next generation of Pinochet types,” it didn’t come as much of a surprise. A number of conservatives have a bit of a soft spot for the former Chilean dictator. When Erickson said that he was “hoping for some helicopters in this plan,” though, he raised a few eyebrows, as such a statement is designed to do.

His reference to helicopters was a nod to Augusto Pinochet’s history of having at least 120 political dissidents thrown to their deaths from helicopters into the “the ocean, the lakes and the rivers of Chile.” On his blog, The Resurgent, Erickson elaborated a bit on that tweet, still straddling the line between being serious and just joking around, and writing that he’s “not actually fully on board” with his own idea.

Does Erickson actually think helicopters are essential to this tweet, blog post, or political suggestion? Probably not. Certainly, he knows that the extrajudicial murder of political opponents is a reprehensible thing to praise. Why say it, then? Because it gets him attention, and in a sea of political media takes, attention is everything. Anyone who spends any significant amount of time watching political talk shows or cable news channels knows that it’s the loudest and most extreme voices that rise to the top of the punditry food chain. It’s as true for Erickson as it is for more recent additions to our national discourse, Tomi Lahren and Milo Yiannopoulos. The power to provoke has replaced intelligent discussion, and would-be commentators are catching on.

There’s nothing new about self-styled “provocateurs” in political media, especially among conservatives.

Erickson, along with the likes of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, or any number of other conservatives coming out of the world of talk radio, have made entire careers based on saying things so outrageous that the rest of us ask whether they even mean what they’re saying. Does Coulter actually wish that Timothy McVeigh had bombed the New York Times building? Or that politicians who support immigration reform should face “death squads”? Probably not, but her many outrageous statements have helped make Coulter a bestselling author and mainstay in the world of political commentary for two decades running.

The truth is that you don’t have someone like Erickson or Coulter on your Sunday morning political talk show if you’re interested in an-depth discussion about policy. No, you have them on because of their potential to generate controversy. Their entire brand is built upon being predictably unpredictable.

The truth is that discussing politics can be boring, and maybe it should be. Deficit discussions and tax talk just aren’t sexy. Foreign policy is probably better considered with a sober seriousness, and the economy is best understood as a complex mess of systems only a technocrat could love. But people like their politics with a side of entertainment. After all, there’s a reason people tune in to CNN over C-SPAN, and this creates a major incentive for would-be commentators to embrace a politics-as-WWE approach.

Milo Yiannopoulos is one of the more fascinating cases of a commenter embracing the extreme for a taste of fame.

Before becoming the poster boy for crude offense masked as commentary, Milo Yiannopoulos was the editor of The Kernel, an online tech and culture magazine he founded. Though he was never shy about his conservative beliefs, he was far from the firebrand who’d later publish Breitbart articles under such headlines as “Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy” and “Teenage Boys With Tits: Here’s My Problem With Ghostbusters.”

While he’d always had a reputation for his inflated ego and a tendency to pick fights, back in his days writing at The Kernel, Yiannopoulos could actually be -- dare I say -- thoughtful. Based on his writing, 2012’s Yiannopoulos would have almost certainly hated his 2018 self. Take, for instance, a 2012 blog post titled “The internet is turning us all into sociopaths,” in which he describes the rise of a new sort of anti-civility, online and off:

What’s disturbing about this new trend, in which commenters are posting what would previously have been left anonymously, is that these trolls seem not to mind that their real names, and sometimes even their occupations, appear clamped to their vile words. It’s as if a psychological norm is being established whereby comments left online are part of a video game and not real life. It’s as if we’ve all forgotten that there’s a real person on the other end, reading and being hurt by our vitriol. That’s as close to the definition of sociopath as one needs to get for an armchair diagnosis, though of course many other typical sociopathic traits are also being encouraged by social media.

In “When ‘free speech’ means defending evil murderers,” Yiannopoulos lambasted social media companies that refused to take swift action against cyberbullying and extremist content. In another blog, he argued that “free speech has its limits,” and in yet another, he took one of his own cyberbullies to task. He called Laurie Penny’s book Cybersexism: Sex, Gender and Power on the Internet “terrific,” writing, "We do need to think more carefully about how women are spoken to online."

In 2013, The Kernel shuttered after being sued by former contributors over unpaid wages. It was acquired by a German company called Berlin 42 before being sold to the publisher of The Daily Dot. By 2014, Yiannopoulos was writing for Breitbart and fanning the flames of Gamergate, a controversy he would use to propel himself to U.S. stardom. The rest is, as they say, history.

The blueprint to conservative media stardom is obvious to even the casual observer, making it easier than ever for young voices to grab the spotlight.

Tomi Lahren went from hosting a University of Nevada, Las Vegas, political roundtable show in which she accepted the realities of climate change to becoming a Fox News megastar. The secret to her success: a newfound embrace of the theatrical and outrageous. Her road to stardom was paved with tweets calling the Black Lives Matter movement “The new KKK,” videos in which she said that the U.S. government during the Obama administration had a “be-friendly-to-Jihadis mentality,”  and more recently, a tweet saying that the “highlight” of her Thanksgiving weekend was watching the tear-gassing of migrants (including children) at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tomi Lahren@TomiLahren

Bum-rushing the border is a CHOICE and has consequences. Watching the USA FINALLY defend our borders was the HIGHLIGHT of my Thanksgiving weekend. ????????????

