Tag: holocaust
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.


Mastriano Suggests Abortion ‘So Much Worse’ Than The Holocaust

Mastriano Suggests Abortion ‘So Much Worse’ Than The Holocaust

Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano has repeatedly used his Facebook page to compare abortion to the Holocaust, an analogy that Holocaust remembrance officials have called “unacceptable” and “abhorrent.” In one instance, Mastriano shared a cartoon which claimed that Roe v. Wade is “so much” worse than the Holocaust and featured a Nazi bowing down to the number of “USA Abortions.”

Mastriano is a right-wing commentator, January 6 insurrectionist, and Pennsylvania state senator. He’s also a frequent guest in right-wing media.

Mastriano has a long history of pushing extreme commentaries, including content that promotes QAnon, lies about the 2020 election being stolen, anti-Muslim bigotry, and COVID-19 conspiracy theories and falsehoods. Forward recently reported that Mastriano “has in the past invoked Nazi-era analogies in the debate over gun control.”

On his Facebook page, the Republican gubernatorial nominee has repeatedly compared abortion to the Holocaust.

On February 16, 2019, Mastriano shared a cartoon from the organization Answers in Genesis featuring a Nazi and Joseph Stalin bowing down to a Grim Reaper labeled Roe v. Wade. A dialogue bubble from the Nazi and Stalin says: “You are so much greater than we ever were!” The cartoon includes death figures of 17 million for the Holocaust; 23 million for Stalin; and 57.5 million for “USA Abortions.” Mastriano commented: “So sad.”

On December 21, 2019, he shared a Facebook video from Lila Rose — the leader of anti-abortion group Live Action — that links the abortion pill mifepristone to the gas used to murder Jews in the Holocaust.

And on November 24, 2020, he shared a post on the website of Live Action with the headline, “My visit to Auschwitz reminded me why I oppose abortion.” The Live Action piece defended comparing the Holocaust to abortion, stating: “The greatest disrespect I could possibly lend to the victims of the Holocaust is the refusal to apply the lessons of that horrific history to the horrors of today, thus repeating the deadly mistakes of the past.”

Anti-abortion activists have a long history of using the Holocaust to justify their opposition to abortion. People who work for Holocaust memorial organizations have criticized such comparisons.

In 2019, Kathrin Meyer, the executive secretary for the intergovernmental International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, stated: “The comparison made between abortion and the Holocaust is abhorrent. The suggestion is offensive and trivializes the Holocaust, offending the memory of Holocaust victims and survivors. These two matters are in no way related and to seek to make this comparison for political purposes is completely unacceptable.”

And in 2020, a spokesperson for the U.K.-government-backed Holocaust Memorial Day Trust stated: “It is unacceptable to draw comparisons between the Holocaust and abortion practice. The Holocaust was a unique, identity-based, extermination of a people, during which a state-sponsored slaughter of six million Jews took place before and during the Second World War.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Sen. Ron Johnson

Sen. Johnson Promotes ‘Worst' Anti-Vax Charlatan On Twitter

Reprinted with permission from American Independent

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Monday praised infamous anti-vaxxer Alex Berenson following Berenson's brief suspension from Twitter over the weekend.

Berenson claimed he was suspended from Twitter for tweeting about a clinical trial of the Pfizer vaccine, which he said does not prevent COVID-19 deaths. However, the CDC reports that the vaccine has proven to be a safe and effective way to prevent COVID-19 infections and serious illness and death from the virus.

"Alex Berenson has been a courageous voice of reason throughout the pandemic," Johnson tweeted of the former-journalist-turned-spy-novelist who's become a Fox News regular during the pandemic for his attacks on coronavirus mitigation efforts.

"As a result he has been censored. During his suspension on Twitter, you can find him on Substack, http://alexberenson.substack.com. He provides a valuable counter perspective to the group-think mainstream media," Johson continued.

Berenson also happens to be promoting a book.

According to many, Berenson has been one of the worst offenders of spreading COVID-19 disinformation during the pandemic — and has been criticized for his false comments.

In April, the Atlantic profiled him in an article titled, "The Pandemic's Wrongest Man." Gizmodo labeled Berenson one of "the worst charlatans of the COVID-19 pandemic." And even the right-wing outlet the National Review has slammed Berenson's disinformation.

On Friday, the Auschwitz Memorial became the latest to condemn Berenson. Berenson had tweeted, "Impfung macht frei," German for "Vaccination makes you free."

It's a play on "Arbeit macht frei," the German phrase that translates to "Work makes you free," which appears over a gated entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where some of the worst atrocities of the Holocaust were carried out.

"It's painful to the memory of Auschwitz and its victims to see this symbol abused and violated," the Auschwitz Memorial tweeted in response to Berenson's comment. " 'Arbeit macht frei' became one of the icons of human hatred. Using it in a debate about vaccines that save human lives is a sad symptom of moral and intelectual [sic] decline."

