Amanda

A quick bit of history learnin' - something important we stand to lose if we don't stand against these fascist assholes.

Who They Are

These are the kind of assholes who showed up in Charlottesville iin 2017.

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.

They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.

“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.

Two members of the chat responded.

“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, wrote back.

“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committee member, said.

The exchange is part of a trove of Telegram chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than seven months of messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.

Since POLITICO began making inquiries, one member of the group chat is no longer employed at their job and another’s job offer was rescinded. Prominent New York Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik and state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, have denounced the chat. And festering resentments among Young Republicans have now turned into public recriminations, including allegations of character assassination and extortion.

A liberating atmosphere

The 2,900 pages of chats, shared among a dozen millennial and Gen Z Republicans between early January and mid-August, chronicle their campaign to seize control of the national Young Republican organization on a hardline pro-Donald Trump platform. Many of the chat members already work inside government or party politics, and one serves as a state senator.

Together, the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely — and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders.

“The more the political atmosphere is open and liberating — like it has been with the emergence of Trump and a more right wing GOP even before him — it opens up young people and older people to telling racist jokes, making racist commentaries in private and public,” said Joe Feagin, a Texas A&M sociology professor who has studied racism for the last 60 years. He’s also concerned the words would be applied to public policy. “It’s chilling, of course, because they will act on these views.”

The dynamic of easy racism and casual cruelty played out in often dark, vivid fashion inside the chats, where campaign talk and party gossip blurred into streams of slurs and violent fantasies.

The group chat members spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO, the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing and the president’s alleged work to suppress documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex crimes.

'They're causing real harm': Kevin Hassett on the Dems' shutdown strategy

“Trumps too busy burning the Epstein files,” Alex Dwyer, the chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, wrote in one instance.

Dwyer and Kaykaty declined to comment. Maligno and Hendrix did not return requests for comment.

But some involved in the chat did respond publicly.

Giunta claimed the release of the chat is part of “a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club” — an allusion to a once obscured internecine war that has now spilled into the open.

“These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me,” he said. “What’s most disheartening is that, despite my unwavering support of President Trump since 2016, rouge [sic] members of his administration — including Gavin Wax — have participated in this conspiracy to ruin me publicly simply because I challenged them privately.”

Wax, a staffer in Trump’s State Department, formerly led the New York Young Republican Club — a separate, city-based group that is at odds with the state organization, the New York State Young Republicans. He declined to comment.

Despite his allusions to infighting, Giunta still apologized.

“I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans,” he said. “While I take complete responsibility, I have had no way of verifying their accuracy and am deeply concerned that the message logs in question may have been deceptively doctored.”

At least one person in the Telegram chat works in the Trump administration: Michael Bartels, who, according to his LinkedIn account, serves as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bartels did not have much to say in the chat, but he didn’t offer any pushback against the offensive rhetoric in it either. He declined to comment.

A notarized affidavit signed by Bartels and obtained by POLITICO also sheds light on the intraparty rivalry that led the “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” Telegram chat to be made public. Bartels references Wax as well. He wrote that he did not give POLITICO the chat and that Wax “demanded” in a phone call that he provide the full chat log.

“When I attempted to resist that demand, after providing some of the requested information, Wax threatened my professional standing, and raised the possibility of potential legal action related to an alleged breach of a non-disclosure agreement,” Bartels claimed in the affidavit. “My position within the New York Young Republican Club was directly threatened.”

Walker, who now leads the New York State Young Republicans, touched on a similar theme, saying that he believes portions of the chat “may have been altered, taken out of context, or otherwise manipulated” and that the “private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm.”

He also apologized.

“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologize,” Walker said. “This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust, and I am committed to moving forward with greater care, respect, and accountability in everything I say and do.”

251 times

Mixed into formal conversations about whipping votes, social media strategy and logistics, the members of the chat slung around an array of slurs — which POLITICO is republishing to show how they spoke. Epithets like “f----t,” “retarded” and “n--ga” appeared more than 251 times combined.

In one instance, Walker — who at the time was a staffer for Ortt — talked about how a mutual friend of some in the chat “dated this very obese Indian woman for a period of time.”

Giunta responded that the woman “was not Indian.”

“She just didn’t bathe often,” Samuel Douglass, a state senator from northern Vermont and the head of the state’s Young Republicans, replied to Giunta.

In a separate conversation, Giunta shared that his flight to Charleston, South Carolina, landed safely. Then, he offered some advice for his fellow Young Republicans.

“If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word,” Giunta wrote.

Douglass did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, Ortt called for members of the chat to resign.

“I was shocked and disgusted to learn about the racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments attributed to members of the New York State Young Republicans,” Ortt said. “This behavior is indefensible and has no place in our party or anywhere in public life.”

Walker had been in line to manage Republican Peter Oberacker’s campaign for Congress in upstate New York, but a spokesperson for the campaign said Walker won’t be brought on in light of the comments in the chat.

Seeking Trump’s endorsement

The private rhetoric isn’t happening in a vacuum. It comes amid a widespread coarsening of the broader political discourse and as incendiary and racially offensive tropes from the right become increasingly common in public debate. Last month, Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated video that showed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries in a sombrero beside Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whose fabricated remarks were about trading free health care for immigrant votes — a false, long-running GOP trope. The sombrero meme has been widely used to mock Democrats as the government shutdown wears on.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump spread false reports of Haitian migrants eating pets and, at one of his rallies, welcomed comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and joked about Black people “carving watermelons” on Halloween.

Liz Huston, a White House spokesperson, rejected the idea that Trump’s rhetoric had anything to do with the chat members’ language.

“Only an activist, left-wing reporter would desperately try to tie President Trump into a story about a random groupchat he has no affiliation with, while failing to mention the dangerous smears coming from Democrat politicians who have fantasized about murdering their opponent and called Republicans Nazis and Fascists,” she said. “No one has been subjected to more vicious rhetoric and violence than President Trump and his supporters.”

