The stories you want. The opinions that matter.
No, thanks
Tag: antisemitism
Candace Owens

Far-Right 'Daily Wire' Finally Dumps Raving Antisemite Candace Owens

On March 22, The Daily Wire co-founder Jeremy Boreing announced, “Daily Wire and Candace Owens have ended their relationship.” The announcement follows Candace Owens’ escalating antisemitic rhetoric. Just days ago, Holocaust-denying antisemite Nick Fuentes said Owens “has been in a full-fledged war against the Jews.”

Last November, Owens and Daily Wire co-founder, Ben Shapiro, engaged in a very public fight over Israel’s war against Hamas. Despite growing tensions, Owens claimed just before being let go by her employer that Shapiro “doesn’t have the power to fire” her.

It’s not surprising that Owens would eventually become embroiled in a scandal over her antisemitism. In 2019, she said, “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine.” The Daily Wire still decided to hire her the following year, and since then, she has consistently pushed conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric at the increasingly extreme platform.

  • Antisemitism
    • Owens “liked” a post on X (formerly Twitter) that asked a rabbi she has been feuding with whether he is “drunk on Christian blood again.” [Mediaite, 3/18/24]
    • Owens warned that “Jews are going to be blamed” if TikTok is banned. [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 3/14/24]
    • Owens suggested that there is a Jewish “gang” in Hollywood committing “horrific things” on people. [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 3/8/24]
    • Owens lambasted “D.C. Jew[s]” and told Jewish people there is a “rot” in their community. [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 2/14/24]
    • Owen defended Ye (formerly Kanye West) against accusations of antisemitism. Rapper Ye posted on Twitter in 2022, “I’m going death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.” Owens later took to her show to defend the rapper, saying, “If you are an honest person, you did not think this tweet was antisemitic.” [Mediaite, 10/10/22; The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 10/10/22]
  • Conspiracy theories
    • Owens pushed speculation that the first lady of France, Brigitte Macron, is a transgender woman. [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 3/11/24]
    • Owens claimed that Hollywood “was created by the CIA.” [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 2/1/24]
    • Owens said she likes conspiracy theories “because I view them as mind yoga.” [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 2/14/23]
    • Owens suggested that Bill Gates is using mosquitoes to make people allergic to beef. [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 9/22/22]
    • On Fox News, Owens said that the January 6 insurrection was “the Reichstag fire happening all over again in America.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 4/6/21]
    • On Fox News, Owens compared vaccine outreach programs to “a child predator” and “Hitler youth programs.” [Fox News, Primetime, 11/5/21]
    • Owens said she would rather die of COVID than take the COVID vaccine. Responding to rumors that she was vaccinated, Owens said: “I am not getting this vaccine. Ever! Never going to get it. I don’t care if I’m on my deathbed and they say it can save you, I’m not going to get it. I’m principally now opposed to it, and I do not understand why anyone who is healthy, able-bodied and young would ever get this vaccine if you’re not at risk of COVID.” [Mediaite, 1/5/22]
    • Owens baselessly suggested actor Bob Saget may have died from the COVID-19 vaccine. [The Daily Wire, Candace, 1/11/22]
  • Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric
    • Owens called surrogacy a denial of women’s rights and “an industry for the LGBTQ community.” [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 1/10/24]
    • Owens said the existence of trans people is “worse than Jim Crow laws.” [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 4/6/23]
    • Owens declared, “The trans agenda is demonic.” [The Daily Wire, Candace Owens, 2/7/23]
    • Owens called for the state to take away children from parents of trans kids and parents who take their child to drag queen story hour. [The Daily Wire, Candace, 6/15/22]
    • Owens said, “There are freaks, predators, and pedophiles that are all hiding under the LGBT flag.” [The Daily Wire, Candace, 4/26/22]
    • Owens slandered LGBTQ teachers saying, “Pedophilia is around the corner.” [The Daily Wire, Candace, 4/5/22]

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Glenn Beck's Online Network Promotes Notorious Antisemite

Glenn Beck's Online Network Promotes Notorious Antisemite

Right-wing commentator Jason Whitlock used his show on Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze to host a notorious antisemite who used the platform to denounce “the Jews” for “undermining the moral fabric of the American people,” dominating the Biden administration, and “tak[ing] control of the black population” through “sexual liberation.”

Whitlock responded to the hateful rant by saying, “The man is speaking facts, and I know the intent of what he just said, and I got no problem with it.”