Many of Berenson's COVID-19 observations have been proven false, including a claim from early on in the pandemic that there was no way more than 500,000 people would die from the virus. As of Sunday, 612,982 people have died in the United States from COVID-19, according to the New York Times.

Despite all of that, Johnson directed the nearly 257,000 people who follow him to follow Berenson for COVID-19 information.

Johnson himself has been one of the worst offenders on Capitol Hill of spreading COVID-19 lies and anti-vaccine rhetoric.

Johnson, who is one of just two members of the Senate who had refused to be vaccinated as of May.

He held a news conference in June featuring people who claimed to have had "adverse reactions" to the COVID-19 vaccine, leading to criticism from health experts, as well as Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, who said Johnson was displaying a "RECKLESS disregard for Milwaukeeans!"

"COVID-19 vaccines are saving lives & keeping our communities safe," Moore tweeted. "It's infuriating to see Ron Johnson amplifying conspiracy theories after communities in Milwaukee were disproportionately devastated by COVID. He has no shame."

In one head-scratching comment made on Fox News on Friday, Johnson said he is against requiring Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine. "unless there's some incredibly deadly disease."

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.

Poland’s Holocaust Bill Is a Hate Speech Ban

Poland’s Holocaust Bill Is a Hate Speech Ban

In Poland, as in several other European countries, it is a crime to deny the Holocaust. Soon, thanks to a bill that was approved by the lower house of the Polish parliament on Friday, it may also be a crime to discuss the Holocaust too frankly.

The pending ban on references to Polish complicity in Nazi genocide, which has provoked outrage in Israel and around the world, may seem inconsistent with the ban on Holocaust denial. But the two taboos are of a piece with each other and with Poland’s prohibition of ethnic insults — a fact that should give pause to American fans of European-style speech regulation.

The Polish bill makes it a crime, punishable by fines and up to three years in prison, to accuse “the Polish nation, or the Polish state, of being responsible or complicit in the Nazi crimes committed by the Third German Reich.” The legislation was motivated largely by anger at the common use of phrases like “Polish death camps,” which could be read to mean that the war crimes committed by Germans in occupied Poland were a project of the Polish government.

“German Nazi crimes are attributed to Poles,” Deputy Justice Minister Patryk Jaki complained last week. “And so far the Polish state has not been able to effectively fight these types of insults to the Polish nation.”

Some of these “insults” happen to be true, since part of “the Polish nation” was “complicit in the Nazi crimes.” Poles saved Jews, but Poles also murdered Jews, under Nazi instruction and on their own initiative.

Acknowledging that complicated and troubling reality could expose people to criminal liability under the proposed law, notwithstanding its focus on statements “contrary to fact” and its exemption for people engaged in “artistic or scientific activities.” The bill, which applies to mistakes as well as deliberate misrepresentations, charges the government with determining what is true and whose motives are elevated enough to shield them from prosecution.

The impact of such a system goes far beyond the people who are actually fined or imprisoned, since the possibility of an investigation encourages self-censorship. The result — people afraid to speak their minds, lest they attract unwanted attention from the government — hardly seems consistent with the “freedom to express opinions” and “disseminate information” guaranteed by the Polish constitution.

The same could be said of the Polish laws that make a criminal out of anyone who minimizes or denies Nazi war crimes or who insults or incites hatred against people based on their nationality, ethnicity, race, or religion. These are fuzzy categories that invite arbitrary and unpredictable enforcement, chilling speech that might offend the sensibilities of protected groups.

The proposed ban on charges of Polish complicity in the Holocaust is similar in logic as well as impact, since it criminalizes “insults to the Polish nation,” a kind of group defamation. The same principle that is aimed at protecting minorities from verbal oppression can be easily adapted by majorities seeking to suppress speech that makes them uncomfortable.

We need not look abroad to see how slippery the concept of hate speech can be. Last year Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, argued that the University of California at Berkeley’s decision to cancel a speech by conservative commentator Ann Coulter did not raise any constitutional issues because “hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Dean was wrong about that, since “hate speech” is not a legally relevant category in the United States, and his loose use of the phrase demonstrated why making it so would be dangerous. Why bother to argue with your opponents when you can have them arrested?

The Polish legislators who want to criminalize speech that offends them are trying the same shortcut. The only way to close it off is by rejecting, once and for all, the illiberal idea that people have a right not to be offended.

Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine. Follow him on Twitter: @jacobsullum. To find out more about Jacob Sullum and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

PHOTO: Holocaust survivors walk under the sign that reads Arbeit Macht Frei (“Work makes you free”) after paying tribute to fallen comrades at the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, on January 27, 2015