Mirroring

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note now a link and a tag (one r)

neglectedalso an element of projection, since we gop play dirty, the dems must be alsoexpand to tactics/ meme not just institutions1019 inverse / pervsee cryptosee also what aboutism/ false balance which is about portrtayal, tho this node is more about institutions?

=<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">aha: // mlk on switch out modifier: good trouble,  gang of 5 we are the new/true radicals; appropriation/inversion/perversion of lefty god term [at the same time attacking woke, new PC]</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">msnbc moral panic: you raise kids w/ right values/american and univ makes them into liberals[and/or gay?]</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/ron-desantis-2653505905/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/ron-desantis-2653505905/</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>Florida goes full fascist': Ron DeSantis sparks furious backlash with ‘authoritarian’ campus political surveys</div><div>
</div><div>Raw Story June 23, 2021</div><div>   </div><div>Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation requiring Florida students, faculty, and staff to register their political views in surveys in an effort to promote "intellectual diversity" at colleges and universities, and the measure set off backlash across social media.</div><div>
</div><div>Critics decried the law, which DeSantis claims will promote freedom of speech, as a "thoroughly Orwellian" attempt to gain control over academic debate at institutions of higher learning.</div><div>
</div><div>Well, this is thoroughly Orwellian. ?? Faculty and students of Florida, you know what to do! Freep Mini-Trump's stup… https://t.co/N2nEE5UzuM</div><div>— Betty Cracker ?? (@Betty Cracker ??)1624454881.0</div><div>
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</div><div>Well that's got to be unconstitutional: Florida students required to register political views with the state to pro… https://t.co/b1Bh8p98uN</div><div>— David Rothkopf (@David Rothkopf)1624455537.0</div><div>
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</div><div>DeSantis wants to survey university students and staff, with the threat of budget cuts if he doesn't get his way???… https://t.co/IWfcM8nGhI</div><div>— Witty Librarian In a Mask (@Witty Librarian In a Mask)1624455089.0</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small;">
</div><div style="font-size: small;">augmented what-aboutism?  the left is a threat so we have to do X; evil must be stopped, so mass shooter massage parlor</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/republican-fascism/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/republican-fascism/</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For a brief, shining moment after Donald Trump incited an insurrection on the Capitol on January 6, it seemed that the forces of rising authoritarianism in America might be curtailed, shamed by the violence that had been unleashed by their lies and bitterness over losing the election. But nope, Republicans have quickly reverted back. After all, the fundamental problem facing the Republican party and the larger American right hasn't been resolved. They still know full well that <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/12/after-opposing-wildly-popular-stimulus-package-gop-hopes-to-gnaw-away-at-public-support/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">their ideology is unpopular,</a> their arguments are indefensible, and that the only way they can hold onto power is by gutting the ability of the voters to throw them out. And so, as the past month has shown, conservatives are not only becoming more fascistic in the aftermath of the riot but more shameless about their intentions.The <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/27/conservative-groups-are-writing-gop-voter-suppression-bills---and-spending-millions-to-pass-them/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">GOP war on voting has become the number one priority</a>, with a bevy of conservative groups reorienting their organizing around keeping Americans away from ballots. <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/26/republicans-openly-embrace-their-racism-in-trumps-absence/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Republicans are leaning into the racist signaling</a> around the voter suppression efforts, and when confronted with it, they <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/25/republicans-know-their-war-on-voting-is-racist--so-theyre-barely-bothering-to-defend-it/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">barely bother to defend themselves</a>, mainly because there is no moral defense possible. There's lip-smacking from the right about "voter fraud" — which they continue to fail to show is a problem, much less one that voter suppression efforts will fix — but these excuses are pro forma, and you can tell their hearts aren't in it.Instead of trying to sell their behavior as good and righteous, instead, conservatives are coalescing around a different excuse: The liberals are making them do it! They don't want to be fascists, you see, but gosh darn it, they have no choice!This excuse was <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/29/dont-blame-facebook-how-fox-news-became-the-beating-heart-of-the-white-nationalist-movement/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">most clearly articulated for a large audience</a> on <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1376271350281682944" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Tucker Carlson's Fox News show last week</a>. <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-right-says-sorry-in-advance-for-going-fascist?ref=home" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">His guest, Jesse Kelly, ranted</a> that he is "worried" — and by "worried", he means he's threatening — that the "right is going to pick a fascist" because "if we're going to be all treated like criminals and all subject to every single law, while antifa/Black Lives Matter guys go free and <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-right-way-and-the-wrong-way-to-cover-hunter-biden" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Hunter Biden</a> goes free, then the right's going to take drastic measures."Carlson, far from pushing back on this "don't make us hit you" threat, performed his idiotic mouth-open fake serious face, as if this was an intellectual discussion about something happening beyond his control. In reality, his show is a nightly blast of encouragement at his fans to embrace their more fascistic yearnings.The more "intellectual" version of this argument was rolled out <a href="https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-the-claremont-institute-is-not-conservative-and-you-shouldnt-be-either/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">by Glenn Ellmers at the American Mind blog</a> of the Claremont Institute, a fairly prestigious conservative think tank that is oriented around the task of putting an intellectualized gloss on the reactionary impulses of the right. In the piece, Ellmers argues openly that "most people living in the United States today" — by which he clearly and explicitly means Democratic voters — "are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term."Defining most Americans as non-American, of course, is about justifying an all-out assault on their rights and freedoms. <a href="https://johnganz.substack.com/p/the-week-in-fascism" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">As progressive writer John Ganz wrote in his lengthy rebuttal to Ellmers</a>, this is a "radically anti-democratic conceit of delegitimizing the citizenship of the majority of the country." But Ellmers, like Kelly, pretends to say this more in sorrow than anger, claiming that the left has forced this turn towards fascism (though he pretends it isn't fascism) because the liberal majority does "not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people."In this argument, of course, only the right gets to decide what counts as a legitimate American value. It's closed-loop logic: You are technically free, but only if you live your life in a way prescribed by the religious right. You're allowed to vote, but only if you vote for Republicans. But can freedom really be freedom if it's stripped away from you the second you actually use your freedom? Of course not. This kind of illogic allows authoritarians to claim to be "pro-freedom" while refusing people real freedom.On his recent call to Laura Ingraham's Fox News show, <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/03/26/trump-tries-to-defend-capitol-rioters-on-fox-news-gets-shut-down-by-laura-ingraham/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Trump understandably made headlines</a> with lies about the Capitol insurrectionists, who he falsely claimed were "zero threat", even though they killed on Capitol police officer, traumatized two to the point of suicide, and left 140 injured. But equally disturbing was the way Trump justified the violence, even as he pretended not to see it."When I look at antifa and what they did to Washington," he whined, "and what they did to other locations, and the destruction, and frankly the killing and the beating up of people, and nothing happens to them whatsoever? Why aren't they going after antifa?"Of course, this is more lies. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/16/this-summers-black-lives-matter-protesters-were-overwhelming-peaceful-our-research-finds/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Research shows that 98% of the Black Lives Matter protests were peaceful</a>, and that police were often the instigators of the violence. But Trump's lie serves a purpose. Like Kelly and Ellmers, Trump is setting up the claim that violence and fascism are not something that conservatives are choosing willingly, but something they've been forced to embrace. You know, because "antifa" and the "beating up of people," most of which resides in the fevered conservative's imagination rather than reality.<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/biden-chose-prosperity-over-vengeance/618279/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">As Adam Serwer at the Atlantic recently noted</a>, from the very beginning of Trump's presidency, conservatives perceived him as "a punishment" and would "respond to any perceived liberal excess with a simple phrase: 'This is why Trump won.'" They knew that it was wrong to vote for Trump, that it made them bad people to do it, but insisted that they were forced into this immoral position by alleged liberal excesses, most of which were silly, made up entirely or wildly exaggerated. (Literally, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/07/14/this-list-is-why-trump-won-219009/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">conservatives justified the immoral choice to vote for Trump</a> by citing the existence of veggie burgers, gay rights demonstrators twerking, and Disneyland removing a "humorous" display about selling women into prostitution.) Now that logic has exploded all over the right, being used to justify all their own grotesque, fascistic, or anti-democratic behavior.In a sense, nothing is new about this.Despite all the chest-thumping authoritarians do, they're all cowards at heart, prone to whining and playing the victim, no matter how silly the pretense. Nazis had their own version of this, with their false "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/11/23/trumps-refusal-acknowledge-defeat-mirrors-lie-that-fueled-nazi-rise/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">stabbed in the back</a>" narrative they used to justify their genocidal desires. From the very beginning of Trump's presidency, groups like the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2017/05/02/alt-right-hopes-to-organize-street-fighting-goon-squad-is-it-more-than-macho-posturing/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Proud Boys would openly trawl through liberal cities</a>, trying to provoke a fight, so they could claim victimhood and use that as justification for violence. They can never just admit that they want to be fascists. Instead, they whine and blame someone else for their own immoral desires.What's scary about this particular moment is that kind of illogic is starting to spread even more rapidly through conservative media. Trump's two-and-a-half-month-long coup effort may have failed to secure him a second term, but it did instill a widespread sense on the right that they were entitled to win the election. Since other voters "stole" the election by voting for Joe Biden, conservatives increasingly claim justification for ending democracy. If you reject people's right to prefer one candidate over another, however, you never believed in democracy in the first place.<div class="around-the-web"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/gop-turning-on-trump/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: lighter; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Republicans formalize their embrace of American fascism with ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/cpac-fascism/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: lighter; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Republicans' fascism two-step was on display at CPAC 2021 ... ›</a></li><li class="from-your-siteitem"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/gop-fascism/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: lighter; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Is the Republican Party fascist? An expert explains the 7 themes that ... ›</a></li></ul><div class="around-the-webheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase; margin-top: 10px;">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/21/937638178/-how-fascism-works-author-on-trump-s-attempts-to-overturn-election-results" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: lighter; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">'How Fascism Works' Author On Trump's Attempts To Overturn ... ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.vox.com/22225472/fascism-definition-trump-fascist-examples" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: lighter; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">What is fascism? And is Donald Trump a fascist? - Vox ›</a></li><li class="around-the-webitem"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/republican-party-trump-pence-embraced-history-american-fascism-2020-10" class="around-the-weblink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: lighter; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; line-height: normal; display: inline-block; margin-top: 10px;">Republican Party, Trump, Pence embrace history of American fascism ›</a></li></ul></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/oregon-trump-supporters-antifa/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/oregon-trump-supporters-antifa/</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no lnx twt eg poso no pix 3 dn arrow = 3percent?</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">trump supporter pulls gun as tensions flare at clash with antifascists in Oregon</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Zachary Petrizzo and Salon March 29, 2021</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">   </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On Sunday, Trump supporters, reportedly including members of the far-right militia the Proud Boys, exchanged blows with approximately 150 antifascist demonstrators in Salem, Oregon. The two rival groups clashed near the State Capitol building as the day came to a close, with one Trump supporter being detained after drawing a firearm on black-clad demonstrators who had allegedly damaged his vehicle dressed in "black bloc."</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">During the afternoon hours, anti-fascist demonstrations could be seen blocking access to a street nearing the Capitol building where Trump supporters were parading with pickup trucks bearing pro-Trump flags. The apparent objective of the antifascist demonstrations on Sunday was to derail a planned right-wing event called "Freedom" in Salem's central town square.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"The 'Freedom' rally was advertised starting in February on social media as an event to honor those who 'fought for our freedoms,'" The Statesman Journal reported. As the afternoon progressed and tensions flared, an additional video emerged of a blue truck barreling through the demonstration's roadblock and nearly crashing straight into one demonstrator in the middle of the street.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">According to Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter Sergio Olmos, some vehicles apparently belonging to Trump supporters were pelted with various objects or "splattered" with paint. "Several other vehicles also drove in and near the crowd over the course of the afternoon. Anti-fascist protesters threw objects and splattered some of the vehicles with paint," OPB reported.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Late in the afternoon, one Trump supporter was detained by Salem police after he pulled a gun on antifascist demonstrators, apparently after one of his windows was smashed and paint was flung on his silver pickup, which was festooned with American flags and bore red, white and blue striping. As seen in news images, the man was wearing a hoodie that read, "I Stand for the Flag/ I Kneel for the Cross," a popular right-wing slogan. The man appeared to pull a handgun from his waistband, but no shots were fired.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Police quickly moved in to detain the man, who tossed the firearm into the bed of his pickup truck before complying with law enforcement.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oregon has been the site of numerous confrontations between right-wing and left-wing protesters over the past few years, but this was the first notable such encounter since the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. "Violent protests between the sides were common during the Trump administration, as anti-liberal groups would often travel to cities like Portland and Salem to engage in the conflicts," as Oregon Public Broadcasting noted in its report.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="">Following the Salem clash, One America News (OAN) correspondent Jack Posobiec — who has frequently collaborated with neo-Nazis and white supremacists — attempted to frame the incident in quite different terms, writing that "armed Antifa insurrections attempted to overthrow the Oregon state capitol today." That does not appear to be the case.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Here's how wacky state Republican Parties are getting as Trump ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">'Antifa arson' hoax rumors spread faster than wildfires in besieged ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Republican lawmakers caught helping pro-Trump mobs at US ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Antifa protester vandalizes Trump supporter's truck at Oregon ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Antifa Protester Implicated in Killing of Trump Supporter in Oregon ... ›</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Trump Supporter in Oregon Pulls Gun on Antifa Protesters Who ... ›</div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2 style="font-weight: 300; margin: 30px 0px 5px; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">=</h2></div>=intensified at least tempor by gop exisential threat of insurrection blowbackroger/roy cohn delta deny all, make ctr-accusation keep head down and keep moving?there's this odd kneejerk projection mirror (crypto?) move to accuse left of whatever right /gop has just been busted for usually with facts/evidence to right offers none? eg Gaetz left stole election, insurrection was antifa...made easier/required by echo/escalator post truth trump maga world? // whatabout ism<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/marjorie-green/">https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/marjorie-green/</a> will impeach biden<div>=</div>=<div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-right-wing/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/trump-right-wing/</a></div><div>
</div><div>"We're all victims," Donald Trump claimed at his first rally after the presidential election, on Dec. 5 in Georgia "We're all victims. Everybody here. All these thousands of people here tonight. They're all victims. Every one of you." That was quite a change from his 2016 election campaign, when he promised "<a href="https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x35wrxf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">So much winning you'll get bored</a>." Liberals were supposed to be the "snowflakes," right? What happened? How did the once-proud party of masculine self-reliance and "personal responsibility" become such a bunch of whiny snowflakes?There are lots of reasons one could point to, but in truth it's pretty much a blind-men-and-the-elephant situation. We have an abundance of particular insights, with different bits and pieces of the answer. But surprisingly little is known about the role of victimhood in politics in any organized sense, even though particular examples are well-known, some of them quite broad. A passage on white Southern victimhood in the conclusion of "<a href="https://bookshop.org/a/2464/9780190265960" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Long Southern Strategy</a>" (author interview <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/07/01/the-long-southern-strategy-how-southern-white-women-drove-the-gop-to-donald-trum/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">here</a>) is a case in point, drawing together some of the major themes developed earlier in the book. But there is no shared empirical framework for comparing levels of Southern victimhood with victimhood levels elsewhere — unlike with other measures, such as modern sexism, which is used to great effect in that book. All kinds of political attitudes have been measured and studied over the years—enough to <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-02216-000" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">fill a whole volume</a>, more than 20 years ago, but no one's ever studied victimhood with the same kind of rigorous scrutiny.Until now, that is — in a new paper by Miles Armaly and Adam Enders, "'Why Me?' The Role of Perceived Victimhood in American Politics" (forthcoming in the journal Political Behavior.) Given how much of a role victimhood plays in politics, it's remarkable that this appears to be the first attempt ever to develop a way to measure it, and thereby open up a whole new realm of inquiry. By measuring perceived victimhood, the authors show that it's "largely unrelated to political predispositions or sociodemographic characteristics," but is related to, but various views of government, society and the world (especially with regard to perceived corruption and conspiratorial thinking) and personality traits such as narcissism and a sense of entitlement.While the authors didn't set out to explain how Republicans became the victim party, Armaly told me in a recent interview, that makes a lot of sense in terms of what they did find. "The idea of many Trump supporters being 'victims' is borne out in our work," he said. "Inasmuch as cueing from political elites is responsible for some of these feelings, victimhood is currently manifesting in Trump supporters in large part because of 'we are the victims' messages," such as Trump's speech in Georgia.The combination of two processes — top-down elite cues and bottom-up pre-existing attitudes — is one of three major distinctions drawn in this paper that clarify our understanding of victimhood, and how it helps shape the political landscape. "It's bottom-up in the sense that many psychological traits are. It's top-down in that elites can cue feelings of victimhood," Armaly put it. Neither of those things by itself can explain how victimhood functions in politics; both need to involved. But even to begin we need the help of another distinction — between objectively-defined victimhood and a subjective sense of victimhood — in order to focus on the common psychological factors shared by differently situated political individuals and groups.Finally, "Why Me" develops a highly-clarifying twofold construct of subjective victimhood: It is egocentric, involving a tendency to agree with statements like "I am the victim because I deserve more than I get," and it involves a sense of systemic unfairness, reflected in sentiments like, "I am the victim because the system is rigged against me." The two are strongly correlated but distinct, with egocentric victims more likely to be Trump supporters, for example, while systemic victims are less likely to be.In an added wrinkle, the paper's conclusion suggests the existence of a third form of victimhood, "an other-oriented, or accusatory one," and goes on to note:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Modern right-wing rhetoric, for instance, decries liberal "snowflakes," "safe spaces," and political correctness culture. In each of these instances, victimhood is projected onto others. This mobilizes the projectors because the "victims" are illegitimate — they are not deserving of victim status in the eyes of those doing the projecting.
</blockquote>If every accusation is a confession, this third form of victimhood offers a very big clue as to how Trump's base has turned snowflake.Each of these distinctions is worth considering in turn. But first let's note three key points from the paper's conclusion. First, the centrality of victimhood:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Victimhood is central to politics. If politics is, as Lasswell (1936) famously described, about "who gets what, when, how," there are going to be victims.Some will be perceived as victims when they are not, others just the opposite. Political communication is, in no trivial sense, tasked with making some feel like victims, and others look like victims.
</blockquote>Second, victimhood in politics isn't necessarily pernicious:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);">That victimhood plays such a central role in politics is not necessarily troubling.
It is intuitive that politicians would make their case to constituents in such a way that victimhood is cued. Indeed, we want representatives that work to realize our values, fill our pockets, and facilitate a happy and healthy life.
</blockquote>Third, what's troubling is when a sense of victimhood fuels extremism:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Rather than the mere appeal to victimhood, it is the lengths one is willing to go in order to mobilize victimhood that poses the greatest potential normative threat to a civilized democratic political system. Speaking historically, it is precisely a feeling of hypervictimization that has caused people to turn to authoritarian regimes for relief.
</blockquote><h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Subjective vs. objective</h4>Let's turn to the three distinctions described above: The objective/subjective distinction comes first. One reason perceived victimhood hasn't been systematically studied, Armaly told me, is because "there are actual political victims." In the course of getting the paper published, he said, "People were talking about 'How are Black people different from white people? How are women different from men?' Because people were stuck in the idea of genuine victims of the political process. I think that's one of the reasons that we haven't had this direct focus on perceived victimhood in political science or similar fields."In fact, the paper itself notes: "Men seem to be slightly higher in perceived victimhood across the board. … Such an observation underscores our claim that victimhood — as a self-perception — does not require relative disempowerment or subjection to injustices."In conversation, Armaly was more blunt. "It doesn't matter what's true," he said. "It matters what people think and what they feel."A broader public understanding of this could be helpful, he said: "If people understand that these are perceptions, that they can be made to feel this way — and that's a powerful source for political elites." Indeed, promoting this kind of awareness was the underlying insight behind the race-class narrative project developed by Ian Haney López, Anat Shenker-Osorio, and Demos, which I <a href="https://www.salon.com/2018/06/10/a-unifying-race-class-narrative-blueprint-for-progressive-victory/" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">wrote about here</a> in June 2018. I described it as a suite of narratives "that call out scapegoating by greedy, wealthy special interests, and that call on people to unify across racial lines for the common good."Armaly expressed the promise he sees in more general terms. "If an individual can recognize that perhaps they are being told they're victims when indeed they're not, maybe there's something there that people can learn from: 'Hold on, I'm not really the victim here.''"The race-class narratives didn't specifically discuss victimhood, but they did confront the dynamic. For example:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);">California's strength comes from our ability to work together – to knit together a landscape of people from different places and of different races into a whole. For this to be a place of freedom for all, we cannot let the greedy few and the politicians they pay for divide us against each other based on what someone looks like, where they come from or how much money they have. It's time to stand up for each other and come together. It is time for us to vote for leaders who see all of us as equal, whether we are white, black, or brown, who respect all of our families, and who will govern for all of us.
</blockquote>Armaly's work suggests that other elite manipulations of victimhood could be countered with similar kinds of messages. Recognizing victimhood as a subjective state is the first step toward breaking its spell.<h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Egocentric vs. systemic</h4>This distinction is the most fully elaborated of the three. What both poles have in common is that victimhood is "attractive," Armaly explained, "because it's placing the blame for one's lot in life on somebody else: 'It's not my fault.' It's a psychologically pleasing thing. I don't have to be blamed, because somebody else is doing this." From there, the two types diverge. "With the systemic, people are placing the blame with specific higher entities if you will, and with egocentric, people feel this way, they have the internal feelings of victimhood, but again, it's not their fault. It's always nice to lay blame somewhere else. That's the way to eliminate psychological pressure on oneself."The difference between the two might seem subtle, and only emerged gradually over time. "We were discussing how to measure victimhood, and we have these ideas central to what we thought victimhood entailed," Armaly explained. "At a certain point we realized these are kind of tapping different things. So if you look at the items we use, four of them refer to the self, or 'me' or 'I' or something like that, and the other four are referring to outward sources."The paper itself puts it this way: "The major distinction between egocentric and systemic victimhood is blame attribution. Systemic victimhood is a manifestation of perceived victimhood whereby the self defined victim specifically attributes blame for their victim status on systemic issues and entities." By contrast, "Egocentric victimhood ... is less outwardly focused. Egocentric victims feel that they never get what they deserve in life, never get an extra break, and are always settling for less. Neither the 'oppressor,' nor the attribution of blame, are very specific."Indeed, the difference is striking: As mentioned above, egocentric victims are more supportive of Trump, while systemic victims are less likely to be. This makes intuitive sense, in terms of Trump's vague, self-centered language way — about victimization and pretty much everything else. The lack of evidence of voter fraud or any irregularities in the 50-plus election-related lawsuits Trump and his allies have filed does not matter nearly as much to egocentric victims as it potentially would to systemic victims. But the differential support could also reflect the fact that Trump was president when the study was done, Armaly noted. On top of that, "Trump is the establishment, he's wealthy, he's been around forever. So people who see wealth and maybe other systemic issues as victimizing don't support Trump."There was a similar difference with regard to a set of racial issues, including affirmative action. "Somebody who thinks that they're the victim, an egocentric victim [is] going to view something like affirmative action as taking away possibilities that they think they rightfully deserve," Armaly explained. "Whereas a systemic victim seemingly recognizes that there are systemic forces that need to be corrected, and affirmative action is a correction for that type of systemic racial issue."A similar logic applies with respect to anti-political-correctness attitudes, Armaly said. "The egocentric victim sees it like, 'I'm being told what I can and can't say. This is an infringement of My First Amendment rights.' Of course it's not. It's not coming from the government. But they perceive society as censoring them."By contrast, people with a high sense of systemic victimhood "would think you really shouldn't speak to each other the way we do sometimes. Maybe some of this political correctness language is a good thing, because it's more inclusive, It helps people not feel so bad about how other people speak about them," Armaly explained.With this more detailed understanding of systemic and egocentric victimhood in hand, we are better able to appreciate the significance of the third distinction, between the top-down and bottom-up aspects of victimhood. The primary focus of the paper (and the discussion above) is on the latter: Bottom-up aspects provide the primary data. But top-down elite messaging is central to the political process. There's no way to understand victimhood's political significance (not just potential) without it.Subjects were presented with identical victimhood narratives attributed to Trump or Joe Biden, according to their partisan identification. "One thing we know from decades of political science research is people only respond to cues from sources they trust," Armaly noted. "Republicans are going to support Trump, Democrats are going to support Biden. Let's see if they can cue victimhood in their followers." The message was simple:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background: rgb(245, 245, 245);">You, the middle class and working people, have been the victims of so much. You never seem to catch a break, and always seem to pay the steepest price. It's sad, it really is. And I'm going to keep fighting for you no matter what.
</blockquote>The result, the paper noted, was that "both egocentric and systemic victimhood increase as a result of hearing Trump or Biden describe the average people's inability to catch a break." In short, Armaly said, "This is not a Trump phenomenon. This is not a Republican or conservative phenomenon. It cuts across ideological lines and partisan lines. But Trump is very effective at it. And it seems like he's weaponizing this victimhood to adhere people to him, to the party, to certain policies. This is a powerful force and it's a powerful feeling. If people feel like victims, it's unlikely that they're going to see the other party as a way to fix victimhood."So Republicans who agree with Trump that 'Hey, we are the victims,' they're never going to turn to Joe Biden for the remedy. They're only going to turn to Republicans in the future, maybe even continuing to support Trump. So one consequence of this, we think, is entrenching polarization, furthering extremity in beliefs about politics, and making people set up more in their existing camps."Of course, Trump election loss and his subsequent behavior has further intensified feelings of victimhood: "That's precisely what the 'Stop the Steal' thing is about," Armaly said. "'We're the victims of fraudulent elections,' even though there's no evidence pointing there and they keep losing in court. But that is definitely a victimhood-cueing rallying cry."In a way, this helps makes sense of the decades-long thrust of "The Long Southern Strategy." Threatened identities — first around race, and then gender and religion — were key to the whole enterprise. As co-author Angie Maxwell told me, "They didn't have infrastructure in a lot of places for the Republican Party. So they had to create this sense of urgency, and you do that by tapping into things that people feel are fragile and are being threatened." In short, they had to promote feelings of victimhood.I asked Maxwell to comment on the theme of victimhood for this story. She responded:<blockquote style="margin: 1em 40px 1em -5px; border-left: 4px solid rgb(11, 13, 101); line-height: 32px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; width: 602.543px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">In an effort to cut an electoral map path to victory, starting in the 1960s, Republican strategists pushed individualism against the collective — againstcollective bargaining, protest, organizing. Individualism creates blinders that can deny systemic racism, sexism and privilege. Simultaneously, these GOP strategists, in order to shake Southern whites lose from their long-term connection to the Democratic Party, manufactured a sense of urgency about everything from the "war on Christmas" to the welfare queen bankrupting the taxpayer. That combination creates a self-focused, faux victimhood, reminiscent of the Lost Cause in the South but with a national appeal.
</blockquote>This is how, under the "Stop the Steal" banner, we get a majority of House Republicans supporting an utterly frivolous lawsuit before the Supreme Court that flies in the face of decades of GOP "states' rights" rhetoric. Surprise! The Southern strategy was never about states' rights, any more than the Civil War was. (The Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act had already made a mockery of those Southern claims.)<h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On the role of narcissism</h4>It's worth highlighting how significant Trump's narcissism is in this dynamic. He is utterly incapable of ever admitting he's been wrong. When finally forced to recant his support for birtherism, he double-falsely claimed, "Hillary Clinton started birtherism, and I ended it." Now, having lost an election by more than 7 million votes he claims the election is being stolen from him.So even though narcissism is only related to victimhood statistically, it's still important to consider the role it plays. For this, I reached out to therapist Elizabeth Mika, whose chapter in "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Case-Donald-Trump-Psychiatrists/dp/1250179459" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump</a>" on "Tyranny as a Triumph of Narcissism" explained how tyranny is a "three-legged beast," encompassing the tyrant, his supporters and the society as a whole."A sense of victimhood — as opposed to real victimhood — is always based in narcissism: the erroneous, corrosive and inherently destructive belief that we are special — somehow better than others — and thus we deserve special treatment, perks and privileges," Mika said.There's a logical connection, she continued. "Narcissists are eternal victims, as perpetual victimhood is the other side of the narcissistic coin. It can't be otherwise, because if you believe yourself to be special and the world does not reflect this back to you, as is always the case sooner or later, you are going to feel victimized by the lack of special treatment."A similar logic applies to groups as well. "You can expect the members of historically privileged classes and groups to have a sense of specialness ingrained in them by the virtue of being part of that class," Mika said. "When their sense of privilege is threatened and/or eroded, by, for example, expanding the privilege to others, members of previously disenfranchised and thus 'inferior' groups, they react with anger and rage that seek suitable scapegoats, more often than not from among those who are seen as 'stealing' their privilege or otherwise responsible for its loss. For narcissists, the loss of privilege feels like oppression."This description is a near-perfect fit for Trump's white, Christian nationalist base. That base easily delivered landslide re-election victories for Richard Nixon in the 70s and Ronald Reagan in the 80s, but has only managed one popular-vote victory since 1988. Its privileged position has been eroding for at least 30 years now, and has only survived this long because of multiple anti-democratic features of our politics: the Electoral College, gerrymandering, voter suppression, the Senate filibuster and ideologically-stacked courts. The longer that power has been sustained on such a fragile, illegitimate foundation, the more crushing its loss would seem. Hello, snowflakes!<h4 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A third kind of victimhood</h4>As mentioned before, a third form of victimhood is proposed in the paper, an other-oriented or accusatory one typified by right-wing attacks on liberal "snowflakes" and political correctness in which victimhood is projected onto others. "This mobilizes the projectors because the 'victims' are illegitimate — they are not deserving of victim status in the eyes of those doing the projecting."This is clearly more complicated than egocentric or systemic victimhood. But more than projection is likely going on. It may be a process known as "<a href="http://minnickskleinacademy.com/module-2-2-kleins-baby-core-coping-defensive-maneuvers/splitting-and-projective-identification/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">projective identification</a>," discovered by British psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, which I wrote about <a href="https://www.salon.com/2015/11/27/this_is_the_entire_gop_plan_credibility_destroyed_after_bush_debacle_their_only_strategy_is_to_scare_us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">here</a> in late 2015. It involves "introjection (imagining another — or aspects of another — inside oneself) as well as projection—or even both, simultaneously." The first example Klein gave was a specific form known as "envious reversal," in which the projector's unwanted inner states (thoughts, feelings, etc.) are projected (into what Klein called the "container") while the projector steals some desirable state of the "container."If one is not a victim but claims to be, that's very likely an example of envious reversal. But if one is a snowflake and has spent years attacking others as snowflakes, that's also an example of envious reversal. So, too, if you believe that others are unfairly claiming victim status, when in fact that's been your go-to move ever since Brown v. Board of Education. So there's a potential for this kind of victimhood to lead into a hall-of-mirrors fantasy situation. But remember: This is still subjective victimhood. Questions about how subjective and objective realities align are incredibly important, but to fully address them we need to understand the subjective side as well as can.The first step in studying "other-oriented victimhood," Armaly said, would be to examine whether the "correlates" are "similar to egocentric or systemic victimhood, or whether we are talking about a third, totally unique type?" His intuition is that such people "would reject the idea that they're victims, most of the time," but might also "reject the idea that others are victims. Other-oriented victimhood doesn't ever seem to be saying, 'Oh yeah, those people are victims of the political process,' It's usually used as a way to say they're not."The notion of other-oriented victimhood can also have significance for the public as citizens in a democracy, helping us to see things more clearly. "The bleeding heart in me wants to talk about empathy," Armaly said. "Maybe let's not think about victimhood in terms of who is and isn't a victim. Maybe there's another way to approach it. Also, I think victimhood is not zero-sum. Multiple people can be victims — it's not mutually exclusive and not dichotomous in that way."As a big-picture thought about victimhood as whole, Armaly raised a fundamental question. "We should be asking ourselves, 'Are we comfortable giving victims increased status to make social and political claims?'" he said. "And then, similarly, 'Are we comfortable judging the veracity of different claims?' We don't have a way to do this. Society isn't cohesive. We don't have the same mores and the same norms, necessarily, across all facets of society." He went on to note that, "Elevating some claims over others incentivizes these feelings of victimhood, and that's one of the reasons people are attracted to them. I think we have to consider whether incentivizing that feeling is a good thing."Recalling the three points from the conclusion of "Why Me?" cited above, the answer may be that victimhood is inevitably central to politics and isn't necessarily pernicious, but that our capacity to deal with it without falling prey to hyper-victimization may be at a historically low ebb. That recognition could help orient us toward civic repair. Eliminating both actual victimhood and a sense of victimhood is not within our power. But continuing to be a victim of victimhood just might be. If, as Armaly argues, victimhood is not zero-sum, the best way to help any professed victims might be to help them all. Yes, even the snowflakes-in-denial who can't let go of their damaged and defeated president.</div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/presenting-democrat-voters-against-joe-biden-a-group-so-fake-its-hilarious/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/presenting-democrat-voters-against-joe-biden-a-group-so-fake-its-hilarious/</a>hunter kosno lnxjust some of the anonymous Democrat voters who are super-concerned that Democrat Biden is too Democrat, maybe?If you have at some point stumbled across a political group on Facebook (of course) calling itself “Democrat Voters Against Joe Biden,” you probably noticed a few things that made the group sound … suspicious. First, it is not likely that a true group of Democratic voters would use an illiterate-sounding conservative slur to refer to themselves: “Democrat Voters” is a Luntzian term used by hardline partisan Republicans, who remain utterly convinced that using a noun where an adjective should be used is the Ultimate Lib Ownage for reasons that remain mysterious to this day.Second: Also that. Third and fourth: That, but repeated. Honestly, if you’re going to be so lazy in setting up your fake trolling operation that you can’t even be bothered to run your proposed name through the ol’ Partisan Despittler 3000, give back the damn check and go home already. Gawd, what an embarrassment.The Daily Beast discovered the group, and investigated its (cough) oranges, and reports their findings: The group “Democrat Voters Against Joe Biden” is quite possibly one of the laziest attempted political trolls ever run. It is a project of Americans for Responsible Government, a conservative nonprofit. It parrots the exact talking points being promoted in other far-right internet puddles, concerns about Biden’s “mental state” that appeared everywhere in Republicanism, all at once, after Donald Trump got mocked for shuffling down a gentle incline in a not-exactly-presidential fashion.It “so far” has one (1) video testimonial from an allegedly disgruntled “Democrat Voter.” It is by a “Tracy,” who turns out to be a longtime Trump supporter whose son is, reports The Daily Beast, a field organizer for Trump’s campaign.Perhaps the best part, though, is the website. The Daily Beast notes that language on the “Democrat Voters” website “is copied nearly verbatim from the [Republican Voters Against Trump] website, with some minor stylistic changes and Biden’s name switched out for Trump’s.”Oh my God that is so on-brand it genuinely hurts. A conservative group was feeling stung by the not-fake “Republican Voters Against Trump” campaign. The response was, of course, to launch a fake group, featuring a fake testimonial from a fake Democratic voter, and cut-and-pasting the “Republican Voters Against Trump” language almost verbatim rather than rubbing even two brain cells together to write up their supposedly deep convictions themselves.I mean, c’mon. It’s almost parody, it’s so on-brand. The liberal critique of modern conservatism is that it stands for Absolutely Nothing, and has no ideas or even general thoughts aside from being reflexively opposed to whatever any Democrat says, under any circumstances, without exception. The conservative response to this has repeatedly been to say nuh-uh while launching campaign after campaign premised on “whatever those Democrats are saying, but the exact opposite.”In some cases, by literally taking anti-conservative campaign materials, copying it into their own campaigns, reversing names and parties as needed and calling it done. And billing for it.C’mon. And Republican donors are paying money, actual money, for these clown shows.It is on that note that I announce the discovery of a new group, which is an entirely Republican group and filled with the most prominent conservative names you can never quite remember. It is called Stupid Republicans Who Are Stupid And Say Stupid Things And Lick Public Bathroom Faucet Handles For Trump. It’s completely legitimate and has nothing to do with me, just a normal group of Republicans having normal Republican opinions, all on the up-and-up. Also, please pay me cash for creating a website on their behalf. SRWASASSTALPBFHFT will be a major force in the campaign this year, just you wait.<div>=</div><div>odd mirroring pattern? i am the true victim</div><div>an 920w<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/watch-fact-free-utah-rally-goes-viral-after-attendees-spout-conspiracies-and-compare-wearing-masks-to-george-floyd-telling-police-i-cant-breathe/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline !important;">atch: Fact-free Utah rally goes viral after attendees spout conspiracies and compare wearing masks to George Floyd telling police ‘I can’t breathe’</a><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/ayshaqamar/" title="Posts by Aysha Qamar" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Aysha Qamar</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/daily-kos/" title="Posts by Daily Kos" class="author url fn" rel="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Daily Kos</a></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As health experts continue to encourage mask-wearing across the country, some anti-maskers just won’t give up.</div>=</div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div>so clearly spin inversion of white privilege and project on enemy, thus i am not a racist, i am a victim, my right to free sp suppressed by PC?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-jr-makes-absurd-excuse-for-er-kyle-rittenhouse-we-all-do-stupid-things-at-17/">https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-jr-makes-absurd-excuse-for-er-kyle-rittenhouse-we-all-do-stupid-things-at-17/</a></div><div>
</div><div>the cosmic disappointment of a son only Donald Trump could have, Donald Trump Jr., was on ExtraTV on Tuesday to discuss his new book, <em times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" outline="outline" none="none" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding">Liberal Privilege. I believe the book is sold exclusively at the Hypocrites Handbook Book Store on Nepotism Island, in the magical land of Cowpie. Right out of the gate, Junior was asked by Extra host Rachel Lindsay what he thought of the statement Black Lives Matter, as well as the movement underneath its umbrella.</div><div>Trump Jr. stammered his way into explaining that “the phrase Black Lives Matter is obvious, ah no one in America, you know, says anything else.” Lindsay, who is Black, cut Trump Jr. off to remind him that yes, in fact, there are tons of people that say almost anything else besides Black Lives Matter. Trump Jr. responded that “no one” he knew did. Welcome through the looking glass, Extra! This is the Trump family, of course, so somehow this was the least offensive and ignorant thing Junior said in the interview. It was the first question, so he was likely just warming up those three brain cells he’s working with.Junior went on to explain that he thought Black Lives Matter was a “very good marketing message,” and a “great catchphrase,” but that the political ideology behind it didn’t support it. As opposed to, I guess, Trump and Junior’s white supremacist agenda. Trump Jr. went on to defend his father’s lack of communication with Jacob Blake’s family and his very direct communication with the Kenosha police department. His defense was the same one we’ve already heard: Trump called someone and the Blake family had asked that their family lawyer be on the call—and we know lawyers not in Trump’s pocket spook Donald Trump—and the police department that Trump was meeting with are fighting to save businesses.Lindsay, a former reality television contestant, did about as well as any traditional media outlet host could, pointing out that those hollow talking points aside: “Why hasn’t the Trump Administration or President Trump condemned what happened in Kenosha with Kyle Rittenhouse—coming across state lines and murdering two people and injuring another?"it is here that Trump Jr. reminds the world exactly who the Trumps are:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 10px 20px 10px 24px; position: relative; line-height: 1.7; overflow: hidden; background: rgb(245, 245, 245); border: none !important;">DONALD TRUMP JR.: We’re waiting for due process. We’re not jumping to a conclusion. If I put myself in Kyle Rittenhouse’s shoes, maybe I shouldn’t have been there. He’s a young kid. I don’t, I don’t want 17-year-olds running around the street with AR-15s. Maybe I wouldn’t have put myself in that situation. Who knows? But we all do stupid things at 17.</blockquote>It looks like some of us continue to live a life of doing “stupid things” well into their 40s. Maybe Trump Jr. can speak to his <a href="https://apps.frontline.org/clinton-trump-keys-to-their-characters/pdf/trump-newspaper.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">father’s full page ad</a> calling for the death penalty for the five children who lost decades of their lives, only to be exonerated later. Those kids were 14-year-old Kevin Richardson, 14-year-old Raymond Santana, 15-year-old Antron McCray, 15-year-old Yusef Salaam, and 16-year-old Korey Wise. Those kids were straight up doing “stupid things,” but went to jail for some completely other man’s truly evil actions. The reason those teenagers were falsely treated like rapists and attempted murderers was because they were children of color in a New York City where law enforcement’s job is to keep people of color far away from white supremacists like Donald Trump Jr.Yes, we all know that being young is filled with doing “stupid things.” But there are degrees of stupid, and what is excruciatingly clear is that people like Donald Trump and his progeny believe that white youth are more valuable than Black youth, and therefore the rules must be applied differently. It’s that fundamental difference that is the root of white supremacy.</div><div>
</div><div>=</div><div></div><div>
</div><div>bizzaro-world mirroring?  Plandemic conspiracy recycling stew</div><div>
</div><div> conspiracy theory continued to spread following news in early April of Gates’ spending for a coronavirus cure. Another major <a href="https://angrywhitemen.org/2020/03/24/the-owner-of-a-white-nationalist-telegram-channel-revealed-his-jewish-heritage-now-some-allies-are-abandoning-him/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">white nationalist Telegram account</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3863481" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">shared</a> a post saying Gates wants the population “extinguished,” and multiple accounts on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/1468136673415899/posts/2677335485829339" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/B-lj5YsApEk/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Instagram</a>, including QAnon and anti-vaxx accounts, shared a meme urging people to take “no vaccine from some shady ass nerd that wants to depopulate the planet.” Ben Garrison, a <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/here-are-extremist-figures-going-white-house-social-media-summit" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">far-right and pro-Trump cartoonist</a>, drew a cartoon pushing the conspiracy theory that portrays Gates as a Nazi, which was also <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200408124550/https://thedonald.win/p/FMSsg9Mm/ben-garrison-bill-gates-vaccine/c/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">posted on</a> the backup site of the pro-Trump subreddit “r/The_Donald.”</div><div>=</div>---<a href="https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-adviser-stephen-moore-stay-at-home-protesters-rosa-parks">https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-adviser-stephen-moore-stay-at-home-protesters-rosa-parks</a>no lnx twtSummer Concepcion|April 18, 2020 Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore faces backlash for recently comparing protesters defying stay-at-home orders in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.Moore, who is a member of the White House council to reopen the country, told The Washington Post in a Friday night report that the stay-at-home order protesters indicate “a boiling point that has been reached and exceeded” and that he likens them to Park.
“I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties,” Moore said.
Moore was swiftly derided for his remarks shortly after the Post published its report.