Alyssa Milano@Alyssa_Milano

You tear-gassed women and children, asswipe! And on Thanksgiving weekend, you piece of shit, asshole, motherfucking, evil-creature-person!! https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1066685057648214018 …

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Lahren found a shortcut to success, and she took it. How many of us can honestly say that we wouldn’t act out a more extreme version of ourselves if it meant a one-way ticket to the top? Because if it’s not Lahren filling the rage void in political media, it’d be someone else just as over-the-top and abrasive. If social media has shown us anything, it’s that there are always people waiting in the wings, longing to be discovered.

The key to longevity is to muster up the ability to be totally earnest on occasion.

The Yiannopoulos star burned bright, but for now, it’s fizzled. He knows that the only way to stay relevant is to say truly outlandish things, like when he told The Observer in June, “I can’t wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight.” He’s become the political embodiment of The Onion’s brilliant 2001 “Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People” article.

He faded because the blueprint shifted ever so slightly. People got bored of watching an entirely unserious man shout slurs and call it commentary, because he couldn’t take off the “Milo” public persona he’d created for himself, even for a moment. He tried, as in the wake of comments he made that appeared to condone pedophilia, but it came off as hollow and insincere. The trick for media provocateurs is to offer a dash of humanity in with the vitriol. Lahren did this when she opened up about being pro-choice on an episode of The View. Erickson does this whenever he stops by a respectable talk show to promote civility or denounce conspiracy theories.

As the rules change, so do the players. Uninterrupted trolling no longer has the power it once did. Maybe we can move the bar further still. Maybe the answer to professional trolls is to deny them the attention they so desperately need to remain relevant. Maybe I shouldn’t be writing about Erickson’s “helicopter” tweet at all. Maybe I shouldn’t bother to note when media figures hang a neon “pay attention to me” sign above their heads as they tweet things like “Can someone explain to me why I'm supposed to lose sleep over Saudi Arabia killing an Islamist political opponent?” about the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, or when they tweet “I've found my Christmas card photo. #Caring” in response to a photo of a family running from tear gas on the border.

If the expected response is reactive outrage, maybe deliberate disinterest is the answer. So, why am I writing about this, you might ask. I think it’s important to recognize the patterns at play. Starving the trolls of the attention they seek is a reasonable long-term goal. But in the meantime, we need to recognize that there are people toying with our national political discourse just for a shot at fame and fortune.

Conservative media baselessly tie Stacey Abrams to the fringe New Black Panther Party

Blog ››› November 5, 2018 MEDIA MATTERS STAFF

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams is being attacked by conservative media and her opponent, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, because a group of people affiliated with the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) marched in support of Abrams while openly carrying rifles. The conservative figures promoting the story have shown no tie between the New Black Panther Party and Abrams -- the story is just yet another conservative media smear that falsely connects the fringe hate group to mainstream Democratic figures.

Timeline

Photos of NBPP members with campaign signs supporting Abrams were first posted to Facebook on the evening of November 3, by two pages seemingly affiliated with the fringe organization. A few hours later, users began sharing these posts to right-wing Facebook groups, including one group dedicated to Kemp’s gubernatorial bid that says it’s not affiliated with the campaign. While the NBPP photos were being spread, a video posted by a Kemp supporter on Facebook showing the NBPP members was also making rounds on right-wing groups.

The next morning, Kemp shared one of the photos posted by the NBPP on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. In all three posts, Kemp called Abrams “radical” and “TOO EXTREME” for Georgia. Other right-wing Facebook pages shared Kemp’s post while the far-right news site The Western Journal ran an ad promoting a write-up of the story. Conservative media figures Erick Erickson and NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch also shared the images.

Prominent conservative media run with NBPP story

Since Kemp posted the photo, far-right and fake news sites have attacked Abrams while falsely claiming her campaign was affiliated with these NBPP members.

Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich said that if Abrams is elected, “she’ll be the most radical governor in the country.”

From the November 5 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:

GINGRICH: You just had Black Panthers in Atlanta, for example, carrying what looked like semi-automatic weapons, for Stacey Abrams. You want a really radical America? You can get one, and she'd be -- if she wins, she'll be the most radical governor in the country, with the possible exception of [San Francisco’s] Gavin Newsom.

Breitbart News posted an article whose headline states that “armed Black Panthers lobby for” Abrams. The article earned just over 71,000 engagements on social media and was posted by a pro-gun Georgia Facebook page.

The Daily Caller criticized Abrams for attacking Kemp instead of addressing the NBPP march. In a Daily Calles write-up of the NBPP’s march, Jason Hopkins wrote that an Abrams campaign statement he received in response to questions “did not specifically address the Panthers’ march, but instead attacked Kemp.” The article amplified Kemp’s calls on Abrams to denounce the NBPP and earned over 38,000 engagements on social media. Reprints of the article by The Western Journal, BizPac Review, and The Tennessee Star earned an additional 41,000 interactions.

On the far-right news site Big League Politics, Laura Loomer falsely stated that “armed Black Panthers” were “campaigning with Stacey Abrams.” Loomer also claimed that the NBPP’s march for Stacey Abrams was “an act of racially motivated anti-white voter intimidation.”

Conservative media often use NBPP to smear mainstream Democratic candidates

NBPP, which was founded in 1989, is an “anti-white and antisemitic” group, according to a report on the group’s activities published by Southern Poverty Law Center. The original Black Panther Party has condemned NBPP as a “black racist hate group,” and it has also been denounced by the NAACP.

The group rose to national prominence in 2008 after a video went viral that showed two NBPP members at a polling site in Philadelphia, PA, one of whom was carrying a nightstick. The Department of Justice launched an investigation into the incident that ended with a default civil judgement against the armed NBPP member after the Bush administration decided to pursue civil, rather than criminal, charges against the men. Conservative media endlessly scandalized the outcome of the DOJ investigation, although a 2011 report issued by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility found “that politics played no role in the handling of the New Black Panther Party case, which sparked a racially charged political fight,” according to The Washington Post.

