CPAC2
<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new 2/17</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">SEE THREE</span></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
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</font><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">problematic fluid relation to alt rt?</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> =</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><h1 class="widgetheadline h1" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1em; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); cursor: pointer; overflow-wrap: break-word;">w<a class="widgetheadline-text custom-post-headline" href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/white-nationalists-cpac/" aria-label="White nationalists prep for 'physical' altercation with security at Dallas CPAC conference" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; font-family: " open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" word-break="word-break" break-word="break-word" outline="outline" px="px" overflow-wrap="overflow-wrap" font-size="font-size" line-height="line-height">hite nationalists prep for 'physical' altercation with security at Dallas CPAC conference</a></h1><div class="social-author clearfix" style="margin-top: 10px; display: inline-block; color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17.6px;"><a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/zacharypetrizzo" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Zachary Petrizzo</a> <a class="social-authorname" href="https://www.alternet.org/author/salon" data-type="text" style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.4; display: inline; overflow: hidden; text-overflow: ellipsis; white-space: nowrap; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif;">Salon</a></div><span style="color: rgb(31, 31, 31); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17.6px;"> </span><div class="social-date" style="margin-top: 8px; display: inline-block; color: rgb(164, 162, 160); font-size: 1.4rem; vertical-align: top; font-family: Helvetica;"> <span class="social-datetext" style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; color: rgb(142, 142, 142); top: 3px; position: relative; line-height: 1; left: -3px;">July 09, 2021</span></div><div class="body js-expandable clearfix js-listicle-body css-listicle-body-2653734066" style="margin-top: 10px; -webkit-box-orient: vertical; font-size: 17px; font-family: Cabin, sans-serif; color: rgb(49, 49, 49); text-overflow: ellipsis; overflow: hidden; display: -webkit-box; -webkit-line-clamp: 4; line-height: 31px;"><div class="body-description"><p>DALLAS —White nationalist and Unite the Right attendee <a href="https://www.salon.com/2021/06/30/white-nationalist-groyper-leader-doubles-down-on-jan-6-capitol-riot-calling-it-awesome/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s; overflow-wrap: break-word;">Nicholas Fuentes</a>, de facto leader of the ultra-far-right "groyper" movement, has announced that he plans to attending a Conservative Political Action...</p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">kirk</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://act.pfaw.org/go/82093?t=10&akid=14148%2E2556770%2EJ8W0GE" style="text-align: -webkit-center;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Joni Ernst and Marsha Blackburn Equate Communism and Socialism, Admit GOP Women on Judiciary ‘Long Overdue’</font></strong></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-rights-alternate-reality-as-seen-from-the-cpac-exhibit-hall"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-rights-alternate-reality-as-seen-from-the-cpac-exhibit-hall</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no pixsadly lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Right’s Alternate Reality, as Seen from the CPAC Exhibit Hall</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Ian Mahon | March 6, 2020 </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This year’s Conservative Political Action Convention is now in the books. Held at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in Prince George’s County, Maryland, CPAC 2020 drew thousands of conservatives gathering together to ostensibly fight socialism, as signaled by this year’s pithy theme, “America v. Socialism.” Donald Trump himself finished off the four-day conference with a—ahem—zestful 90-minute speech.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here we take you on a spin through the CPAC 2020 exhibit hall, which abounded with evidence of Trump-worship.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dressing for success</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Dress worn by singer Joy Villa at the 2017 Grammy awards, on display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Make America Great Again dress, designed by fashionisto Andre Soriano and famously worn by singer Joy Villa at the Grammy Awards in 2017, was the first sight to greet all who entered the main exhibition hall.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘Heroes & Zeroes’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The “Heroes and Zeroes” display sponsored by the American Conservative Union Foundation at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This chimeric donkey-elephant hybrid was part of the ‘Heroes & Zeroes’ event, sponsored by the American Conservative Union Foundation, at which attendees were to place blue ballots in the box of the Republican politician they believed to be the “phoniest” to have secret Democratic leanings, and red ballots for their “favorite conservative lawmaker.” Such names for the phony side included U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and former governor of New Jersey Chris Christie; Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio had boxes on the red side.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘Buck the Chuck’—and the evil ‘BozzleBoops’</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Books from the “Buck the Chuck” children’s series, by husband-and-wife team Lynn and Jeff Yelton, on display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Buck the Chuck” is a children’s book series created by the husband-and-wife team of Jeff and Lynn Yelton. The series follows the titular character, Buck, living a peaceful life in colorful Chucksville where freedom reigns supreme. Then one day, the no-good, (probably) socialist “BoozleBoops” come to town to steal all its color for themselves, prompting Buck and his fellow whistlepigs to fight back and defend their town. Jeff Yelton, whose wife was not present for CPAC, said the story was intended to teach children about “freedom, in general.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA does not like Mike</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The NRA display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27, National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At the National Rifle Association’s “Students for 2A” event, </b>a roughly four-feet-tall cardboard cutout of Michael Bloomberg was propped up for selfie action, alongside a huggy Joe Biden photo stand-in, not shown here, beside it. Gun rights activists have criticized Bloomberg for what they see as his draconian gun-control policy prescriptions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Virtual solitary</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A display by the American Conservative Union advocating criminal justice reform featured virtual-reality headsets designed to convey the experience of an inmate in solitary confinement. At the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the American Conservative Union booth, as part of a new initiative for criminal justice reform, virtual reality headsets were offered to attendees curious to know what it was like to be an inmate in solitary confinement—an actually useful exercise. (Criminal justice reform is one of the few policy ideas on which there are points of agreement between Democrats and some Republicans.) The ACU is the organization that hosts CPAC each year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deplorable hammocks, fake news and Satan</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump-themed hammocks on display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A hammock with a message on display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, February 24-27 in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the far end of the exhibit hall where various vendors sold t-shirts, banners, and other Trumpian paraphernalia, the woven cotton Trump-themed hammocks stood out above the rest. The word “Deplorable” embroidered into the hammock at the top of the photo refers to the “basket of deplorables” comment made by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign, in which she bemoaned the observation that a great number of Trump supporters held hateful, troublesome views.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Curb appeal and sartorial flair</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump banners on display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">T-shirts on display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Banners and shirts in support of Trump’s reelection were colorful, as usual.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Arcade nation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Fox Nation </b>display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Free hat if you ace the game at the Fox Nation display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Fox News channel’s side project, Fox Nation, had its own platform on a wing truck selling a plethora of Fox-related merchandise such as coffee mugs, t-shirts and even discounted subscriptions to Fox Nation content. The most noteworthy feature of the display, however, was the claw machine full of Fox Nation hats; attendees could try as many times as they want without having to put in a single coin…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The grift goes on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James O’Keefe signs a fan’s hat at the Project Veritas display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Project Veritas had its own display</b>, which was graced with the arrival of their founder, James O’Keefe, who signed copies of his latest book, “American Pravda: My Fight For Truth In the Era of Fake News.” O’Keefe (seen here with a fan) was signing hats and clothes, as well. O’Keefe is known for manipulating video footage to push his agenda, as well as that one time he tried to “punk” a CNN journalist in the most awkward way imaginable.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">400 pounds and tough as nails</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sculpture by Bill Secunda on display at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. (Photo: Ian Mahon for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>At the Trump Towel display, </b>an effigy of Donald Trump greeted passersby in a rather Supermanesque fashion. Created by sculptor Bill Secunda, the roughly 400-pound statue is made entirely out of welded nails (hence the “tough as nails” inscription at its feet) and is available for the modest price of $69,000.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tags: Donald TrumpJames O'KeefeMichael BloombergACUNRA</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style=""><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="layout-constrain--narrow" 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-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;"><div class="postimage" 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: 2em 0px;"><figcaption class="wp-caption wp-caption-text" 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; max-width: 100%;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">[Right-wing political operatives Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl pitch reporters their latest far-fetched scandal on a balcony outside the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 27, 2020. (Photo: Jared Holt)]</font></figcaption></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; 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;"><div class="at-above-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cpac-return-of-the-fringe/" 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; line-height: 1.5;"><p style="background: 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;"><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Like bees to honey, the pro-Trump fringe descended on this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference outside of the nation’s capital of Washington, D.C., in hopes of stealing a sliver of the spotlight for themselves.</font></span></p><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);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and a cohort of his Infowars employees roamed the conference’s exhibition hall and the escalators on their way to radio row, attracting a crowd of star-struck attendees with their cell phones hoisted above their heads to get video of Jones. Right Wing Watch asked Jones for his thoughts on the new coronavirus now spreading around the world, a subject that Vice President Mike Pence had directly addressed on the CPAC main stage hours earlier.</font></span></p><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);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">“We know it’s a manmade bioweapon, produced by the U.S. government, sold to China in 2015. That was in the<b> Journal of Science. </b>That’s why we got a bit concerned about it. It’s a chimera cross-viral species system,” Jones said, going on to argue that the U.S. should restrict travel from China.</font></span></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><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;">Right Wing Watch was unable to track down a Journal of Science article that made that assertion, which was recently</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronavirus-tom-cotton-china.html" 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;"> floated by Sen. Tom Cotton</a><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;"> of Arkansas, as well. According to The New York Times, former White House strategist Steve Bannon is also a purveyor of the theory, which is widely disavowed by scientists.</span></font></p><figure id="attachment_516048" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-516048" class="wp-caption alignnone" 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; max-width: 100%; width: 700px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="font-weight: 700;">