Whitlock hosted E. Michael Jones, whom he described as “a celebrated author, a public intellectual, a ardent supporter of the Catholic faith,” for a lengthy taped interview that aired January 18. Jones was there to discuss his book, which aligns with Whitlock’s own view that “sexual lust … has been turned into a tool to control all of us” and describes the sexual liberation movement as a vehicle for achieving political control.

But the conversation kept coming back to the group Jones blames for that movement: the Jews, who he claimed “have always been involved in pornography as a way of gaining control over the population where they're always a minority.” At one point, he went on a lengthy rant, which began with his argument that for most people, marriage is the path to happiness and salvation.

“And I’m saying, the Jews know this, and they have spent their entire time here in the United States of America undermining the moral fabric of the American people,” he explained.

“I get it, and I can’t say that I disagree,” Whitlock replied, “but I’m just – aren’t you letting Joe Biden and a lot of other politicians, left and right, off the hook?”

“First of all, Joe Biden is not in charge of the government,” Jones responded. “It’s called Biden’s minyan — you can look this up too — there are 457 Jews who are running the Biden administration. They’re the people who are in charge, OK? So there’s no point in talking about Joe Biden. We have to be able to identify these people, and we have to call them out and hold them responsible.”

Jones went on to say that “the Blacks have suffered more in this regard than any other group in this country,” arguing that “the Jews took over the Blacks early on” by encouraging the Harlem Renaissance and the creation of the NAACP, which he said were intended to destroy Black nationalism.

“They got this guy, W.E.B. Dubois or Dubois or however you want to pronounce it, Harvard guy, and he was the front man,” Jones said. “The Jews had taken control of the Black population, they destroyed Black nationalism under Marcus Garvey, and then they created this plantation for Black people known as sexual liberation.”

Jones wrapped up his rant by claiming that basketball player Kyrie Irving and musician Ye (formerly Kanye West) had been unfairly persecuted for speaking out against Jewish control of the NBA and the music industry.

Whitlock’s expressions during Jones’ screed at times suggested that he found his comments stupid or beyond the pale. But after it concluded, he said, “Mr. Jones, you are fearless. You are fearless. My God,” adding that while he knows some people will criticize him for hosting Jones, “the man is speaking facts, and I know the intent of what he just said, and I got no problem with it.”

Whitlock acknowledged in the segment introducing the interview with Jones that “some of the audience is likely going to be offended by his conversation about Jews,” but said that he doesn’t believe in “silencing people” and mocked anyone who might criticize him for airing the discussion.

He initially promoted Jones’ comments about Jews on X (formerly Twitter) but deleted the post after it garnered attention.

Whitlock, in his introductory segment, also told viewers that Jones “is under attack by the Anti-Defamation League. He’s one of the first people to get canceled because of his writings.”

Indeed, the ADL describes Jones in an extensive report as “an anti-Semitic Catholic writer who promotes the view that Jews are dedicated to propagating and perpetrating attacks on the Catholic Church and moral standards, social stability, and political order throughout the world.” It says he “reaches for tenuous connections to paint ‘the Jews’ as inherently wicked and prone to colluding openly or secretly to threaten other populations around them” and “argues that mass killings of Jews throughout history have been understandable reactions to Jewish beliefs and behavior.”

Whitlock himself previously defended Ye’s tweets denouncing “JEWISH PEOPLE,” writing, “You can't question black entertainers' unhealthy relationship with non-religious Jewish power brokers in Hollywood.” He also hosted a discussion about whether former basketball player and TV analyst Charles Barkley was under the nefarious influence of a Jewish “cabal.”

Beck, Whitlock’s employer, has a long record of promoting antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. But he typically responds to criticism on those grounds by stressing that he is a philosemite who supports Israel.

Whitlock’s cozy interview with Jones follows a recent trend of prominent right-wing commentators engaging in unusually explicit antisemitism as high-profile figures detail their grievances with the Jews. Those bigoted outbursts have drawn cheers from white nationalists who are ecstatic at their talking points entering the mainstream right.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Matt Rinaldi

Texas GOP Rejects Ban On Association With Neo-Nazis And Antisemities

"Texas GOP executive committee rejects proposed ban on associating with Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers" was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

Two months after a prominent conservative activist and fundraiser was caught hosting white supremacist Nick Fuentes, leaders of the Republican Party of Texas have voted against barring the party from associating with known Nazi sympathizers and Holocaust deniers.