Bill Kristol?@BillKristolCongratulations to Trump adviser Stephen Moore on a comment at once strikingly stupid and deeply offensive. “I call these people the modern-day Rosa Parks — they are protesting against injustice and a loss of liberties.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rallies-against-stay-at-home-orders-grow-as-trump-sides-with-protesters/2020/04/17/1405ba54-7f4e-11ea-8013-1b6da0e4a2b7_story.html …

Ida Bae Wells?@nhannahjonesWhen people like Stephen Moore make comparisons to Ross Parks we should treat it as the cynical, calculated form of race baiting that it is. Enslavers said they were in fact the slaves. Segregationists adopted Civil Rights mvmt language to fight policies to help black people.
8,8587:18 AM - Apr 18, 2020Twitter Ads info and privacy2,624 people are talking about this
Scott Huffman For Congress?@HuffmanForNC
US House candidate, NC-13Could you have imagined the outcome if Rosa brought a gun to the bus?
White House adviser Stephen Moore repeatedly compared right-wing protesters who oppose coronavirus safety measures to Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who fought for racial equality. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephen-moore-trump-covid-19-rosa-parks_n_5e9a8fa8c5b635d25d6cc480 …

COVID-19 Protesters Just Like Rosa Parks, Says White House Adviser Stephen MooreThe economic pundit repeatedly made the shocking comparison as right-wing protesters railed against social distancing measures meant to save lives.
huffpost.com3,1576:29 AM - Apr 18, 2020Twitter Ads info and privacy1,428 people are talking about this
Jamil Smith?@JamilSmith · Apr 18, 2020Replying to @JamilSmithSome of these people are consciously supremacist: the Proud Boys in Michigan, for instance. But I also point at folks willing to do the work of white supremacy. They may not consider themselves racist, but are willing to set loose a virus disproportionately killing black people.

Jamil Smith?@JamilSmithYes, Stephen Moore invoked Rosa Parks to praise those who violate stay-at-home guidelines, advocating for their revocation. Ironic, since the way this virus spreads makes such “protests" violent. (And he is on the White House council to “re-open" the U.S.) https://wapo.st/2VDw1kr 