</font><figcaption id="caption-attachment-516048" class="wp-caption-text" 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; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="">[Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones rides an escalator to radio row at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 27, 2020. (Photo: Jared Holt)]</font></figcaption></figure><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;"><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Jones told journalists at CPAC that he felt at home with CPAC attendees, “But the Republican establishment, I don’t feel at home with them. But we’re here to let them know that we’re taking the Republican party over.”</font></span></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><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;">On a terrace overlooking the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center lobby, Republican political personalities<b style=""> Jacob Wohl </b>and Jack Burkman hosted a press conference, as they did last year. In the audience, far-right political entertainer Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys hate group, accosted reporters. McInnes was later</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dElQ4Dg0ukQ" 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;"> ejected from the event</a><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;">. One attendee told Right Wing Watch they <b>reported McInnes to security after McInnes threatened to assault them</b>. A request for information from CPAC about McInnes’ ejection was not immediately returned.</span></font></p><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);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><b>Laura Loomer, anti-Muslim activist </b>who is pursuing a bid for Congress in Florida, was spotted around CPAC touting her campaign. Last year, Loomer had her media credentials revoked and was removed from CPAC after harassing journalists in the media filing center; this year she donned standard attendee credentials.</font></span></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But white nationalist organization leader Patrick Casey never made it past the conference center’s front door, according to a post in his Telegram chat channel</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. On days that the vice president or president speaks at CPAC, guards at the doors of the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center require conference credentials or hotel room keys to enter the building. Casey falsely claimed to his followers that the policy was new for this year. </span></font></span></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cpac-return-of-the-fringe/" 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; line-height: 1.5;"><div class="layout-constrain--narrow" 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-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 47.2222em; padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;"><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; 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; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><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; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/alex-jones/" 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;">Alex Jones</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/gavin-mcinnes/" 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;">Gavin McInnes</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jack-burkman/" 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;">Jack Burkman</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jacob-wohl/" 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;">Jacob Wohl</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/laura-loomer/" 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;">Laura Loomer</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/patrick-casey/" 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;">Patrick Casey</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/cpac-2020/" 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;">CPAC 2020</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/identity-evropa/" 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;">Identity Evropa</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/organizations/infowars/" 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;">InfoWar</a></font></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></section></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p class="yiv7549229039headline3" style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://click1.e.alternet.org/aylspvlrlwbnbpggnydllnlggyngrhtcswlbdmvydtkp_rcnrclwlpcgwntvknvr.html?a=&b=3909&c=21989&d=2" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"> Ted Cruz and Paul Gosar voluntarily self-quarantine after coming in contact with coronavirus patient at CPAC 2020</font></a></p><p style="font-style: italic; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p style="margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Worldwide, the coronavirus epidemic has killed more than 3,800 people,</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://act.pfaw.org/go/82081?t=11&akid=14136%2E2556770%2EItnD0W" style="text-align: -webkit-center;"><strong><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">At CPAC, Ivanka Trump and Larry Kudlow Paint Democrats as Economic Threat</font></strong></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-everything-is-socialism-and-the-only-solution-is-more-trump/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-everything-is-socialism-and-the-only-solution-is-more-trump/</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Interviewing EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler</b> at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, Fox News contributor Lawrence Jones mused, “This is an anti-socialism conference, but there has to be an alternative, administrator, to the people that want socialism.” At this year’s CPAC, it seemed the only prescription put forward was voting for four more years of President Donald Trump in the White House.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></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; 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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Last year, CPAC was <a href="https://theintercept.com/2019/03/02/cpac-democratic-socialism/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">explicitly committed</a> to formulating effective ways to combat what American Conservative Union chair Matt Schlapp dubbed “creeping socialism.</b>” This year’s conference was <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/156718/cpac-2020-donald-trump-socialism" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">similarly committed</a> to sounding the alarm against a socialist resurgence supposedly inching closer to the heart of power in Washington, exemplified in Democratic presidential frontrunner Sen. Bernie Sanders’ victories in early Democratic primary states. Attendee badges bore the tagline “America vs. Socialism,” and numerous main stage panels were devoted to the topic.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sanders has <a title="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/12/18661708/bernie-sanders-definition-democratic-socialism-explained" href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/12/18661708/bernie-sanders-definition-democratic-socialism-explained" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">called himself</a> a democratic socialist for years while advocating for increases to the federal minimum wage, the expansion of social welfare programs, and the nationalization of healthcare. The organization Democratic Socialists of America <a title="https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/" href="https://www.dsausa.org/about-us/what-is-democratic-socialism/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">describes</a> its agenda as one that believes “both the economy and society should be run democratically.” The United States already has <a title="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/big-bad-socialism-america-already-has-wildly-popular-socialist-programs-and-even-trump-worshiping-right-wingers-love-them/" href="https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/big-bad-socialism-america-already-has-wildly-popular-socialist-programs-and-even-trump-worshiping-right-wingers-love-them/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">several</a> popular socialist programs, including Social Security and Medicare, and public attitudes about socialism have <a title="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/25/stark-partisan-divisions-in-americans-views-of-socialism-capitalism/" href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/25/stark-partisan-divisions-in-americans-views-of-socialism-capitalism/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">been shifting</a>. </font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Socialism, we believe, gets to the very core of violating the dignity of the individual human being that has God-given rights,” Schlapp <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/156718/cpac-2020-donald-trump-socialism" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">said</a> Thursday.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">On CPAC’s main stage this year, every Democrat was a socialist, and socialism was a threat to the very essence of America. To save it, conservatives need to ensure that Trump is reelected president.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Vice President Mike Pence <a href="https://twitter.com/jaredlholt/status/1233092471523086336?s=20" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">told</a> CPAC attendees that “there are no moderates in this Democratic field” of presidential candidates that every Democratic candidate running—despite any stated policies—embraces Sanders’ “socialist agenda.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> It was important, Pence said, for conservatives to renew Trump’s 2019 State of the Union </span><a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/02/05/trump_america_will_never_be_a_socialist_country_we_were_born_free_and_we_shall_stay_free.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">declaration</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">: “America will never be a socialist country.” Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee abided Pence’s demand, declaring on a panel Thursday that conservatives were “going to help stamp out socialism forever.”</span></font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">During a </span><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-ivanka-trump-and-larry-kudlow-paint-democrats-as-economic-threat/?fbclid=IwAR2GtvP7MmI2BJ5YkE0GmZ-fdJCJvH5x9VfLIQ_W9u7Ehf7l0gfnexJEbaI" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">conversation</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> with </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Schlapp Friday, Trump’s top economic adviser Larry Kudlow said that socialism was a far bigger threat to the American economy than even the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/world/coronavirus-news.html" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">coronavirus</a>, which had just sent the stock market into its <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/wall-street-rout-continues-seventh-day-dow-falls-800-points-n1144791" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">worst week</a> since 2008</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“The virus is not going to sink the American economy. What is or could sink the American economy is the socialism coming from our friends on the other side of the aisle,” Kudlow said.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">[twet]</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>kudlow was joined in his warning by other Trump administration officials, including Department of Veterans Affairs Sec. Robert Wilkie, who warned that socialism would leave veterans neglected.</b></font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Socialism in America will kill the promise that Abraham Lincoln made … that we would take care for those who have bore the battle and for the widows and the orphans. If socialism ever comes to America, that sacred promise will be destroyed, and our warriors will go to the back of the lines,” Wilkie told CPAC, echoing growing <a title="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/sandy-rios-backs-trumps-civil-war-warning-its-reality/" href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/sandy-rios-backs-trumps-civil-war-warning-its-reality/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">civil war rhetoric</a> on the right. </font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Charlie Kirk, founder and president of the youth conservative organization Turning Point USA, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/get-deathly-serious-charlie-kirk-warns-cpac-that-bernie-sanders-has-real-chance-to-win-presidency" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">warned</a> conservatives that communism was spreading across college campuses across the United States and that via Sanders, socialism has a real chance to succeed in America.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“I want every conservative activist to get your laughs out of the way and your mockery out of the way and get deathly serious,” Kirk said. “Because we should not do what the left did in 2016 and dismiss an outsider populist candidate.”</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Former White House Deputy Assistant Sebastian Gorka agreed with Kirk.</b> “America needs to wake up. America needs to understand the reality of the threat that this November could come to fruition,” he said in his speech Saturday. He went on to attack Sanders’ advocacy for implementing universal healthcare in America.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“Didn’t Bernie have a heart attack? Did he go to Venezuela to get treatment? Did he go to Cuba or Canada? Did he go to Canada? Of course he didn’t! He got treated here. Why? Because he wanted to live, that’s why,” Gorka said.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Dale Bellis, President Emeritus of Liberty HealthShare, vowed to do what he could to never allow America to experience the “ravages of socialism in healthcare.” People who advocate Medicare for All plans don’t actively seek to replicate the Soviet Union, he said, but “however you slice it, the end result is still the same.”