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(Jeff Danziger, via gocomics.com)
Much has been made of the "Black Lives Matter" protest at Bernie Sanders' aborted rally in Seattle last week. In fact, it seems to have spurred the Sanders campaign to issue strong policy positions on criminal justice reform and other BLM targets (and has gotten the attention of the Clinton campaign as well). Well, so far, so good.
But we also need to consider the possibility that these disruptions, assuming they continue, might not always be what they seem. In that regard, Ben Cohen at Daily Banter has received a lot of heat in the past few days about an article he wrote exposing the background of one of the Seattle BLM disrupters, Marissa Jenae Johnson (the one with the crucifix earrings). Specifically, Cohen wrote
Well, this doesn’t look good for Marissa Janae Johnson, the activist who disrupted a Bernie Sanders rally over the weekend in order to call his supporters racist and white supremacists. In a post on facebook page, the “Radical Christian Mullatinist” (whatever that is) revealed she was at one point a Sarah Palin supporter:
We also did a little Googling on Ms. Johnson. She seems to be somewhat of a featured student at Seattle Pacific University majoring in "Christian Scripture." And what of Seattle Pacific University? It's described as a "conservative evangelical" school linked to the Free Methodist Church. Based on that and her youthful attraction to Sarah "Winky" Palin, we would guess Ms. Jackson's political interests align more with Dr. Ben "On Meds?" Carson than any Democrat.
Of course, both women are entitled to whatever political views they choose. But it should have been clear based on some of the authoritarian comments Johnson directed to Sanders' audience (Example from CNN: "You are never going to hear Bernie speak if I don't hear silence now. Now that you've covered yourself in your white supremacist liberalism, I will formally welcome Bernie Sanders to Seattle." ) that she had a very different ideological foundation. "White supremacist liberalism?" Sounds like those wingnuts that tell us the KKK was founded by a Democrat 150 years ago, as if the past 50 years hadn't happened.
To the extent BLM is an organized national operation, it's leadership has stepped back from the actions of Johnson and Mara Jacqueline Willaford at Seattle; it seems they were "independent operators," and the BLM leaders want them to apologize to Sanders. Don't hold your breath.