In the “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” chat, Giunta tells his fellow Republicans that he spoke with the White House about an endorsement from Trump for his bid to become chairman of the national federation. Trump and the Republican National Committee ultimately decided to stay neutral in the race.

A White House official said that it has no affiliation with Restore YR and that hundreds of groups ask the White House for its endorsement.

Giunta was the most prominent voice in the chat spreading racist messages — often encouraged or “liked” by other members.

When Luke Mosiman, the chair of the Arizona Young Republicans, asked if the New Yorkers in the chat were watching an NBA playoff game, Giunta responded, “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball.” Giunta elsewhere refers to Black people as “the watermelon people.”

Hendrix made a similar remark in July: “Bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and kool aid with that?”

Hendrix was a communications assistant for Kansas’ Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach until Thursday. He also said in the chat that, despite political differences, he’s drawn to Missouri’s Young Republican organization because “Missouri doesn’t like f--s.”

POLITICO reached out to Danedri Herbert, a spokesperson for the attorney general who also serves as the Kansas GOP chair, and shared with her excerpts of the chat involving Hendrix. In response, Herbert said that “we are aware of the issues raised in your article” and that Hendrix is “no longer employed” in Kobach’s office.

In another exchange, Dwyer, the Kansas’ chair, informs Giunta that one of Michigan’s Young Republicans promised him the group “will vote for the most right wing person” to lead the national organization.

“Great. I love Hitler,” Giunta responded.

Dwyer reacted with a smiley face.

Few minority groups spared

Giunta, who serves as chief of staff to New York state Assemblymember Mike Reilly, ultimately fell six points short of winning the chairship to lead the Young Republican National Federation earlier this year — despite earning endorsements from Stefanik and longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.

Reilly did not respond to requests for comment.

Earlier this year, Stefanik accepted an award from the New York State Young Republicans. She lauded Giunta for his “tremendous leadership” in August and had her campaign and the political PAC she leads donate to that state organization. Alex deGrasse, a senior adviser for Stefanik, said the congresswoman “was absolutely appalled to learn about the alleged comments made by leaders of the New York State Young Republicans and other state YRs in a large national group chat.”

“According to the description provided by Politico, the comments were heinous, antisemitic, racist and unacceptable,” he continued, noting Stefanik has never employed anyone in the chat. “If the description by Politico is accurate, Congresswoman Stefanik calls for any NY Young Republicans responsible for these horrific comments in this chat to step down immediately.”

Stone also condemned the comments in a statement.

“I of course, have never seen this alleged chat room thread,” he said. “If it is authentic, I would, of course, denounce any such comments in the strongest possible terms, This would surprise me as it is inconsistent with Peter that I know, although I only know him in his capacity as the head of the New York Young Republicans, where I thought he did a good job.”

Few minority groups are spared from the Young Republican group’s chat. Their rhetoric — normalized at most points as dark humor — mirrors some popular conservative political commentators, podcasters and comedians amid a national erosion of what’s considered acceptable discourse.

Giunta’s line on a darker-skinned pilot, for example, echoes one used by slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year when he said, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.” Kirk was discussing how diversity hiring “invites unwholesome thinking.”

Walker also uses the moniker “eyepatch McCain” (originally coined by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson) in an apparent reference to GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw. Crenshaw lost his eye while serving as a Navy SEAL in Afghanistan. Walker also makes the remark, “I prefer my war heroes not captured,” a repeat of a similar 2015 line from Trump.

Art Jipson, a professor at the University of Dayton who specializes in white racial extremism, surmised the Young Republicans in the chat were influenced by Trump’s language, which he said is often hyperbolic and emotionally charged.

“Trump’s persistent use of hostile, often inflammatory language that normalizes aggressive discourse in conservative circles can be incredibly influential on young operatives who are still trying to figure out, ‘What is that political discourse?’” Jipson said.

White supremacist symbols

Jipson reviewed multiple excerpts of the Young Republicans’ chat provided by POLITICO. One was a late July message where Mosiman, the chair of the Arizona Young Republicans, mused about how the group could win support for their preferred candidate by linking an opponent to white supremacist groups. But Mosiman then realized the plan could backfire — Kansas’ Young Republicans could end up becoming attracted to that opponent.

“Can we get them to start releasing Nazi edits with her… Like pro Nazi and faciam [sic] propaganda,” he asked the group.

“Omg I love this plan,” Rachel Hope, the Arizona Young Republicans events chair, responded.

“The only problem is we will lose the Kansas delegation,” Mosiman said. Hope and the two Kansas Young Republicans in the chat reacted with a laughing face to the message. Hope did not respond to requests for comment. Mosiman declined to comment.

Jipson said the Young Republicans’ conversations reminded him of online discussions between members of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups.

“You say it once or twice, it’s a joke, but you say it 251 times, it’s no longer a joke,” Jipson said. “The more we repeat certain ideas, the more real they become to us.”

Weeks later, someone in the chat staying in a hotel asks its members to “GUESS WHAT ROOM WE’RE IN.”

“1488,” Dwyer responds. White supremacists use the number 1488 because 14 is the number of words in the white supremacist slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” H is the eighth letter in the alphabet, and 88 is often used as a shorthand for “Heil Hitler.”

In another conversation in February, Giunta talks approvingly about the Orange County Teenage Republican organization in New York — which appears to be part of the network of national Teen Age Republicans — and how he was pleased with its young members’ ideological bent.

“They support slavery and all that shit. Mega based,” he said. The term “based” in internet culture is used to express approval with an idea, often one that’s bold or controversial.

In a statement, Orange County GOP Chair Courtney Canfield Greene said the party was disappointed to learn its teen group was mentioned in the chat.