</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Bellis said that socialism is “immoral” and “strips human dignity and the value of the individual,” that it “assaults the very foundation of our individual freedom as creators created by God,” and that it is “antithetical” to fundamental human rights.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Right-wing news commentator Mark Levin criticized the <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/394679-democratic-socialists-of-america-see-membership-spike-after" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">increasingly</a> popular democratic socialism movement, rhetorically asking, “how do you have democratic socialism when socialists hate democracy? You get one vote, they get in power, then they destroy everything.”</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">Levin stressed the need for conservatives to “crush” Sanders and “his little Marxist army” in 2020. Echoing Pence’s statements, Levin said that of the Democratic field of candidates, there was “not a moderate among them."</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">twt]</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Right-wing conspiracy theorist Glenn Beck opened the stage Saturday by claiming that Sanders and his supporters were leading a revolution that “will result in death and misery</b>,” as <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/glenn-beck/cpac-glenn-beck-says-bernie-sanders-revolution-will-lead-another-holocaust" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">Media Matters</a> documented.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Another Holodomor. Or another Holocaust. Or whatever we call the next great socialist atrocity,” Beck said. He later added, “They’re armed with pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and guns. They are here for revolution.”</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Joshua Philipp of the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-qanon-impending-judgment-day-behind-facebook-fueled-rise-epoch-n1044121" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">reportedly</a> Falun Gong-tied outlet Epoch Times was hosted on stage, where he warned that socialism was designed to destroy peoples’ religion, morals, and culture while on the path to implementing communism.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“It is about attacking and destroying your values, your culture, your ideas, and the foundations of your society,” Philipp said.</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><b>Rick Harrison of “Pawn Stars” fame took a brief round of questions from the audience and put the threat of socialism simplistically.</b></font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“It’s not a bad thing having a lot of money,” Harrison said. “All your leftist friends would love to have a lot of money; they just don’t want anyone else to have it.”</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">But Republican U.S. Senate candidate John James, who is running to unseat Democratic Sen. Gary Peters in Michigan, contrasted many speakers at CPAC by cautioning that it would not simply be enough for Republicans to run on the message “socialism sucks.” The 2020 election, James said, is not about “beating Bernie,” and he wanted to be “crystal clear” that the audience should not underestimate the appeal of socialism “for those whom the status quo has failed.”</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">“For us to defeat socialism, for us to save a generation, we can’t just say ‘socialism sucks’ and assume that people will follow us. Stuck Americans don’t want socialism, they just want the pain to stop.” James said. “It’s up to us to offer a remedy that works.”</font></p><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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some conversations about socialism were also less serious. Conservative pundit Jesse Kelly took to the stage for a skit styled after ”The Daily Show” called “Socialist News Network,” with a CNN-inspired logo, that bore little resemblance to socialist thought in the United States. Kelly parodied praise of figures like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Vice President Joe Biden, both of whom socialists broadly hold critical views of. In the CPAC exhibition hall, a booth played a <b>socialism versus capitalism <a href="https://youtu.be/QwqnRYPcrl0" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-auth="NotApplicable" 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;">rap battle video</a>.</b></font></p><div class="at-below-post addthis_tool" data-url="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/at-cpac-everything-is-socialism-and-the-only-solution-is-more-trump/" 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; line-height: 1.5;"><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; 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; 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; transition-timing-function: linear; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><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; font-weight: 700;">Tags:</span> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/charlie-kirk/" 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;">Charlie Kirk</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/dale-bellis/" 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;">Dale Bellis</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/gary-peters/" 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;">Gary Peters</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/glenn-beck/" 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;">Glenn Beck</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/jesse-kelly/" 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;">Jesse Kelly</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/larry-kudlow/" 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;">larry Kudlow</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/mark-levin/" 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;">Mark Levin</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/marsha-blackburn/" 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;">Marsha Blackburn</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/matt-schlapp/" 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;">Matt Schlapp</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/mike-pence/" 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;">Mike Pence</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/rick-harrison/" 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;">Rick Harrison</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/robert-wilkie/" 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;">Robert Wilkie</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/people/sebastian-gorka/" 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;">Sebastian Gorka</a><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/cpac-2020/" 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;">CPAC 2020</a><a href="https://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; transition-timing-function: linear; background-color: transparent; outline-offset: 0.111111em; text-decoration-line: none;">Election 2020</a> <a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/topics/socialism/" 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;">socialism</a></font></p></div></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/intelligence-chief-nominee-john-ratcliffe-dismisses-intel-on-russia-and-ukraine-as-hoax"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/intelligence-chief-nominee-john-ratcliffe-dismisses-intel-on-russia-and-ukraine-as-hoax</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">the ? day before President Donald Trump nominated him to fill the position of director of national intelligence, Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, appeared on the stage at the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Conservative Political Action Conference </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">to dismiss the validity of investigations regarding the president’s actions towards Russia and Ukraine. </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">He also baselessly</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> accused Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden of having executed a “quid pro quo” with regard to the firing of Ukraine’s corruption-coddling former prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The panel on which Ratcliffe appeared was titled </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The Coup: Impeachment—Hyped Slimes and Nancy’s Schemer.” Charlie Hurt of The Washington Times also joined the panel. The identity of “Nancy’s Schemer” was never explicitly revealed.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Asked by moderator Vince Coglianese of The Daily Caller </b>whether he thought the Democrats had “learned their lesson” from their failure to remove Trump from office via ?the impeachment? process? or would instead “double down” on investigating Trump, Ratcliffe said he expected the Democrats to “double down.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“And they haven’t learned a lesson,” Ratcliffe said of the Democrats, “despite the fact that throughout this process … whether it’s the Russia hoax or the Ukraine hoax—in every instance, the president’s been right. The president’s been the one that’s been telling the truth with respect to what’s happening.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Ratcliffe also took aim at the intelligence community he has been nominated to lead, saying that Trump was correct to complain of the actions of the FBI and the Department of Justice regarding surveillance that revealed contacts between the Trump campaign and agents of the Russian Federation government.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“President Trump was right when the law enforcement community and the intelligence community didn’t get it right on all of those respects,” Ratcliffe said.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general found errors and a falsification in the FBI’s renewal applications for surveillance of Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the 2016 Trump campaign, but concluded that the FBI was not politically biased against Trump in its investigation of Russia’s interference in the campaign. But that’s not the way Ratcliffe sees it.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The surveillance, he said, “was initiated in a Democratic administration with Democratic officials using foreign intelligence surveillance tools for political gain.” In the past,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Ratcliffe has called for the prosecution of whomever leaked to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius ?the fact of? former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s? December 2016 convers?ations? with Sergey Kislyak, who was then Russia’s ambassador to the United States?.</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to leaders of the U.S. intelligence community, Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in ?an effort to harm the campaign of Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee. Later, Flynn was found to have discussed with Kislyak—before Trump’s inauguration—the potential lifting of U.S. sanctions on Russia imposed by the Obama administration in retaliation for the election interference. Several of those calls took place the very day on which President Barack Obama imposed the sanctions. Flynn was charged with lying under oath to the FBI, and his case is currently before a federal court in Washington, D.C. (Flynn is currently attempting to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming to have received bad advice from his lawyers.)</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the CPAC panel discussion, Ratcliffe also repeated the debunked claim that <b>Biden demanded the firing of Ukraine prosecutor Shokin </b>because the prosecutor was investigating Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm on whose board Hunter Biden, the Democrat’s son, sat. In fact, then-Vice President Biden called for Shokin’s 2016 ouster in concert with leaders of the European Union and the International Monetary Fund because he was doing little to address the country’s rampant corruption problem, and seemed loath to prosecute members of the party once led by ?[[the Russia-leaning former ?Ukrainian president,?]] Viktor Yanukovich, the Russia-leaning former ?Ukrainian president who fled to Moscow during an anti-corruption popular uprising. In fact, Shokin was also dragging his feet on the Burisma investigation, which commenced before Hunter Biden joined the board. Shokin also declined to prosecute apparent corruption in his own ranks. According to The New York Times:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one high-profile example, known in Ukraine as the case of the “diamond prosecutors,” troves of diamonds, cash and other valuables were found in the homes of two of Mr. Shokin’s subordinates, suggesting that they had been taking bribes.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the case became bogged down, with no reasons given. When a department in Mr. Shokin’s office tried to bring it to trial, the prosecutors were fired or resigned. The perpetrators seemed destined to get off with claims that the stones were not worth very much.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nonetheless, Racliffe claimed from the CPAC stage that Trump’s demand that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky launch an investigation of Biden was legitimate, citing a video of Biden boasting of Shokin’s oust?er and the Obama administration’s demand that it must occur if Ukraine was to receive the $1 billion in aid for which it was scheduled.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There was a quid pro quo,” Ratcliffe said, “and everyone saw a video of the quid pro quo; it was Joe Biden shaking down the Ukrainians and ordering the firing of the prosecutor general investigating the company that his son was a board member on, or lose a billion dollars. So the idea—one thing as we went through that process that you didn’t see, you heard the Democrats say, ‘That’s irrelevant. Don’t look behind that curtain. That has nothing to do with what President Trump did.’”