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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | racism

Mort Zuckerman’s Rag Got All the Facts Wrong on First Lady Michelle Obama’s Trip

By on 10 August 2010

“Taylor, I never heard of you before. But you (sic) just one of the thousands of stupid elitist media whores out there, pimping for that fat Nazi bitch Michelle. Spare us already!” – Stan Lippmann (email from a reader)

Mort’s got some classy friends, doesn’t he?

When I posted about the New York Daily News hit piece on First Lady Michelle Obama I got quite a few emails, especially from Huffington Post. The one above is indicative of the hatred out there, but also what’s directed towards me from all sides, no matter what I write.

But as I wrote, what Zuckerman’s rag unload against the First Lady via a Republican operative, Andrea Tantaros, was not only wrong, but stunningly so. The emails from Obama haters prove that these people cannot be reached through details or the truth. Some more facts, beyond what I provided earlier, from Lynn Sweet.

[...] … First, some numbers. Mrs. Obama did not travel with 40 friends, a number used by some news outlets.

She vacationed with two women, one of them a longtime Chicago pal, Anita Blanchard, who is the obstetrician who delivered Sasha and Malia. Blanchard is married to Marty Nesbitt — President Obama’s buddy and the treasurer of Obama’s presidential campaign fund.

There was one other woman. Total: four daughters among the three women. They paid for their hotel rooms and other personal and travel expenses.

The trip involved six White House advance staffers and two East Wing staffers, deputy Chief of Staff Melissa Winter and Mrs. Obama’s personal assistant, Kristen Jarvis, according to Mrs. Obama’s spokeswoman Catherine McCormick Lelyveld.

Mrs. Obama does travel with significant security — and in a trip like this, three shifts of uniformed and plain-clothes agents and military personnel flew with her on a big Air Force 757. No matter where she goes — domestic or international — any first lady gets protection and she does not decide how many agents are needed.

So why did Mrs. Obama go to Spain at this time? She’s not tone-deaf politically. What was behind the “mother-daughter” vacation?

A White House source told me that Blanchard’s father passed away and Mrs. Obama was not able to make the funeral at the beginning of July. Blanchard had promised her daughter she would take her to Spain for her birthday. She asked Mrs. Obama and Sasha to come with. (Malia is at overnight camp.)

“She felt it was important as a dear friend to do this,” I was told. …

Hey Mort, you’re still a punk.

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Fareed Zakaria Returns ADL Award & Honorarium

By on 07 August 2010

[...] The purpose of this letter is more straightforward. I cannot in good conscience hold onto the award or the honorarium that came with it and am returning both. I hope that it might add to the many voices that have urged you to reconsider and reverse your position on this issue. This decision will haunt the ADL for years if not decades to come. Whether or not the center is built, what is at stake here is the integrity of the ADL and its fidelity to its mission. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain your reputation. – Fareed Zakaria


Bill Maher’s “Religulous”

The ADL’s Abe Foxman responds to Zakaria (via Memeorandum) in what amounts to remarkable irony: ADL has and will continue to stand up for Muslims… I know, pretty stunning word salad considering Mr. Foxman’s revealing hypocrisy over Cordoba House.

Meanwhile, Foxman, who has now disgraced the ADL as well as its reputation, seems to be taking his talking points from Bushie Dan Senor, who said on “Morning Joe” yesterday that if those wanting to build the mosque really wanted one, they’d move it. Oh, and Senor and his buddies would help defray the costs and grease the wheels so they could slide through bureaucratic red tape. Aw, aren’t these Republicans sweet, the very definition of compassionate conservatism. You bow to our standards of religious intolerance and we’ll pat you on the head for caving to anti Muslim hate.

Foxman is “holding” Fareed Zakaria’s check and the award for him. Unless Foxman reverses himself, which isn’t bloody likely, I doubt Zakaria will accept it back.

Not too many people that would make such a stand these days. You sure aren’t seeing anything close coming from progressive or Democratic legislators, who are cowardly quiet on the whole Ground Zero mosque issue. No guts. But it does explain why we can’t get out of the hamster wheel Middle East policy of the past, because no one will stand up to the right, wherever it finds itself, which for Democrats where Israel is concerned is centered up Sen. Chuck Schumer’s posterior.

As for embedding Bill Maher’s “Religulous” (the movie in full), it seems fitting given the uproar over building a mosque near Ground Zero, a little philosophical humility injected into the debate about now is desperately needed.