“Our teen volunteers have no affiliation with the NYSYR’s or the YRNF,” she said. “This behavior has no home within the Republican Party in Orange County.”

Ed Cox, the chair of the New York State GOP, also condemned the remarks made in the chat.

“I was shocked and disgusted to learn about the reports of comments made by a small group of Young Republicans,” he said. “Just as we call out vile racist and anti-Semetic rhetoric on the far left, we must not tolerate it within our ranks.”

Vicious words for enemies

Members of the Telegram chat speak about their personal lives, too. Extensive discussions about their everyday lives include one exchange about how devoutly Catholic some chat members are and how often they attend church.

Many of the slurs, epithets and violent language used in the chat often appear to be intended as jokes.

Mosiman was derided by members of the chat as “beaner” and “sp-c.”

“Stay in the closet f----t,” Walker of New York also jested in July, though he is the group’s main target for the same epithet.

The group used slurs against Asians, too.

“My people built the train tracks with the Chinese,” Walker says at one point, referring to his Italian ancestors.

“Let his people go!” Maligno responds. “Keep the ch--ks, though.”

In another instance, Mosiman tells the group that, “The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman.”

“Sex is gay,” Dwyer writes.

“Sex? It was rape,” Mosiman replies.

“Epic,” Walker says.

There’s more explicit malice in some phrases, too, especially when they turn their ire on opponents outside the chat, such as the leader of the rival Grow YR slate, Hayden Padgett, who defeated Giunta and was reelected chairman of the Young Republican National Federation this summer.

“So you mean Hayden F----t wrote the resolution himself?” Giunta asked the group about the National Young Republicans chair in late May.

“RAPE HAYDEN,” Mosiman declared the following month.

“Adolf Padgette is in the F----tbunker as we speak,” Walker said in July.

Padgett responded to the chat’s language in a statement.

“The Young Republican National Federation condemns all forms of racism, antisemitism, and hate,” Padgett said. “I want to be clear that such behavior is entirely inconsistent with our values and has no place within our organization or the broader conservative movement.”

Giunta also had expletive-laden criticism for the Young Republicans in states that were supporting or leaning toward Padgett’s faction.

Minnesota - f----ts

Arkansas - inbred cow fuckers 

Nebraska - revolt in our favor; blocked their bind and have a majority of their delegates

Maryland - fat stinky Jew … 

Rhode Island - traitorous c---s who I will eradicate from the face of this planet.

Giunta also said he planned to make one of the competing Young Republicans “unalive himself on the convention floor.”

In another instance, Douglass, the Vermont state senator, describes to the group members how one of Padgett’s Jewish colleagues may have made a procedural error related to the number of Maryland delegates permitted at the national convention.

“I was about to say you’re giving nationals to [sic] much credit and expecting the Jew to be honest,” Brianna Douglass, Sam’s wife and Vermont Young Republican’s national committee member, replied to her husband’s message. Brianna Douglass did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

‘If we ever had a leak of this chat...’

While reporting this article, POLITICO was examining a separate allegation: that Giunta and the Young Republicans mismanaged the New York organization’s finances and hadn’t paid at least one venue for a swanky holiday party it hosted last year. POLITICO’s report detailed how the organization was missing required financial disclosure forms and how their subsequent efforts to file the forms revealed the organization was in more than $28,000 of debt. As of Tuesday, updated records show the organization is in more than $38,000 of debt.

Donations to New York State Young Republicans’ political account must be reported to the state Board of Elections. Expenditures must be reported too.

At the time, Giunta told POLITICO the allegations were “nothing more than a sad and pathetic attempt at a political hit job.” But in their “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” chat, he and Walker speak flippantly about mishandling the club’s finances.

“NYSYR Account be like: $500 - Balding cream $1,000 - Ozempik,” Walker said in one message. “NYSYR will be declaring bankruptcy after this I just know it,” he said in another.

“I drained $10k tonight to pay for my next vacation to Italy,” Giunta appeared to joke about the organization’s bank account.

“I spent it on massage,” he says of another check that was deposited in the account.

“Great. Can’t wait to get sued by our venue,” Walker replies.

Members of the chat occasionally appeared to be aware of its toxicity and even made remarks that considered the possibility someone outside their tight-knit group could view it.

Walker seemed to consider that possibility the most.

In one instance, he joked about bombing the Young Republican National Federation’s convention in Nashville and then remarked, “Just kidding for our assigned FBI tracker.”

In another, he considered the totality of the thousands of messages he and his peers had written, and what would happen if the public saw them come to light.

“If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr,” he wrote.

Plan? What Plan?

There is no plan

to fix anything.

The plan is to

tear everything down.

Today's Brian

Short Brian

What We're Up Against

To be sure, it's at least kinda probable that these jagoffs are just cashing in on the tax-free shit built into our fucked up tax code.

But that doesn't mean they're not planning some real shit, and that it's not just about milking the sheep.

Psalms 2:9-11 New International Version (NIV)

"You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery."

"Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling."

What is the significance of the iron rod?

A rod of iron conveys an image of a divine power that cannot be broken. Iron's strength and, at times, cosmic origin lent it a sense of power. That the rod in Lehi's vision and David's psalm is a symbol of strength and heavenly power and authority is made clear by its being made of iron.

And it's not unreasonable to think these clowns believe the "rod of iron" is a gun - it's right there in the graphic. Seems pretty obvious.

• God gave us the 2nd amendment
• The 2nd amendment gave us the gun
• The gun is a sacred tool
• We are here to do the lord's work with the tools he has given us

Sweet dreams, kids.

Aged Like Fine Milk

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

--Epicurus, Greek Philosopher

Jim Bakker from early 2023.

Pre-Born, You're Fine

... Pre-School, you're fucked.

The esteemed Mr Carlin:

Nancy MacLean

We pay attention to things so we're less likely to be fooled.