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He went on to defend Trump’s demand of Zelensky for “a favor”—the investigation of the candidate then projected to be the president’s most likely rival in the 2020 election—before the administration would release military aid appropriated by Congress for Ukraine’s conduct of a war against Russian invaders.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“[T]he idea that there was not a prima facie case of corruption [regarding Biden] for the unitary executive, the head of the executive branch, Donald Trump, to raise questions about was ludicrous,” Ratcliffe said. “It was entirely appropriate for him to raise those questions, and for that to be the basis of a conversation with the president of Ukraine before agreeing to spend your money—American taxpayer money—to support President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Ratcliffe, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee chaired by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,</b> was introduced to the CPAC audience by Coglianese as “a guy who’s in the front seats—he’s got to work with Adam Schiff every day.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schiff served as the lead manager of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. At the mention of Schiff’s name, the audience booed loudly.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Do you ever boo Adam Schiff when you see him?” Coglianese asked.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ratcliffe took a beat, then asked, “This is national TV, right?”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Yeah, I think so,” Coglianese replied.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tags: Carter PageCharlie HurtDavid IgnatiusHunter BidenJoe BidenJohn RatcliffeMichael FlynnSergey KislyakViktor ShokinVince CoglianeseVolodymyr ZelenskyCorruptionFBIRussia InvestigationUkraineAmerican Conservative UnionCPAC</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div style=""><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.drillednews.com/post/why-is-news-coverage-leaving-out-the-fossil-fuel-funding-of-the-anti-greta"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.drillednews.com/post/why-is-news-coverage-leaving-out-the-fossil-fuel-funding-of-the-anti-greta</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix]</font></div><div style=""><p class="XzvDs 208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Journalists are creating a false equivalence between environmental activist Greta Thunberg and a 19-year-old German Youtuber named Naomi Seibt, without including information about the fossil fuel ties of the group funding her. </b></font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Seibt </span><a href="https://www.heartland.org/multimedia/videos-climate-change" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 102); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">recently joined</u></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> the Heartland Institute, a think tank with documented fossil fuel industry funding, and is scheduled to speak at the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., this week.</b></font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The coverage of Seibt, which has appeared in outlets including The Washington Post and The Independent, has focused on her “skepticism” while failing to note her fossil fuel ties, which are not limited to the funding connection. Several of her talking points are demonstrably false, decades-old talking points cooked up by the fossil fuel industry itself. </font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>When mainstream media outlets generally considered to be credible leave out such details, subsequent pieces in smaller outlets tend to follow their framing, which can allow disinformation to<a href="https://psyarxiv.com/3n9u8/" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"> propagate more quickly</u></a>. </b> </font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Washington Post, which was the first American media outlet to cover Seibt, described her as “like Greta...blond, eloquent and European.” Thunberg is a brunette, but the more important difference between her and Seibt is that she cites scientific studies, while many of Seibt’s points on climate come from industry, not science. </font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Post's story stated that the Heartland Institute is “funded largely by anonymous donors” without mentioning any of the known donors, some of which are fossil fuel companies or trade groups that represent the industry.</font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>When the Post story came out, Seibt had about 50,000 YouTube followers, a relatively small audience for the platform. In the days since, she has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeYSlCaX1PheCaqxN7u2klw" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">gained more than 10,000 more.</u></a></b></font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During a recent<a href="https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories-en/2020/02/11/the-heartland-lobby/" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"> investigation by German outlets CORRECTIV and Frontal21</a>, Heartland director James Taylor told undercover journalists that much of the organization's money is <a href="https://correctiv.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/infographic-EN.jpg" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">funneled through the dark money</u></a> group Donors Trust, which has <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/donors-trust-donor-capital-fund-dark-money-koch-bradley-devos/" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-position: 0px 0px; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">ties to Charles Koch</u></a>.</font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">“Donors Trust is now directing between two-thirds and three-quarters of its budget to Heartland to support its climate-skeptical positions," Taylor told the undercover reporters.</font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, an industry trade group whose members include ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP, also <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/530115970/201801029349300205/IRS990ScheduleI" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">gave $75,000</u></a> to the Heartland Institute in 2017.</font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Post story also quoted Graham Brookie, who directs the <b>Digital Forensic Research Lab, an arm of the nonprofit Atlantic Council.</b> Brookie said the ideology Seibt presents “is not outright disinformation," but that it does "bear resemblance to a model we use called the <b>4d’s — dismiss the message, distort the facts, distract the audience, and express dismay at the whole thing.”</b></font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></b></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Post's story did not mention that the Atlantic Council <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/support-the-council/honor-roll-of-contributors/" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"> is funded by</u></a> ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Chevron, Shell, and BP.</b></font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In response to a request for comment, The Washington Post’s Molly Gannon said only, “Our story speaks for itself.”</font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other news outlets seem to have copied the omission. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/25/anti-greta-teen-activist-cpac-conference-climate-sceptic" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">The Guardian</u></a>, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/anti-greta-thunberg-naomi-seibt-girl-climate-change-denial-heartland-institute-afd-a9355236.html" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">The Independent</u></a>, <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/20200227-german-teen-naomi-seibt-the-darling-of-climate-change-deniers" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">France24</u></a>, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8040469/German-teenage-climate-change-denier-Naomi-Seibt-19-known-anti-Greta-speak-CPAC.html" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">the Daily Mail</u></a>, <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/news/conservative-think-tank-dispatches-german-teenager-dubbed-anti-greta-to-speak-at-cpac/" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">Mediaite</u></a>, <a href="https://www.mic.com/p/the-anti-greta-german-teen-naomi-seibt-is-taking-the-stage-at-cpac-2020-22418341" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">Mic</u></a>, and <a href="https://www.masslive.com/politics/2020/02/naomi-seibt-dubbed-the-anti-greta-thunberg-to-make-us-debut-at-this-weeks-conservative-political-action-conference.html" target="top" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="_2qJYG blog-link-hashtag-color _3Sq3W" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-line: none; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;"><u class="sDZYg" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: 0px 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;">MassLive</u></a> all published follow-on stories that did not mention the Heartland Institute’s financial backing from the fossil fuel industry. </font></p><div class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit;" /></font></div><p class="XzvDs _208Ie tFDi5 blog-post-text-font blog-post-text-color _2QAo- _25MYV _6RI6N tFDi5" style="background: 0px 0px rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 1.5; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); box-sizing: inherit; direction: ltr; white-space: pre-wrap;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Heartland Institute seems to be trying to look like it has the youth on its side. So it has found a Gen Z surrogate who can parrot decades-old fossil fuel talking points, and earned major press coverage that frames her as a figure who compares to Thunberg, while completely leaving out the group's obvious, and documented, oil and gas industry connections.</font></p></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">220</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/glenn-beck/cpac-glenn-beck-says-bernie-sanders-revolution-will-lead-another-holocaust">https://www.mediamatters.org/glenn-beck/cpac-glenn-beck-says-bernie-sanders-revolution-will-lead-another-holocaust</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">220 </font></p><div class="mag-header" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 19px; padding: 0px; position: relative;"><h3 class="magcat-titlte entry-title" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; letter-spacing: 1px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/it-is-shameful-democrat-ted-lieu-corners-mike-pompeo-before-he-runs-off-to-cpac-and-avoids-more-questions/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: all 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer; display: block; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 1.4;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">It is shameful!’: Democrat Ted Lieu corners Mike Pompeo before he runs off to CPAC and avoids more questions</font></a></h3><div class="grid-post-box-meta mag-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 7px 0px 0px; padding: 0px;"><span class="author-italic author vcard" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/alex-henderson/" title="Posts by Alex Henderson" 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;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Alex Henderson</font></a></span></div></div><div class="mag-excerpt entry-content" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some Democrats have been highly critical of the response by President Donald Trump’s administration to the threat of coronavirus, which according to CNN, has killed more than 2800 people worldwide.…</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/mick-mulvaney-accuses-media-of-hyping-coronavirus-to-bring-down-trump"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/mick-mulvaney-accuses-media-of-hyping-coronavirus-to-bring-down-trump</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mick Mulvaney accuses media of hyping coronavirus to bring down Trump</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Brad Reed / Raw Story February 28, 2020</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the audience at the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Conservative Political Action Conference </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">on Friday that the media is only covering the spread of coronavirus because it’s out to get President Donald Trump.</span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to the New York Times’ Annie Karni, Mulvaney accused the American media of using coronavirus as a political weapon, despite the fact that concerns about the virus led Japan to shut down its schools for at least a month.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“They think this will bring down the president,” Mulvaney said. “That’s what it’s all about.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He then downplayed the health risks to Americans who contract the virus by arguing that the virus won’t kill everyone who contracts it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It’s not a death sentence,” he said. “It’s not the same as the Ebola crisis.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, it’s estimated that the mortality rate from contracting coronavirus is two percent, which is why several governments across the world are taking significant measures to protect their people from getting infected.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Mulvaney is saying that the press is now covering Coronavirus because “they think this will bring down the president. That’s what it’s all about.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) February 28, 2020</font></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>when did he cave to trump cult?</div><div>
</div><div>omfg</div><div>
</div><div>omg 1st guaido sotu and now:</div><div>
</div><div>https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cpac-to-feature-authoritarian-brazilian-politician-eduardo-bolsonaro/</div><div>
</div><div>no lnx</div><div>