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Glenn Beck’s Racism: ‘It’s like the damned planet of the apes.’

By on 06 August 2010

No racism here, right all you Tea Party Republicans?

Let’s see if the Beckistan brigade attacks the site again simply for posting Beck’s racism for all to see. I’m not sure if it’s a remnant of very old, backwards Mormon teachings, which the people like majority leader Reid have gotten past a long time ago or what, but it’s obvious Mr. Beck missed a few church lessons. Why is it the alleged religious are always the worst on this stuff?

To add from some of the emails I’m getting, this is a classic and quite a testament to the racist crowd watching Beck:

“Glenn Beck is the least racist of all the Fox New People. I watch him just about every day and he is great at getting to the truth. …” – BL

Fox News, your Southern strategy station in action, confirmed by viewers themselves.

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Birther Crazies and Dangerous Games

By on 04 August 2010

The president celebrates his 49th birthday Wednesday. On the same day, a new national poll indicates some Americans continue to doubt the president was born in the United States. According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey, more than a quarter of the public have doubts about Obama’s citizenship… “Eighty-five percent of Democrats say that Obama was definitely or probably born in the U.S., compared to 68 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans. Twenty-seven percent of Republicans say he was probably not born here, and another 14 percent of Republicans say he was definitely not born in the U.S.” – CNN Poll: Quarter doubt Obama was born in U.S.



The partisan divide on this issue is edifying only to the extent that it proves that right-wing smear merchants have far too much oxygen in the public square. It’s why the Obama administration caving to Andrew Breitbart on the Sherrod firing was so dangerous and sent exactly the wrong message. Included in the swiftboating crew is right-wing radio, but also the scurrilous attacks Pres. Obama receives via some members of the Fox News channel, including Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and the “Fox and Friends” crew.

You’d think in the 21st century people could disagree over politics without birther nonsense still holding sway on the right. But considering Pres. Obama’s image is also being used as target practice in a “shooting game,” it illustrates that many representing the right today are just plain crazy, dangerously so.

Gov. Lingle, a Republican, has investigated Obama’s birth:

In a WABC interview before signing the legislation, Lingle said, “…I had my health director, who is a physician by background, go personally view the birth certificate in the birth records of the Department of Health.” Lingle added, ” … The president was in fact born at Kapi’olani Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii. And that’s just a fact.” “It’s been established he was born here,” the governor continued. “I can understand why people want to make certain that the constitutional requirement of being a, you know, natural born American citizen … but the question has been asked and answered. And I think just we should all move on now.” – CNN

Anyone thinking the Republican Tea Party is good for America simply isn’t paying attention to the issues. It’s all emotions at play, sort of like unruly teenagers who can’t be trusted so shouldn’t be left in control of anything.

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Shirley Sherrod to Sue Andrew Breitbart

By on 29 July 2010



“I will definitely do it,” Sherrod said when asked.

Game on.

Let me add that this all might end up to be more than Ms. Sherrod bargained for, as defamation lawsuits are never easy. It may be more trouble than it’s worth. Shirley’s choice.

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Michael Steele’s RNC Date with Andrew Breitbart

By on 26 July 2010

Breitbart’s hot and Michael Steele has got him.

So, come one!

Come all you right-wing Republicans and bring your cash.

This is how Republicans play the game. No shame. No blinking. They embrace their inner wingnut with both arms and open doors hoping Mr. Breitbart will bring in boat loads of cash when he comes. Because in the end for them it’s all about winning and anyone who can help rally the troops to help them do it is okay in their book.

I’d like to say that the 21st century Democratic Party has illustrated its own inner fighter, but since the Supreme Court handed the 2000 election to Bush we haven’t seen enough of it.

…and as much as I appreciate the sentiments of E.J. Dionne today, I also can’t begin to express how mind-numbingly sick I am of hearing another “call to action” over the latest wingnut outrage.

You’d think after getting beat on messaging by Sarah Palin’s “death panel” cry from her Facebook page, which happened one year ago this coming August, there would be a Democratic war room already geared up to take on predictable attacks like Mr. Breitbart’s race-baiting character assassinations.

But, no, Democrats still believe you beat people like Breitbart and Karl Rove’s anonymously funded machine by being reasonable.

In fact, Shirley Sherrod didn’t even get a beer summit. What’s up with that?

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Miss Pearls: ‘The Obama White House is too white.’

By on 25 July 2010

Jesus H. Christ on a biscuit.