• We pay attention to our health so pharmaceutical ads are less deceiving
• We pay attention to economics so we're not as likely to be deceived by "Financial Reporters" telling us about indicators - leading or trailing or Market Basket or Durable Goods or interest rates or whatever
• We pay attention to politics so we won't be fooled so often by demagogues and dog-assed Republicans

Richard Uilein:

GOP megadonor pours millions into effort to hinder Ohio abortion amendment

New campaign finance records show Illinois Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein is funding the bulk of the campaign aimed at thwarting a constitutional amendment on abortion in Ohio.

Ohio is likely the only state this year to have a measure on the ballot to enshrine abortion access into the state constitution, setting up a test case for how the issue may drive voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election. A USA TODAY Network/Suffolk University poll released this week found 58% of Ohioans support a constitutional amendment.

That support may not be enough to pass. Currently, such amendments require support from a simple majority — 50% + 1 vote. But the GOP-led state legislature set up a special election for Aug. 8 to raise the threshold to 60%. That measure is known as Ohio Issue 1.

Uihlein, an Illinois shipping supplies magnate with a history of donations to anti-abortion groups, was the top funder of Protect our Constitution, the main group supporting Issue 1. Uihlein gave $4 million to the group, the bulk of the $4.85 million raised.

Last month, a CBS News investigation found Uihlein had an outsized role in getting Issue 1 on the ballot. In April, he gave $1.1 million to a political committee pressuring Republican lawmakers to approve the August special election. Financial disclosures show a foundation controlled by Uihlein has given nearly $18 million to a Florida-based organization pushing similar changes to the constitutional amendment process in states across the country.

Uihlein didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ohio Republicans pushing to change the rules over constitutional amendments originally billed the effort as one that would prevent outside interests from influencing the state constitution. But supporters, including Secretary of State Frank LaRose, have since acknowledged the change would make it harder for a constitutional amendment on abortion to pass.

Last year, voters in Kansas and Michigan chose to preserve abortion access in their state constitutions with just under 60% approval.

Once the August special election was approved, money began to flow in on both sides. The central group opposed to raising the threshold for passing an amendment to 60%, One Person One Vote, raised a total of $14.4 million. The Sixteen Thirty Fund gave $2.5 million to the effort, campaign finance records show. The group, based in Washington D.C., has spent millions on left-leaning causes, including the campaign against the confirmation of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Overheard

Gay people aren't shooting up straight nightclubs.

A black man didn't shoot 9 white people at a prayer meeting.

Latinos aren't shooting up Walmarts filled with WASPy Americans.

Jews aren't shooting up Christians churches.

The shit is coming from one demographic: MAGA Radicalized White Men.

Today's Stochastic Thing

Cue the crazies in 3 ... 2 ...1

False flag!!

It was antifa!!

Libruls!!

Communists!!!

Man who crashed U-Haul near White House charged with threatening harm

U.S. Park Police arrested a man after a U-Haul truck crashed near the White House on Monday night, prompting the evacuation of the nearby Hay-Adams hotel.

The man, whom police did not publicly identify, was charged with threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm on the president, vice president or a family member, along with other counts including assault with a dangerous weapon and trespassing.

Police declined to provide further details early Tuesday about the nature of the alleged threat to the president, vice president or their families.

Officials opened an investigation after the box truck hit security barriers on the north side of Lafayette Square, the Secret Service said. “There were no injuries to any Secret Service or White House personnel,” agency spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said earlier Tuesday. He said a preliminary investigation indicated that the driver “may have intentionally struck” the barriers.

Earlier Tuesday, a Secret Service spokesman said the truck involved in the crash was “deemed safe” by D.C. police and that a driver was detained. Roads and walkways were closed during the investigation, according to the Secret Service.

It's One Big Hate Club

If you or someone you know is considering suicide,

help is available. Call 1-800-273-8255

to speak with someone now.

Or text START to 741741

to message with the Crisis Text Line.

This Moms For Liberty thing has all the earmarks of another bullshit astroturfing operation. It's irritating that VICE spends a total of 3 paragraphs speaking to the funding for these asshats.

And it's beyond annoying that there's nothing over at Southern Poverty Law Center about them either.

A Far-Right Moms Group Is Terrorizing Schools in the Name of Protecting Kids

Moms for Liberty has targeted teachers, administrators, parents, and school board members, orchestrating harassment campaigns that have left people fearing for their safety—and in some cases, their lives.

Tony was at church one Sunday when his boyfriend’s parents outed him as gay, walking over to his own parents and just blurting it out. They had found Snapchat messages the teenagers exchanged, and in an instant, Tony’s whole world fell apart.

His mother Carolyn, who was raised in the Southern Baptist Church and was her local church secretary at the time, was furious at her son. “She kept telling me that I was going to hell and that it was wrong, that I had to change my ways,” Tony, whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons, told VICE News. Carolyn forced him into counseling sessions with his church’s pastor, who in turn told him that being gay was evil.

Tony’s mental health spiraled soon after being outed in January 2022. He stopped playing baseball, locked himself away in his bedroom, and eventually started cutting and stabbing himself with pencils. But he found some hope through the Rainbow Youth Project, an LGBTQ advocacy group whom he first contacted a month later, in February.

In late March, Carolyn gave her permission for Tony to start counseling with the group, and Tony felt that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Then, two months later, out of nowhere, his mother revoked her permission. Carolyn tells VICE News she’ll never forget how Tony responded to her ban: “Mom, you just killed me.”

Later that day, Tony attempted to die by suicide.

Carolyn’s decision didn’t spring out of nowhere: Moms for Liberty, an organization that calls itself a “parental rights group,” had convinced Carolyn that the Rainbow Youth Project was trying to “convince Tony to have his private parts removed and changed.”

Carolyn first contacted Moms for Liberty after she heard about them on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News in February 2022, believing they could help her find a “cure” for her son’s homosexuality, she asked for advice on Twitter.