Right-wing media still often cite the 2008 incident before Election Day. In 2016, conservative media supporters of then-candidate Donald Trump raised concerns about the NBPP to defend Trump from criticism after he suggested the 2016 election would be “rigged” by voter fraud. Conservative media frequently used extraordinarily tenuous or entirely nonexistent evidence in attempts to tie NBPP to President Barack Obama -- a similar tactic to what right-wing media figures are now trying to accomplish in the Georgia gubernatorial race.

Chuck Todd and Meet The Press sanitize Erick Erickson's garbage

Blog ››› October 28, 2018 ››› JOHN WHITEHOUSE

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Meet the Press hosted radio host Erick Erickson to talk about civility and the need for conservatives to believe in facts. This is like asking an exhaust pipe about the virtues of clean air, or a wolf about how to keep sheep alive.

Erickson has repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories:

Erickson pushed a conspiracy theory about the timing of the so-called "caravan," the migrants in southern Mexico fleeing violence in central America.

Erickson pushed a conspiracy theory that Parkland survivor David Hogg was not actually at his school when the shooting happened.

Erickson pushed a slew of conspiracy theories about Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who came forward to report that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh had assaulted her.

Erickson pushed a debunked conspiracy theory about Planned Parenthood and has likened the organization’s leaders to Nazis.

Erickson pushed debunked lies about transgender people, whom he described as "perverts and the mentally ill."

Erickson pushed conspiracy theories about former President Barack Obama taking away guns.

Erickson defended then-ESPN analyst Curt Schilling when he tweeted a conspiracy theory and smear of Muslims.

Erickson hilariously argued that mass shootings in America are "so rare."

Erickson also goes to absurd lengths to protect conservatives in the face of reported facts. He endorsed reported pedophile Roy Moore for a Senate seat until the very end, on the basis that Moore was "the only one standing" against "the left." He dismissed concerns about one of President Donald Trump’s cabinet members flying in private jets because he "needs to be protected." When Erickson is on Fox or on the radio, he's more than happy to defend Trump's behavior toward the mainstream press.

And then there's just the ugly. He wrote a book warning of a "leftist-homosexual mafia" and argued in 2017 that gay men in bars who wear certain clothing are asking to be assaulted. Erickson has also endorsed the horrific practice of anti-LGBTQ "conversion therapy," a practice more akin to torture than therapy. He also compared members of the LGBTQ community to terrorists.

Erickson is an unrepentant sexist. He said of the Women’s March, "I feel sorry for all the ham and cheese that won't get made into sandwiches while all those women are marching." He's argued that "the male typically is the dominant role" and that women should stay home while men bring "home the bacon."

He called Trump's Muslim ban "brilliant politics." Erickson shot up a copy of The New York Times when the paper published an editorial on gun violence, and he blamed Obama for mass shootings. When Kentucky county clerk Kim Davis was briefly jailed for contempt of court for not issuing same-sex marriage licenses, Erickson warned of a civil war. In 2009, Erickson asked at what point people in Washington state might  "beat [their state representative] to a bloody pulp for being an idiot."

Needless to say, none of this came up on Meet The Press, with host Chuck Todd only offering a brief nod to “some people” who say Erickson pushes conspiracy theories. Instead, Erickson was portrayed as a reasonable conservative interested in the facts.

Embedded video

Meet the Press@MeetThePress

WATCH: Erick Erickson speaks to conservatives who spread conspiracy theories, now that we have facts about the bomb suspect #MTP@EWErickson: “If you’re a conservative who’s at war with the truth, you’re not really a conservative.” - Oct 28, 2018

There's a real danger here: Presenting an extremist as a moderate only pushes people more toward that extremism. My colleague Parker Molloy explained that phenomenon regarding Erickson just a few weeks ago, writing about a piece in which The New York Times’ Margaret Sullivan wrote that he is seen as moderate.

The long-term effect of the constant recalibration of what constitutes a moderate position can change perception not only in media, but in politics itself. Sure, what’s moderate in 2018 -- for instance, support for marriage equality -- would have likely be considered extreme in the 1950s. Recalibrations happen over time, but usually as the result of more organic forces, not ratings. This is the Overton window in action, being shifted not by a changing landscape of political views, but by the editorial decisions involved in boosting them. That should worry us.

All of this raises the question: What role do CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post play in establishing and upholding the Erickson-as-moderate mythology? I asked Sullivan.

In an email, she writes, “Although Erickson may be seen by some as moderate or may actually be relatively moderate compared to someone like Alex Jones, he’s not moderate in any real sense. And whenever we refer to him, we should be a lot clearer about that than I was in my column. We owe it to our readers not to reinforce a false idea.”

Molloy and Sullivan are correct: Erickson is an extremist, and Meet The Press just gave him cover.

Adam H. Johnson@adamjohnsonNYC

Todd vaguely alludes to the fact it was Erickson pushing caravan conspiracies but doesn’t outright say it, Erickson abstracts the problem to “a lot of people”—obscuring that it was he himself who said the caravan was a dem plot on 10/22. Mainstream launders rw fringe once again.

Adam H. Johnson

@adamjohnsonNYC

Erickson takes zero responsibility for pushing this shit, Todd doesn’t really mention it. Erickson gets to make vague condemnations of “conspiracies” w/o addressing his own wink & nod to the Alex Jones set. He’s back to being the go-to Safe NeverTrump Republican. Rinse & Repeat. pic.twitter.com/6K8kLIYnW2

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Media Matters emailed Chuck Todd for comment on Friday asking why the program was hosting Erickson. Todd has not responded.