In a 32-29 vote on Saturday, members of the Texas GOP’s executive committee stripped a pro-Israel resolution of a clause that would have included the ban— delivering a major blow to a faction that has called for the party to confront its ties to groups that have recently employed, elevated or associated with outspoken white supremacists or antisemitic figures.

In October, The Texas Tribune published photos of Fuentes, an avowed admirer of Adolf Hitler who has called for a “holy war” against Jews, entering and leaving the offices of Pale Horse Strategies, a consulting firm for far-right candidates and movements. Pale Horse Strategies is owned by Jonathan Stickland, a former state representative and at the time the leader of a political action committee, Defend Texas Liberty, that two West Texas oil billionaires have used to fund right-wing movements, candidates and politicians in the state — including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Matt Rinaldi, chairman of the Texas GOP, was also seen entering the Pale Horse offices while Fuentes was inside for nearly 7 hours. He denied participating, however, saying he was visiting with someone else at the time and didn’t know Fuentes was there.

Defend Texas Liberty has not publicly commented on the scandal, save for a two-sentence statement condemning those who've tried to connect the PAC to Fuentes’ “incendiary” views. Nor has the group clarified Stickland's current role at Defend Texas Liberty, which quietly updated its website in October to reflect that he is no longer its president. Tim Dunn, one of the two West Texas oil billionaires who primarily fund Defend Texas Liberty, confirmed the meeting between Fuentes and Stickland and called it a “serious blunder,” according to a statement from Patrick.

In response to the scandal — as well as subsequent reporting in the Tribune that detailed other links between Defend Texas Liberty and white supremacists — nearly half of the Texas GOP’s executive committee had called for the party to cut ties with Defend Texas Liberty and groups it funds until Stickland was removed from any position of power, and a full explanation for the Fuentes meeting was given.

The proposed demands were significantly watered down ahead of the party’s quarterly meeting this weekend. Rather than calling for a break from Defend Texas Liberty, the faction proposed general language that would have barred associations with individuals or groups “known to espouse or tolerate antisemitism, pro-Nazi sympathies or Holocaust denial.”

But even that general statement was not enough to sway a majority of the executive committee. In at-times tense debate on Saturday, members argued that words like “tolerate” or “antisemitism” were too vague or subjective, and could create future problems for the party, its leaders and candidates.

“It could put you on a slippery slope,” said committee member Dan Tully.

Supporters of the language disagreed. They noted that the language was already a compromise, didn’t specifically name any group or individual and would lend credence to the Texas GOP’s stances in support of Israel.

“To take it out sends a very disturbing message,” said Rolando Garcia, a Houston-based committee member who drafted the language. “We’re not specifying any individual or association. This is simply a statement of principle.”

Other committee members questioned how their colleagues could find words like “antisemitism” too vague, despite frequently lobbing it and other terms at their political opponents.

“I just don’t understand how people who routinely refer to others as leftists, liberals, communists, socialists and RINOs (‘Republicans in Name Only’) don’t have the discernment to define what a Nazi is,” committee member Morgan Cisneros Graham told the Tribune after the vote.

House Speaker Dade Phelan similarly condemned the vote Saturday evening, calling it “despicable.”

The Texas GOP executive committee “can’t even bring themselves to denounce neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers or cut ties with their top donor who brought them to the dance,” Phelan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “There is a moral, anti-Semitic rot festering within the fringes of BOTH parties that must be stopped.”

Before the vote, executive committee members separately approved a censure of outgoing Rep. Andrew Murr, R-Junction, over his lead role in the investigation and impeachment of Paxton.

Saturday’s vote is the latest sign of growing disunity among the Texas GOP, which for years has dealt with simmering tensions between its far-right and more moderate, but still deeply conservative, wings. Defend Texas Liberty and its billionaire backers have been key players in that fight, funding primary challenges to incumbent Republicans who they deem insufficiently conservative while and bankrolling a sprawling network of institutions, media websites and political groups that they’ve used to incrementally pull Texas further right.

The party’s internecine conflict has exploded into all-out war since the impeachment and acquittal of Paxton, a crucial Defend Texas Liberty ally whose political life has been subsidized by the PAC’s billionaire funders. After Paxton’s acquittal, Defend Texas Liberty vowed scorched-earth campaigns against those who supported the attorney general’s removal, and promised massive spending ahead of next year’s primary elections.