Over the next couple of months, Carolyn was bombarded with information and directed to posts from the group’s co-founder Tiffany Justice, all of which helped convince her to revoke permission for Tony’s counseling.

A couple of weeks after Tony attempted to die by suicide, completely out of the blue, a member of the Austin chapter of Moms for Liberty knocked on Carolyn’s door. The woman, who introduced herself as Rebecca and was wearing a Moms for Liberty shirt, spent two hours sitting in Carolyn’s living room, telling her about evil books in school libraries and the horrors of drag shows, according to Carolyn. Rebecca also showed Carolyn information from hate-filled social media accounts like LibsofTikTok and Gays Against Groomers and even information taken directly from the notorious doxing and trolling website Kiwi Farms.

At the end of their meeting, Carolyn told VICE News that the woman suggested she sue the Rainbow Youth Project for “damaging” her son.

While this was all happening, Tony was down the hall, locked away in his bedroom, where he had painted the windows black to block out the outside world. After the meeting, Carolyn took Tony to another “Christian therapy” session. Tony’s already fragile mental health worsened, and in July, he once again attempted to die by suicide. It was at this point that Carolyn realized the damage she was doing to her son.

“Looking back, it was never about Tony. It was about them.”

“They were trying to indoctrinate me to be a foot soldier for their cause, to hold bake sales and raise money, go to the school boards and stand up and fight against them,” Carolyn told VICE News. “Looking back, it was never about Tony. It was about them.”

The influence Moms for Liberty had on Carolyn and Tony’s lives was not an isolated incident. Since the group’s founding in Florida in 2020, its influence over local and national Republican politics has grown exponentially: It’s now a nation-wide movement with 260 chapters that claims to be a “grassroots” group working to protect students and defend parents’ rights. Its members are leading the charge on book-banning campaigns across the country and the group says it has helped install 275 of its favored candidates on school boards in 2022 alone, dozens of whom don’t have any children attending public schools in their districts.

The group’s methods, however, belie the wholesome vision it tries to project. VICE News has spoken to students, administrators, parents, superintendents, school board members, and teachers who have faced vicious attacks by Moms for Liberty. Their stories paint a picture of a group that conducts orchestrated harassment campaigns against individuals, that’s resulted in many fearing for their safety and, in some cases, their lives.

“The greatest impact that Moms for Liberty is having is imparting fear, within the teachers and the educators and in the parents,” Laura Leigh-Abby, co-founder of Defense of Democracy, a nonprofit group advocating for inclusive education, told VICE News. “The true impact they’re having is really not calculable, because I’m seeing teachers who are afraid to speak out because they don't want to be targeted.”

In response to a detailed list of questions about the specific allegations made against Moms for Liberty in this article, Moms for Liberty pointed VICE News to a press release issued earlier this month speaking about a vague “coordinated effort” aimed at discrediting the group.

“We reject any accusations of dangerous behavior made against us as false,” Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich wrote in a joint statement. “We strongly reject any attempts to portray our members as violent or threatening.”

Tony has seen first-hand how widespread Moms for Liberty’s impact is. In a virtual peer group of 14 other young people organized by the Rainbow Youth Project: ”There are four others in there that have been through exactly what I have been, where Moms for Liberty and Fox News have totally pulled their parents into this same trap my mom went through.”

And Moms for Liberty is spreading its warped version of “parental rights” across the country.

According to the Moms for Liberty website, the group now has over 265 chapters in 43 states with a total membership of over 110,000. As the maps from the group’s website shows, the movement is strongest in its home state of Florida, but it is clear that Moms for Liberty is now very much a national organization, with dozens of chapters in blue states like New York and California.

In Pennsylvania, the leader of a local Moms for Liberty chapter allegedly hijacked a dead woman’s Facebook page to harass her enemies, including using the N-word and saying they should hang from a noose. In Arkansas, the head of communications of the Lonoke County chapter said that librarians should be “plowed down with a freaking gun.” In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a member of a local Moms for Liberty chapter harassed an opposing group, threatened to report them for child abuse, and called them “pedophile sympathizers.” In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, police had to be called to a school board meeting after members of Moms for Liberty accused attendees of being “groomers” and wanting to show explicit pictures to children. In Charleston, South Carolina, a Moms for Liberty-affiliated member of the local school board publicly stated he would show up at his son’s teacher’s doorstep with a gun if the teacher came out as transgender.

The group’s incredible growth over the course of two years coincided with—and helped create—a wider national debate about the politicization of the education system. But the group’s beginnings were focused not on the national fight, but on a hyper-local dispute.

A rallying cry for like-minded parents

Initially, Moms for Liberty was seemingly created to harass just one woman.

Tina Descovich helped found the group after losing a school board re-election in Brevard County, Florida, to a woman named Jennifer Jenkins. “In the beginning, I thought this was a joke because when they came to our school board meetings, I used to call them, jokingly, ‘Moms Against Jennifer Jenkins’ because they didn’t have this cohesive thought or mission,” Jenkins told VICE News.

But that quickly changed. As Moms for Liberty grew, Descovich was joined by Tiffany Justice, a former school board member in neighboring Indian River County, and Bridget Ziegler, a member of the Sarasota County School Board, and the trio officially incorporated Moms for Liberty as a 501(c)4 nonprofit in January 2021.

Ziegler’s involvement was key for the group’s evolution: She was deeply entwined with the GOP machine both locally and nationally. Her husband is the chair of the Florida GOP, and Ziegler has ties to national organizations like the influential Leadership Institute, an advocacy group that trains conservative activists. She was also photographed at her election night victory party last August alongside two members of the Proud Boys. Ziegler has denied any close links to the street-fighting group, labeling them “a menace” after she appeared in the photo with them. (Disclosure: Gavin McInnes, who founded the Proud Boys in 2016, was a co-founder of VICE in 1994. He left the company in 2008 and has had no involvement since then.)