</div><div><b>Organizers of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference portray themselves as lovers of freedom, but among this year’s speakers will be Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Brazil’s authoritarian President Jair Bolsonaro and the leader of a right-wing party in the Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies. In January, the Brazilian government filed criminal charges against American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who has been a harsh critic of the Bolsonaro administration.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The American Conservative Union, the group that puts on CPAC, heralded the younger Bolsonaro. Tweeting last week about Eduardo Bolsonaro’s planned appearance, ACU chair Matt Schlapp wrote, “In 2019 ACU hosted several international CPAC events, one of which was #CPACbrazil, thanks to @BolsonaroSP. At #CPAC2020 he’ll share how our conservative movement inspires freedom-loving people across the globe & how the US & Brazil can work together to stop socialism.”</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>But Eduardo Bolsonaro seems keen to “stop socialism” with authoritarianism. Eduardo Bolsonaro, who is also the regional representative of former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s global right-wing group The Movement, warned recently that the government could resort to repression to deal with protests and leftists “via a new AI-5.” The Guardian’s Tom Phillips explained:</b></div><div>
</div><div>That was a reference to one of the most traumatic events in recent Brazilian history – December 1968’s Institutional Act Number Five (AI-5) – when Brazil’s military rulers moved to extinguish growing political unrest by indefinitely outlawing freedom of expression and assembly and closing congress.</div><div>
</div><div>“The AI-5 was an instrument intended to intimidate people … It allowed the dictatorship to repress all opposition and dissent,” the historians Lilia Schwarz and Heloisa M Starling wrote in their recent “biography” of Brazil.</div><div>
</div><div>Eduardo Bolsonaro’s comments reportedly shocked many Brazilians, but they aligned with previous statements made by his father, who also served in the legislature before being elected president in 2018 During his presidential campaign, the theme of which was “Brazil before everything, and God above all,” Jair Bolsonaro supported the torture carried out by the military dictatorship that ran the country from 1964 to 1985, and warned that under his regime, minorities would have to “bow to the majority … or disappear.”</div><div>
</div><div>Right Wing Watch noted last year, a week after Jair Bolsonaro’s inauguration, that he “didn’t waste much time issuing executive orders and taking other actions going after the people he had targeted in his campaign rhetoric: the LGBTQ community; indigenous people; descendants of former slaves; civil servants deemed not on board with Bolsonaro’s ideological agenda; nonprofit organizations; and the media.”</div><div>
</div><div>Just this week, Eduardo Bolsonaro launched a social media attack on filmmaker Petra Costa, whose documentary “The Edge of Democracy” has been nominated for an Academy Award, The Guardian reported. Eduardo Bolsonaro tweeted that Costa was a “scumbag” and a liar. He and other government officials are angry about the movie and an interview in which Costa criticized? government policies encouraging the plunder of the Amazon region, a spike in police killings, ?the administration’s anti-gay actions and increased government censorship?.</div><div>
</div><div>In August 2018, months before the election that made his father president, Eduardo Bolsonaro met with Bannon and announced that Bannon would be offering suggestions on online strategy and data analysis for his father’s presidential campaign. He declared that he and Bannon would “join forces” against “cultural Marxism.”</div><div>
</div><div>Jair Bolsonaro’s campaign was backed by U.S. religious-right leaders, including former Rep. Michele Bachmann, who met with Eduardo Bolsonaro and recorded a video message to Brazilian Christians urging them to vote “only for a candidate for the president of Brazil who will support moving the Brazilian embassy ?[in Israel] to Jerusalem.” Trump-supporting “prophet” Cindy Jacobs and her husband Mike Jacobs declared that Jair Bolsonaro is establishing God’s kingdom in Brazil—turning it from a “goat nation” into a “sheep nation.” ?(There’s a biblical passage that refers to Jesus’s second coming when all the nations will be gathered before him and he, like a shepherd, will separate the sheep from the goats.)...</div><div>
</div><div>=</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">many lnx pix</font></div><div><a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cpac-unable-to-separate-itself-from-the-rights-formerly-fringe-elements/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/cpac-unable-to-separate-itself-from-the-rights-formerly-fringe-elements/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>CPAC Unable to Separate Itself From the Right’s Formerly Fringe Elements</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Jared Holt | March 4, 2019 6:17 pm</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is billed as the place where the leading ideas of the conservative movement are showcased, but this year’s CPAC was little more than a collection of formerly fringe right-wing enclaves that have been ushered to the forefront in the Trump era, all of which are vying for dominance. The conservative movement is—at its core—inseparable from the fringe elements it empowers, and this year’s CPAC was a reminder of that intersection.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CPAC 2019 seemed to have no coherent vision, aside from patting President Donald Trump on the back, and it operated a lot more like a Trump rally than an ideological summit. The panels featuring conversations about tax reform, national security, and energy production—which have long been core GOP concerns—were met with only a fraction of the enthusiasm showered on pro-Trump celebrities. On Saturday, Trump gave his longest-ever speech as president to the CPAC audience. It was a two-hour stream of consciousness display that featured more arguably comedic bits than it did substantive policy discussion. Seemingly vanished from CPAC was the National Rifle Association, save for a scheduled speech from NRA President Oliver North on “What Makes America Great,” and a speech by NRA’s Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre that was not listed on the schedule. Neither did LaPierre appear on the list of CPAC speakers adorning the conference website.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the real story of CPAC is less about what happens on the main stage and more about who shows up.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">White Nationalists Demand to be Taken Seriously</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Nicholas Fuentes, Faith Goldy and Patrick Casey</b> appeared in a CPAC 2019 recap video. (Screenshot / Twitter)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CPAC organizers banned some white nationalists, but not all.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nicholas Fuentes, a podcast host who regularly expresses racist and anti-Semitic views, made an appearance outside of CPAC this year; he was seemingly forbidden from entering the conference but would not confirm to Right Wing Watch whether he had actually been banned. On the second day of the conference, Fuentes received an attendee badge and roamed the exhibition hall briefly with a cohort of college-aged fanboys</span>—one of whom heckled this reporter, calling me a “Judeo Communist.” Playboy’s Alex Thomas reportedly witnessed hotel security staff darting down the conference center’s escalators looking for Fuentes. Right Wing Watch never received confirmation from CPAC that Fuentes had been banned from entering.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Spotted alongside Fuentes was Vincent James Foxx of the YouTube channel “Red Elephants.”</b> Foxx has used his presence on YouTube to bolster white nationalist groups like Identity Evropa, provide friendly coverage for white nationalist personalities and inflame racist fears about immigrants. He has appeared on a neo-Nazi podcast and once supported the campaign of Patrick Little, a California neo-Nazi who sought election to Congress. Last year, Foxx argued that the Trump administration should not hire black people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Patrick Casey of the white nationalist group Identity Evropa also made an appearance on the periphery of CPAC this year. Casey complained on Twitter that his registration had been invalidated and spent his time at CPAC railing against organizers, who he said were turning away nationalists in favor of left-leaning media and hosts of the podcast Chapo Trap House. Instead, Casey pulled a move reminiscent of what white nationalist Richard Spencer did last year: Book a room at the convention center hotel and host a brief talk. Right Wing Watch attempted to attend that brief event but was turned away.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Virginia Dare (VDARE), a racist website named for the first white child born in the New World, was let in to the conference.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The website was denied media credentials, but Peter Brimelow, the site’s founder, was permitted in as an attendee. Faith Goldy, a “14 Words”-reciting white nationalist, was also permitted in the venue and conducted interviews with Michelle Malkin and Laura Loomer on behalf of VDARE. Goldy was permitted to buy a pass to CPAC but was not credentialed as media.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The white nationalists who say they were denied media credentials or entry to CPAC this year expressed great excitement over a speech that Malkin delivered to the main stage. </b>During Malkin’s speech, she railed against immigration and “the ghost of John McCain.” She also gave approving shout-outs to known bigots and conspiracy theorists, describing them as frontline activists.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“So many speaking up and fighting on the frontlines for liberty and security are being de-Twittered, de-PayPaled, de-Facebooked, de-platformed – people like Laura Loomer and Gavin McInnes and the Center for Immigration Studies and Robert Spencer and so many others,” Malkin said. She closed her speech saying, “Diversity is not our strength.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an interview Malkin gave to Goldy for VDARE after her speech, she said that “our enemies are not just from without. They are from within [the conservative movement].”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite their hostility toward CPAC officials this year, Casey, Fuentes and Goldy were briefly featured in the CPAC 2019 recap video. The conference deleted the original video from Twitter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enrique Tarrio and Luke Rohlfing, respectively the leader of the Proud Boys and a third-degree member of the Proud Boys—a group formerly led by Gavin McInnes and often seen alongside white nationalist groups—were also spotted outside the conference, mingling with their MAGA counterparts. They also attended Turning Point USA’s CPAC party on Thursday night. The Proud Boys have recently been taken up as Roger Stone’s de facto security detail.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conspiracy Theorists Beg for the Spotlight</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Press gather at a press conference hosted by Jacob Wohl, Laura Loomer, and Jack Burkman. (Photo: Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Figures associated with and voicing support for the QAnon conspiracy theory roamed the halls of the convention center during CPAC</b>. The QAnon conspiracy theory asserts that Special Counsel Robert Mueller and President Trump are secretly working together to upend a worldwide pedophile ring that involves top Democratic officials and entertainment industry leaders. Believers of the theory rely on riddles anonymously posted to the image board 8chan for clues about the supposed progress of the alleged secret plan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joy Villa, a conservative vocalist celebrated by right-wing media for wearing pro-Trump and pro-life attire at award ceremonies, mingled on radio row wearing QAnon-styled earrings that she said she made herself. Right Wing Watch spotted a CPAC attendee wearing a QAnon t-shirt on Wednesday.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ann Vandersteel, a YourVoice America host who has voiced belief in QAnon, Pizzagate, and various other conspiracy theories, was also spotted on radio row. Vandersteel was recently disavowed by Team Trump after she repeatedly claimed to be a member of the Trump 2020 advisory board.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Vincent Fusca, a man whom QAnon supporters believe to be JFK Jr. (QAnon supporters believe he faked his own death), traversed radio row on Friday. Fusca’s appearance at the conference led one person to question QAnon supporter Liz Crokin, asking her to explain Fusca’s height difference with the dead celebrity he is alleged to be.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Right Wing Watch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@RightWingWatch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Replying to @RightWingWatch</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fusca was a CPAC the other day and this woman snapped a picture with him, noting that she is "barely 5'5 tall" and asking leading QAnon proponent Liz Crokin to explain what is going on:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">50</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3:04 PM - Mar 2, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">19 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Believers of the QAnon conspiracy theory asserted that Trump had confirmed the veracity of QAnon in his speech to CPAC when he said of the Democrats investigating his business dealings and ties to Russia, “These people are sick.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on TwitterView image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Travis View</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@travis_view</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> The QAnon community is hyped that Trump said "These people are sick" at CPAC, because Q has used that phrase.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Except actually, Trump used that same phrase in a tweet and speeches long before Q.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So Q people are literally excited that Trump is quoting himself.