Todd has said he wants to stop conservative media from taking over and discrediting the news. He should start with his own show.

MSNBC gives extremist Erick Erickson a platform to claim he thinks "both sides need to calm down"

...

random mma

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/10/28/chuck-todd-and-meet-press-sanitize-erick-ericksons-garbage/221889

Right-wing media’s response to the reports of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were exceptionally unhinged. Along with predictable attacks, false claims and conspiracy theories were promoted across outlets like 4chan and Infowars, as well as by conservative media figureheads, such as Laura Ingraham and Erick Erickson.

A quick rundown of the top conspiracies conservatives are spreading:

  1. Right-wing media figures attacked Christine Blasey Ford based on student reviews of a different professor with a similar name. Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin, right-wing blogger Jim Hoft, and others highlighted student reviews of the wrong Professor Ford in an absurd attempt to discredit her accusation against Kavanaugh.
  2. Right-wing websites and media figures pushed a conspiracy theory that Ford’s accusation was motivated by revenge for her parents’ home foreclosure. Right-wing bloggers Hoft and Erick Erickson repeated a conspiracy theory that Ford reported Kavanaugh for assault because his mother, also a judge, presided over a foreclose of Ford’s childhood home. But Kavanaugh’s mother had actually dismissed the foreclosure case after Ford’s parents worked out an agreement with their lender, and Ford’s parents still own the home.
  3. Pro-Trump outlets fabricated a connection between Ford and Fusion GPS to discredit her accusation. Right-wing websites and social media trolls smeared Ford over her brother Ralph Blasey’s work at a law firm that did legal work for Fusion GPS, a company connected to the Trump/Russia investigation. His work at the law firm ended six years before Fusion GPS was even founded.
  4. Rush Limbaugh and other conservative media spread a fake claim from a serial hoaxer that Ford similarly accused Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.Right-wing media figures including Rush Limbaugh repeated a made-up claim by serial hoaxer Josh Cornett that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) was reluctant to share a letter Ford wrote with Feinstein’s colleagues because Ford sent a similar letter about Gorsuch last year during his confirmation hearings.
  5. Infowars’ Alex Jones falsely identified a high school yearbook photo of a girl wearing a miniskirt as Ford and called her “captain of the sluts.” Jones and his website smeared Ford over excerpts from high school yearbooks of Ford’s school, calling her a “hussy.”
  6. Conservative media figures embraced the bizarre theory that Ford misidentified her attacker, who they claimed was really Kavanaugh’s doppelganger. Fox News, Erick Erickson, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, and The Gateway Pundit promoted a theory tweeted by conservative legal commentator Ed Whelan that Ford had confused Kavanaugh with another boy who Whelan claimed looked similar. Ford quickly and unequivocally debunked the claim of mistaken identity. By the next day, Whelan had deleted his Twitter thread and apologized for publicly naming the person he suggested was the actual assailant, calling it an “appalling” mistake.
  7. Right-wing columnists attacked the wrong Deborah Ramirez over a “tie to George Soros.” After Ramirez told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in college, right-wing columnists Quin Hillyer and John Fund claimed that Ramirez won a Soros Justice Fellowship in 2003 and criticized the magazine for leaving out that irrelevant detail -- but they identified the wrong Deborah Ramirez. Hillyer and Fund later apologized for mixing up the two women.
  8. Fox News falsely claimed Republicans were kept in the dark about Ramirez’s report until it was published by The New Yorker. In its article on Ramirez’s report of sexual assault by Kavanaugh, The New Yorker wrote that “senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week. … Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote.” But Fox News hosts instead pushed Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-IA) evidence-free claim that Republican staff didn’t know about the report.
  9. Fox News legal analyst tried to hurt Ramirez's credibility by falsely claiming The New York Times “refused to report” Ramirez’s accusations in an effort to hurt her credibility. Fox News legal analyst Andrew Napolitano claimed Ramirez had “no credibility” with her accusation against Kavanaugh because “The New York Times refused to report her story.” But the Times didn’t publish an initial story on Ramirez’s accusation because she was already exclusively talking to The New Yorker.
  10. TMZ and Erick Erickson pushed a false 8chan claim that Ford’s lawyer was pictured with Hillary Clinton during the presidential election. They ran with the false claim that Ford’s lawyer Debra Katz was spotted in a photo with Hillary Clinton in August 2016. In fact, the woman in the photo was Clinton photographer Barbara Kinney.
  11. Photos falsely represented as Ford have been repeatedly shared online to discredit her. The fact-checking website Snopes.com has debunked several purported images of Ford that were spread online to discredit her. One of them was actually a photo of Ukrainian human rights activist Lyudmyla Kozlovska with philanthropist George Soros, whom the right-wing treats as a boogeyman. Another featured a photo of a half-naked woman pouring alcohol that is apparently from the 1960s, possibly before Ford was even born. Another smear attempt claimed that various women pictured at anti-Trump protests were Ford; one of them was identified as a woman named Liz Darner, while the other doesn’t “have much resemblance” to Ford, according to Snopes. The anti-choice outlet Life News and the conservative Daily Caller promoted the miscaptioned protest photos.
  12. Conservative media defenders of Kavanaugh attempted to make hay over the fact that Ford didn’t know who paid for a polygraph exam she took. There is nothing unusual about lawyers paying for their client's polygraph test. It is the same process through which they, rather than the client, would typically select an expert witness for a legal proceeding and then later bill the client -- or not bill the client if the legal work was being done on a pro bono basis, as it is in this instance.
  13. Conservatives claimed that Ford's fear of flying discredited her. As Christine Blasey Ford testified, Rachel Mitchell, the prosecutor Republican committee members hired to ask questions on their behalf, asked Ford at length about the times she has flown on an airplane. Ford told senators that she finally decided to fly after some encouragement from her friends. It is simply indisputably true that people overcome their fears to do things regularly.
  14. Conservative radio host and conspiracy theorist Michael Savage is promoting a rapidly spreading conspiracy theory that professor Christine Blasey Ford has “deep” connections to the Central Intelligence Agency. Savage has met with Trump in the Oval Office and partied with him in Mar-a-Lago.