Ziegler, Justice, and Descovich, who didn’t respond to VICE News’ request for comment for this article, quickly latched onto the titanic struggle over mask mandates that was raging across the country and used it as a rallying cry for like-minded parents.

They still remained focused, however, on Jenkins. At first, the group attacked her during board meetings over her support of COVID restrictions. Then, members of Moms for Liberty, which at this point had a few dozen members, began getting in Jenkins’ face at the meetings, recording videos of her and posting them on their Facebook page, where they would mock her.

Weeks later, Jenkins noticed that members of extremist groups were showing up at the meetings and standing with Moms for Liberty.

In February 2021, things turned nasty. Descovich posted the school district’s LGBTQ guideline document, which provides privacy rights to trans students, on her personal Facebook page and claimed the schools were implementing it behind people’s backs.

The document wasn’t actually new. The school board had been working on it for over a year, even when Descovich was a part of the school board. She’d even had meetings with the superintendent about the guidelines, Jenkins said. Mark Mullins, the superintendent at the time, did not respond to a request for comment.

“She disseminated it to the entire community as if it was brand new, because of one Democrat who’s on the board, and she spread it on Moms for Liberty and it created this insane rage in our community,” Jenkins said. “And that’s really when it started to get crazy.”

The outrage came to a head at a board meeting in March, which Jenkins described as a “mini-insurrection.”

While scenes of chaos at school board meetings are now all too familiar, the protests outside the Brevard County meeting that night were shocking.

LGBTQ students and their parents attending the meeting had to walk through a gauntlet of protesters shouting “shame on you.” Video footage from the event shows a truck with American flags driving up and down the street outside the building, with the driver shouting through a speaker, calling those protesting to support the rights of LGBTQ students “sick pedophiles” and “child molesters.”

“If you thought January 6 was bad, wait until you see what we have for you!”

“I became the focal point of their outrage because I was defending our LGBTQ students and staff. I wasn’t the only one on the board defending them, but I was definitely not afraid to say it loud and proud,” Jenkins said.

In April, the protests moved from the school board meetings to Jenkins’ house.

A group of protesters shouted the word “pedophiles” at the house. At one point, the crowd mistook two friends of Jenkins for her and her husband, shouting at them. In Jenkins’ recollection, the protesters shouted: “We’re coming for you. We’re coming at you like a freight train! We are going to make you beg for mercy. If you thought January 6 was bad, wait until you see what we have for you!”

A spokesperson for Moms for Liberty denied the group had any involvement in the protests at Jenkins’ house, pointing to previous comments from Descovich given to Florida Today in 2021: “First and foremost, Jennifer Jenkins is a mom and it’s unacceptable to have that kind of behavior in front of her home," Descovich said. "I don’t, I don’t agree with it. I don’t support it in any way at all and it’s just unacceptable behavior. It’s not good for our community."

While Jenkins said she mostly didn’t fear for her own life, she remembered one incident where a man was protesting at her house and then left to go to a school board meeting. On the way to the meeting, he filmed himself and claimed that he was going to shoot the entire school board. Nicholas Carrington did not respond to a request for comment and the charges against him were ultimately dropped by police.

“That freaked me out because we don’t have any metal detectors or protection in place for our school board meeting,” Jenkins said.

The harassment was nonstop. At board meetings Moms for Liberty members would shout and intimidate Jenkins as she walked to and from her car, to the point where she had to be escorted by security. During school board meetings, trucks adorned with Trump stickers parked outside her house, where her husband was at home with their four-year-old daughter.

“I cried every single day,” Jenkins said, describing the difficulty of this period. “It was awful.”

The Moms for Liberty group denied being involved in the protests at Jenkins’ house, but Jenkins said she saw members of the group standing outside her home. At one protest in September 2021, Jenkins said one protester shouted: ​​“Be careful, your mommy hurts little kids!” to her daughter. Others chanted “You’re going to jail.” Her neighbors informed Jenkins they had seen protesters brandishing weapons in the church parking lot behind her house.

The next day Jenkins and her husband found a large “FU” burned into the lawn with weed killer.

Hours later, a man knocked on her door and identified himself as an investigator from the Florida Department of Children and Families. Someone had made a false complaint that she was abusing her daughter. The investigator sat at her kitchen table and asked how she disciplined her daughter before accompanying her to the play date her daughter was on at the time to check for nonexistent burn marks beneath the child’s clothes. Jenkins’ account of this is backed up by emails from the department reviewed by VICE News.

The never-ending torrent of abuse meant that an extreme situation became normalized. “I’ve always been able to talk about it so freely and openly because I’m so desensitized by what happened to me because it just became the norm,” Jenkins said. “I couldn’t get away from it. It was all day, every day.”

“It’s absolute bullshit, but they have a great message”

While all of this was happening to Jenkins, Moms for Liberty continued to grow. It was beginning to get national media attention, with fawning profiles of the group claiming it was “channeling a powerful frustration among conservative mothers.”

The group quickly expanded beyond Florida, and began harassing people across the country. By December 2021, the group claimed 70,000 members across 165 chapters in 33 states. Moms for Liberty does not state on its website what it considers a “member,” but it appears that they are counting all those who are subscribed to the Facebook groups established for each of their chapters.

While critics of the group slam the organization’s actions, they can admit that the group’s numbers swelled so quickly because it was delivering a very powerful and targeted message.

“Part of what makes us so successful is pretending, ‘We’re moms, we’re a community, we’re just grassroots, we want to help protect your children.’ It’s absolute bullshit, but they have a great message,” Leigh-Abby from Defense of Democracy said. “There’s a reason they’re growing, because they’re smart.”

In Livingston County, Michigan, a chapter allegedly engaged with extreme methods similar to those of the original group, according to court documents and first-hand accounts of those targeted.