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">222</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4:29 PM - Mar 2, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">47 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Together with Loomer, conspiracy theorists Jacob Wohl, Jack Burkman and Loomer hosted a press conference in the lobby of the convention center housing CPAC this year, where they alleged that Rep. Ilhan Omar had defrauded the United States by marrying her brother for immigration purposes. The old claim is unsubstantiated and was denounced last year. Their claims were largely dismissed by press in attendance.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">View image on Twitter</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Caleb Ecarma</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">@calebecarma</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> jacob wohl is giving his cpac presser while flanked by a tiny security guard with a single airpod in his ear</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">25.3K</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1:14 PM - Feb 28, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4,965 people are talking about this</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter Ads info and privacy</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Loomer was originally credentialed as media and used her pass to accost journalists, including CNN’s Oliver Darcy, who have written negative stories about her. The next day, her media credentials were revoked but she was reportedly told she could purchase a ticket to the conference and attend as an activist.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Paul Joseph Watson, a host for Alex Jones’ InfoWars outlet, was also spotted roaming around the conference.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All-Purpose MAGA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pro-Trump duo “Diamond & Silk” speak on CPAC’s main stage. (Photo: Jared Holt for Right Wing Watch)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For all the hubbub outside CPAC’s main stage and despite CPAC’s efforts to push away some of the fringier elements of the right from its conference, the same sentiments were blasted across the nation from the conference’s main podium. Some of this year’s most popular speakers espoused much of the same sentiments shared by the activists roaming around inside and outside CPAC. American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, who leads CPAC, told Fox News that the conference was embracing nationalism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pro-Trump vloggers Diamond & Silk brought the house down on Thursday, inspiring members of the largely white audience to yell out “You preach it, girl!” One CPAC attendee remarked to another, “They’re so good. Seriously, so good.” Their speech was a string of greatest hits from the messaging that has yielded them appreciation from members of the Trump administration and earned them Oval Office visits with the president. The duo also piled on the attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn, the first Muslim woman to wear a hijab in Congress .</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Listen, we’re not governed by Sharia law, we’re governed by constitutional law,” Diamond said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sebastian Gorka, the former White House aide turned Salem Broadcast Network radio host, received a similarly warm reception during a speech in which he asserted that “socialists” like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., wanted to take away peoples’ pick-up trucks and hamburgers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved,” Gorka said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gorka has said that taking Muslim refugees into America would be a “national suicide” and a Nazi-linked Hungarian group says that he is one of their sworn members.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox News’ Jennine Pirro also flung inflammatory rhetoric from the CPAC podium, comparing Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor who tortured and killed countless Jews during the Holocaust, for supporting a right to late-term abortion in certain circumstances.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But perhaps the most adored group at CPAC this year was Turning Point USA, as The Daily Beast reports. Turning Point USA has been plagued by scandals brought on by the discovery of racist comments by several of its employees. Last year, prior to our reporting, the organization was partnering with Gab for their student summit; Gab is a website favored by unhinged conspiracy theorists and white supremacists. Most recently TPUSA Communications Director Candace Owens was filmed saying that the problem with Adolf Hitler is that he was too ambitious and took his plans beyond Germany. Both Owens and TPUSA president Charlie Kirk were praised, by name, by Trump during his speech at the conference, and Donald Trump Jr. made an appearance at TPUSA’s CPAC party.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tags: Ann Vandersteel Candace Owens Charlie Kirk Diamond & Silk Enrique Tarrio Faith Goldy Jeanine Pirro Joy Villa Laura Loomer Luke Rohlfing Matt Schlapp Michelle Malkin Nick Fuentes Patrick Casey Paul Joseph Watson Sebastian Gorka Alt-Right conspiracy theories CPAC 2019 The Storm white nationalism American Conservative Union InfoWars Turning Point USA</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">cpac 2 hr rant (</span><a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/factcheck/ct-trump-cpac-speech-fact-check-20190303-story.html" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/factcheck/ct-trump-cpac-speech-fact-check-20190303-story.html)</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">salon </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Trump lapdogs fetched and rolled over on command recently at CPAC </b>— a gathering of the American right under the sponsorship of the American Conservative Union, or in the words of former Trump official, Count Seb Gorka, “The biggest conclave of conservatives in the United States.”</font></p><div class="p7_24" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A dedicated masochist, perhaps bored with the kinkier elements of internet pornography, might want to watch some of the speeches and panel discussions from CPAC, all of them now on YouTube. More than depraved thrills, they offer insight into the modern right wing.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Charlie Kirk, the leader of Turning Point USA, an organization committed to Trumpian evangelical work on college campuses, told an approving audience that “liberals have always hated America.” Kirk’s consigliere, Candice Owens, a black Republican who recently told an audience that Hitler would have been fine if he “just wanted to make Germany great,” cited as evidence that racism no longer exists in America the fact that she “has never been a slave.” Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA, advocated arming everyone but toddlers as the solution for every social ill. And speaking of guns, Jerry Falwell Jr., a nut that did not fall far from the family tree, implied that his sons would shoot Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez if she tries to take their cows.</span></font></p><div class="p8_24" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The main event, of course, was President Donald Trump. The emperor made his entrance to the blaring mawkishness of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” and actually hugged a large American flag, while grinning ear to ear. The audience roared as Trump made it to first base with the Stars and Stripes. It was one of many times they would rise to their feet in ecstatic displays of devotion. Trump’s speech combined megalomania with right-wing observational comedy. It was almost a combination of Fidel Castro and Jerry Seinfeld, if both men were incoherent.</font></p><div class="p9_24" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The most alarming aspect of the speech was not that Trump lied about easily verifiable matters. For example, he claimed that when he took office the stock market was “headed down toward disaster.” (In reality, <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2016/12/30/investing/dow-stocks-2016-trump/index.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">it finished 2016 with a 13.6 percent gain</a>.) It wasn’t even that Trump lied about matters that might result in the eradication of women’s rights and violence toward elected officials. He repeated the slander, now popular in right-wing circles, that Democrats want to rewrite laws so that doctors can execute live babies after birth. The most disturbing part of the horror show was that no matter how absurd, narcissistic or psychotic Trump became — bragging about his inaugural crowd, inventing stories about conversations with a military general named “Raisin Cane,” mocking concerns about climate change — the audience dutifully and enthusiastically stood at attention, cheering, laughing and applauding. CPAC’s own internal survey showed that 91 percent of attendees “strongly approve” of Trump’s performance as president.</font></p><div class="p10_24" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The giddiness of the crowd makes other polling numbers seem rather banal when they indicate that <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/4-beliefs-prevalent-among-trump-003005069.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">45 percent of Trump supporters believe that white people are the most oppressed group in the United States</a>, and that 45 percent also believe Jefferson Davis would make a better president than Barack Obama. During the 2016 campaign, majorities of Trump voters believed that his run for the presidency represented America’s “last chance for survival,” and that <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-birther-obama-poll-republicans-kenya-744195" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Obama was born outside the United States</a>.</font></p><div class="p11_24" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fox News has become the bastion of far-right conspiracy theory, which amounts to little more than good business, considering that 46 percent of Trump voters believe that Hillary Clinton’s emails include details regarding “Pizzagate” — the theory that the former secretary of state and first lady was running a pedophile sex ring from the back room of a Washington pizza parlor. <a href="https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2016/12/27/belief-conspiracies-largely-depends-political-iden" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Sixty-two percent of Trump voters believe</a> that “millions of illegal immigrants” cast votes, presumably for Clinton, in the 2016 race. Brett Kavanaugh, some might recall, during his testimony in front of the Senate asserted that Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations that he had sexually assaulted her was orchestrated as “revenge for the Clintons.”</font></p><div class="p12_24" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s base does not represent a political movement as much as it constitutes a nervous breakdown in motion. Like any psychotic detachment from reality, it will not happen without painful consequences. <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/09/12/study-shows-two-thirds-us-terrorism-tied-right-wing-extremists" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">Two-thirds of terrorist attacks in the United States are now tied to right-wing extremist groups</a>, the ADL reports a staggering increase in right-wing incidents of anti-Semitism, and everything from white supremacist organizations to state militias continue to show an increase in membership as “conservative” Americans are becoming radicalized to believe anything, and adopt hostility toward the very idea of multicultural democracy....</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/at-cpac-trump-serves-up-red-meat-to-his-base-3a7390a2ed81/">https://thinkprogress.org/at-cpac-trump-serves-up-red-meat-to-his-base-3a7390a2ed81/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://thinkprogress.org/cpac-tries-to-circle-the-wagons-against-the-far-right-60408d44e7df/">https://thinkprogress.org/cpac-tries-to-circle-the-wagons-against-the-far-right-60408d44e7df/</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">no lnx</font></font></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" /></font></font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>CPAC tries to circle the wagons against the far-right</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>
</b></div><div>Far-right grifters were kept at arm's length, but a few still managed to sneak in.</div><div>LUKE BARNES</div><div>MAR 2, 2019, 11:13 AM</div><div>
</div><div>NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — In 2019, CPAC seems to have gone out of its way to put on a drab, non-controversial conservative show.</div><div>
</div><div>There was none of the drama of 2017, when far-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos was disinvited just days before the event after a video of him condoning pedophilia emerged, and when neo-Nazi Richard Spencer roamed the CPAC halls rubbing shoulders with younger attendees.</div><div>
</div><div>This year, by contrast, a collection of white nationalists, far-right grifters and conspiracy theorists were kept at an arms’ length and mostly had to be content with roaming the Gaylord Hotel outside of the convention. Many were initially denied passes, but managed to wangle their way inside, although they had to be content themselves with posting about CPAC on Twitter, rather than having direct contact with attendees.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Among those spotted was Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist podcaster who lurked around the edges of CPAC like a vulture. Faith Goldy, a white nationalist who ran for mayor of Toronto in 2018 — getting 3.4 percent of the vote — was also present. Patrick Casey, the executive director of the far-right group Identity Evropa, tried to get into CPAC before being informed that his pass had been canceled. Casey then promptly launched into an angry tweetstorm about how CPAC wasn’t a forum for real conservatives anyway.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Certainly the most amusing example of the far-right and its associated grifters attempting to get some form of CPAC cred occurred on Thursday afternoon, when noted pro-Trump trolls Laura Loomer and Jacob Wohl — both of whom were also denied their in their initial attempts to get into CPAC — held a “press conference” along with conservative lobbyist Jack Burkman to outline another set of spurious, unsubstantiated allegations, this time against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN)</span>.</div><div>
