At the House hearings on white nationalism just now, Ted Lieu

[octoberlib]

Link to tweet

Oh man. Rep. Ted Lieu now playing a tape of Candace Owens, who is sitting right there, saying it would have been fine if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great.




And... Owens responds: "It's pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip." 😳

Nadler interrupts with the gavel. "It is not proper to refer disparagingly to a member of the committee. The witness will not do that again.

Owens: "Sure. Even though I was called despicable."

[octoberlib]

1. There are only two republicans who showed up for the hearing, btw.

[avebury]

2. Owens: "Sure. Even though I was called despicable."

It walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it is a duck

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Actually, she called a BuzzFeed reporter "despicable" first, in May of 2015. And she lies.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/the-newest-star-of-the-trump-movement-ran-a-trump-bashing

[...]
Yet Owens, suddenly a new face of the American right, was less than two years ago the CEO of an online publication that frequently mocked then-candidate Trump, including conducting a mock “investigation” into his penis size. (The story determined that it was likely very small.) And in a 2015 column for the site lambasting conservative Republicans, Owens wrote that it was “good news” that the “Republican Tea Party ... will eventually die off (peacefully in their sleep, we hope).”

Indeed, the speed with which Owens has gone from running a frequently anti-Trump, anti-conservative website to being one of the president’s most prominent new supporters illustrates the wild land grab still going on for influence in the pro-Trump ecosystem.

Owens did not immediately respond to requests for comment via email and Twitter, though she did stress in tweets earlier today that the writers for the site, called Degree180, were young. She also described the reporter as a "despicable creature."

(She also accused BuzzFeed News, falsely, of "threatening" the former writers for the site.)
[...]

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. In fact, Cicilline (D-RI) called her remarks & tactics despicable, not her.

https://www.mediaite.com/online/despicable-dem-congressman-accuses-candace-owens-of-desecrating-the-lives-of-hate-crimes-victims/

‘Despicable’: Dem Congressman Accuses Candace Owens of ‘Desecrating the Lives’ of Hate Crimes Victims
By Tommy ChristopherApr 9th, 2019, 1:41 pm

Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) levelled heavy criticism at conservative activist and discredited Hitler expert Candace Owens over her appearance at a hearing on hate crimes, saying she was “desecrating the lives” of those killed in hate crimes by politicizing the hearing.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on “Hate Crimes and the Rise of White Nationalism,” Cicilline criticized the minority party witnesses, Owens and Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) National President Mort Klein, for politicizing the hearing.

“I thank the chairman for convening this hearing, and regret that there are some on this panel who have tried to hijack this hearing, and desecrate the lives lost to the hate crimes and violence of white supremacists, by attempting to use this as an opportunity to promote a political position, or a political party,” Ciciline said, adding “I think that is despicable and deeply regrettable.” [...]

[ck4829]

22. Maybe it's because she is

[struggle4progress]

3. I wonder if Russia is behind Blexit, the way they were behind Brexit and Calexit

[octoberlib]

5. Bleh-xit is the worst political branding in history. I'm sure the oligarchs have gotten money

to Turning points USA.

[struggle4progress]

16. Who funds Turning Point USA?

... From 2014 to 2016, the Ed Uihlein Foundation gave TPUSA $275,000, including $175,000 in 2016. Richard Uihlein, the founder of a lucrative shipping business and president of this foundation named after his father, is a Republican mega-donor and a “free-markets, smaller-government crusader” from the Chicago area. He and his wife, Elizabeth, spent $23.7 million on politics during the 2016 election cycle, the ninth-highest total in the country, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Richard Uihlein made 6- and 7-figure donations to many independent political spending groups including the Unintimidated PAC, which supported Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; the Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund; and Club For Growth Action. Uihlein is America’s top donor to outside spending groups in the current election cycle.

The family foundation of Republican Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner, a former private equity executive worth an estimated $500 million, gave TPUSA $150,000 from 2014 to 2015, according to tax records. Uihlein spent nearly $3 million in 2014 to help elect Rauner. The governor, with help from his wealthy friends, is trying to remake Illinois into a conservative-dominated state.