Rallies against stay-at-home orders grow as Trump sides with protestersGroups demonstrated in at least six states this week, with protests planned in four more.
washingtonpost.com
Catherine Rampell@crampellAlas, unqualified Trump Fed picks comparing right-wing idiots to Rosa Parks is not at all a new thing, nor unique to Stephen Moore. Here's Judy Shelton, whose nomination is still pending before Senate, comparing a currency counterfeiter to Rosa Parks https://twitter.com/sam_a_bell/status/1131056280364355584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1131056280364355584&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthreadreaderapp.com%2Fthread%2F1146192301062000641.html …
Sam??@sam_a_bell"I called him the Rosa Parks of monetary policy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdlZi2KPXhU&t=46m00s … she's talking about Bernard von NotHaus, guy who made "Liberty Dollars" (gold tokens) http://bernardvonnothaus.org/home/  ... and more recently "Trump dollars" https://www.trumpdollar.us/ 
However, Moore’s comments to the Post weren’t the first to invoke Parks when discussing protesters defying stay-at-home orders.In a video posted to a libertarian think tank’s YouTube page on Tuesday, Moore indicated that he’s assisting an effort to plan a “drive-in” to protest Wisconsin’s stay-at-home orders.
“They’re going to shut down the Capitol — shh, don’t tell anybody,” Moore said. “We need to be the Rosa Parks here and protest against these government injustices.”
Moore then predicted in the video that there will be “a lot more” of the stay-at-home order protests, before arguing that “this is a great time, gentleman and ladies, for civil disobedience.”
Moore’s latest remarks aren’t far off from the remarks President Trump made during Friday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing when he argued that Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia have done “too much” with social distancing and that the stay-at-home protesters in those states “seem to be very responsible people.”
Moore also told CBS in a Friday interview that the Trump administration should have begun the process to reopen the economy “a week or two ago.”
“I think we lean way too much in the direction of keeping the economy shut down to try to save every life, not realizing that we’re causing huge hardship for citizens — again, people at the bottom and businesses — and we’re going to suffer a big loss of living standards because of this,” Moore said.
<div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-distort-sen-schumers-remarks-erase-very-real-threat-anti-abortion">https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-distort-sen-schumers-remarks-erase-very-real-threat-anti-abortion</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Following comments from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) regarding an upcoming Supreme Court decision on abortion rights, right-wing media rushed to paint abortion rights advocates as dangerous while ignoring the very real threat of anti-abortion violence -- and right-wing media’s own role in stoking it.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">On March 4, the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/supreme-court/myths-and-facts-about-anti-abortion-louisiana-law-supreme-court" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">heard</a> oral arguments in June Medical Services v. Russo, a case about a law in Louisiana that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. During an abortion rights rally in front of the Supreme Court in support of overturning the law, Schumer <a href="https://youtu.be/om5c20c_HB4?t=8128" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">said</a>, “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Schumer’s comments <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/schumer-says-he-misspoke-in-remarks-directed-at-two-supreme-court-justices-defends-abortion-rights/2020/03/05/c0855f40-5ee3-11ea-b29b-9db42f7803a7_story.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">called out</a> President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh for potentially rolling back reproductive rights. After right-wing media and conservative figures -- including <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/04/politics/schumer-roberts-threats-supreme-court/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Chief Justice John Roberts</a> -- condemned Schumer’s remarks as “threats” against the two justices, the Senate minority leader <a href="https://twitter.com/mmcauliff/status/1235589976416374785" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">clarified</a> that he was talking about “political consequences” and not referring to acts of violence. Schumer <a href="https://youtu.be/qpFlbm78Ndw?t=188" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">further</a> <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/05/chuck-schumer-supreme-court-comments-121960" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">explained</a> that Republicans were “busy manufacturing outrage over these comments” and didn’t actually believe their claims against him.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Following Schumer’s initial comments, however, some in right-wing media took the opportunity to dishonestly condemn abortion rights advocates as violent, saying Schumer was speaking in front of a “mob” and “sending a dog whistle to crazies out there.” Such reactions served as <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/congress/right-wing-media-activate-faux-outrage-machine-two-senate-votes-anti-abortion-bills" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">another attempt</a> by right-wing media to paint Democrats and abortion rights advocates as “extreme” on abortion and ignored their own role in perpetuating anti-abortion violence.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;">Here are right-wing media’s nonsensical reactions to Schumer’s comments:</h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">On Fox & Friends, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/fox-friends-newt-gingrich-claims-democrats-are-increasingly-fanatic-abortion" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">said</a>, “Look, he was in front of a crowd. They were fanatically committed to the maximum opportunity to kill children, and they were all revved up, he was revved up, and he got carried away. And what he said was pure demagoguery -- it was totally irresponsible and dangerous."</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3856331" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claimed</a> Schumer was trying to show that the justices could be “intimidated by a mob outside of the courthouse” and the senator “might actually be sending a dog whistle to crazies out there.”</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">Kristan Hawkins, president of the anti-abortion Students for Life of America and <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/worst-anti-abortion-misinformers-you-might-never-have-heard" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Fox News guest</a>:</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">Fox & Friends also allowed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) a platform to <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/timeline-how-fox-news-abortion-meltdown-fueled-2020-talking-point" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">falsely</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3856326" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">assert</a> that Schumer’s comments were because he “wants the Supreme Court to uphold unlimited abortion on demand in every circumstance with no limitations whatsoever.” According to Cruz, “Where Senate Democrats are right now, they are so angry that they're willing to try to get what they want through threats and through really naked intimidation.”</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">Washington Examiner contributor Kimberly Ross:</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">Conservative radio host and former National Rifle Association spokesperson Dana Loesch <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3856336" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">told</a> Fox & Friends that Schumer “focused the rage of the mob” against the two justices. She also said that “this is irresponsible, it’s reckless, it’s dangerous, and I think that they’ve seen the consequences of their rhetoric before,” referencing the <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/%E2%80%9D" https="" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">2017 attack</a> on the Republican congressional baseball team.</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">BlazeTV’s Allie Beth Stuckey:</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">On America’s Newsroom, Fox News guest anchor Julie Banderas and contributor Andy McCarthy <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-host-and-contributor-refer-abortion-advocates-rallying-supreme-court-mob" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">both called</a> the rally of abortion rights advocates a “mob,” with McCarthy claiming that “the mob is out there, and Schumer is agitating them because it works, that's the reason they do it.”</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">Townhall’s Guy Benson:</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">On Hannity, Fox News’ Gregg Jarrett <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3856076" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">said</a> Schumer’s comments are “especially dangerous, as the chief justice pointed out, because it's in front of a crowd that's already angry and enraged in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. It could easily and tragically be misinterpreted by some, triggering or provoking or encouraging violence.”</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh:</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--twitter-tweet paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field--name-field-twitter-tweet field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><ul style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; clear: both; list-style: none; padding: 0px;"><li style="box-sizing: border-box; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 0.75em; padding-left: 2.4rem; position: relative;">Conservative author and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/us/politics/dinesh-dsouza-facts-history.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Trump pardon recipient</a> Dinesh D'Souza <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/media/3856071" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">asserted</a> on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle that Schumer’s remarks demonstrated “how deranged our politics, particularly around the pro-life issue, have become.” D’Souza dismissed the Louisiana law at issue in June v. Russo, saying it is “a very moderate law,” and “if that causes Schumer to go into such a paroxysm of rage, you can just imagine the craziness that we’re in for as the court begins to shift and as landmark decisions do come into question,” referring to the court’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/2/19/21070703/louisiana-abortion-case-supreme-court-law-roe" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">potential</a> to <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-nation/abortion-opponents-were-reassured-kavanaughs-comments-roe-v-wade" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">undermine</a> or <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/supreme-court-could-overturn-roe-v-wade-dont-buy-these-right-wing-excuses-its-not-big" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">overturn</a> Roe v. Wade.</li></ul></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;">Right-wing media are ignoring the reality of anti-abortion violence -- and their role in perpetuating it</h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Right-wing media’s reactions to Schumer’s comments ignore the <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/2018-was-marked-anti-abortion-extremism-lies-and-harassment?redirect_source=/blog/2018/12/30/2018-was-marked-anti-abortion-extremism-lies-and-harassment/222369" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">very real</a> and <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/right-wing-media-shouldnt-downplay-recent-anti-abortion-threats-white-supremacists" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">ongoing</a> <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/anti-abortion-violence-and-harassment-was-already-bad-right-wing-media-are-making-it?redirect_source=/research/2017/09/20/anti-abortion-violence-and-harassment-was-already-bad-right-wing-media-are-making-it-worse/217992" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">threat</a> of <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/cbs/cbs-news-highlights-increasing-rates-anti-abortion-violence-and-harassment" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">anti-abortion</a> violence in the United States and right-wing media’s <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/bill-oreilly/right-wing-medias-extreme-abortion-rhetoric-could-mean-more-people-get-hurt" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">role</a> in stoking it.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Eleven people have died as a result of <a href="https://prochoice.org/education-and-advocacy/violence/violence-statistics-and-history/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">anti-abortion violence</a> in the U.S. since 1993. Numerous others have been injured, and still more have found themselves and even their families <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/11/20/where-media-outrage-over-violence-and-harassment-abortion-providers-face-daily-basis/222129" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">targeted</a> with personalized harassment from abortion opponents. And the trend has intensified in recent years, showing little sign of abating. In May 2019, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) released a report that <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/abortion-clinics-see-surge-in-harassment-and-hate_n_5ce81832e4b0cce67c8a6890" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">analyzed</a> violence, intimidation, and harassment of abortion providers from the previous year. According to <a href="https://prochoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2018-Anti-Abortion-Violence-and-Disruption.pdf" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">the report</a>, NAF abortion providers and clinics encountered 21,252 incidents of hate emails and internet harassment, 1,135 incidents of trespassing, and 1,388 harassing calls or hate mail in 2018. Abortion providers also told NAF that they received 57 threats of harm or death threats and were subjected to 15 cases of assault and battery that year.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Some right-wing media outlets have also helped fan the flames of resentment against abortion providers, patients, and clinics. In 2009, an anti-abortion extremist <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/bill-oreillys-dangerous-war-against-dr-tiller-w477824" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">murdered</a> abortion provider Dr. George Tiller while he was attending church with his family. Before Tiller's assassination, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had openly bullied Tiller on his program numerous times. According to Rolling Stone, “O’Reilly had waged an unflagging war against Tiller that did just about everything short of urging his followers to murder him.” O’Reilly <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2009/06/04/oreilly-still-falsely-claiming-he-only-reported/150862" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">repeatedly</a> called the doctor “Tiller the baby killer” and said there was a “special place in hell for this guy.” At <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2009/06/01/oreilly-2006-anti-tiller-rant-if-i-could-get-my/150722" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">one point</a>, O’Reilly said, “And if I could get my hands on Tiller – well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech. But despicable? Oh, my God. Oh, it doesn't get worse. Does it get worse? No." After Tiller’s assassination, O’Reilly <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2015/12/01/bill-oreilly-defends-his-attacks-on-dr-george-t/207153" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">claimed</a> he only “reported accurately” on Tiller and wasn’t responsible for the provider’s murder.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">In 2015, an <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-made-comment-about-no-more-baby-n470706" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">anti-abortion extremist</a> who killed three and injured nine at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood reportedly offered the phrase “no more baby parts” as an explanation for his actions. His comment seemingly referred to an <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2015/12/02/study-fox-news-used-the-term-baby-parts-in-refe/207186" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">oft-repeated</a> right-wing media talking point based on <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2015/12/17/misinformer-of-the-year-the-center-for-medical/207506" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">deceptive</a> undercover videos from the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress. The New Republic <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/138950/making-american-terrorist-robert-dear-planned-parenthood" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">reported on</a> the admitted shooter’s penchant for right-wing media such as Fox News and Infowars, saying it shaped his paranoid and conspiratorial views about abortion and Planned Parenthood and may have influenced his actions.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Right-wing media have also amplified sensationalized anti-abortion rhetoric and misinformation. In 2019, <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/timeline-how-fox-news-abortion-meltdown-fueled-2020-talking-point" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Fox News</a> aggressively pushed the <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/right-wing-media-are-flat-out-lying-about-later-abortions-being-infanticide" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">malicious lie</a> that Democratic support for abortion access amounted to “infanticide.” A Media Matters study of how abortion is discussed on prime-time cable news programs explained that the network fueled the <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/other-networks-are-letting-fox-news-poison-abortion-related-coverage-dangerous-lies" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">right-wing media talking point</a> by relentlessly echoing this inaccurate claim.</div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 1rem;">Why is this really happening?</h2></div></div><div class="paragraph paragraph--type--stories-text paragraph--view-mode--editorial" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="fancy-elems-wrapper field field--name-field-stories-text-formatted field--type-text-long field--label-hidden fielditem" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Rather than expressing legitimate concerns about pro-choice violence -- itself an “absurd lie,” as abortion clinic escort Lauren Rankin <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2020/02/the-absurd-lie-of-pro-choice-violence.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">wrote</a> for New York magazine -- right-wing media’s outrage over Schumer’s comments serves only as dishonest political fodder for the 2020 election cycle. <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2019/05/22/right-wing-medias-anti-abortion-misinformation-playbook-2020/223749" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Once again</a>, right-wing media have <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/congress/right-wing-media-activate-faux-outrage-machine-two-senate-votes-anti-abortion-bills" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">latched</a> onto a <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-push-anti-abortion-misinformation-about-democratic-extremism-following" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">non-story</a> to bash Democratic support for abortion as “extreme” and to <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/sean-hannity/right-wing-media-used-state-abortion-measures-villainize-people-who-have-abortions?redirect_source=/blog/2019/02/12/right-wing-media-used-state-abortion-measures-villainize-people-who-have-abortions/222847" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">demonize</a> those that advocate for abortion access. Indeed, right-wing media and abortion opponents already <a href="https://twitter.com/RBraceySherman/status/1235583843492601858" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">harassed</a> and attempted to <a href="https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/1235682731645792258" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">stigmatize</a> some of the speakers from the rally on social media. Rather than pointing fingers, right-wing media should examine the power and danger of their own rhetoric on abortion.</div></div></div><div>=</div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">aha: depressing that our best tool, name and shame gets perverted: "bad faith" the term can be weaponized / co-opted like "fake news"  (one can use the charge in bad faith, in fact Barr did)</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">carter page calls for reparations for rw scotus v schumer price to pay</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">a kind of mirroring?</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">aha: grn blk death: see energy poverty</div></div><div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div></div><div>thru looking glass? mirror crypto?</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/16/attorney-general-barr-accuses-democrats-using-oversight-powers-try-cripple-executive-branch/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/11/16/attorney-general-barr-accuses-democrats-using-oversight-powers-try-cripple-executive-branch/</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>wapo no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>Attorney General Barr accuses Democrats of ‘war’ on Trump in speech decried as partisan</div><div>
</div><div>Attorney General William P. Barr described a “war” against a “duly elected government” at a conference of the Federalist Society. (Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)</div><div>By </div><div>Hannah Knowles </div><div>November 16, 2019 </div><div>
</div><div>Attorney General William P. Barr accused Democrats on Friday of using their oversight powers to sabotage the executive branch, criticizing the “resistance” to President Trump and what he called a broader erosion in the commander in chief’s rightful authority.</div><div>
</div><div>The Trump appointee described a “war” against a “duly elected government” at a conference of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group that has played a key role in the administration’s efforts to seat record numbers of right-leaning federal judges.</div><div>
</div><div>“The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of resistance against this administration, it is the left that is engaged in the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law,” Barr told his audience of lawyers at Washington’s Mayflower Hotel.</div><div>
</div><div>To critics, the speech was overly partisan and even “authoritarian.” It prompted some calls for Barr’s impeachment from lawyers and legal scholars, many of whom believe his views of presidential power are too expansive. Barr says the Constitution’s creators envisioned a strong executive.</div><div>
</div><div>His speech came amid a newly public, high-stakes phase of Democrat-led investigations into the White House, as impeachment hearings examine whether Trump abused his office to secure a foreign country’s probe of his political rival. Barr recently declined Trump’s request that he hold a news conference defending Trump in the inquiry by saying the president broke no laws in a call to Ukraine’s president, individuals familiar with the situation told The Washington Post....</div></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/republicans-fantasy-constitution-trumps-attack-on-the-constitution-is-nothing-new-for-the-right-which-has-long-tried-to-write-its-own-version/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/republicans-fantasy-constitution-trumps-attack-on-the-constitution-is-nothing-new-for-the-right-which-has-long-tried-to-write-its-own-version/</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>Republicans’ fantasy Constitution: Trump’s attack on the Constitution is nothing new for the right — which has long tried to write its own version</div><div>
</div><div>Written by Paul Rosenberg / Salon October 28, 2019</div><div>
</div><div>Donald Trump’s recent criticism of the “phony emoluments clause,” used in defense of his since-abandoned G7 scam, was striking for its bluntness. But it’s part of a long history of conservatives flagrantly ignoring the actual Constitution and substituting an imaginary version in its place. At Vox, Ian Millhiser thoroughly debunked the notion that Trump wasn’t violating the Constitution by seeking to hold a summit meeting at his own hotel, including reference to work by Georgetown’s John Mikhail, whose examination of 40 different dictionaries made mincemeat of any “public meaning” argument to try to defend Trump.</div><div>
</div><div>Of course Trump doesn’t care about such arguments, and doesn’t rely on typical conservative legal arguments either. But he does rely on the underlying conservative impulse and assumption that the Constitution means whatever he wants it to mean, and that anyone who disagrees with him is subversive.</div><div>
</div><div>This view can be found in the so-called “constitutional sheriff’s” movement, which believes that county sheriffs get to pick and chose which laws to enforce and can keep federal law enforcement agents out of their counties. Tellingly, the word “sheriff” — like the word “God” — doesn’t even appear in the Constitution. Trump’s favorite convict sheriff, Joe Arpaio of Arizona, is a member of this movement. The far-right “Oathkeepers” movement has a similar fantasy-based view of the special constitutional status of anyone who’s sworn an oath to serve the government — and who then decides they’ve got a secret identity as a Supreme Court justice.</div><div>
</div><div>But don’t be fooled into thinking this is just a fringe conservative view. Dangerous and troubling as these views and that organization may be, it’s the conservative constitutional fantasies from the actual Supreme Court that have done far more damage to our democracy. Take, for example, the Dred Scott decision of 1857, written by Chief Justice Roger Taney, which held that black people had no constitutional rights because when it was adopted, they were regarded as “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” What’s more, Taney claimed, “This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race.”</div><div>
</div><div>That was a lie, as I explained here, based on a fantasy past. In the real past, slavery was abolished in the Vermont Republic in 1777, well before the Constitution was drafted, and Quock Walker sued for and won his freedom under the Massachusetts Constitution in 1781 — again, before the Constitution was drafted.</div><div>
</div><div>Walker’s case deserves closer inspection to show specifically how wrong Taney was. Walker had been promised his freedom, but his master died before the promised date, and his widow married a man who not only refused to free Walker, but beat him as well. Walker won not one, but two civil jury trials, both of which affirmed his freedom and awarded monetary damages, after which the man who had abused him was convicted in criminal trial.</div><div>
</div><div>In his charge to the jury, Chief Justice William Cushing stated that, “slavery is … as effectively abolished as it can be by the granting of rights and privileges wholly incompatible and repugnant to its existence.” That unambiguous recognition of “the granting of rights and privileges” directly contradict Taney’s false premise in Dred Scott. The “fixed and universal” opinion he wrote about was a racist fantasy.</div><div>
</div><div>There was also a future fantasy involved in the Dred Scott decision — the fantasy that the decision would put an end to abolitionism,, and secure the institution of slavery once and for all. Instead, it only fueled the dynamic which eventually brought the Civil War, which was initiated by the South, based on yet another fantasy — the one about absolute states’ rights (except, of course, when it came to forcing Northern states to return escaped slaves.)</div><div>
</div><div>The fantasy of corporate personhood</div><div>
</div><div>After that terrible struggle, we passed the Civil War amendments to firmly establish the full citizenship rights of black Americans, which in turn would become the subject of multiple conservative fantasies, primarily involving the 14th Amendment. First was the fantasy — still haunting us today — that the 14th Amendment established “corporate personhood” and was actually intended to protect corporations as much as freed slaves and their descendants. This fantasy, too, came to us from the Supreme Court, though in a remarkably muddled way, as UCLA law professor Adam Winkler describes here.</div><div>
</div><div>In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the court reporter (a former railroad president) inserted a headnote saying that justices agreed that corporations were people under the meaning of the 14th Amendment, even though the decision itself said nothing at all on the subject. To this day, that case is mistakenly cited as precedent establishing corporate personhood, despite its silence. One of the justices hearing the case, Stephen J. Field, got the ball rolling, as Winkler explains:</div><div>
</div><div>A few years later, in an opinion in an unrelated case, Field wrote that “corporations are persons within the meaning” of the Fourteenth Amendment. “It was so held in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad,” explained Field, who knew very well that the Court had done no such thing.</div><div>