During a September 2021 board meeting to discuss mask mandates, Jennifer Smith, the chapter chair of the local Moms for Liberty group, sent the school board a chilling message: “We are coming for you. Take that as a threat. Call the FBI. I don’t care.”

One parent at the meeting, Sarah Cross, took up Smith on her offer and called the FBI. As a result, Smith was contacted by an FBI agent who was tracking possible domestic terrorism cases linked to school board meetings. A couple of months later, Cross was threatened directly.

“My first encounter with Moms for Liberty was at a school board meeting in 2021 when a parent threatened to punch me in the face,” Cross, a lawyer and the mother of a biracial student in the district, told VICE News about her encounters with the group.

Cross was at the Brighton Area School District meeting to speak out against an email a school administrator had sent comparing the masking of children to prevent the spread of COVID to the Holocaust. At the meeting, Cross asked a group of people wearing Moms for Liberty shirts to stop interrupting the speakers and talking amongst themselves, which is when one of the members threatened her.

But this was just the beginning of the harassment Cross faced from Smith.

“The local chapter leader”—Smith—“has become obsessed with me,” Cross told VICE News. “I had a restraining order against her for stalking. She’s made completely baseless allegations that I stalked and harassed her children and that I got her husband fired from her job. She shares my home address with people in the community because she wants people to harass me.”

Smith did not respond to a request for comment from VICE News.

Cross said that a number of other strange things have occurred as well: Someone appeared to have cut the cables to her outdoor lights; a nail was placed behind the tire of her car; someone tried to steal her dog, twice; and someone parked across the road and took pictures of her family.

Cross has even installed security cameras on her property, because of the harassment she believes stems directly from the Moms for Liberty group.

“My daughter is afraid to go outside,” Cross said. “She gets flipped off when she goes out to get the mail.”

Cross blames Moms for Liberty and believes that acceptance of the abusive behavior by adults is emboldening students in the area’s schools to follow suit. “My daughter has been called the N-word in school,” Cross said, adding that another student had a swastika drawn on their back.

“It’s not gonna go away,” Cross said. “It’s just gonna get worse. People don’t realize what they’re about, how powerful they are and the momentum that’s gaining and they’re not going to stop.”

Smith, the head of the local Moms for Liberty chapter, doesn’t appear to have been inconvenienced by these accusations. Instead, she’s been empowered further: Smith was elected as head of the Livingston County GOP in December 2022.

“Fewer and fewer reasonable people are willing to run”

One of those surprised by Moms for Liberty’s presence in the more liberal corners of America is Dianne Jones, who successfully ran for re-election to the Fremont Unified School Board in Alameda last year against Moms for Liberty-backed candidate Jennifer Kavouniaris.

“I live in the Bay Area in California, one of the most progressive places in the country. If a candidate like this can gain traction here, I’m nervous for the rest of the country,” Jones told VICE News. “The process of running against this candidate was grueling and, at times, frightening,” Jones said. “During the campaign I was called a tyrant, an extremist, a Marxist, a ‘groomer,’ and a danger to children. My family had to take extra security precautions.”

As well as attacking Jones publicly, Kavouniaris also sought to derail her opponent’s campaign privately, sending direct messages that called attention to the fact that Jones’ eldest child was transgender and had just qualified as a teacher. “There is a fine line between pride and grooming,” Kavouniaris wrote in one text message reviewed by VICE News, referencing a picture of Jones’ child in their classroom, which featured a trans flag.

When Kavouniaris lost, rather than conceding, she circulated voter fraud conspiracy theories and on her social media accounts continues to attempt to undermine social and emotional learning and sex ed curriculums in her local public schools—even though she has admitted her own daughter attends private school.

Kavouniaris did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

The COVID pandemic and resultant mask mandates have made school boards the frontline of the national battle playing out between the right and the left, and places that were traditionally safe and peaceful have become difficult and dangerous, Jones says.

“Fewer and fewer reasonable people are willing to run which is leaving a void for Moms for Liberty candidates to fill. The bottom line is that Jen and other Moms for Liberty candidates are inciting people with conspiracy theories and inflammatory accusations about grooming that put trustees, teachers, and LGBTQ students in real danger.”

“They felt I had an agenda”

Larry Leaven has dedicated almost his entire working life to public education, working as a teacher and a principal in New York and setting up an English-language school in Hong Kong before returning, in August 2021, to New York State, where he was appointed superintendent for the Florida Union Free School District.

But things quickly turned sour when a small cohort of local Moms for Liberty members began attending school board meetings to berate Leaven in person while simultaneously mounting an online harassment campaign calling for his resignation.

The attacks focused on the fact that Leaven is an openly gay man, and also highlighted that he had attended an event with author and religion professor Anthea Butler, who was speaking about her book, White Evangelical Racism.

One of the group’s biggest criticisms of Leaven related to the availability of the book Gender Queer, which was actually available in the school district before he was ever appointed. The attacks got worse after Leaven was invited to read to a group of kindergarten children at a local library and he chose to read the book Pink is for Boys.

“The [Moms for Liberty] group, because they have some type of mental illness, they felt I had an agenda,” Leaven told VICE News. “They took all of this as a threat and something that I was bringing to the district and that I was going to destroy the district.”

“I thought I knew how to handle these types of people because I grew up with it,” Leaven said, who was raised and educated in the white evangelical community.

But in November 2022, just over a year after taking up the role, he resigned.

“I’m absolutely shocked at how quickly they have been able to manifest and to really destroy communities, but I’m really not surprised,” Leaven said. “I don’t want to give Donald Trump more credit, but I really think that when leaders lead with hate and with violent comments, I think that gives permission to people and I think this group, it made it easier for them to be able to do this to the community.”

Leaven was not the only superintendent who was forced out as a result of Moms for Liberty’s attack campaigns.

