September 13, 2019 01:16 PM UTC

Racist and Anti-Semitic Posts Appear on Facebook Pages of Leaders of Garcia Recall Campaign

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• by: Jason Salzman

(Wow – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

One leader of the effort to recall Colorado state Senate President Leroy Garcia (D-Pueblo) is speculating that her Facebook page was hacked, while another leader isn’t commenting, in response to questions about racist or anti-Semitic posts on both of their Facebook pages.

“Today reaffirms my disdain for illegals…Barbarians…3rd world pigs,” wrote Ernest Mascarenas, who’s listed in state records as one of three leaders of the recall effort, on Facebook Feb. 12, where he goes by the name Ernest Carlos. “Pissed in a bottle and threw it down the elevator shaft, landing on a elevator worker. If you like them so much and want them here that bad, take them into your home…BUILD THAT WALL.”

In another comment posted July 10 above a DailyCaller article with the headline, “BET Founder Gives Thumbs Up To Trump, Thumbs Down To Democrats,” Mascarenas wrote, “You’ll always have the dumb minorities that’ll support the Democrats… All the way to the oven.”

Multiple attempts to reach Mascarenas to discuss the Facebook posts, which were obtained from a source, were not successful.

Susan Carr, also listed in state filings as a leader of the Garcia recall, has apparently made similar comments, referring on Facebook to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) as “trying her best to do Hitler’s work.”

Carr’s 2013 apparent comment came in response to Feinstein’s calls for new gun laws after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre in 2012.

Carr’s Facebook page states that by pushing gun safety legislation, Feinstein, whom Carr refers to as “some 80-year-old Jewish Senator (b 6-22-33 SF Ca)” who is “old enough to know about the events in Germany in the thirties and forties when Adolf murdered millions of Jews,” is “trying her best to do Hitler’s work in the U.S.”

In another 2013 Facebook comment, which like the others was obtained from a source, Carr apparently “liked” a post stating that Feinstein’s and California Sen. Barbara Boxer’s “predecessors ‘should’ have not escaped mengeles (sic).”

In the same comment threat, someone joked that Boxer and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) should be murdered, to which Carr apparently replied, “I can’t even ‘like’ that. Someone will come a knocking on my door…. But I’m laughing like a hyena.”

Last year, Carr apparently shared a QAnon video portraying former Sen. Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama as criminals who should be hanged for treason. A comment under the QAnon video, apparently from Carr, describes them in a similar fashion.

Content from QAnon routinely promotes conspiracies or unproven allegations.

Reached by phone by the Colorado Times Recorder, Carr did not remember any of the Facebook activity described above.

Carr speculated that someone might have posted the comments and content on her Facebook page before she “tightened” her security settings.

“Back in the old days, and you probably will recall this, before people knew how to tighten their privacy settings and their security, anybody could post to your page,” she said. “And people did.”

In 2013, only hackers or people with Carr’s permission could have posted under her name, but not friends.

“Who knows with Facebook,” she said. “It could have been something I shared. I have no idea. I don’t remember that far back, to be honest with you.”

Told about her post saying Feinstein does “Hitler’s work,” Carr replied, “I said that? Wow. I doubt it,” she said.

“No, that just doesn’t even sound like something I would say,” she said.

“Seriously, that isn’t who I am,” insisted Carr, who said she joined Facebook to keep up with her family and friends.

“I don’t believe that I ever said something like that, honestly, because it so goes against my brain, the Hitler reference that is.”

She said she doesn’t make “Hitler references” because “the minute you mention Hitler, you’ve lost the argument if you were trying to make one.”

A 2016 post on Carr’s Facebook page also says she “never liked Hitler comparisons,” but the post goes on to laud such a comparison as making “great talking points.”

In the 2016 post, Carr apparently shared a YouTube video on Facebook titled, “DUBUNKED: Trump is Hitler? Why Hillary Is More like the Fuhrer.”

She wrote, “I never liked Hitler comparisons…Remember Godwins Law! But this is truly an eyeopener…providing some great talking points.”

As for QAnon, she said flatly, “I don’t buy into the QAnon conspiracy at all. Never have… I’d love to have something to believe in, but that’s certainly not one of my beliefs.”

She asked the Colorado Times Recorder to send her copies of the Facebook content in question, and she would determine whether they were hers.

Carr later declined further comment, explaining that she might have more to say about the posts depending on what was reported by the Colorado Times Recorder.

Bigotry is defined as the expression of hatred, intolerance, or condemnation of a group, like people of a specific religious or ethnic background. Based on this common definition, the Colorado Times Recorder is labeling, as a factual matter, many of the Facebook posts in this article as bigoted and racist.

It appears that the most common slurs on social media and talk radio in Colorado in recent years have been directed at Muslims.

One of Mascarenas’ Facebook profile photos, for example, states, “Fuck Islam,” eliciting a commenter to write, “Kill em all.”

Carr, who’s listed as a press contact on the website of her group aiming to recall Garcia, said she “barely” knows fellow-leader Mascarenas and could not arrange an interview with him.

“I got asked to be the media person for the recall,” she said, explaining that an activist involved in the 2013 recall of former state Sen. Angela Giron, a Democrat, “wanted somebody else to be the face.”

This week, Republicans abandoned recall efforts aimed at Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO), state Sen. Pete Lee (R-CO Springs), and state Sen. Brittney Pettersen, after signature-gathering efforts failed or stalled. A similar effort targeting state Rep. Tom Sullivan (D-Centennial) was also called to a halt due to a lack of money. A recall of state Rep. Rochelle Galindo (D-Greeley) ended when Galindo resigned in the wake of a police investigation.