</div><div>That’s only one facet of how muddled the story is, as Winkler explains. The idea was first advanced in 1882 by Roscoe Conkling, a lawyer for Southern Pacific who was the last living member of the drafting committee responsible for writing the 14th Amendment. Conkling told the Court that the drafters had altered the wording, replacing “citizens” with “persons” specifically to cover corporations as well. There’s no other evidence supporting this claim, and substantial reason to doubt it. An unpublished journal of the committee’s deliberations that Conklin offered in support was later found to completely contradict his claim: The language had never been changed. “So far as anyone can tell, the rights of corporations were not raised in the public debates over the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment or in any of the states’ ratifying conventions,” Winkler notes, nor had anyone else on the committee ever made such a claim.</div><div>
</div><div>Even at the time, Conkling’s account was suspect, according to Winkler. He made the argument in a case that languished for three years before Southern Pacific suddenly settled it, after which the railroad brought a nearly identical case to the Supreme Court, with the same legal team — except for Conklin. “Tellingly, Southern Pacific’s lawyers omitted any mention of Conkling’s drafting history or his journal,” Winkler notes. “Had those lawyers believed Conkling, it would have been malpractice to leave out his story.”</div><div>
</div><div>So everything else was premised on Conklin’s lie, which even his own colleagues didn’t believe. But there were so many other bad actors involved, it was like a Trump Cabinet meeting. In fact, Field sounded just like one of them, as Winkler describes:</div><div>
</div><div>Taxing the property of railroads differently, he said, was like allowing deductions for property “owned by white men or by old men, and not deducted if owned by black men or young men.”</div><div>
</div><div>In short, this was a collective fraud perpetrated by a whole collective of scoundrels, creating a fantasy version of the 14th Amendment that’s become deeply and profoundly embedded in American law. It was famously used, Winkler notes, to strike down numerous economic regulations, including federal child labor laws, zoning laws, and wage-and-hour laws,” at the same time that Plessy v. Ferguson (the next case on our list) refused to apply the 14th Amendment to protect the rights of African Americans:</div><div>
</div><div>Between 1868, when the amendment was ratified, and 1912, the Supreme Court would rule on 28 cases involving the rights of African Americans and an astonishing 312 cases on the rights of corporations.</div><div>
</div><div>More white supremacist fantasies</div><div>
</div><div>As we’ll see below, another strange wrinkle emerged in the modern era: for the Supreme Court’s hardcore conservatives, the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection clause exists almost solely to strike down affirmative action. But first, we need to turn to Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Court ruled that segregated facilities (supposedly “separate but equal”) did not deprive blacks of equal protection under law. It’s a much more ornate and convoluted lie than the one in Dred Scott, as I explained here, but to boil things down into basic fantasies, we need consider only three. First was the fantasy that the problem was all in black people’s heads:</div><div>
</div><div>We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff’s argument to consist in the assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so, it is not by reason of anything found in the act, but solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.</div><div>
</div><div>Second came the exact opposite fantasy, that black inferiority was an immutable fact that human laws could do nothing to alter:</div><div>
</div><div>Legislation is powerless to eradicate racial instincts or to abolish distinctions based upon physical differences, and the attempt to do so can only result in accentuating the difficulties of the present situation.</div><div>
</div><div>Third was the fantasy that either nothing needed to be done, or that nothing could be done:</div><div>
</div><div>If the civil and political rights of both races be equal, one cannot be inferior to the other civilly or politically. If one race be inferior to the other socially, the Constitution of the United States cannot put them upon the same plane.</div><div>
</div><div>Of course, this last was pure sophistry. The civil and political rights were obviously not equal, which was why the case had been brought in the first place. And that inequality perpetuated social inequality — specifically via segregation — as indeed was the whole point. It took decades of racist terror to get to the point where such an absurd concoction of fantasies could be propounded with such seriousness. The court pretended that black civil and political rights would still be protected, even after three decades of white racist violence proved otherwise, and that they could be neatly severed from “social rights” such as riding in an integrated railroad car — that being the issue at hand in Plessy.</div><div>
</div><div>The fantastical nature of the Plessy decision is thrown into sharp contrast by the bracing realism of John Marshall Harlan’s dissent. “The arbitrary separation of citizens on the basis of race while they are on a public highway is a badge of servitude wholly inconsistent with the civil freedom and the equality before the law established by the Constitution,” Harlan wrote. “It cannot be justified upon any legal grounds.” The phrase “badge of servitude” comes directly from the 13th Amendment, underscoring the broader context that gave meaning to the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.</div><div>
</div><div>Next, fast forward a century to Bush v. Gore, the case that settled the 2000 presidential election. In that instance, conservative justices who had never applied the Equal Protection Clause to defend black voting rights suddenly discovered its overwhelming importance in protecting the rights of ballots to be counted equally — by paradoxically ensuring that no ballots were counted at all!  There was never any thought of who the voters casting the ballots might be, much less whether they could possibly constitute a class, as Equal Protection jurisdiction normally requires. It was not just a fantasy, but a farce.</div><div>
</div><div>Rather than dig into the details of the case, I’ll merely draw on a big-picture observation made by Geoffrey R. Stone, an editor of the Supreme Court Review, whom I quoted from here in July. Stone noted that the three hardcore conservatives on the court at that time — William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas—had cast 65 votes in non-unanimous decisions interpreting the Equal Protection Clause in the previous decade, 19 of which involved affirmative action. Collectively, they’d cast exactly two votes finding Equal Protection Clause violations in those cases — one less vote in an entire decade than they cast in the Bush v. Gore decision.  Summing up, Stone wrote:</div><div>
</div><div>What does this tell us? It tells us that Justices Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas have a rather distinctive view of the United States Constitution. Apparently, the Equal Protection Clause, which was enacted after the Civil War primarily to protect the rights of newly freed slaves, is to be used for two and only two purposes — to invalidate affirmative action and to invalidate the recount process in the 2000 presidential election.</div><div>
</div><div>Put simply, the Equal Protection Clause those justices recognized does not exist. It was a bad-faith fantasy of their own invention.</div><div>
</div><div>Fantasies of guns and God </div><div>
</div><div>Race is clearly a major driver of conservative constitutional fantasies. But it’s not the only one, as shown by the Court’s Heller decision, the first ever recognize an individual right to gun ownership in the Second Amendment — a position that former Chief Justice Warren Burger (a Republican appointee) once called “a fraud on the American public.” The decision by Antonin Scalia was so roundly criticized that Scalia co-authored a book in its defense, “Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts,” which was ripped to shreds by then-appeals court judge Richard Posner, in a devastating review titled “The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia.” To be clear, both Burger and Posner were highly respected conservative jurists. But they were not fantasists when it came to the Second Amendment.</div><div>
</div><div>Posner has a great deal to say about Scalia more generally, but my point is simple: Scalia claimed to be a textualist, but he completely ignored the following italicized text of the Second Amendment: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”</div><div>
</div><div>That text clearly articulates a collective need, thereby justifying a collective right. This is how the Second Amendment had always been understood, until, as Michael Waldman explained, the National Rifle Association embarked on a multi-decade propaganda campaign to brainwash the American public. Brainwashing can effectively spread a fantasy. But it is powerless to transform it into truth.</div><div>
</div><div>Just as the NRA waged a decades-long propaganda war to push their constitutional fantasy through the Supreme Court, many on the religious right are organizing to do the same with the First Amendment now. They’d like to use their fantasy version of “religious freedom” as a license to discriminate, and ultimately create a two-tiered society, just like the one enshrined long ago by Plessy. They’ve at least gotten their foot in the door with decisions like Hobby Lobby and Masterpiece Cakeshop.</div><div>
</div><div>Progressive activists, both secular and religious, have been fighting back in recent years, particularly focused on reclaiming the true meaning of Religious Freedom Day, as I’ve written about here in 2016, 2017,  2018 and 2019. I’ve also written repeatedly about Project Blitz (here, here, here and here), a state-level campaign employing this “religious freedom” fantasy to advance a three-stage, state-level theocratic agenda, first uncovered by researcher Frederick Clarkson last year. All this is embodied in a more sweeping fantasy of America as a Christian nation, a fantasy thoroughly debunked by Andrew Seidel in “The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American” (Salon interview here), and challenged on the ground by a new initiative, Christians Against Christian Nationalism (Salon story here). Directly confronting the constitutional fantasy aspect, the third part of Seidel’s book is entitled “The Ten Commandments versus the Constitution,” and it shows how each has elements opposed to principles of the Constitution. The Supreme Court has yet to write this fantasy into law, but shown by the examples above, it would hardly be out of character for them to do so.</div><div>
</div><div>Beyond the examples cited — and others like them — there’s another way in which conservative constitutional fantasies lead us astray, not at the level of individual decisions, but at the level of judicial philosophy. I already mentioned Posner’s refutation of Scalia’s version of textual originalism, but that’s only one version of the broader originalist approach, which Georgia State law professor Eric Segall dismantled in his 2018 book “Originalism as Faith,” which I wrote about here. In Segall’s view, originalism meets a lot of psychological needs, not just for judges, but for the broader public as well:</div><div>
</div><div>When the justices connect us to our past by supporting their decisions with persuasive evidence of prior agreements, they cultivate and maintain a distinctively American approach to hard public policy questions.</div><div>
</div><div>In addition, judicial appeals to original meaning might suggest that the justices are following the decisions of the founders, not imposing their own personal values. The justices want the American people to have faith that their decisions are grounded in prior law, not personal predilection, and references to originalist sources make that goal easier.</div><div>
</div><div>It’s a soothing “just-so story,” in other words. But it utterly fails in practice, as Segall told me in our interview:</div><div>
</div><div>Virtually every constitutional law case [decided by the Supreme Court] involves text that is imprecise, unclear, vague — equal protection, due process, establishment, unreasonable search and seizure, whatever. And as applied to the facts of any modern case, the history behind that is going to be extremely contested, even if we assume its relevance, which I don’t necessarily assume.</div><div>
</div><div>Thus, originalism is worthless at best. At worst, it’s a smokescreen for bad decisions:</div><div>
</div><div>The main argument in my book is that originalism doesn’t do anything. It’s never done anything. Forget about it. We should stop pretending text, history and precedent dictate Supreme Court decisions, and we should make [the justices] explain exactly why they’re doing what they’re doing — for transparency purposes.</div><div>
</div><div>But transparency is the last thing that the conservative peddlers of constitutional fantasies want. They didn’t want it in Dred Scott, nor in Plessy, Santa Clara, Heller or Bush v. Gore. At bottom, President Trump’s “phony emoluments clause” was nothing new for conservatives. In fact, it was part of a very long tradition. You might even say it was evidence that he’s a true conservative after all!</div><div>
</div><div>Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulHRosenberg.</div></div><div></div><div></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/how-pro-trump-memes-mirror-the-frightening-ways-nazi-propagandists-got-their-message-to-the-people/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/how-pro-trump-memes-mirror-the-frightening-ways-nazi-propagandists-got-their-message-to-the-people/</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>How pro-Trump memes mirror the frightening ways Nazi propagandists got their message to the people</div><div>
</div><div>Written by Christopher Brauchli / Common Dreams October 27, 2019</div><div>150</div><div>[A]fter the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace. . . which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.</div><div>
</div><div>—Atlantic Charter issued August 14, 1941</div><div>
</div><div>It was all in good fun  It took place for Trump supporters the weekend of October 14, 2019, at the Trump National Doral Miami.  That was the Trump-owned resort that was to be the site of the G-7 meeting in 2020, until it wasn’t. It had been selected by Trump for the meeting of the G7 because, as Mick Mulvaney, Acting Chief of Staff explained: “Trump still considers himself to be in the hospitality business.”</div><div>
</div><div>The event was organized by American Priority, a group that pretends to promote free speech.  It was attended by, among others, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and Donald Trump Jr.  In a room adjacent to the main ballroom at the hotel, a video that was produced by an anonymous person operating under the name of: “The GeekzTeam” was shown on a revolving loop. The video includes the logo for the trump 2020 campaign.  According to the New York Times‘s description of the video,  Mr. Trump’s head is superimposed on the body of a man entering the “Church of Fake News. ” As he walks down the aisle he stops, pulls out a gun, and opens fire on parishioners who have the faces of his critics, or the logos of media organizations superimposed on their bodies. Among his victims are “Black Lives Matter”, and “Vice News.” He continues walking down the aisle and as he approaches the alter, he is shown striking John McCain in the back of the neck, hitting Rosie O’Donnell in the face, and then stabbing  her in the head. He sets fire to Bernie Sanders’ hair. The video ends with Trump standing on the church altar and admiring the victims of his violent behavior.</div><div>
</div><div>Reports suggest that there are many similar memes, as they are known, available on the internet, all depicting violent acts against critics of trump.  The Trump himself tweeted a video in which he participates in a wrestling match and body slams and beats up the CNN logo.  That tweet went viral among his supporters.</div><div>
</div><div>Although lacking internet, the Nazis knew the value of film in order to get their message to the people.  In 1930 the party established a film department. In Mein Kampf  Hitler wrote that: “The picture, in all its forms, including the film, has better prospects.  In a much shorter time, at one stroke I might say, people will understand a pictorial presentation of something which it would take them a long and laborious effort of reading to understand.”</div><div>
</div><div>In 1932, Hans Traub, a Nazi propagandist,  said that film is a “formidable means of propaganda.” Explaining its importance he said that: “Achieving propagandistic influence has always demanded a ‘language’ which forms a memorable and passionate plot with a simple narrative. . . . the most effective is the moving picture. . . . it has  an unimaginable richness of rhythm for intensifying or dispelling emotions.”</div><div>
</div><div>Discussing films made in Nazi Germany, “Facing History and Ourselves” observes that although many films were made to glorify the Nazis, others were made to “dehumanize, criminalize, and demonize vulnerable minorities-particularly Jews.” The Trump and his supporters know how that works.</div><div>
</div><div>Noel King of NPR conducted an interview of Taika Waititi, the director of the movie, “Jojo Rabbit” on October 18, 2019, the date the movie was released.  The movie is a satire of Nazi Germany,  and is about a 10-year old boy named Jojo  Rabbit. Jojo is in the Hitler Youth Movement and he wants to be the best Nazi he can be. In the film Jojo says  “I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler.”</div><div>
</div><div>The NPR interview concludes with a lengthy commentary from Mr. Waititi, that is especially timely in today’s world.  “So we think we live in the safety of 2019?  Yes, we don’t have to worry about Hitler and his retribution on us for making jokes about him.  [But} I mean, this film shouldn’t really need to be made.  In 2019 do I really need to make a film with the heart of the message being, you shouldn’t be a Nazi.  At the end of  World War II, there was a very clear and simple law.  If you’re a Nazi, you go to jail because there’s no room in this world for you and those ideas. Now, sadly, in America and other places, the law now is, if you’re a Nazi feel free to go down to the town square and have a little rally because we’ve got this thing called freedom of speech. And you can sort of say what you want, and you’re protected by that.  It’s become very twisted. And if anyone says [about this movie] “oh, well, another World War II film-we get it.  That was 80 years ago.” Well, we obviously don’t get it-because we’re getting dangerously close to this sort of thing happening again.  And we’re living in a world where there are world leaders who are very happy to promote hate and intolerance and ideas that were prevalent in the ’30s.'”</div><div>
</div><div>Mr. Waititi got that right.  Think Orban, Assad, Duterte, Putin, Xi, el Sisi, Erdogan, and, Trump, the spoiled, petulant, mendacious occupant of the White House, to name just a few. It’s frightening.</div></div><div>
</div><div></div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-american-priority-conference-speakers-sowed-distrust-peddled-conspiracy-theories-and-called-for-civil-war">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-american-priority-conference-speakers-sowed-distrust-peddled-conspiracy-theories-and-called-for-civil-war</a></div><div>
</div><div><section style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Joshua Feuerstein took the main stage at the American Priorities Festival and Conference at the Trump Doral National Miami resort to deliver a message: the Civil War was here.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Feuerstein, a former evangelical pastor, used his sermon voice to recall the original Civil War, which he called the “turning point of America,” the battle of Gettysburg, which he deemed the “turning point of the war,” and the men who fought in Pickett’s Charge, which he labeled “the turning point of Gettysburg.” He paced the stage in his navy blue suit, passing by the large red “AMP” letters on the screen behind him, and painted a picture of heroic men and hand-to-hand combat during Pickett’s Charge. “Those men did not think it anything special,” he said.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">“I need you to know that 2020 is a civil war that will change the face of America forever,” Feurestein said, his voice rising, as the crowd began to applaud. “And it’s God, ladies and gentlemen, it’s God that calls the qualified, that qualifies those that are called, that are willing to step up in the moment that matters, that has greatness thrust upon them. And tonight, together here in this place to say that we are willing to fight, we may think ourselves insignificant, but that we will stand together in 2020, and we will win the war that will change the face of America.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Feurestein’s declaration of war wasn’t the only one at the conference. Earlier in the evening, evangelical<a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-listen-to-conference-goers-at-trump-resort-chant-for-war" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"> Pastor Mark Burns had called for war</a>; “We’ve come to declare war!” he said, and attendees in the back of the ballroom replied with “War! War!” <p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Over three days, speakers at the pro-Trump conference sowed seeds of distrust in nearly every American institution imaginable and cited conspiracy theories to bolster their case for the use of such civil war rhetoric, as they perpetuated sentiments of victimization and loathing. The conference could have been dismissed as a meeting of the fringe, but big-ticket speakers like Don Trump Jr. and Sarah Huckabee Sanders lent legitimacy to the conference, as did more respectable Republican groups like the Leadership Institute, which held a series of trainings in side rooms. By the time Don Trump Jr. took the stage on Friday evening, he simply invoked themes hammered into the audience throughout the day using subtler language, and it worked the crowd into a frenzy.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">In this Trumpian, upside-down world, it’s hard to understand where one has landed until you take one conspiracy at face value: the “deep state.” The so-called deep state is supposedly comprised of supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in high-rank positions in different government agencies who aim to sabotage Trump at every opportunity and eventually overthrow him. Originating on the fringe, the conspiracy theory has now entered the mainstream GOP and has become a staple of right-wing media messaging. At the American Priority Conference, the speakers legitimized the deep state, and layered more conspiracy theories on top. <p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Perhaps most telling was the “Unmasking the Russian Hoax” panel with Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, a right-wing “investigative” organization, conservative activist Ned Ryun, George Papadopolous, who went to federal prison for making false statements to FBI agents about the timing of his contact with Russian intermediaries in 2016, and Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager and author of<a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1546076220/reasonfoundation-20/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"> Trump’s Enemies: How the Deep State Is Undermining the Presidency</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">. Tracy Beanz, a<a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/red-pill-rally-in-dc-unites-far-right-conspiracy-theories-and-apocalyptic-religion/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"> booster</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"> of the QAnon conspiracy theory, moderated the panel.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">In Fitton’s world, bad actors had been planning a coup before Trump was even elected.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">“Anytime you heard the word impeachment, you can substitute the word coup, because that’s what’s going on here,” Fitton said. “It began during the campaign, when they weaponized intelligence agency against Trump, people like George [Papadopoulos], and who knows who else, to protect Hillary Clinton, to protect Barack Obama, and as Mr. Strzok said, to have an insurance policy if Mr. Trump won.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">The “insurance policy” Fitton references is<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/trump-seized-conspiracy-theory-called-insurance-policy-now-it-s-n1062096" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"> a conspiracy theory</a> birthed on 4chan message boards that Democrats had a ready-to-go scheme to impeach Trump if he won. Amplified by right-wing media, the conspiracy theory has reached the White House and influenced the president’s policy making.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">“They [Congress] weren’t getting the traction they needed, so the intelligence agencies, it looks like, that were targeting him to begin with, came up with another smear operation,” Fitton continued. “They had a leak they wanted to get out on this Ukrainian conversation, but they recognized doing it would be illegal, so they gussied it up in a whistleblower complaint and illegally communicated classified information, it looks like, with Adam Schiff and lied about it. And now it’s led to the coup operation of President Trump.“<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Papadopoulos floated the deep state theory as well. “Some of the same spies that went after Michael Flynn in 2015 were after me in 2016,” he said. As for the whistleblower report, Papadopoulos noted that it came out when WIlliam Barr was, he said, trying to investigate the previous administration. “This was a preemptive strike by the deep state,” Papadopoulos said, suggesting that it was an effort by deep state actors to protect themselves.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Lewandowski focused on the FBI. “I look at the fact that they spied on American citizens who were participating in the political process, because they didn’t like our politics,” Lewandowski said.  “What we know see over the course of the last three and a half years is that Jim Comey, and Andy McCabe, and the lovers, Dr. Page, which Trump talked about last night, James Baker who is the general counsel at the FBI, they use their badges and guns to go after American citizens because they don’t like our politics.” <p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">The bad actors need to punished, the panelists agreed. “People have to go to jail,” Ryun said, to which an audience member yelled: “Barack Obama!” <p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the panelists, the media was among the bad actors, conspiring with Democrats. “The media intentionally wanted to brainwash all of you. They wanted to create chaos and division, and attempt a silent coup,” Papadopoulos said.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Later that evening, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA  warmed up the stage for Don Trump Jr. He zoomed in on the Jussie Smollett story, an actor who apparently<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-47317701" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"> staged</a> a hate crime against himself, claiming it was indicative of the Democratic situation and “Democratic privilege,” where Democrats, like Smollett, are never prosecuted for wrongdoings. Kirk used the Smollett story to sow doubt—if Smollett fabricated a hate crime, what else could they lie to you about?—and bolster another debunked conspiracy theory that Adam Schiff changed the whistleblower laws just before the whistleblower filed his complaint.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Guess what happens when we don’t hold them accountable? What happens is Congressman Adam Schiff then flies his staffer up to Ukraine, changes the whistleblower laws, uses a friend that he has in the CIA, and then do it all over again, just with a different country,” Kirk said. <p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Kirk then moved on to other supposed deep state actors. “If [Trump] would’ve won and did the typical Republican thing … maybe the deep state actors would’ve just stayed at bay. But the fact that they’re relentlessly going after him should give you renewal and confidence that this president actually doing what he said he was going to do,” Kirk said.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">When Don Trump Jr. walked out onto the stage Friday night following Kirk, he wasted no time in getting to the Smollett story and attacking Schiff and the media. “Adam Schiff is the Jussie Smollett of Congress on steroids,” he said as his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, stared at him adoringly from her chair on stage. “And he gets away with it because people in the media protect him.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">“On paper, 2020 should be over, but it’s not, because we’re not in a fair fight,” Trump Jr. said, claiming that “the mainstream media has made a conscious decision to be the marketing team of the opposing party.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">While Trump Jr. didn’t go as far as to call for civil war or double down on the deep state, he didn’t need to. His presence lent legitimacy the conspiracy theories floated all day.  It’s this very type of environment that civil war rhetoric on the right has grown. In early October, it appeared to reach Trump himself, who went as far as to<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1178477539653771264?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1178489464504619013&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fdonald-trump-cites-pastor-robert-jeffress-threat-of-civil-war-like-fracture-if-hes-removed-in-impeachment" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;"> quote Fox News contributor Pastor Robert Jeffress on Twitter</a> saying, “If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” <p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">In an upside-down world, where a deep state is conniving to imprison administration officials just doing their jobs, continues to get away with spying and crimes, and stages a coup against a democratically elected president, calling for a civil war doesn’t seem like that big of a leap.</div></div></section></div>10/19i'm not corrupt, biden is; <div>mirror BS</div><div>