This entire phenomenon -- the outlandish false claims, the desperate attempts to smear womencoming forward to tell painful stories -- demonstrates that there is truly no low to which right-wing media figures won’t stoop. Trump’s media sycophants continue to wreak havoc on the lives of sexual assault survivors and their families by promoting blatant lies and fabrications.

===

===

day, well-known conservative Erick Erickson posted a piece on The Resurgent slamming President Donald Trump for allowing Gateway Pundit, a “known purveyor of fake news,” to White House press briefings.

The headline is strong: “Trump Invites a Cesspool of Fake News to Cover the White House. And I’m Not Talking About MSNBC.”

Erickson begins the piece saying that “The press has largely brought it upon themselves,” because he’s “lost count of the stories reported by the media and retracted or modified substantially in the same day.” But, he says, Gateway Pundit is a different animal altogether. “I’m not sure there is a greater purveyor of fake news on the left or right than that site,” he says.

From malarkey about terrorism to showing NBA fans as Trump supporters to you name it, Gateway Pundit runs nonsense and I still have not determined if it is intentional or just because of some level of insanity.

Gateway Pundit wrote that John Podesta was encouraging illegal immigrant voting based on an email that actually did not mention illegal immigrants.

He posted a picture of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ victory parade and claimed it was a Trump rally.

Then there was the confederate flag campaign button for Obama that actually was not from the campaign.

And, as he says, “the list goes on and on.” The problem with this, Erickson argues, is that it gives Gateway Pundit “a credibility that will most assuredly be abused to spread even more fake news.”

Read the entire post here.

==

Erick Erickson has a long history of making sexist remarks. With his latest attacks on Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, Erickson finallywent too far for one of his Fox colleagues:http://mm4a.org/1iE4SpM

==

Most notable among these post-election changes involved Fox News ridding itself of contributors Sarah Palin and Dick Morris and replacing them with former Congressman and left-wing gadfly Dennis Kucinich, former GOP Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, and RedState.com editor in chief Erick Erickson. To some, this personnel turnover confirmed that Fox News was embracing a more intellectually honest, ideologically diverse worldview. 

But there's less here than meets the eye. First of all, the impact an individual contributor can have on the network's overall nature is minimal; permanent hosts like O'Reilly and Hannity drive its day-to-day brand. And in the midst of the 2012 campaign, Ailes locked up O'Reilly and Hannity as well as news host Bret Baier—the Fox News lineup from 7 through 10 pm—all the way to 2016. What's more, one shouldn't read too much into the cashiering of Palin and Morris, since, by all accounts, they were terrible at their jobs: the former was criticized internally for being uncooperative with programming suggestions and personally disloyal to Ailes, while the latter was guilty of humiliating the network with his ridiculous election predictions (as well as auctioning off an unauthorized personal tour of Fox News' studios at a GOP fund-
raiser). "They were only interested in promoting themselves or perhaps promoting an ideology that may not win," says Bartlett, who singles out Palin's lack of substance for his harshest criticism. "Totally and professionally, she's the Lindsay Lohan of cable news." 

Indeed, Ailes's new hires are little more than new faces plugged into a well-worn programming strategy. Kucinich fills the slot of house liberal formerly occupied by Alan Colmes, serving as a handy foil for conservatives to shout at or over. The telegenic Brown, a blue-state Republican, endorses textbook anti-woman Republican policies, but does so without giving off an overtly extremist vibe. And die-hard conservative Erickson is there to reassure the Tea Partiers and the netroots—some of whom inexplicably believe that Fox News is drifting left—that they still have a voice on the network. 

Erickson is an interesting case. In February, not long after being hired by Fox, he posted a refreshingly frank essay complaining that the conservative media functions like an "echo chamber" that "peddle[s] daily outrage." Erickson, however, was careful not to include his new employer by name. Of course, selective indignation is something of a running theme for him. After accusing Supreme Court Justice David Souter of bestiality and pederasty in 2009, it took him almost a year to apologize—waiting until after he took a prominent pundit gig at CNN. "Erick Erickson is obviously a whack job by the standards of a normal person," says Bartlett. "But within the ranks of the right-wing wacko universe, he is far closer to the center than, say, Sarah Palin, because at the bottom, he wants to win, see, where people like Sarah Palin don't give a fuck about winning." 

==

The 5 Looniest Comments From Right-Wing Wackos This Week

July 20, 2013  |

It was a banner week for right-wing racists and sexists. The acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, issued a cascade of attempts to portray Martin as the real criminal in an incident where the unarmed teenager was stalked and killed essentially for being black. The deeply objectionable things said in the wake of the trial are too numerous to mention, although Geraldo Rivera managed to maintain his supremacy atop the mountain of absurdity in his comments on the case, which began months ago when he identified hoodies as the uniform of criminals.