Then came the news of the Stickland and Fuentes meeting — a political bombshell that sharply intensified infighting and prompted some in the Texas GOP to question the party’s proximity to racists and extremists. In the wake of the Tribune’s reporting, Phelan and other House Republicans called on their colleagues to donate money they received from Defend Texas Liberty to pro-Israel charities.

Many of the PAC’s beneficiaries have been defiant in the face of those calls, instead accusing Phelan of politicizing antisemitism and attempting to discredit the Tribune’s reporting and downplay the scandal.

Ahead of Saturday’s vote, Defend Texas Liberty-backed Reps. Nate Schatzline (R-Fort Worth) and Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington) briefly spoke to the executive committee.

The day prior, Sen. Bob Hall — an Edgewood Republican who has received $50,000 from Defend Texas Liberty — was also at the Austin hotel where executive committee members were meeting, and in a speech condemned attempts to cut ties with the group based on what he called “hearsay,” “fuzzy photographs” and “narratives.”

“If you want to pass a resolution, I would make it positive,” Hall said to executive committee members on Friday. “We don’t need to do our enemy’s work for them.”

Hall reiterated that stance in an interview with the Tribune, calling the Fuentes meeting a “mistake” but claiming that there was “no evidence” that Stickland or Defend Texas Liberty are antisemitic.

“I've had meetings with transgenders, gays, and lesbians,” Hall said. “Does that make me a transgender, gay or a lesbian?”

Asked if he was comparing gay people to white supremacists or Hitler admirers like Fuentes, Hall responded: “I’m talking about people who are political hot potatoes.”

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune, a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.


Why Americans Should Stop Idolizing The Ivy League

Why Americans Should Stop Idolizing The Ivy League

After Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis, gang-raped teens and kidnapped hundreds of innocents, 30 student groups at Harvard issued a statement reading, "We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence."

The anger that followed went beyond this dismissal of Isis-type barbarity. It pursued Harvard president Claudine Gay after she issued a mealy-mouthed response.

There was bit of a turnaround when prestigious law firms and other employers started rescinding job offers to students involved in these groups. Some companies may have objected to what they saw as overt displays of antisemitism. They may have also been shocked by the TikTok-level display of ignorance of the conflict's complexities, which these alleged top students had put on full display.

The main subject here isn't the current Mideast tragedy, but let us note: Students have every right to say stupid things, and employers have every right not to hire students who say stupid things. As for college administrators frightened of the children, that's a problem for the colleges.

This is about the undeserved reverence shown to these colleges no better than others with lesser brand names. How many times have my new acquaintances used the H-word to elevate their ordinary views?

Without a doubt, brilliant minds have attended and taught at Harvard, Yale, and the rest. But so have many mediocrities whose rich parents hired consultants to turn their offspring into the perfect packages these institutions want. That meant tutors to ensure high scores alongside some angle, such as prowess in a sport or carefully selected do-gooding.

Many in the media play the Ivy worship game. Reporters commonly put "Harvard-educated" or "Yale-educated" in front of some expert's name. If the person being interviewed went to the University of Nebraska or, say, Colgate, the alma mater is left a mystery. Never mind if the interviewee's less-glamorous school exceled in the area of expertise they were writing about.

My late husband, a senior editor at Princeton Press, set me straight on the hot air that fills the balloons of Ivy puffery. (I went to New York University.) Himself a product of elite education from prep school on up, he talked of seeking out writers at small colleges in the Dakotas who were actually doing original things. He found the professors who had spent their entire lives climbing the grades, from kindergarten to Ph.D. with hardly a break, tended toward the immature.

The most interesting intellectuals had held regular, non-academic jobs at some point: They had worked on a road crew or run a shoe store or painted houses. He was grateful to have been shaken out of his assumptions by time spent in the Marines. (He laughed about having to hide his background as an "Ivy flower" while being schooled on Parris Island.)

If these latest displays of cowardice by administrators at Harvard, Columbia and Yale vacuum up some of the fairy dust the worshippers sprinkle around these schools, so much the better. And that goes double if they prompt some rich alumni to move their donations elsewhere. How about funding organizations that help kids from struggling backgrounds get a foothold in a secure life?

One of the reasons so many super rich graduates give multimillions to the richest colleges is the same reason so many parents want their children to get into them. It gives them an opportunity to hobnob with other rich people or those whom they consider socially desirable.

"Should Ivy League Schools Randomly Select Students?" was the subject of a recent essay about how the COVID shutdowns gave the well-to-do an extra leg-up in these admissions. The more interesting question would have been, "When Can Everyone Stop Worshipping the Ivy League?"

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.