</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/reckless-and-dishonest-senior-white-house-official-shoots-down-trumps-claim-that-kurds-released-isis-prisoners/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/reckless-and-dishonest-senior-white-house-official-shoots-down-trumps-claim-that-kurds-released-isis-prisoners/</a></div><div>
</div><div></div><div></div><div>nb how desperate they are to deflect mirror mass shooter</div><div>beto now official target?</div><div style="font-size: small;">suspended campaign to go home to take care of shooter [ post- el paso] Odessa? ppl:</div><div style="font-size: small;">
</div><div style="font-size: small;"><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div>How bots and far-right figures spread a lie about Beto O'Rourke and the Odessa shooting</div><div>A likely bot network, QAnon accounts, a TPUSA advisory council member, the Proud Boys, Sebastian Gorka, and a member of Trump's 2020 advisory board helped push the false claim</div><div>
</div><div>WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN</div><div>
</div><div>PUBLISHED 09/04/19 1:52 PM EDT</div><div>
</div><div>UPDATED 09/05/19 9:08 AM EDT</div><div>
</div><div>Multiple far-right figures helped a likely network of bot accounts spread a false claim on social media connecting former Texas congressman and Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke with an alleged mass shooter in Texas.</div><div>
</div><div>On August 31, a gunman in Odessa and Midland, TX, killed seven people. While the alleged shooter’s motive is still unknown, a false claim appeared afterward on social media that the alleged shooter had an O’Rourke sticker on his car (authorities said there is no evidence for this) and reportedly spread with the help of likely bot accounts. Other crucial players that spread the falsity included multiple accounts supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory, a member of Turning Point USA’s advisory council, far-right gang the Proud Boys, former Trump White House adviser and current Sinclair contributor Sebastian Gorka, and current Trump campaign adviser Tony Shaffer.</div><div>
</div><div>How the lie spread</div><div>
</div><div>On the afternoon of September 1, Twitter account @suemo54 tweeted that the shooter was “a Democrat Socialist who has a Beto sticker on his truck.” As a data analyst noted on Twitter, even though the @suemo54 account had few followers, the tweet containing the false claim received hundreds and eventually thousands of retweets. A misinformation-tracking firm told The Washington Post that “the post appears to have been amplified mainly by bot accounts.” The account was later suspended but has since been reinstated.</div><div>
</div><div>@suemo54 image</div><div>The @suemo54 account’s Facebook page has previously shared material from JoeM, a major QAnon account.</div><div>
</div><div>Also that afternoon, a Facebook user called Lupe Fuentes posted almost identical language to @suemo54’s tweet in a meme, along with “BINGO!” The account had also previously posted QAnon material from JoeM. The meme was subsequently shared tens of thousands of times, and Fuentes bragged about the post’s virality.</div><div>
</div><div>Fuentes Facebook Beto false claim</div><div>
</div><div>Following these posts, other Twitter accounts began tweeting similar language, with some, according to the data analyst, getting “traction on their shooter/Beto tweet above and beyond what one might expect from their follower count.” Some of the accounts spreading the false claim that received thousands of retweets included @paphotog, an account that used to support QAnon; @nightingalern, a QAnon account that has the QAnon slogan “Where we go one, we go all,” or “WWG1WGA” in its profile; and @bbusa617, which also supports QAnon.</div><div>
</div><div>@paphotog</div><div>@nightingalern</div><div>@bbusa617</div><div>
</div><div>Joel Fischer, an advisory council member for Turning Point USA, also tweeted the false claim by the evening, receiving thousands of retweets. Fischer has a history of pushing social media falsities, including those from the QAnon community.</div><div>
</div><div>Joel Fischer Beto false claim</div><div>
</div><div>Fischer’s tweet was spread by other right-wing figures and outlets, including the Telegram channel for the far-right group the Proud Boys, a Daily Wire writer whose tweet has since been deleted, and former White House official and current Sinclair contributor Sebastian Gorka, who has previously amplified false content spread by QAnon supporters.</div><div>
</div><div>Gorka Beto false claim</div><div>
</div><div>Telegram Proud Boys Beto false claim</div><div>
</div><div>Meanwhile, the false claim also continued to spread on Facebook, where some directly cited Fischer and Gorka and, as noted by The Associated Press, some “posted a picture of a white truck with a ‘Beto 2020’ sticker on the back window, saying it belonged to Ator”; on Twitter, including from Dustin Nemos, a co-author of a bestselling QAnon book who pushed @suemo54’s tweet; and on white nationalist hotspot 4chan, where a user shared Fuentes’ meme.</div><div>
</div><div>Dustin Nemos</div><div>Facebook Beto false claim Gorka Fischer</div><div>4chan Beto false claim</div><div>4chan Beto false claim2</div><div>
</div><div>Tony Shaffer, a former intelligence officer and member of President Donald Trump’s 2020 advisory board, shared @suemo54’s tweet on the morning of September 2, adding that it showed the alleged shooter “was a @BetoORourke supporter.”</div><div>
</div><div>Tony Shaffer Beto false claim</div><div>When The Washington Post told Shaffer in a brief interview that the claim in his tweet is false, Shaffer doubled down, saying, “That’s not what I’ve seen from people.”</div><div>
</div><div>The baseless claim tying the shooter to a Democratic presidential candidate -- and to the left more broadly -- appears to have jumped from social media to right-wing talk radio; on September 4, host Rush Limbaugh falsely claimed the alleged shooter “was an out-of-control Democrat.”</div><div>
</div><div>A Facebook spokesperson, in response to criticism from O'Rourke's campaign about the falsity's spread on social media, told the Post that it was looking into whether “inauthentic behavior amplified content promoting the false story on its platform.” Neither Google nor Twitter responded to the paper's inquiries about the false claim.</div></div><div style="font-size: small;"></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">POW lamar BS mirroring</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small;">http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/05/20/1528932/-Republicans-write-sad-letters-saying-investigations-into-Exxon-are-First-Amendment-rights-violationsHouse Republicans on the House Science Committee sent a series of letters to 17 state attorneys general and eight climate change organizations, from Greenpeace to the <a href="https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/05.18.16%20SST%20Letter%20to%20RFF.pdf" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box;">Rockefeller Family Fund</a>, that accuses them of a:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 30px 60px; margin: 20px 0px; border: none; width: 660px; line-height: 24px; z-index: -1; letter-spacing: 0.125px;">[...] coordinated attempt to deprive companies, [exxon] nonprofit organizations  [CEI?] , and scientists [who Happer, Hacks?]of their First Amendment rights and ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution.</blockquote>This is in response to the 17 attorneys general who announced that they will be going after ExxonMobil and others for <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/30032016/climate-change-fraud-investigation-exxon-eric-shneiderman-18-attorneys-general" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">perpetuating a fraud on every single person on the planet.</a><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 30px 60px; margin: 20px 0px; border: none; width: 660px; line-height: 24px; z-index: -1; letter-spacing: 0.125px;">"The First Amendment, ladies and gentlemen, does not give you the right to commit fraud," said Schneiderman, who in November <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/05112015/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-subpoena-Exxon-climate-documents" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">issued a subpoena to ExxonMobil</a> under the state's far-reaching securities and consumer protection statutes."Every attorney general does work on fraud cases, and we are pursuing this as we would any other fraud matter. You have to tell the truth, you can't make misrepresentations of the kinds we've seen here," he said on Tuesday. "The scope of the problem we are facing, the size of the corporate entities and their alliances, the trade associations and other groups, is massive and it requires a multistate effort."</blockquote>Schneiderman <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/19052016/house-republicans-assail-climate-fraud-investigations-exxon-lamar-smith" target="blank" title="" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">had this to say about the do-nothing Congress:</a><blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-style: inherit; text-decoration: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 30px 60px; margin: 20px 0px; border: none; width: 660px; line-height: 24px; z-index: -1; letter-spacing: 0.125px;">"It is remarkable that a do-nothing Congress that has refused to take any action on climate change is now attempting to disrupt this important investigation into potential corporate malfeasance," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's spokesman Eric Soufer said in a statement."The irony of this letter is breathtaking, as its signatories appear to be part of a multi-pronged media campaign funded by the fossil fuel industry aimed at suppressing the free exchange of ideas among scientists, academics, and responsible law enforcement. New York will continue to work with and collaborate with its colleagues across the country, and those with expertise in this area, to protect its citizens from fraud," said Soufer.</blockquote>Pathetic. The globe is burning and there is clear evidence that companies like ExxonMobil were well aware of the dangers companies like themselves posed to the climate, and not only did they hide that information for decades, they actively worked to cast doubt on the very facts they themselves suspected.You can go <a href="https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-scrutinizes-motive-green-20" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;">here to find the letters and the idiots writing them.</a><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">404 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180205174242/https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-scrutinizes-motive-green-20" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://web.archive.org/web/20180205174242/https://science.house.gov/news/press-releases/committee-scrutinizes-motive-green-20</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> </div><div style=""><h1 class="title" id="page-title" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: 500; font-size: large; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 10px; line-height: 1.1; padding: 15px 15px 0px;">Committee Scrutinizes Motive of “Green 20”</h1><div class="block block-system block-main block-system-main odd block-without-title" id="block-system-main" style="background-image: none; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: repeat; background-attachment: scroll; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; margin-bottom: 0px; padding: 0em; border: medium none;"><div class="block-inner clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="content clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em;"><div class="panel-display boxton clearfix container " style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto; padding-left: 15px; padding-right: 15px; width: auto;"><div class="row-fluid" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="boxton-container boxton-content boxton-content-region panel-panel span12" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="panel-pane pane-node-created" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 8px; display: inline;"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline;">May 18, 2016 </div></div><div class="panel-pane pane-token pane-node-content-type" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; display: inline;">Press Release</div><div class="panel-pane pane-entity-field pane-node-body" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding-top: 10px;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: border-box;">Washington, D.C. –  Today, 13 Science, Space, and Technology Committee Republicans sent letters to 17 state attorneys general and eight environmental activist organizations. The letters request documents related to the groups’ coordinated efforts to deprive companies, nonprofit organizations, scientists and scholars of their First Amendment rights and their ability to fund and conduct scientific research free from intimidation and threats of prosecution.Americans are entitled to express their views on matters of science and public policy even if certain groups disagree.“On March 29, 2016, you and other state attorneys general – the self-proclaimed ‘Green 20’ – announced that you were cooperating on an unprecedented effort against those who have questioned the causes, magnitude, or best ways to address climate change,” the letter states. “The Committee is concerned that these efforts to silence speech are based on political theater rather than legal or scientific arguments, and that they run counter to an attorney general’s duty to serve ‘as the guardian of the legal rights of the citizens’ and to ‘assert, protect, and defend the rights of the people.’”Former Vice President Al Gore spoke at the March 29 press conference and addressed the need to prosecute fossil fuel energy companies for engaging in fraud. Gore and the Green 20’s efforts are part of a larger strategy to achieve the president’s sweeping, job-killing climate change agenda. Reports show 14 green-tech firms that Gore invested in benefited from over $2.5 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks as part of the administration’s push to fund U.S. renewable energy industry with taxpayer funds. In testimony before the Committee, scientists projected the cost of the administration’s carbon dioxide regulations at $39 billion to American consumers and businesses annually.  However, senior administration officials themselves have admitted that these regulations will have a negligible effect on global temperatures.Since the March 29 press conference, members of the Green 20 have rapidly expanded their legal actions against those who question the administration’s climate change agenda. These legal actions include subpoenas for documents, communications and research that would capture the work of more than 100 academic institutions, scientists and nonprofit organizations. The Committee has a responsibility to protect the First Amendment prerogatives of academic institutions, scientists and nonprofit organizations and will continue to do so.The letter(s) to the attorneys general can be found <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180205174242/https://science.house.gov/news/letters/gop-member-letter-state-attorneys-general-coordinated-efforts-deprive-scientists-first" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">HERE</a>. The letter(s) to environmental organizations can be found <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180205174242/https://science.house.gov/news/letters/gop-member-letter-enviromental-activist-organizations-coordinated-efforts-deprive" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">HERE</a>. </div></div></div></div></div><div class="panel-pane pane-entity-field pane-node-field-congress-issues" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; border-top: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221);"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field-name-field-congress-issues field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-inline clearfix" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; padding: 0.25em 0px;"><div class="field-label" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; float: left; display: inline;">Issues: </div><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline; float: left;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline;"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180205174242/https://science.house.gov/issues/chilling-scientific-debate" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent;">Chilling Scientific Debate</a></div></div></div></div></div><div class="panel-pane pane-entity-field pane-node-field-congress-number" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="pane-content" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field field-name-field-congress-number field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: border-box; display: inline;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: border-box;">114th Congress</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>trump calls the squad anti-am and anti-sem, also racist?ref<a href="https://cei.org/AGclimatescheme">https://cei.org/AGclimatescheme</a><div class="contents-container contents-container-pane-node-title" style="overflow: hidden; padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px; line-height: 1.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="panel-pane pane-node-title"><h1 style="margin: 0.67em 0px 5px; line-height: 1.1em;">Law Enforcement for Rent (note series, gov't etc)</h1></div></div><div class="contents-container contents-container-pane-node-field-subtitle" style="overflow: hidden; padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px; line-height: 1.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="panel-pane pane-entity-field pane-node-field-subtitle" style="margin-bottom: 10px; line-height: 1.1em;">How Special Interests Fund Climate Policy through State Attorneys General</div></div><div class="contents-container contents-container-pane-article-byline" style="overflow: hidden; padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px; line-height: 1.3em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="panel-pane pane-article-byline" style="margin-bottom: 10px;"><div class="publication-type-513"><a href="https://cei.org/expert/christopher-c-horner" style="background: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">Christopher C. Horner</a> • August 28, 2018</div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><h2>
Author’s Note</h2></div><div>This paper is based on documents obtained over two and a half years from open records requests and, in some cases, subsequent litigation. Due to the volume of records, not all cited records are included in the body of this paper. Key documents are provided in the paper’s appendix, which can be accessed at CEI.org. The complete collection of documents cited in this paper is available at ClimateLitigationWatch.org, a project of the nonprofit public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight. </div><div><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Executive Summary</h2>This paper details an extensive and elaborate campaign using elective law enforcement offices, in coordination with major donors and activist pressure groups, to attain a policy agenda that failed through the democratic process. The plan is revealed in emails and other public records obtained during two and a half years of requests under state open records laws. Most are being released now for the first time. Many were obtained only by court order in the face of a determined and coordinated resistance that one deputy attorney general foresaw, expressing early concerns over “an affirmative obligation to always litigate” requests looking into the effort. The paper details how donor-financed governance has expanded into dangerous and likely unconstitutional territory: state attorney general (AG) offices.</div><div>The plan traces back to 2012 when activists agreed to seek “a single sympathetic attorney general” to assist their cause. AGs began subpoenaing private parties’ records in service of a campaign of litigation against opponents of their climate policy agenda. The public records date to a July 2015 email in which Peter Frumhoff of the Union of Concerned Scientists confided the group’s involvement with AGs.Those  public  records  reveal  the  following: (a) donors introduced plaintiffs’ lawyers to AG offices (OAGs), (b) a slideshow tour by plaintiffs’ lawyers recruiting OAGs to the effort, and (c) senior attorneys from OAGs flying in—some at taxpayer expense and others on the donors’ tab, which had been run through a pressure group— for a briefing with “prospective funders” about “potential state causes of action against major carbon producers.” One presenter described this briefing as a“secret meeting.”It was secret enough that one AG litigated to withhold the agenda— under implausible claims of privilege—for a year and a half before being compelled by a court to release the lineup for what turned out to have been an AG-assisted fundraiser.Those public records reveal the anatomy of what began as  an  “informal  coalition”  of  AGs  to use the legal system in pursuit of an overtly political agenda in coordination  with  activists  and plaintiffs’ lawyers. That coalition disbanded under open records and media scrutiny, but it has now reconstituted through a program by which donors fund, privately hire, and place investigators and prosecutors in AG offices. It uses a nonprofit organization to pass the funding through and to provide the OAGs with a network of “pro bono” attorneys and public relations services. In return, OAGs provide office space to the privately hired prosecutors; agree they are there to “advanc[e] progressive clean energy, climate change, and environmental legal positions”; and provide regular reports about their work.Led and funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this scheme hires “Research Fellows,” which it  then  places  as  activist  “Special Assistant Attorneys General.” All of the participating OAGs had to promise that this work would not get done but for this private funding. All OAGs also certified they are not violating the law by accepting privately funded prosecutors. At best, as several OAGs tacitly admit, this unprecedented arrangement operates in a gray area with neither prohibition nor authority. One state where the scheme is arguably illegal is New York, where disgraced former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman had a leading and organizing role at every stage of the campaign this paper describes.</div><div>The New York OAG openly boasted to a donor that its “need” for privately funded prosecutors was driven in part by the “significant strain on staff resources” that had been caused by its “non- litigation advocacy”—that described as its having “led” the resistance to the Trump administration. Importantly, the NYOAG also cited its campaign “building models for two different types of common law cases to seek compensation” from industries for supposedly having caused global warming; moreover, it “needs additional attorney resources to assist with this project.”On these bases and with a claim to having statutory authority to enter the unprecedented arrangement—a claim which on its face appears to be an invention—the NYOAG was awarded not one but two privately underwritten prosecutors.This is the most dangerous example of a modus operandi we have found: it uses nonprofit organizations as pass-through entities by which donors can support elected officials to, in turn, use their offices to advance a specific set of policies favored by said donors. It also uses resources that legislatures will not provide and that donors cannot legally provide directly. The budget for climate policy work alone is in the tens of millions of dollars per year.Across various levels of government—including mayors and governors—the bulk of this  money is budgeted for pass-through nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and off-the-books consultants, report writers, and public relations (PR) firms that are hired through an NGO. The NGO takes a percentage as  its  fee  (up  to  24  percent in some cases). Another component involves privately hiring and then placing in-house, non- official personnel as advisors when they are  actually employed by a donor’s group.The extension of this billion-dollar per year climate industry to privately fund AG investigations sets a dangerous precedent. It represents private interests commandeering the state’s police powers to target opponents of their policy agenda and to hijack the justice system as a way to overturn the democratic process’s rejection of a political agenda.As a subsequent report will affirm, this model of using nonprofit groups as cutouts for donors   to finance elected officials’ activism is, in fact, widely adopted generally by the axis of donors, elected officials, and NGOs and by the climate litigation industry specifically. The de facto law enforcement for hire by private interests raises concerns beyond mere political opportunism, obvious appearances of impropriety, or even compliant 501(c)3s that seemingly rent out their tax-exempt status on behalf ofactivist donors.The use of this approach by AGs carries legal, ethical, and constitutional implications, as well as for the integrity of law enforcement and the constitutional policy process. The public–private partnership of law enforcement for hire revealed in this report, in which the partnership uses public office to expend resources not appropriated or approved by their legislatures, raises significant constitutional and other legal issues—as well as ethics concerns—and should be the subject of prompt and serious legislative oversight.
 </div><div><h2 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Introduction</h2>BEFORE YOU GASP, PLEASE NOTE that foundations are currently spending over $1 billion a year on climate work.”1 So wrote Dan Carol, a senior aide to California Governor Jerry Brown (D), on October 3, 2017, to his colleagues and staff members for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) and Washington Governor Jay Inslee (D) regarding charitable foundation spending that promotes their climate policy agenda (see Figure 1). This figure dwarfs spending in opposition to that agenda—efforts to portray matters otherwise notwithstanding.2</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Carol offered this sum to make his case that $50 million per year is reasonable to ask so donors can privately underwrite an off-the-books network of “support functions” for a handful of governors’ climate policy advocacy.In further support of his position, Carol attached a “draft agenda, presentation slides, and budget worksheet.”Those items are among a large cache of public records that were obtained by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), along with other public policy groups, and that detail and propose the exploitation of a “plethora of funder interest” in secretly bankrolling the public office holders’ use of their positions to take a more aggressive role concerning climate politics and policy.This years-long campaign by substantial, left-leaning donors revealed in Carol’s email correspondence and in other emails produced under state open records laws has now expanded into dangerous and likely unconstitutional territory. Led and funded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, this scheme centers..[long]</div> =mirroring/ projectionappearing on Fox News Sunday, the former deputy campaign manager of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential run admitted that conservatives engaged in a “vast right-wing conspiracy” to undermine the Clintons just as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton charged.Speaking with host Chris Wallace, David Bossie was describing Trump’s enemies when he made the admission.“There is a vast left-wing conspiracy that has been going on since the president [Trump] won this election,” Bossie insisted. “All throughout the transition and through his first two years.”“A vast left-wing conspiracy, very similar to what Hillary Clinton called the vast right-wing conspiracy,” he added as host Wallace interrupted him by saying, “Which incidentally didn’t turn out to be true.”“No, it was true,” Bossie corrected the Fox News host. “Chris, there was an effort by the conservative movement to undermine President Clinton.”David Bossie, it should be noted, was behind the Citizens United case, which was based on a movie attacking Hillary Clinton.You can watch the video below via Twitter:<interaction data-token="5b96855f8198b4e625350260" data-context="true" data-tags="" data-fallback="true" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><div>=</div><div>
</div><div>rww</div><div>