Meanwhile, the Texas legislature passed a bill severely restricting abortions that Wendy Davis and other brave Texas women fought against valiantly—immediately resulting in Planned Parenthood’s announcement that it would close three clinics in the state. That’s three out of a whopping 37 that will close in the nation’s second largest state. Those anti-choice legislators must be exceedingly happy, celebrating their victory, and kicking back to relax after a job well done. But wait, what’s this? They want more? Well yes, they do. 

Republican Representatives Phil King, Dan Flynn and Geanie Morrison have introduced a “fetal heartbeat” bill, which would ban abortions after six weeks (a point when many women don’t even know they are pregnant) to keep up with the great, though considerably smaller and less populous state of North Dakota. The bill would criminalize abortions and mandate invasive vaginal ultrasounds for women seeking to commit the crime of deciding for themselves when to become mothers, since transvaginal probes are the only way to detect fetal heartbeats that early. One silver lining: the law would only go into effect if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Fingers crossed.

With so many ugly and appalling things to say, it’s a wonder that Republican lawmakers, pundits and bloggers found time to be offensive and absurd about other topics, but they are a resourceful bunch. Here are some other gems from the week that was.

  1. Erick Erickson: Self-administered abortions are a real yuck fest.

Shortly after the vote to approve the draconian abortion ban, right-wing blogger Erick Erickson tweeted a link to a wire coathanger supplier, telling “liberals,” and really, the women of Texas, to “Go bookmark this site.” Rather like Geraldo’s jackass comments, this can be an instance of the right wing making the case against itself: Yes, your laws will drive women to desperate life-endangering measures, that is what we have been saying. Perhaps Erickson realized his mistake because he later deleted the tweet. But wait, then he defended his tweet against detractors by saying that before Roe v. Wade “only” 39 women died from self-administered abortions. Oh, only 39. (Not that we accept his accounting.) He also stands by his view that working women are “against nature.” Yeah, that one is still good.

==

http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/01/29/a-look-back-erick-ericksons-history-of-inflamma/192433

A Look Back: Erick Erickson's History Of Inflammatory And Inaccurate Statements

Research ››› January 29, 2013 › MIKE BURNS, HANNAH GROCH-BEGLEY, & DAVID SHERE

CNN contributor Erick Erickson is reportedly leaving the network for Fox News. During his nearly three-year tenure at CNN, Erickson repeatedly made inflammatory statements, indulged in conspiracy theories, and false statements such as the smear that Democrats support mythical "death panels."

Erickson Reportedly Out At CNN

Politico: "Erick Erickson Is Leaving CNN For Fox News." According to a report from Politico, Erickson is leaving CNN for Fox: "Red State blogger and conservative columnist Erick Erickson is leaving CNN for Fox News, sources at CNN confirm." [Politico, 1/29/13]

Upon Hiring, CNN Called Erickson "A Perfect Fit" Who Is "In Touch With The Very People" Network Wants To Reach. In a post on Erickson's hiring, CNN reported:

   Prominent conservative commentator and RedState.com editor Erick Erickson will join CNN as a political contributor, appearing primarily on CNN's new show John King, USA¸ the network announced Tuesday.

   Erickson, a self described "obsessive news junkie" who grew up in Dubai and rural Louisiana, will also provide perspective and commentary on other programs across the network.

   [...]

   "Erick's a perfect fit for John King, USA, because not only is he an agenda-setter whose words are closely watched in Washington, but as a person who still lives in small-town America, Erick is in touch with the very people John hopes to reach," said Sam Feist, CNN political director and vice president of Washington-based programming. "With Erick's exceptional knowledge of politics, as well as his role as a conservative opinion leader, he will add an important voice to CNN's ideologically diverse group of political contributors." [CNN's Political Ticker, 3/16/10]

Erickson Has A Long History Of Inflammatory Rhetoric

RACIAL ATTACKS

Erickson Endorsed Whites-Only Scholarship, Suggested Women Have Always Had Equal Opportunity. On the March 1, 2011, edition of CNN Newsroom, Erickson endorsed white-men-only scholarships provided by a Texas group called "Former Majority Association for Equality," saying, "If we're going to get rid of scholarships for African-Americans and get rid of scholarships for Hispanics and get rid of scholarships for Asians and get rid of scholarships for women, then let's get rid of the scholarships. But if we're not going to get rid of those, then let's keep this one." Erickson then suggested that women, Hispanics, and Asians have not been historically disadvantaged in America. [CNN, CNN Newsroom, 3/1/11, via Media Matters]

Erickson: "If It Weren't For Constitutionally Mandated Racial Gerrymandering," There'd Be Fewer Congressional Dems In South. On the September 16 edition of CNN's John King USA, Erickson said that "[i]f it weren't for constitutionally mandated racial gerrymandering in the south, you'd probably have even fewer Democrats down there." [CNN, John King USA, 9/16/10]

Erickson: Turn New Black Panthers' Case Into Willie Horton Ad. In a July 13, 2010, blog post headlined, "[New Black Panther Party member] King Samir Shabazz Should Be 2010's Willie Horton," Erickson wrote: "Republican candidates nationwide should seize on this issue. The Democrats are giving a pass to radicals who advocate killing white kids in the name of racial justice and who try to block voters from the polls." Erickson added: "The Democrats will scream racism. Let them. Republicans are not going to pick up significant black support anyway." [Media Matters, 7/13/10]

ATTACKS ON WOMEN

Erickson Compared First Night Of Democratic National Convention To The "Vagina Monologues." Referring to the first night of the Democratic National Convention, during which first lady Michelle Obama and other women leaders appeared, Erickson tweeted, "First night of the Vagina Monologues in Charlotte going as expected":

monologues

[Twitter.com, 9/4/12]