</div><div>The event rapidly devolved into farce, with Wohl talking over Loomer every time she tried to speak about her supposed “censoring” on social media, and journalists asking why a document marked “Strictly Private and Confidential” was being distributed to the public.</div><div>
</div><div>Wohl and Goldy were later spotted chatting to each other at CPAC, but wearing attendee and not media badges. It is not immediately clear why Wohl especially was allowed in, after being so pointedly denied entry earlier in the day.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Later that night Wohl made an appearance at an afterparty hosted by Turning Points USA,</b> the conservative student group, which featured Donald Trump, Jr. and TPUSA leader Charlie Kirk. Among the (mostly college-aged) revelers was Enrique Tarrio, current leader of the far-right Proud Boys gang was also spotted roaming the halls.</div><div>
</div><div>On Friday, two members of the Proud Boys in New York City pled guilty to charges stemming from a fight outside the New York Metropolitan Republican club in 2018, where the Proud Boys viciously attacked counter-protesters.</div><div>
</div><div>But CPAC’s shooing away of far-right personalities, at least superficially, isn’t the sign of some conservative bulwark against far-right ideas.</div><div>
</div><div>Instead, CPAC this year has morphed into a celebration of Trumpism, not conservatism, and all the vitriol that comes along with it.</div><div>
</div><div><b>On Friday, for instance, Breitbart writer Michelle Malkin blamed moderate Republicans, including the “ghost of John McCain” for being in bed with “immigration saboteurs.” The crowd guffawed uproariously.</b></div><div>
</div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></font></font></div><div><b> Pence claims ‘freedom’ ended slavery in ‘historically dubious’ CPAC speech</b></div><div><b>
</b></div><div>written by Eoin Higgins / Common Dreams<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>March 2, 2019</div><div>32</div><div>Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that “freedom” ended slavery and defeated Hitler—a claim that was derided as historically inaccurate by critics. Speaking in front of a packed house…</div><div>Vice President Mike Pence on Friday said that “freedom” ended slavery and defeated Hitler—a claim that was derided as historically inaccurate by critics.</div><div>
</div><div>Speaking in front of a packed house at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Pence said that “freedom”—an apparent stand-in for capitalism—was the reason for the major global and American victories of the past two centuries.</div><div>
</div><div>“It was a freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won two world wars, and stands today as the beacon of hope for all the world,” Pence declared.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Aaron Rupar</div><div>?</div><div>@atrupar</div><div> · 23h</div><div>Replying to @atrupar</div><div>Pence gets tepid applause after he says: "Last night President Trump returned from a 2nd historic summit w/North Korea in Vietnam. As the president said it was a productive 2 days... [But] as President Trump said as he departed -- sometimes you have to walk."</div><div>
</div><div> Embedded video</div><div>
</div><div>Aaron Rupar</div><div>?</div><div>@atrupar</div><div>PENCE makes this historically dubious claim: "It was a freedom, not socialism, that ended slavery, won 2 world wars and stands today as the beacon of hope for all the world. pic.twitter.com/362zzAwWqK</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>As people quickly pointed out on social media, that interpretation of the past was unique—and not quite accurate.</div><div>
</div><div>“An interesting perspective!” said HuffPost national reporter Christopher Mathias.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Christopher Mathias</div><div>?</div><div>@letsgomathias</div><div> Confusing quote from Pence earlier at #CPAC2019: </div><div>
</div><div>"It was freedom not socialism that ended slavery..." </div><div>
</div><div>Think he's arguing that capitalism ended slavery which is... an interesting perspective!</div><div>
</div><div>Newsweek</div><div>?</div><div>@Newsweek</div><div> Mike Pence says "freedom, not socialism, ended slavery," doesn't mention what started slavery https://trib.al/9PGZuSu </div><div>
</div><div>In an essay, Newsweek politics editor Jason Le Miere pointed out that Pence’s quote cut both ways, even though the vice president didn’t acknowledge the other side of the coin:</div><div>
</div><div>If it was freedom that ended slavery then presumably it was also freedom that allowed it, with a provision written into the Constitution that specifically referred to slaves and the “three-fifths compromise,” whereby they were counted as less than free people. Moreover, Southern states continued to argue for the freedom to keep slavery in place as the country descended into the Civil War.</div><div>
</div><div><b>It’s also worth noting that before and during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln exchanged letters with a strong supporter overseas—a German living in London named Karl Marx.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Pence wasn’t exactly telling the truth about the 20th century either, La Miere continued.</div><div>
</div><div>Pence’s claim about the ending of the World Wars is also historically questionable. The Soviet Union, under communist control, played a crucial—to some historians the most crucial—role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II. The country also paid the heaviest price during the war as it battled Germany on the Eastern Front, losing an estimated 26 million people, including about 11 million soldiers.</div><div>
</div><div>Irrespective of the truthfulness of Pence’s speech, it got a rousing response from the crowd at CPAC. The vice president also talked about President Donald Trump’s Space Force, anti-Semitism, and abortion.</div><div>
</div><div>“Pence played the hits,” wrote Rolling Stone‘s John Hendrickson. “Low unemployment, strong economy, tax cuts, and an extended riff about infanticide.”</div><div>
</div><div>Watch Pence’s speech:</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3/19</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/1109916/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/1109916/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center and former stagger in the Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush administrations, on Friday ripped “parts of the American right” after<b> a speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference railed against “the ghost of John McCain.”</b></font></p><div class="p1_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">During her CPAC speech on Friday Conservative activist Michelle Malkin <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/conservative-activist-lashes-out-at-the-ghost-of-john-mccain-in-unhinged-cpac-speech/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">received a rousing applause</a> when she raged against fellow Republicans, including the late Sen. John McCain.</font></p><div class="p2_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="teadsNative" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Hey, remember when Congress promised that they were going to enact a nationwide visa entry/exit system to track legal short-term visa holders?” Malkin asked. “Remember that? Nobody in Congress does. One has yet to be built even in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks which were perpetrated in part by several illegal alien visa overstayers.”</font></p><div class="p3_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“E-verify has been stalled,” she continued. <b>“Sanctuary cities have metastasized</b> and both parties are to blame. Yes, I’m looking at you, retired Paul Ryan and yes, I’m looking at you, Mitch McConnell. And yes, I’m looking at you, Bush family, and yes, I’m looking at you, the ghost of John McCain.”</font></p><div class="p4_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCain died last August after a year-long battle with glioblastoma.</font></p><div class="p5_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wehner, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/i-left-gop-because-trump/581965/" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">who left the Republican Party last year</a>—citing “the political rise of Donald Trump”—ripped members of his former party for cheering Malkin’s remark.</font></p><div class="p6_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you want an example of how rancid large parts of the American right have become, watch Michelle Malkin at CPAC raging against the ‘ghost of John McCain,’” Wehner tweeted. “This display of cruelty and moral sickness brings a standing ovation.”</font></p><div class="p7_11" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px 0px 17px; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.8; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“<a href="https://twitter.com/Peter_Wehner/status/1101610850404761600" style="box-sizing: border-box; outline: none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; transition: color 0.3s ease 0s; cursor: pointer;">What a freak show</a>,” he added.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nyt schlapp</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Mr. Trump was the star of this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, an event that Mr. Schlapp helped revitalize.CreditPete Marovich for The New York Times</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">There was a time when the Schlapps were fed up with Mr. Trump. In 2015, when Mr. Schlapp assumed the chairmanship of the American Conservative Union, which the conservative standard-bearer William F. Buckley Jr. helped found, it was in such dire financial straits that he worried he would<b> be presiding over its demise.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>So he and his staff worked to revitalize the annual Conservative Political Action Conference by moving it to a glitzier venue and signing new sponsors</b>. In 2016 he invited a crowded field of Republican presidential candidates to speak at CPAC, insisting that they take questions from a journalist.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But as the Republican front-runner, Mr. Trump wanted more speaking time than the others, and no reporter questions. Mr. Schlapp refused and Mr. Trump abruptly backed out, leaving Mr. Schlapp to try to appease conservatives furious that Mr. Trump had been invited in the first place. Others were disappointed that Mr. Trump had bailed. Mr. Schlapp parried with his critics on Twitter until the wee hours, when “Mercy took my phone away.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>But as Mr. Trump closed in on the presidency, the Schlapps drew closer to Mr. Trump, who despite his no-show at CPAC had contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the group in earlier years</b>. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By the end of the campaign, the Schlapps were making some 30 press appearances a week for Mr. Trump. Before falling asleep each night, the couple would lie in bed rehearsing how they would explain this or that Trumpian tweet or uproar on TV the next morning.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">There was one setback: Ms. Schlapp seeing her husband defend Mr. Trump on Fox News after an “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced of the candidate boasting of grabbing women’s genitals. Mr. Schlapp did condemn Mr. Trump for “inexcusable talk” and evoked his wife, “who has been in situations where it was hard for her to be an attractive woman in the workplace.” But he concluded it would be terrible if Mr. Trump lost: “Hillary Clinton gets elected, Bill Clinton is right back in the Oval Office.”</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Ms. Schlapp, watching, was shocked to see her husband appearing alongside a tearful and outraged Clinton surrogate, who accused him of defending sexual assault. She called him on his cellphone. “You’re benched,” she said.</b></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/cpac-has-always-been-odious-spectacle-year-was-special">https://www.alternet.org/right-wing/cpac-has-always-been-odious-spectacle-year-was-special</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>CPAC, seems to have gotten more attention than usual. That's saying something, since for the last 15 years or so it's gotten much more attention than it deserves. CPAC is like a 10-car pile-up — frightening and horrible, but you can't look away.</div><div>
</div><div>Salon's Jeremy Binckes and Matthew Sheffield have each weighed in on this year's event -- with Binckes making the case that it shows that the GOP is now thoroughly Trumpified while Sheffield argues that it's now Trump who's been absorbed by the Republican Party. I think CPAC shows that the Trump strain has always been slithering around under the rock of conservative movement politics, and 2016 just turned it over and let it run amok.</div><div>
</div><div><b>The first CPAC was organized to bring young conservatives and political activists together for a conference to map out movement and electoral strategy. It took place in 1974 in the midst of the Watergate scandal, which divided the conference between those who thought Richard Nixon was toast and those who wanted him to fight on</b>. It was, by all accounts, a very lively disagreement. They turned to the man they all agreed was the Great Conservative Hope, Gov. Ronald Reagan of California, who was the keynote speaker and gave one of his most important speeches, heralding his strong primary run against Gerald Ford in 1976 and his winning campaign in 1980.</div><div>
</div><div>Reagan introduced three former U.S. military prisoners of war in that speech, one of whom was John McCain, to reverent, thunderous applause. This year the longtime Arizona senator, who has a brain tumor and may well be near the end of his life, was insulted by the president of the United States from the CPAC podium. That shouldn't have come as any surprise. The CPAC podium, for at least the last couple of decades, is where decency and humanity go to die.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">I won't go into the horrors of the 1990s. The party under former House speaker Newt Gingrich was as aggressively obnoxious as it is today: That was the height of the "vast right wing conspiracy's" power. Let's just say that in 1994 CPAC was where Paula Jones made her debut and leave it at that.</span></div><div>