</div><div><div class="mce-content-body" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Right-wing political operative Newt Gingrich is <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/newt-gingrich-the-left-may-be-winning-the-war-of-words-but-heres-how-the-gop-can-win-in-2020newt-gingrich-the-left-may-be-winning-the-war-of-words-but-heres-how-the-gop-can-win-in" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">warning</a> that the 2018 election results are proof that “the Left is waging—and winning—a linguistic war.” In a commentary first published at Fox and distributed via email over the weekend by Gingrich Productions, Gingrich wrote that “the linguistic war of condemnation, hatred, and intimidation being waged every day by the Left” is just part of what he claims as the problem.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">“The efforts to steal the governorships of Georgia and Florida and the Senate seat in Florida are only the tip of the iceberg of illegality and hostility that the Left now practices routinely.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Gingrich’s amped-up rhetoric about the “illegality” and “hostility” of “the Left” is evidence of his own long expertise in waging linguistic warfare. As People For the American Way President Michael Keegan <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-b-keegan/the-unwelcome-return-of-gingrich_b_861840.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">wrote</a> back in 2011 when Gingrich decided to run for president, “Gingrich is an enthusiastic participant in the right wing’s divisive and destructive <a href="http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/rise-of-the-new-mccarthyism-how-right-wing-extremists-try-to-paralyze-government-throug" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">McCarthyism</a>, portraying his political opponents as enemies of America’s very existence.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Indeed, before Gingrich was forced out of his position of speaker of the House, before he had <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/newt-gingrich-the-new-face-of-the-religious-right/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">repositioned himself</a> as an advocate for “Rediscovering God in America,” and long before his former mistress and current wife was serving as Trump’s ambassador to the Vatican, Gingrich was responsible for bringing an especially toxic approach to partisan politics.  More specifically, as RWW <a href="http://www.pfaw.org/blog-posts/newt-still-following-his-own-advice-smear-slander-attack/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">noted</a> in 2012:<blockquote style="background: rgb(239, 243, 243); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; hyphens: none; padding: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0.75em 2em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.5;">His <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-b-keegan/the-unwelcome-return-of-gingrich_b_861840.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">entire political career </a>has been based on destructive, vicious, negative attacks on his opponents. In the 1990s, his GOPAC produced <a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1276" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">“Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” </a>an infamous list of words that Gingrich said Republicans should use to smear and denigrate their opponents. Among the suggested words was “destructive,” along with “traitors,” “sick,” and “betray.”  Gingrich perfected the kind of hyper-partisan politics of destruction that are currently making it harder to run the country, and harder to attract decent people to run for office. Obviously, decency hasn’t been a barrier for Newt’s own ambitions.</blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Gingrich’s recent piece aggressively promotes far-right smears against activists who challenge racism and white nationalism. “The Left claims and occupies more and more linguistic ground with each new fight,” he wrote:<blockquote style="background: rgb(239, 243, 243); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; hyphens: none; padding: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0.75em 2em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Defense of the Founding Fathers becomes defense of white, racist, slaveowners.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Defense of American identity becomes an act of white male domination. …<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.5;">Wanting to obey the law in counting votes becomes an effort to suppress votes and disenfranchise poor people, minorities, and immigrants.</blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">And then things get really Orwellian—or perhaps Trumpian—with Gingrich attributing to Democrats and “liberal media” exactly the kind of behavior that right-wing activists and media are engaged in:<blockquote style="background: rgb(239, 243, 243); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; hyphens: none; padding: 1.5em; margin: 0px 0.75em 2em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Every day, we are watching Democrats break and stretch the law for the sole purpose of winning, while they attack Republicans for wanting an honest count of legal voters.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Democrats and their liberal media allies know that if they repeat something often enough it begins to be accepted as truth.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">However, the Left’s interest in winning the language war is only the first step toward legitimizing real threats and mob behavior.<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.5;">Once they win the language fight, they can claim moral superiority. Once they have gained moral dominance, they can do anything to their opponents because they will be presumed right, and their opponents will be presumed wrong.</blockquote><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">Gingrich doesn’t spell out the solution, but seems to be teeing things up for conservatives to turn to him for the answer: “Developing the conservative solution to the left’s linguistic war is a major step toward winning elections in 2020 – and preserving our society.”<p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">And who better to turn to than Gingrich, Inc., right? While Gingrich has spent much of the past decade allied with dominionists and Christian-nation activists to promote his “Rediscovering God in America” books and video brand—and turning to them to promote his failed 2012 presidential bid—he has also never given up his core competence as a political smear artist.For example, at the Heritage Foundation in December 2016, Gingrich <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/newt-gingrich-say-propaganda-media-not-news-media/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> the right should stop using the term “news media” and replace it “the propaganda media.” Before he rose to the speakership in 1996, he made a name for himself for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/11/newt-gingrich-says-youre-welcome/570832/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">calling</a> Democrats “pro-communist” in late-night soliloquies he delivered from the House floor to an empty chamber, as he leveraged the new C-SPAN cable channel.<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">President Trump, of course, has been an ardent deployer of the “language as a weapon of control” strategy. Gingrich has praised Trump, <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/newt-gingrich-trump-has-brought-out-into-the-open-how-truly-anti-american-much-of-the-left-is/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">saying</a> that the president has “brought out into the open how truly anti-American much of the left is and how much it stands for a set of values that all of us, if you looked at it carefully, would find horrifying.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">And Gingrich has joined Trump’s efforts to discredit both the investigation of his 2016 campaign and his Democratic opponents. “Democratic dishonesty is a lot greater threat to freedom than some unproven Russian conspiracy,” <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/religious-right-echoes-trump-claims-that-efforts-to-count-all-votes-are-attempts-to-steal-elections/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Gingrich said earlier this month</a>, adding, for good measure, “Democrats will end up stealing a lot more votes than Putin ever dreamed of taking.”<p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; line-height: 1.5;">During the 2016 campaign, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MHm7BT7RrE" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Gingrich warned</a> against “those who would impose a totalitarian secularism on us.” That was a recycled version of comments he made in 2011 at John Hagee’sCornerstone Church, where he memorably <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/video-gingrich-with-hagee-warning-us-becoming-secular-atheist-country-dominated-by-radical-islamists/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">said</a> he was “convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”</div></div><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; border-top: 5px solid rgb(239, 243, 243); margin-bottom: 2em; padding-top: 1em;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear;">Tags: <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/newt-gingrich/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Newt Gingrich</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/church-state/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Church-State</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/election-2018/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Election 2018</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/election-2020/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Election 2020</a><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/republican-party/" style="box-sizing: border-box; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-property: background-color, border-color, box-shadow, color, opacity, text-shadow, transform, -webkit-transform; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Republican Party</a></div></div></div><div>=</div><div>=</div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/three-most-insane-conspiracy-theories-republicans-ballot-counting">https://www.alternet.org/election-03918/three-most-insane-conspiracy-theories-republicans-ballot-counting</a></div><div>
</div><div><div>no lnx</div><div>Here are the 3 most insane conspiracy theories Republicans are using to subvert democracy and avoid counting every vote</div><div>Republicans are scared of democracy. And they have some very creative reasons why.</div><div>By Matthew Chapman / AlterNet November 12, 2018, 9:07 AM GMT</div><div>
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</div><div>Tuesday's election did not go well for Republicans, but it has been getting even worse for them since then as ballots continue to trickle in.</div><div>
</div><div>In Florida's Senate and gubernatorial races, Republicans are panicking at the prospect of a recount even though they hold a narrow lead. Meanwhile in Arizona, the steady counting of mail-in ballots has turned the narrow lead the GOP held in the Senate race on Election Night into a more than 30,000-vote deficit, putting Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema on track to become the first Democrat to win a Senate race there since 1988.</div><div>
</div><div>Republicans have responded to the embarrassments with a long string of conspiracy theories. Here are three of the craziest ones:</div><div>
</div><div>Broward County trucked off a ton of ballots.</div><div>
</div><div>On Thursday, Sen. Marco Rubio retweeted a video, demanding, "Has anyone in local media looked into this claim or asked elections dept about it?"</div><div>
</div><div>The video was originally posted to Twitter by Tim Canova, a local professor and gadfly candidate who twice tried to primary Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, once with Bernie Sanders' blessing, and in this election ran as an independent. A conspiracy theorist who previously suggested Democrats had DNC staffer Seth Rich murdered, Canova, along with the supporter who shot the video, claims it shows filled-out Broward County ballots being illegally loaded into trucks and driven off, possibly to be destroyed and replaced with "fake ballots."</div><div>
</div><div> Embedded video</div><div>
</div><div>Tim Canova</div><div>?</div><div>@Tim_Canova</div><div> Caught On Video: Concerned citizen sees ballots being transported in private vehicles & transferred to rented truck on Election night. This violates all chain of custody requirements for paper ballots. Were the ballots destroyed & replaced by set of fake ballots? Investigate now!</div><div>
</div><div>73.3K</div><div>
</div><div>The video, filmed from a distance, does not actually show what is in the boxes, so there is no evidence they contained filled-out ballots, as opposed to unused ballots or some other kind of election equipment. Even Canova himself acknowledged this, but added "the video itself demands an investigation."</div><div>
</div><div>Incredibly, Canova is now running interference for GOP Gov. Rick Scott as he tries to demonize Broward County supervisor Brenda Snipes, find a pretext to shut down the vote tally, and declare himself the winner of his race against incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson without a state-mandated recount. "For two years, I have been warning that the Broward Supervisor of Elections office is a swamp of corruption," Canova wrote in an op-ed for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "I'm sure Gov. Scott now wishes he had heeded those warnings."</div><div>
</div><div>It makes no sense for the GOP to claim a far-left independent's conspiracy theory about his ballots being "stolen" somehow proves Republicans are being targeted and that the fix is to stop counting ballots. But logical consistency doesn't seem to be their strong point.</div><div>
</div><div>The Arizona ballot dispute is linked to Operation Fast and Furious.</div><div>On Saturday, as Sinema's lead over GOP Rep. Martha McSally in the Arizona Senate race grew steadily larger, National Republican Senatorial Committee communications director Calvin Moore tweeted an attack on Maricopa County elections recorder Adrian Fontes:</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Calvin Moore</div><div>@CalvinMoore</div><div> WOW. The AZ election official destroying evidence to cook the books for @kyrstensinema defended narco-terrorists.</div><div>
</div><div>Now it’s all making sense why he’s stretching the rules for Kyrsten “I Don’t Care If Americans Join The Taliban” Sinema. #AZSENhttps://www.foxnews.com/politics/arizona-election-official-at-center-represented-ringleader-of-gun-straw-buyer-in-fast-and-furious …</div><div>
</div><div>Election official in Arizona's Senate dispute represented figure in 'Fast and Furious' arms scandal</div><div>
</div><div>Arizona’s Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who is being accused by the GOP of destroying evidence to cover up “voting irregularities,” has previously defended the accused ringleader of a gun...</div><div>
</div><div>Moore is referring to the fact that Fontes, when he was working as an attorney, defended a group of straw buyers who were tracked as part of the 2010 ATF "gunwalking" scandal. Under a sting operation at the beginning of President Barack Obama's administration, called "Operation Fast and Furious," federal agents let licensed firearms dealers sell to gun runners, hoping to track them over the border to the Mexican drug cartels and make larger arrests. Unfortunately, they lost track of the illegal shipments, and the guns ended up being used in a number of crimes, including the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, and provoked diplomatic tensions between Mexico and the United States.</div><div>
</div><div>The failure of this operation became a rallying cry of Republicans arguing Obama was soft on crime or corrupt. But why representing defendants caught in this sting would discredit Fontes' ability to administer the election is left to the imagination.</div><div>
</div><div>Furthermore, as even outgoing Republican Sen. Jeff Flake made clear, Moore can't seem to provide any evidence for his claim that Fontes is "destroying evidence to cook the books for Kyrsten Sinema."</div><div>
</div><div>Arizona election officials are in league with George Soros.</div><div>
</div><div>George Soros, a liberal Hungarian-born billionaire philanthropist and Holocaust survivor who has devoted much of his fortune to promoting democracy in Eastern Europe, has been the repeated focus of vicious, and often anti-Semitic, conspiracy theories from the far right. So it is perhaps little wonder that the GOP also tried to drag his name into all of this.</div><div>
</div><div>This weekend, the Arizona Republican Party filed a public records request seeking any interaction between Soros and the Maricopa County elections office.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Daniel Dale</div><div>?</div><div>@ddale8</div><div> Conspiracymongering via FOI: via @brahmresnik, the Arizona Republican Party has filed a freedom of information request for any interactions between the Maricopa County elections office and...George Soros. http://bit.ly/2JUqBLB </div><div>
</div><div>3,501</div><div>10:17 AM - Nov 11, 2018</div><div>Twitter Ads info and privacy</div><div>
</div><div>AZGOPRecordsRequest</div><div>Source document contributed to DocumentCloud by 12 News (12 News).</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>There is, of course, not a shred of evidence Soros had any contact with election administrators in Arizona, but Republicans seem desperate to uncover some. And this rhetoric could have dangerous consequences, especially coming less than a month after a fanatical supporter of President Donald Trump mailed a pipe bomb to Soros' house.</div><div>
</div><div>Taken together, these conspiracy theories paint a picture of a political party that has no interest in objective reality or the integrity of the ballot process, and that will say whatever it takes to cast doubt on their opponents' legitimacy.</div></div><div>
</div><div></div>NB trump and putin: tit for tat, [cohn, roy, roger: deny all, attack]throw out emabassy ppl, demand to interroget mcfaul, kusner security clear leads (blatyedly to :<a href="https://www.alternet.org/sarah-sanders-trump-exploring-mechanisms-remove-security-clearances-brennan-clapper-comey-mccabe-and">https://www.alternet.org/sarah-sanders-trump-exploring-mechanisms-remove-security-clearances-brennan-clapper-comey-mccabe-and</a>seriously? kneejerk autoresponse? "what about...?" scam?
<a href="https://theconversation.com/green-baiting-lawmakers-are-accusing-environmentalists-of-doubling-as-foreign-agents-98924">https://theconversation.com/green-baiting-lawmakers-are-accusing-environmentalists-of-doubling-as-foreign-agents-98924</a>green-baitingTwo congressional committees led by prominent Republicans are looking into whether some U.S. <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/394303-republicans-target-green-groups-over-foreign-ties" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">environmental groups are acting on behalf of foreign countries</a>.As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NMtmNV0AAAAJ&hl=en" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">environmental lawyer and professor</a> with ample international experience, this probe troubles me. I’m concerned that these efforts may mark the start of an attack on free speech that discourages efforts to improve American environmental policies.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">The probe</h2>News of this investigation broke when Rep. Rob Bishop, who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, and Rep. Bruce Westerman, who leads the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, formally notified the Natural Resources Defense Council of their concerns in early June.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;"><a href="https://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bishop-westerman_to_nrdc_06.05.18.pdf" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Their letter</a> accused the NRDC, one of the nation’s biggest environmental groups, of criticizing U.S. environmental policies while engaging in “self-censorship” regarding China and the “ruling Chinese Communist Party.” If it is acting as an agent for Chinese interests, the lawmakers said, the group should register as such as <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-2062-foreign-agents-registration-act-enforcement" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">required by law</a>.Their letter also requested information related to the group’s disclosure policies.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Bishop and Westerman sent the <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/house-republican-targets-second-environmental-group-for-its-work-overseas-15a37e505261/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Center for Biological Diversity</a> a similar query pertaining to that environmentalist group’s advocacy regarding the U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">And the two Republicans have asked the Pentagon for details and documents regarding the <a href="https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1N1TF2EQ" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">nonprofits suing the military</a> on environmental grounds. The lawmakers acknowledged that these lawsuits may “represent sincere and justified concerns about the effect of federal actions on the environment.” But they also speculated that “foreign adversaries” can perhaps leverage these legal actions to “reduce U.S. defense capabilities.”<a href="https://www.nrdc.org/media/2018/180605-1" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Bob Deans</a>, the NRDC’s director of strategic engagement, denied that it was doing a foreign country’s bidding. Instead, “we work on behalf of every American to protect our people against dangerous pollution and leave our children a livable world,” he said.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Rather than just refute the allegations, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director <a href="https://twitter.com/KieranSuckling/status/1009500062735478784" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Kierán Suckling</a> questioned the motives for this investigation. He called on Bishop “to release all communications between himself and industry groups seeking to destroy America’s natural heritage” and suggested that the Utah Republican was attacking conservation groups at the behest of fossil fuel companies.The probe <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/394303-republicans-target-green-groups-over-foreign-ties" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">could spread to other environmental groups</a>, The Hill reported.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Chinese activities</h2>The NRDC is a U.S.-based nonprofit with offices around the globe with an <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">official mission</a>“to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.”<a href="https://www.nrdc.org/china" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">The group’s priorities in China</a> are generally the same as what it calls for in America and elsewhere: boosting energy efficiency, cutting coal consumption, and cleaning up ports and waterways.I am somewhat familiar with the NRDC’s work in China because I <a href="http://acoel.org/post/2014/04/18/Winds-of-Change-in-China%E2%80%99s-National-People%E2%80%99s-Congress.aspx" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">traveled there in 2014</a>with two other U.S. environmental lawyers at the NRDC’s request. The group had asked us to meet on an informal basis with Chinese government officials. The purpose of these meetings in Beijng was to explain how the U.S. government handles violations of environmental laws and damages to natural resources. In light of China’s own “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/05/china-pollution-economic-reform-growth-target" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">war on pollution</a>,” their government was looking for good models and guidance.The National People’s Congress subsequently <a href="http://acoel.org/post/2014/09/12/Observations-on-China%E2%80%99s-New-Environmental-Protection-Law.aspx" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">amended Chinese environmental laws</a>, incorporating some of the concepts we discussed – all of which were modeled on the U.S. legal system.There was no hint or suggestion during those meetings that our access to Chinese officials was conditioned on anyone speaking favorably of China’s environmental efforts. Nor was there any reason to expect the NRDC to take any particular political stance back home in the U.S. because of those interactions.Not surprisingly, the <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/media/2016/160315-0" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">NRDC has complimented China</a> for strengthening its environmental laws. But the NRDC has also criticized China’s <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/experts/barbara-finamore/air-pollution-crisis-gives-new-momentum-environmental-regulation-china" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">staggeringly dirty air and water</a> and its vast greenhouse gas emissions.At the same time, the NRDC has gone out of its way <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/7-things-you-can-do-help-nrdc-fight-trumps-agenda" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">to oppose the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation policies</a> – like <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2017/01/10/more-50-organizations-launch-united-resistance-campaign-trumps-cabinet-hearings" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">most of the nation’s big green groups</a>.<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 12px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">Okinawa dugongs</h2><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The Center for Biological Diversity allegedly inappropriate overseas activities have to do with dugongs. The <a href="https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/mammals/Okinawa_dugong/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">endangered marine mammals</a>, which resemble manatees, inhabit the waters surrounding the Okinawa Islands.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The center, which opposes U.S. military plans to build a new American airbase in Henoko Bay, has been leading coalitions of U.S. and Japanese environmental groups that have filed lawsuits that have <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/08/22/national/crime-legal/9th-u-s-circuit-court-appeals-revives-suit-protect-dugong-habitat-okinawa-base-site/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">delayed and could prevent the planned airbase construction</a>.<figure class="align-center zoomable" style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: rgb(255, 255, 255); position: relative;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word; display: block; max-width: 100%;">
</a><div class="enlarge_hint" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: url(" assets="assets" icons="icons" x16search-white-67f83a253e8e71281277c5cf51a362ac.png="x16search-white-67f83a253e8e71281277c5cf51a362ac.png" center="center" no-repeat="no-repeat" rgba="rgba" transition="transition" opacity="opacity" s="s" ease-in="ease-in" position="position" absolute="absolute" top="top" px="px" right="right" border-bottom-left-radius="border-bottom-left-radius" border-top-right-radius="border-top-right-radius" width="width" height="height" text-indent="text-indent" em="em" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word; display: block; max-width: 100%;" /></div><figcaption style="margin: 0px; padding: 6px 0px 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent; line-height: 18px; cursor: default;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/226365/original/file-20180705-122268-1p3e0kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word; display: block; max-width: 100%;">Japanese protesters objecting to American military construction in Okinawa are concerned about the potential impact on dugongs, marine mammals that resemble manatees. </a><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Japan-US-Military/d9c46925d102460987ea95e555353867/11/0" style="text-decoration-line: none; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word; display: inline; max-width: 100%;">AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi</a></figcaption></figure><p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">The letters to both green groups call on them to comply with the <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title22/pdf/USCODE-2009-title22-chap11-subchapII.pdf" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Foreign Agents Registration Act</a>. That law requires all people and organizations acting in the U.S. on behalf of foreign countries to register with the Justice Department as foreign agents.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Failing to do this is a crime, but <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-2062-foreign-agents-registration-act-enforcement" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">prosecutions have been rare since 1966</a>. The case against former Trump presidential campaign chairman <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/10/how-the-manafort-indictment-gave-bite-to-a-toothless-law/544448/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates</a>, who are accused of violating this act, is the biggest in years.I believe that requiring these groups to register as foreign agents might hamper their work within the U.S. for two reasons. First, policymakers and lawmakers might suspect that they were more interested in working on behalf of foreign governments and interests than protecting the environment. Second, there could be repercussions in terms of <a href="https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2015/01/06/10-ways-to-kill-your-nonprofit/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">these nonprofits’ funding</a>, <a href="http://catalystlawllc.com/2017/09/18/legal-considerations-u-s-based-non-profits-operating-overseas/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">finances</a> and <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/06/shell-companies-foreign-election-spending/" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">reputation</a>.This new GOP strategy can be compared <a href="http://socialsciences.ucdavis.edu/iss-journal/features/red-baiting-and-the-birth-of-modern-conservatism" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">to red-baiting</a>, the practice of persecuting and undermining people by accusing them of being communists, socialists or anarchists, that began in the Cold War. I believe these Republicans are “<a href="https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Anti-environmentalism" style="outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;">green-baiting</a>” environmental groups to persecute them. At the same time, they are casting doubt on the real goals of these groups’ advocacy, thereby undermining it.Ultimately, the most dangerous thing about this probe may have to do with free speech rights. Because praising a foreign country’s environmental record while criticizing U.S. policy is possible without committing treason, the only rationale I can find for this investigation is that it might stifle environmentalists.---omgf mirror ~ djt nazi:<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?431251-2/big-lie" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.c-span.org/video/?431251-2/big-lie</a>coincidence t coates sherrod as 1st Bb attack)regnery<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Big-Lie-Exposing-Roots-American/dp/1621573486" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">https://www.amazon.com/Big-Lie-Exposing-Roots-American/dp/1621573486</a>bs blurb"Of course, everything [D'Souza] says here is accurate... But it's not going to sit well with people on the American left who, of course, are portraying themselves as the exact opposite of all of this." —RUSH LIMBAUGH