Erickson: "Who Cares That" IBM CEO Wasn't Given Augusta Membership? "She's A Woman" And "Women Aren't Allowed." In response to controversy over the female IBM CEO being denied admittance to the Augusta National Golf Club, Erickson said "Who cares that she wasn't invited into the club? She's a woman. Women aren't allowed." [WSB, The Erick Erickson Show, 4/6/12]

Erickson: The National Association Of Women Are "The NAG Gang... The Angry Ones. Angry In Their Unibrows." On his radio show, Erickson parroted Rush Limbaugh's smear of the National Association of Women, calling them "The NAG gang, as the godfather of radio Rush Limbaugh would call them, the National Association of Gals. They are the angry ones. Angry in their unibrows I believe it was once said." [WSB, The Erick Erickson Show, 4/2/12, via Media Matters]

Erickson On Obama's Libya Strategy: "What Is It With Barack Obama Caving To The Women?" Saying he wanted to bring out his "inner sexist," Erickson attacked what he called "women drivers" in the administration, claiming that "back-seat driving by the women" will "get Barack Obama lost." Erickson, referring to President Obama's stance on Libya, continued: "What is it with Barack Obama caving to the women? I mean, now we know who rules his personal life. I guess Michelle is firmly in charge as well, if Barack Obama is going to cave that easy to three women in his administration over what to do with Libya." [RedState.com, 3/21/12]

Erickson Defended Rep. Todd Akin's "Legitimate Rape" Remarks. When Rep. Todd Akin claimed it was "really rare" for victims of "legitimate rape" to become pregnant from assault, Erickson tweeted that the statement was "dumb" but that he would still support Akin in the Senate race:

akin

[Twitter.com, 8/19/12]

ATTACKS ON OBAMA AND ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS

Erickson Accused Obama Of "Choosing To "Pervert God's Word." In a post on his RedState blog, Erickson attacked Obama's invocation of scripture at the National Prayer Breakfast as a "perversion" of the word of God, saying "The President this week chose to pervert God's Word to make the case for a tax increase, but he also chose to ignore God's word on life and is ordering Christians, while he claims to be one, to violate their Christian conscience on abortion". [RedState, 2/5/12, via Media Matters]

Erickson "Theory": Obama "Manufactured" Libyan Crisis For Reelection. From RedState.com:

   There is not in any way, shape, or form any rational explanation for the United States engaged in Libya to do nothing except for one I can think of -- Barack Obama's re-election.

   [...]

   Suddenly Obama can look Presidential again -- all through manufacturing the need for American involvement where there was no need. Barack Obama wants to be re-elected. The best playbook for his re-election is that of Bill Clinton. But Clinton had a government shutdown and Kosovo. In the absence of either, Barack Obama must manufacture them.

   And he has. [RedState.com, 3/22/11]

Erickson: Transportation Secretary "Has Come Out In Favor Of The Chicoms Over Americans." After Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood praised Chinese success in infrastructure, Erickson took his remarks out of context to claim LaHood "has come out in favor of the Chicoms over Americans." [RedState, 7/5/12, via Media Matters]

Erickson Called Obama A "Composite Kenyan." Erickson praised Breitbart.com for its "vetting" post on Obama, using the post to call Obama a "Composite Kenyan." [RedState, 5/18/12, via Media Matters]

ATTACKS ON ISLAM

Erickson On Bombing In Oslo: "I Bet You It Was Not Lutherans Who Did It." From Erickson's twitter feed:

oslo

[Twitter, 7/22/11]

Erickson: "Violence" Is "Extremely Common And Can Fairly Well Be Considered Mainstream Within Much Of Islam" Internationally. Erickson wrote a post in the aftermath of the July 22, 2011, terrorist attacks in Norway explaining why his first instinct was to assume that the killer was a Muslim. Erickson claimed that it is "willfully naïve" for the "secular left" to ignore the "fairly common ties between terrorists and Islam" and went on to claim that while "violence and Islam may not be very common among American muslims," "internationally it is extremely common and can fairly well be considered mainstream within much of Islam." [RedState, 7/23/11]

ATTACKS ON LGBT COMMUNITY

Erickson Agreed "With Every Word" Of Anti-Gay Sermon. In a January 11 Twitter post, Erickson wrote that he "agreed with every word" of a sermon from pastor Louis Giglio from the 1990s. In that sermon, Giglio advocated for "ex-gay" therapy, called on Christians to "lovingly but firmly respond to the aggressive agenda" of gay activists, and compared homosexuality to an unwanted addiction. Giglio was slated to deliver the benediction and inaugural prayer at Obama's inauguration, but withdrew after his views opposing same-sex marriage drew criticism. From Erickson's Twitter feed:

sermon

[Twitter, 1/11/13; Think Progress, 1/9/13]

Erickson: Idea That Gay People Shouldn't Be Called "Gay" Because They "Have Nothing To Be Happy About" Is "Pretty Good." On his radio show, Erickson spoke to a caller who claimed that he took exception with the word "gays" because "They have nothing to be happy about, in the sense that marriage is between a man and a woman." Erickson replied: "I'm still stuck on you not calling them gays because they have nothing to be happy about. That's actually pretty good." [WSB Radio, 1/31/11]