</div><div>It was during the glory years of the George W. Bush administration that the media started paying close attention to what was really going on there. Michelle Goldberg wrote for Salon in 2003 that there were "t-shirts with the words 'Islam: Religion of Peace' surrounding a photo of a bomb with the word 'Allah' on its timer," among dozens of other hideous anti-Muslim items for sale that were flying off the shelves. Remember, this was during the time Bush was telling his followers that Islam was a religion of peace.</div><div>
</div><div>But it didn't matter. CPAC attendees may have hated Muslims but they loved Bush. In fact, they loved him almost as much as the sainted Ronald Reagan, whom they continued to worship like a god. The Iraq war got their blood pumping wildly and this was how they wanted to see their president:</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One of the biggest attractions at the conference for many years was the odious Ann Coulter, who packed the room with rapturous fans screaming with delight at her indecent commentary. Back in 2003, she made one of her most famous shocking statements, which has since been taken up by none other than her hero Donald Trump: "Why shouldn't we go to war for oil. We need oil." In 2006 she got into her groove with, “I think our motto should be, post-9/11, ‘raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences.’” In response to a question about her biggest ethical dilemma, Coulter said, “There was one time I had a shot at [Bill] Clinton. I thought ‘Ann, that’s not going to help your career.’”</span></div><div>
</div><div>She really hit her comedic stride in 2007, however, when she dropped this bomb:</div><div>
</div><div>I was going to talk about the other Democratic candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word “faggot.”</div><div>
</div><div>She got a huge ovation for that one, but it seemed to upset some of the old guard and Coulter was disinvited the next year. Organizers replaced her with an even bigger draw in 2009, Rush Limbaugh, who gave a memorable, rambling speech bucking up the crowd to oppose anything the new President Barack Obama wanted to do. Down in the bowels of the conference where the merchandise was being flogged they were selling racist pictures of Obama dressed as a witch doctor.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2011, when Donald Trump made his first appearance and started the original buzz about his potential candidacy, he said in his speech, "Our current president came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I'll go a step further. The people that went to school with him never saw him; they don't know who he is. Crazy." He went on Bill O'Reilly's show that night and said he had investigators in Hawaii looking for Obama's birth certificate. The rest is history.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It's been getting a little stranger than usual lately, even by the racist, far-right standards of CPAC. In 2016, the event was overrun with neo-fascists who booted them to the margins. In 2017, the thrill of Trump's unexpected victory was still fresh, and the "alt-right," in the form of Steve Bannon, who was the big draw. This year the global far right got its turn in the CPAC spotlight, with Marion Maréchal-<b>Le Pen of France and Nigel Farage of Britain as big draws.</b></span></div><div>
</div><div>And the CPAC tribes love Donald Trump with the same passion they felt for Bush and Reagan. These people really aren't that choosy.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">CPAC used to pretend that it was a conference about "ideas" and the "conservative agenda." But as NeverTrump conservative Ben Howe said on MSNBC on Friday, it's really just about making liberals cry. Frequent CPAC star Dinesh D'Souza put it this way, in his 2002 book “Letters to a Young Conservative":</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One way to be effective as a conservative is to figure out what annoys and disturbs liberals the most, and then keep doing it.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Nothing could disturb and annoy liberals more than Donald Trump.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It sounds innocuous enough. Maybe liberals should just stop crying and these people would stop being so obnoxious, right? But there's something more sinister about this than at first seems obvious. That attitude lies at the heart of something ugly and dark that's grown up in our culture and around the world.</span></div><div>
</div><div>There was one young white supremacist marching in Charlottesville last year who, when things got scary, stripped off his white polo shirt uniform and tried to blend in with the crowd. When he was asked by a journalist why he was doing what he'd been doing, he said:</div><div>
</div><div>It’s kind of a fun idea. Just being able to say, like, "Hey man, white power!" You know? To be quite honest, I love to be offensive. It’s fun.</div><div>
</div><div>One of his cohorts thought it might be fun to mow down a bunch of people with his car that day and ended up killing someone. That desire to be "offensive" isn't a joke, and neither is the offensiveness of CPAC. Look where it's gotten us.</div><div>
</div><div>Heather Digby Parton,</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no link</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/02/deniers-rally-conservatives-dismiss-climate-science-fake-news-breitbart-cpac">https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/03/02/deniers-rally-conservatives-dismiss-climate-science-fake-news-breitbart-cpac</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Deniers Rally Conservatives to Dismiss Climate Science as “Fake News” and Share Breitbart Stories Instead</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Zach Roberts • Thursday, March 2, 2017 - 15:15</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James Delingpole, Tony Heller, and Steve Milloy sit on a panel at CPAC 2017</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual rally of conservative officials and political activists, was set to be a big one — the first time a first-year sitting president would have attended since Ronald Reagan. While President Trump canceled late in 2016, enthusiasm for the president still filled its halls, and so did a number of his White House, Cabinet, and transition team members — including at least one previously unannounced member of the EPA transition team. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joining the CPAC lineup was the usual cast of climate science deniers who branded climate change as “fake news,” scientists and environmental advocates as “some of the worst people in the world,” and polluted rivers catching fire in the pre-EPA era as “the price of industrialization.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Panel on “Fake Climate News”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Early in the conference, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) sponsored a panel called <b>“Fake Climate News Camouflaging an Anti-Capitalist Agenda — and What President Trump Plans To Do About it.”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Led by <b>Craig Richardson, E&E </b>has roots in a group which the Guardian described as having “a core mission of discrediting climate science and dismantling environmental regulations.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Little surprise then that this panel was based on the idea that the media, NASA, and climate scientists are pushing climate change as part of an elaborate network of lies. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Richardson seemed most excited to introduce panelist and <b>Breitbart London writer James Delingpole</b> — who has labeled climate change “the biggest scam in the history of the world” — saying, “We haven't had this much anticipation for a Brit since 1964 when the Beatles arrived.“ </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joining him on the panel was Steve Milloy, a fellow at E&E and founder of the anti-climate change site JunkScience.com, and self-described “whistleblower” Tony Heller, who runs the blog Realclimatescience.com. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The moderator was John Fund, national affairs columnist at the National Review and senior editor at The American Spectator. Fund, always good for a story about being attacked by the left, started by sharing an experience at the Aspen Ideas Festival when he was yelled at for calling out the organizers for using bottled water from Fiji.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fund also used the opportunity to explain to Delingpole, the author of Watermelons: How the Environmentalists are Killing the Planet, where the fruity term for socialists-in-environmental-clothing came from. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James Delingpole and the “Worst People in the World”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Breitbart’s Delingpole kicked off the discussion with an indictment of “greens” and why his beat covering climate and energy is his favorite: </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“This is every journalist’s dream, every journalist dreams of the story where there is endless low-hanging fruit. Every day a new story emerges of the lunacy, and [inaudible] and criminality of the bad guys that you're writing about.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He continued to laughter from the packed room, saying, “I can tell you that the Greenies are … are … some of the worst people in the world.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But specifically, who were the supposed villains Delingpole was talking about? Climate scientists, journalists reporting on climate change, and government employees at NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Steve Milloy, Rivers on Fire, and the End of the EPA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While Delingpole apparently revels in his job as a journalist covering the “fake news” around climate science, one of the other panelists apparently feels a bit more inspired by the literary world<b>. Steve Milloy, former policy director at coal giant Murray Energy Corp</b>, said in his opening remarks, “If you're familiar with Les Misérables … I've been kind of like Inspector Javert — doggedly after the EPA.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It was an interesting comparison given that Javert is a character so blindingly obsessed with duty that he ends up committing suicide rather than accepting that the target of his pursuit, a convict guilty of stealing food, could be a moral person. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Also according to Milloy, he was on Trump’s EPA transition team, information which was not previously disclosed but now appears in his Twitter bio. </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As a chronic opponent of the EPA, Milloy showed his excitement for what’s to come from a Trump presidency, enthusiasm which dates back to the campaign trail: </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“During the campaign, Donald Trump was the only Republican candidate I have heard, ever, ever, ever heard … say that he wanted to abolish the EPA, he said that many times. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Trump] knows that the EPA has been involved in regulatory overreach and of course that struck a chord with me because ever since I’ve worked on EPA issues, it’s always been involved in regulatory overreach. You know in 1970, when the EPA was formed, yeah the air wasn’t as clean as it should be, sometimes the rivers caught on fire. [shrugs] That was the price of industrialization at the time.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition, Milloy announced that the morning of the panel<b>, 300 “scientists”</b> (in reality, the usual parade of non-experts) signed a petition to Trump, asking him to withdraw the United States from the United Nations international convention on climate change. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Climate Fake News” with Tony Heller aka “Steven Goddard”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Tony Heller is the real name of long-time climate science-denying blogger Steven Goddard, who once called climate change the “biggest scientific fraud in history.”</b> Heller/Goddard, like many climate deniers, tells a story of how he used to be on the other side of the issue, until he “went and looked at the data” himself and was “incredibly horrified.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He opened his presentation with his key assertion that, “Basically everything we hear in the press about climate is fake news.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heller's presentation on "Hundreds of years of fake climate news"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Heller's presentation at CPAC 2017 focused on media reports of the weather over time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The rest of his talk included a random assortment of news reports discussing the weather from the past hundred and fifty years. Heller used selected quotes from the articles as support for his claim that the media has been obsessing over weather changes for decades and that current coverage of climate change is therefore just more of the usual hype.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The panel ended with a round of questions about what the audience could do to combat “fake climate news.” Moderator John Fund of the National Review answered, encouraging those in the room to spread what he considered “real” news on climate to their personal networks: </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“All of you can play a role … If you receive information, let’s just say from a friend, colleague, or relative, it starts out at about 70 [in believability impact] and goes up to 90. Each of you have e-mail lists. Friends, neighbors, relatives, and associates. <b>If you were to take information from junkscience.com, real-science.com, Breitbart.com, and you were to send it with just a couple words … you should be interested in this, to your list, you can be your own publisher. And the impact is far greater, even though your audience size is not huge, the credibility you have, because they know you, is dramatic.”</b></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>