The explosive new book from Dinesh D'Souza, author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Hillary's America, America, and Obama's America. <div></div><div>see false equiv/ balancing norms, weaponization of rw mirror strategy? aha</div><div>
</div><div><a href="http://www.alternet.org/activism/media-busy-creating-left-wing-threat-balance-out-awful-racist-right-wing-hordes-who" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; outline: none;">http://www.alternet.org/activism/media-busy-creating-left-wing-threat-balance-out-awful-racist-right-wing-hordes-who</a></div><div>=</div><div>
</div><div>http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/5-absurd-attempts-equate-right-wing-terrorists-left-wing-groups</div><div>
</div><div>...There’s a long history of right-wingers and centrists falsely equating racist violence with freedom movements. Andray Domise <a href="http://www.macleans.ca/opinion/the-false-equivalency-of-the-criticism-of-the-alt-left/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">notes that</a> “after the election of 1832, New Hampshire governor and Jacksonian Democrat Isaac Hill labeled abolitionists as ‘troublemakers’ who were driving a wedge between the North and the South, and that their ‘pathetic appeals’ were sapping the foundation of democracy.”Recently, Twitter helped resurface a <a href="https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/897610237120839680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fnews%2Fretropolis%2Fwp%2F2017%2F08%2F16%2Fpoliticians-blamed-both-sides-during-the-civil-rights-movement-kkk-and-the-naacp%2F" style="text-decoration-line: none;">newspaper article</a> from 1956 in which Gov. Earl Long of Louisiana disingenuously labeled both violent segregationists and Martin Luther King, Jr. “extremists.” Since the events of Charlottesville, there’s been a concerted effort by the right, modeled by Donald Trump, to make political violence a problem of the left, as if Heather Heyer had not been killed by a white nationalist linked to the oldest and most thriving terror organization in this country.A complicit media and moderate Democrats have followed suit, but the whole idea is ludicrous. Here are five examples of false equivalencies between far-right terrorists and antifa.   1. Right-wing extremists commit nearly all political violence in America.A <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/theories-meaning-trump-many-sides-remark.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0" style="text-decoration-line: none;">recent study</a> from the Anti-Defamation <a href="https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/MurderAndExtremismInUS2016.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">League</a> finds nearly all political violence in the United States over the last decade has been carried out by right-wing terrorists. Between 2007 and 2016, there were at least 372 politically motivated murders, 74 percent of which were committed by right-wing extremists. Islamic extremists committed 24 percent of those murders, while left-wing militants were responsible for 2 percent. Every murder is a tragedy, but as the numbers show, it’s ridiculous to pretend that left-wing violence and right-wing violence deserve equal concern. Going back to a <a href="https://sites.duke.edu/tcths/files/2013/06/Kurzman_Schanzer_Law_Enforcement_Assessment_of_the_Violent_Extremist_Threat_final.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;">2015 law enforcement study</a>, we’ve known that right-wing terrorists pose a far greater threat to this country than any other political group.“We find that the right groups and the jihadi groups are more violent than the left,” Gary LaFree, head of the University of Maryland National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism and co-author of a recent study on political violence across the spectrum, told the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-alt-left-fact-check.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">New York Times</a>.The far right—an umbrella term that includes white nationalists, neo-fascists, the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, alt-right adherents, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant groups, anti-government militias, and anti-abortion fanatics like clinic bombers—are the heirs apparent of violent right-wing terror groups dating to the earliest eras of American history. It’s therefore not terribly surprising that based on every statistical measure, as <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/why-does-the-far-right-hold-a-near-monopoly-on-political-violence/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mother Jones</a> notes, they have “held a near-monopoly on political violence since the 1980s.”That’s echoed by Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project leader Heidi Beirich, who told <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/why-does-the-far-right-hold-a-near-monopoly-on-political-violence/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the Nation</a>, “if you go back to the 1960s, you see all kinds of left-wing terrorism, but since then it’s been exceedingly rare.” Right-wing terror has proliferated since that era, “going back to groups like the Order, which assassinated [liberal talk-radio host] Alan Berg [in 1984] right through to today.”2. Violence is central to far-right ideology.What do conservatives want to conserve? Mostly, “traditional America,” the version of the country they think is so great. Their vision of the U.S. is homogeneously white and Christian, free of immigrants who don’t speak English and LGBT people forming non-heterosexual unions. On a scale that goes from Proud Boys to neo-Nazis, from Western chauvinists to hardline racists, there’s an underlying philosophy of rejection of a human other. As sociologist and criminologist <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/20427/false-equivalency-white-supremacist-nazis-fascists-antifa-Charlottesville" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Stanislav Vysotsky has written</a>, “When even the most moderate position the alt-right or fascist movement can take is racial separation or nationalism through forcible repatriation and strict border control, including forced deportations and racialized exclusions, that movement is inherently violent.”Matthew Rozsa, writing at <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/08/14/charlottesville-and-history-violence-has-been-endemic-to-the-american-far-right-for-generations/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Salon</a>, notes:<blockquote style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
From the Black Panthers to contemporary antifa, far-left groups that have embraced violence have done so with a sense of finality and self-protection, recognizing that violence is the only language their opposition understands.Indeed, far-right violence is embedded in the very iconography embraced by that movement. As historian David Blight has pointed out, Civil War symbols like the Confederate memorials being taken down in Charlottesville (which was what prompted members of the far right to assemble there) were created in large part to reinforce a code of white supremacy throughout the United States. The event such memorials commemorated, it must be remembered, was also one rooted in violence — a collection of states using anti-government rhetoric to protect a white supremacist society through violent rebellion against the federal government.</blockquote>“Antifascists are focused on a singular goal as described by their movement name: opposing fascism,” <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/20427/false-equivalency-white-supremacist-nazis-fascists-antifa-Charlottesville" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Vysotsky</a> continues. “It would be a mischaracterization to claim that antifa oppose nonviolence. Instead, it is more accurate to say that antifa often justifiably view nonviolence as ineffective against a movement that is violent at its core, and participants who seem to lack any semblance of a conscience. This is the essence of antifascist use of violence.”3. Right-wing terrorists attack people, while left-wing groups mostly target property.The University of Maryland <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/trump-alt-left-fact-check.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">study co-authored by LaFree</a> found “far-right individuals were more likely to commit violence against people, while those on the far left were more likely to commit property damage.”SPLC’s Beirich told <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/why-does-the-far-right-hold-a-near-monopoly-on-political-violence/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">the Nation</a> “eco- and animal-rights extremists caused extensive property damage in the 1990s, but didn’t target people.”There’s a debate to be had about whether property damage is an effective statement of political protest or tool of social change. There is not a valid discussion to be had on whether hurting property is the same as hurting people.4. Antifa is not backed by mainstream progressives, while Republicans have embraced the far right.There are no highly visible progressives, prominent liberals or Democratic stars who have risked their own public image to defend antifa. In fact, they’re far more likely to parrot the bothsideism of the right, ridiculously and illogically equating fascists and anti-fascists.Republicans, on the other hand, have nearly fallen over themselves to let right-wing extremists know they approve of their ideas and welcome them to the party. Lots of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/what-cliven-bundys-famous-backers-said-before-and-after" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Republican lawmakers</a>, including Rand Paul, applauded Cliven Bundy’s armed standoff with the federal government. House Minority Leader John Boehner <a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2012/8/6/1117242/-Remember-the-DHS-Right-Wing-Extremist-Report" style="text-decoration-line: none;">bashed a 2009</a> Department of Homeland Security report on rising right-wing threats including hate groups. In the weeks after Dylann Roof’s killing rampage, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/21/the-gops-uneasy-relationship-with-the-confederate-flag/?utm_term=.2c22465cf8ea" style="text-decoration-line: none;">there were GOP voices</a> still proudly defending the Confederate flag.The current administration has been transparently supportive of the alt-right. <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/08/stephen-bannon-donald-trump-alt-right-breitbart-news/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Steve Bannon</a> boasted about turning Breitbart into the "platform of the alt-right." The White House has given press passes to alt-right trolls <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/05/01/here-s-what-happened-when-trump-white-house-gave-alt-right-troll-access-press-room/216233" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Mike Cernovich</a>and Jack Posobiec. And Donald Trump has been vocal in expressing his sympathy for neo-Nazis since Charlottesville. As the <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/gop-has-a-white-supremacy-problem-dems-dont-have-an-antifa-problem" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Daily Beast</a>’s Dean Obeidallah succinctly notes, “antifa is not part of the Democratic Party, while white supremacists are part of the GOP.”5. Community service is part of the mission of antifa.The Panthers <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Breakfast_for_Children" style="text-decoration-line: none;">served free breakfast</a> to schoolchildren, along with 60 other community programs including health care clinics and free legal aid. Antifa groups like the <a href="https://shadowproof.com/2017/06/20/redneck-revolt-builds-anti-racist-anti-capitalist-movement-working-class-whites/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Redneck Revolution</a> run “food programs, community gardens, clothing programs, and needle exchanges in addition to their armed self-defense programs.”<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/conservative-fb-pages-spreading-false-claim-about-blm?bftwnews&utm_term=.fnVwWq46wJ#.bcAxLWMgxp" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Black Lives Matter</a> and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/hurricane-harvey-antifa-texas-flooding-antifacist-storm-relief-efforts-a7921846.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">antifa groups</a> were both on the ground during Hurricane Harvey handing out food and supplies to survivors. At the Boston anti-Nazi rally, <a href="https://twitter.com/qwrrty/status/898998545088299008?lang=en" style="text-decoration-line: none;">members of BLM escorted</a> white nationalists <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/08/21/saw-where-could-help-and-did-taking-note-kind-act-during-free-speech-rally/FP9cMMjWUr4kTM5Ldf7Y7L/story.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;">through the crowd</a> to ensure their safety.It would be absurd to pretend members of antifa don’t engage in violence. But when was the last time you heard about the Klan handing out food to poor people or the alt-right setting up education programs for at-risk kids? You haven’t, ever, and if you decide to wait for such an event to take place, you should probably get your affairs in order first.<div wibbitz="embed-main-player" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="bio-new body_story" style="width: 630px; line-height: 22px; height: auto; border-top: 3px solid rgb(223, 223, 218); clear: both; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="author-bio" style="">Kali Holloway is a senior writer and the associate editor of media and culture at AlterNet.</div></div></div>COI: shallenberger brekthruwayne allen root  http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trump-ally-urges-revoking-voting-rights-poor-and-certain-women==