VIOLENT RHETORIC

Erickson Threatened To "Pull Out [His] Wife's Shotgun" If Arrested For Not Filling Out American Community Survey. In response to the American Community Survey portion of the U.S. Census, Erickson insisted "I'm not filling out this form. I dare them to try and come throw me in jail. I dare them to. Pull out my wife's shotgun and see how that little ACS twerp likes being scared at the door." [WMAC, In the Morning with Erick Erickson, 4/1/10, via Media Matters]

Erickson: "Watching A Hippie Protester Get Tased Just Makes My Day." Discussing an Occupy Wall Street protest, Erickson said "Watching a hippie protester get tased just makes my day. It is just made of awesome." [WSB, The Erick Erickson Show, 1/30/12, via Media Matters]

OTHER INFLAMMATORY STATEMENTS

Erickson Likened Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist To A Child Molester. In August 2010, Erickson likened former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist to a child molester, writing in a post on Twitter: "We know what Rubio's truck looks like. Is this Crist's?" For Crist's truck (according to Erickson), he linked to an image of a van with the words "free candy" written on the side. [Media Matters, 8/24/10]

Erickson Equated Abortion With Holocaust. Erickson equated abortion with the Holocaust, saying, "I think the Holocaust of the millions of children killed in this country is pretty equal to [slavery]." [CNN, John King USA, 1/20/11]

Erickson Asked If "Atlanta Need[s] Its Own Version Of Katrina To Get Its Schools Fixed." In a January 18, 2011 post on Twitter, Erickson linked to an Associated Press article titled "Atlanta public school system put on probation" and asked: "Does Atlanta need its own version of Katrina to get its schools fixed?"

katrina

[Twitter, 1/18/11, via Media Matters]

Erickson: "Social Security Is, For All Intents And Purposes, A Ponzi Scheme." In a September 8 Redstate post, Erickson said "Social Security is, for all intents and purposes, a ponzi scheme." [RedState, 9/8/11, via Media Matters]

Erickson Tweet Brings Back "Death Panels" Smear. From Erickson's twitter:

smear

[Twitter, 4/4/11]

Erickson: In Wake Of Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' Attempted Murder, It's Important To Stress "A Saving Faith In Jesus Christ." In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who is Jewish, Erickson was upset that "well meaning people on both sides of the ideological and partisan divide are not talking about the one thing that should be talked about -- a saving faith in Jesus Christ." [RedState, 1/11/11, via Media Matters]

Erickson: "God Is Upset" With Atheists. From Erickson's Twitter page:

atheists

Twitter, 1/11/11

Salon is running its annual Hack List this week. Also check out "winners" number 10 [16], 9 [26], 8 [41] and 7 [56].

Erick Erickson has gravely betrayed conservatives everywhere.

I wish I could say that I am surprised. I prayed I wouldn’t have to write this, but here we are.

How can it be that Obamacare remains in effect despite Erickson’s so-called opposition? Did he do anything to halt its advance beyond writing ineffectual blog posts[57] “demanding” that Republicans repeal the ACA? Did Erickson take advantage of the stunning political success [58] that was the recent government shutdown to finally write the blog post that could have crippled the liberty-killing advance of Obamacare? No. He did not. This is, as I said, a grave betrayal, and a shocking dereliction of duty.

In fact, he and his entire band of cowards and sellouts remind me of, well, a gross word [59] for a disgusting portion of the anatomy of ladies, who are gross. You know what I mean. A part that women have that I am deeply uncomfortable thinking about for some reason.

The establishment wants you to keep reading Erickson. They want you to close your eyes and ignore the truth and keep giving Erickson and RedState your email addresses.

I’m sick of excuses and I’m sick of sniveling equivocations. This is it.

Erickson should know that conservatives like myself will now devote themselves to doing everything in their power to remove him from his blog, unless and until he starts showing some results, or my bosses tell me to lay off of him. [60]

This might upset the hysterical abortion rights advocates [61], who rely on Erickson to regularly reveal [62] the misogyny underlying the conservative movement’s abortion position, but I don’t care. The feminist Cult of Death will have to untwist their panties and find a new personification of toxic modern conservative masculinity. [63]

They can definitely do better. With his soft physique and his inexplicable belief that “blogger” is an appropriate job for a man who has a family to feed and protect, Erickson represents the epitome of the modern beta male. [64] Can you imagine an alpha male [65] in the animal kingdom “working from home”? Erickson is practically made of arugula.

While Erickson sits around collecting government benefits like the mortgage tax deduction, I work three jobs [66] and actually contribute to society instead of leeching taxpayers dry like so many politicians. [67] And unlike Erickson I don’t whine about what “society” or “the GOP” owe me.

So I know exactly how hard it is to make money in Erick Erickson’s America. Fortunately, there is someone who can help you invest your money who is as financially savvy and devoted to the free-market system as today’s Wall Streeters are financially illiterate and devoted to shaking down taxpayers.

His name is Mark Skousen, Ph.D., editor of the investment newsletter Forecasts & Strategies — and he just might be the smartest financial adviser working today.

Skousen, after all, launched his career by predicting, during the 1980-82 recession — and to the scornful laughter of nearly all the other so-called experts — that “Reaganomics will work.”

Boy, did he get that right. And boy, has he gotten it right ever since.

So please follow this affiliate link [68] to sign up for Skousen’s newsletter for a low, low introductory price. And remember: Despite what the liberal media will have you believe,Ukraine has demonstrated its commitment to democracy. [69]

Now I’ve just said a lot of vitriolic, mean-spirited things about Erickson, and obviously he deserves every one of them, but now is the part where I adopt a pious tone and talk about Christ and scripture for a paragraph. Christ teaches us to forgive our enemies, after you “joke” about the ones who were murdered by death squads. [70]