The family foundation of healthcare products company CEO Vince Foglia and his wife Pat, based in the Chicago area, donated $210,000 to TPUSA from 2013 to 2014. Foglia is a frequent donor to Republican campaigns, including $55,000 to Rauner in 2014 and donations to former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who is a member of the TPUSA advisory council.

In 2015, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus’ foundation donated $72,600 to TPUSA. Marcus is a major GOP donor, having given $5 million to the pro-Trump super PAC Rebuilding America Now and millions more to spending groups affiliated with the Republican House and Senate during the 2016 cycle ...

https://www.ibtimes.com/political-capital/who-funds-conservative-campus-group-turning-point-usa-donors-revealed-2620325

[Firestorm49]

10. Yes.Russia wants separation, as they tried in Catalonia, as well. It's their goal.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. DISFUNCTION. Separation subset of division. Aim is disfunction by polarization & division. . . .nt

[Initech]

11. Russia is behind pretty much everything that is bad and wrong now.

So it wouldn't surprise me if they were behind this.

[ck4829]

23. Hmmm....

[struggle4progress]

4. Hitler would've been OK if he only changed Germany

[octoberlib]

6. Thanks for posting the clip. Ted Lieu posted the full clip on Twitter.

And Owens just said the Southern Strategy was a myth. It never happened. Somebody's paying her a lot of money.

Link to tweet

It's important to remember Candace Owens got her start as a conspiracy theorist on Infowars, the same network that claimed Sandy Hook was a hoax. She's a useful idiot for white nationalists attempting to normalize hateful propaganda.

[ck4829]

24. That... is disturbing

[struggle4progress]

26. She's nuts

[GoCubsGo]

7. Yep. I saw "Candace Owens" trending on Twitter, and had to check it out.

https://twitter.com/search?q=%22Candace%20Owens%22&src=tren

Wowza!

I loves me some Ted Lieu!

[ck4829]

21. Very good.

[demmiblue]

8. Rep. Lieu is awesome.

[ck4829]

25. He is 100%

[ffr]

9. DAMN!

[lsewpershad]

14. No Ted Lieu does not think

black people are stupid but you are. No! Hitlers nationalism murdered millions of Jews in German and you believed it was OK as long as it stayed in Germany? You're more than stupid.

[struggle4progress]

17. Turning Point USA

.... in February .. video surfaced of the organization’s communications director, Candace Owens, appearing to defend both Adolf Hitler and nationalism. “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well — okay, fine. The problem is that he…had dreams outside of Germany <and> wanted to globalize,” she said ...

Owens later clarified her statement, saying it was an attempt to separate the term “nationalist” from its associations with Hitler ...

In 2018, white supremacist James Dunphy (possibly a pseudonym) wrote an article for the racist website Counter-Currents neatly capturing the prevailing mixed feelings about TPUSA. Dunphy criticized Kirk’s “compliance with political correctness” but praised him for doing “wonderful things” with TPUSA, saying that “group members have openly supported building Trump’s wall, deporting illegal immigrants, ending affirmative action, defunding sanctuary cities, and stopping unassimilable Muslims from immigrating to Europe.” Dunphy also claimed that “despite having many differences with white nationalists,” TPUSA will nevertheless benefit them “because the number of people who will migrate from its platform to a white nationalist one will be far larger than those who do the reverse” ...

October 2018: The Miami New Times revealed leaked messages from a TPUSA WhatsApp group connected to Florida International University that included a racist Pepe the Frog meme about Syrian refugees raping white women, as well as a joke about dressing up as ICE agents to “grapple Latinas and deport them.” The messages also included this advice on how to avoid scrutiny: “Just avoid saying the n word and don’t reference Richard Spencer too much and don’t Jew hate…all the time” ...

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/turning-point-usa

[ck4829]

20. This "separation" will never happen

I hear "nationalism" and I picture Hitler.

[ck4829]

18. K&R

[dalton99a]

19. Kick