Last November, two hours after being sworn in, six Moms for Liberty-backed candidates in Berkeley County School District, South Carolina fired Deon Jackson, the district’s first Black superintendent. The group also fired the district’s lawyer, banned critical race theory, and set up a committee to decide which books and materials should be banned from schools.

“Six new board members clean house first night on the job,” the administrators of the group’s Facebook page wrote the same night.

Weeks later in Sarasota County, Florida, the school board, which is now chaired by Moms for Liberty co-founder Ziegler, ousted Superintendent Brennan Asplen, who guided the district through the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ian, without giving a reason. In Brevard County, public schools Superintendent Mark Mullins was forced out of his position as a result of Moms for Liberty-backed candidates taking control of the school board.

And it’s not just superintendents being forced out of their positions. Alexander Ingram, who worked in a public school in Jacksonville, Florida, resigned last year because of his school board’s failure to defend him against attacks from Moms for Liberty.

“I became a teacher to nurture young minds, and I think every teacher recently has had to imagine the scenario of what it would be like to shield their children from a hail of bullets in the event of an active shooter,” Ingram told VICE News. “So it is particularly hurtful when Moms for Liberty, and other far-right extremists come to school board members and call teachers, in the room, ‘groomers’ and ‘pedophiles.’”

Ingram was also doxxed by members of the group because of his off-duty activism around removing local Confederate monuments. “I received death threats like, ‘he shouldn’t be breathing, much less teaching,’ as well as people emailing my principal and our superintendent that I should be fired for ‘indoctrinating children’ and teaching ‘CRT.”

“I received death threats like, ‘he shouldn’t be breathing, much less teaching.’”

Even those whom Moms for Liberty profess to be protecting have denounced their methods.

“As a high school senior, I have witnessed first-hand the influence of Moms for Liberty and their fear mongering tactics,” Chloe Boggs, the president of the Youth Chapter of Women’s Voices of Southwest Florida, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting reproductive rights, told VICE News. “Countless students have explained to me their experiences with racism, antisemitism, and homophobia following the rise in political tension within Florida school systems. My peers and I are forced into the middle of all of this. We have watched our education become politicized day after day. We have no choice but to fight for our right to a safe, honest, and inclusive education in any way we can.”

Despite all of the damage Moms for Liberty members are doing across the country, the group has continued to grow its membership and as its influence in the Republican Party, as education shapes up to be one of the leading topics during the 2024 presidential election.

As Trump waded into the education wars last month by telling a crowd in Iowa that he would ban the teaching of critical race theory in schools and "bring back parental rights into our schools" if reelected as president, Moms for Liberty said that it would not play a formal role during the 2024 campaign for any one candidate, but given the close ties between the group and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—who spoke at its first national convention—it seems he’ll have Moms for Liberty in his corner.

“He has made a lot of decisions to make a lot of moms happy in this country,” Descovich told Reuters last month.

Despite Descovich’s claims that they are planning to stay out of the political sphere, the group’s members continue to harass and intimidate those standing in the way of their agenda.

Having the investigator for the Florida Department of Children and Families called to her home was a breaking point for Jenkins, who spoke out during a board meeting in October 2021. Footage of her speech quickly went viral and gained national media attention.

While the harassment of Jenkins has subsided, it has never fully gone away.

“I don’t think it’ll ever rise to the same level again, but I do fear that it is starting all over again, but in a different way, because they feel empowered and emboldened by two new members that are on the board,” Jenkins said referring to the election last November of two Moms for Liberty board members. “The two people who got elected are super extreme.”

One of those board members, Megan Wright, told VICE News she had nothing to do with the protests at Jenkins’ house, adding: “If Mrs. Jenkins thinks it’s “super extreme” to want only biological females to use the girls bathroom and biological males to use the boys bathroom, then I am guilty. “ The other board member, Gene Trent, did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment.

Tony, who is now 19, is still trying to recover and reclaim his life. Thanks to Rainbow Youth Project, he’s managed to move from his home in Texas to San Diego, where he’s back in school and playing baseball again. He’s in counseling and hasn’t self-harmed in four months. As for his relationship with his mother, it’s still a work in progress.

“A lot of people hold her responsible for what happened and she is partially responsible. We’ve had that discussion and she knows how I feel about that,” Tony said. “But she’s really trying. Our relationship is getting stronger. We’re not there yet, but it’s getting stronger.”

Carolyn says the memory of finding her son lying unconscious on the floor of his bedroom after taking an overdose will never leave her, and while she accepts responsibility for her actions, she knows they were based on information given to her by Moms for Liberty.

“I’m responsible because I was literally putting him second to all of this, for lack of a better term, bullshit, that they were giving to me, and I will never do that again. Ever,” Carolyn said.

“They are preying on people and when you have a question and you’re trying to save your kid, they took advantage of me and I honestly believe they do that with other parents.”

To Be Clear

(via Parler - because of course)

I realize most of us by now understand that whoever posted this wasn't just complaining about "the media".

Not that any of the clown platoon on Parler will bother to Google it, but:

So we know it's not true, but that's not the only point. There's a double- or triple- or fourple- or just plain ol' ordinary multi-whammy thing that's been going on that really is next-level shitty.

The poster is saying at least these 4 other things:

1. Black people are just as bad
2. White people are the real victims
3. Change the subject - don't let it be about the guns
4. "(((they)))" = "the Jews"

And not that anyone here is unaware of this shittiness, but it pays to reiterate.

Because we have to go on countervailing the fantasy scare-the-white-people bullshit coming from "the conservatives".

Good little liberals get tired of having to explain the same fucking thing over and over. And rightly so, BTW - you shouldn't have to plow the same ground - you shouldn't have to chew the same cabbage - don't keep pluckin' the same damned chicken (pick your aphorism and insert here). But repetition, over a long-enough timeline is how "the other side" gets the bullshit to stick.

So we have to keep applying the Mental Teflon.