see sidney blumenthal Rise of the Counter-Establishment (1986),

jacques and dunlop on CTT

==

basic mirroring is the right appropriating the tactics of the 60's counter-culture (mild form of perversion? using the commons for self-ish purposes); those tactics are the earth's immune system

probably related  to the Powell memo that was the 1st plan of defense: we will build our version of the left/center institutions with credibility and communication: books, think tanks (also the roots of the dark side offensive: take out Nader and pinko profs

The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971  The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970

astroturf is fake grassroots eg Love Canal which became"clearinghouse replication" so no reinvent the wheel for every single polluter.

Parody of investigative reporting/60 Minutes (ambush?)  James O'Keefe (see house resolution?); invest reporting hurt by corp consolidation but may be rallying in online collectives?

small # of ppl with minimal resources can make a documentary (lessig on cost of video footage?)  crowdsource kickstart?

Morano started as 60 min wannabe?

==

OMG mirror

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Corruption">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Corruption</a>

Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies is a book written by<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States" title="Conservatism in the United States" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">conservative</a> author <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Malkin" title="Michelle Malkin" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Michelle Malkin</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Corruption#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[1]</a> The book claims that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_administration" title="Barack Obama administration" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">Barack Obama administration</a> has had dozens of instances of corruption.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Corruption#cite_note-todaybooks-2" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[2]</a> The title is a reference to "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_corruption" title="Culture of corruption" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">culture of corruption</a>", a political slogan used by Democrats to refer to events that happened during the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidency_of_George_W._Bush" title="Presidency of George W. Bush" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">presidency of George W. Bush</a>.

The book spent six weeks at #1 on the hardcover non-fiction section of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Best_Seller_list" title="New York Times Best Seller list" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background: none;">New York Times Best Seller list</a>.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Corruption#cite_note-3" style="text-decoration: none; white-space: nowrap; background: none;">[3]</a>

===

===

Occupy Occupy?

The National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR, <a id="xref-fig-1-9" class="xref-fig" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#F1">figure 1</a>), which promotes ‘principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility [as] the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century,’<a id="xref-ref-141-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-141">141</a> has been a longstanding tobacco industry ally and employs or collaborates with individuals who worked for the tobacco industry. Philip Morris funded NCPPR in the 1990s,<a id="xref-ref-142-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-142">142–144</a> and NCPPR was a member of RJR's GGOOB.<a id="xref-ref-31-2" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-31">31</a> NCPPR also opposed FDA regulation of tobacco<a id="xref-ref-145-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-145">145</a> and the DOJ RICO lawsuit against the tobacco industry.<a id="xref-ref-146-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-146">146</a> In 2012 NCPPR was continuing efforts, such as its ‘Occupy Occupy D.C. Smoke-in’ to protest about taxes on smokeless tobacco and e-cigarettes.<a id="xref-ref-147-1" class="xref-bibr" href="http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2013/02/07/tobaccocontrol-2012-050815.full#ref-147">147</a>

shawn otto 12/7/09 sensenbrenner sent ltr to ipcc pachuari to fire mann et al tactic called "concern appropriation" * [apparently not a st'd term]

Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America  http://shawnotto.com/foolmetwice/ rodale 2011

he has another related strategy?

cf OMG perversion through the looking glass  bizarroworld

http://www.alternet.org/print/environment/if-you-love-nature-and-defend-it-be-prepared-be-called-fascist

Earlier this year, the former energy minister John Hayes described concerns about the rainforests of Malaysia and Indonesia – which, with their tigers, orangutans and thousands of unique species, are being destroyed to grow biofuels – as "<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/07/bourgeois-john-hayes" title="">bourgeois views</a> [3]". (Coming from a Tory MP, this was magnificent.) In the Guardian Review on Saturday, Steven Poole took up his call (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/06/nature-writing-revival" title="">Comfort of the wild</a> [4], 6 July). Echoing Mao's denunciations of pre-revolutionary Chinese culture, he castigated those of us who write about our love of nature as bourgeois and snobbish, and suggested that our concerns about the spread of exotic invasive animals and plants are a form of crypto-fascism – "the green version of the English Defence League".

Exotic invasive species are a straightforward ecological problem, wearily familiar to anyone trying to protect biodiversity. Some introduced creatures – such as brown hare, little owl, field poppy, corncockle and pheasant's eye in Britain – do no harm to their new homes, and are cherished and defended by nature lovers. Others, such as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/cane-toads-crocodiles-victims" title="">cane toads</a> [5], mink, rats, rhododendron, kudzu vine or tree-killing fungi, can quickly simplify a complex ecosystem, wiping out many of its endemic animals and plants. They have characteristics (for example, being omnivorous, light-excluding, toxic or inedible to any native carnivore or herbivore) that allow them to tear an ecosystem to shreds. These aren't cultural constructions. They are biological facts.

==

climate scientists lie (yes, the hacks do)

agw is a religion (no religion is religion: god will not let us wreck earth) whitehouse sen says it's magical thinking not religious inquiry

cap and trade lets polluters keep polluting (no biz as usual corruption does)

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