Miss Pearls opining on the whiteness of the Obama White House. Only in American politics would the New York Times publish such drivel. That Dowd has the gall to invoke Bill Clinton after all the trashing and thrashing she’s done to his reputation represents the height of insufferability.

(But then again they also published Jeff Gerth, the man who launched his Whitewater fiction on the American populace, which siphoned tens of millions of dollars of our taxpayer money, which didn’t come up with squat. Unless you call a porn novel by a conservative peeping Tom important.)

From Dowd:

“The president’s getting hurt real bad,” Clyburn told me. “He needs some black people around him.” He said Obama’s inner circle keeps “screwing up” on race: “Some people over there are not sensitive at all about race. They really feel that the extent to which he allows himself to talk about race would tend to pigeonhole him or cost him support, when a lot of people saw his election as a way to get the issue behind us. I don’t think people elected him to disengage on race. Just the opposite.”

Oh right, we need Rep. James Clyburn to opine on race. The man who race-baited Bill Clinton in the 2008 election while waving a fan saying, Who, me?

Whether it’s Dowd or others, now all of a sudden Pres. Obama needs more “black people” around him because of the Shirley Sherrod screw up. Honest to God, people. It was a political implosion, because the numbskulls under Rahm’s tutelage were scared crapless of Glenn Beck. Hey, but I’m all for having “black people” in Obama’s political shop, though unless they can save Obama and themselves from making an amateur political mistake by not knowing Wingnut 101, which is that Andrew Breitbart is a race-baiting character assassin, I’m not sure color would have saved the White House.

Embarrassingly, however, it is obvious no one knew the significance of Shirley Sherrod or had a clue her husband was a legendary civil rights leader. On that there can be no doubt. So, Obama could have used someone steeped “the ideological battles that we fought during the ’90s that were really extensions of battles we fought since the ’60s.”

I know. There’s that phrase again. Getting sick of it yet? Yeah, me too, but I was sick of it the first time candidate Obama uttered it. But it’s where the problem lies. Not in whether the Obama White House is too white.

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Of Teachable Moments

By on 22 July 2010

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind the race-baiting that occurred in the 2008 primaries wouldn’t stick to former Pres. Bill Clinton. It was utter bullshit.

I also have no doubt that Barack Obama never believed it of either Clinton. You don’t tap a racist to be your secretary of state, including if you think her husband is a bigot.

It was simply a useful political cudgel for Obama, Axelrod and company at a time candidate Obama needed a knock out punch. It was partisan warfare. His team was also sure the charge would be sucked up by traditional and new media, who were decidedly on Obama’s side.

It’s all been forgotten, which presents us with a teachable moment on race. In America, we simply let it go. It will all blow over.

So I’ve been waiting for Bill Clinton’s poll numbers to rise for some time. They don’t call him the Comeback Kid for nothing.

Sixty-one percent of people questioned in a Gallup survey say they have a favorable opinion of Clinton. That’s nine points higher than the 52 percent who say they see Obama in a favorable light. The poll indicates that 45 percent say they have a favorable opinion of former President George W. Bush.

Gallup says this is the first time in their polling that Clinton’s favorable rating has eclipsed that of Obama. Clinton’s numbers are up nine points from the summer of 2008, when he was branded by many people as playing a too partisan political role in helping his wife during her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination against Obama.

If Mr. Clinton was actually a racist or if anyone really believed it, beyond the partisan Obamaphile hacks, former Pres. Bill Clinton would never have recovered. But he has and for good reason. His roots belie the race-baiting lies of a partisan fight, which goes back decades to Bill Clinton’s foundation.

[...] From the start, Clinton also had an uncanny ability to forge a bond with African American voters. Judge L.T. Simes II understood why this was so: Simes had grown up picking cotton in Helena, Arkansas, at a time when the Mississippi Delta of Arkansas was predominantly segregated and inhospitable toward African Americans. … Simes immediately took note that Clinton, unlike most of the stodgy “old-boy” professors, treated black students with the utmost fairness and respect in the classroom. After becoming governor, Clinton bucked the system by appointing highly qualified blacks to key positions in state government. Simes himself became the first African American to sere as chairman of the Arkansas Soil and Water Commission. Although Clinton paid dearly, in political terms, for eschewing the prevailing culture by appointing blacks, that didn’t slow him. During the governor’s 1980 reelection campaign, Clitnon brought Simes along to a country club in an elite section of eastern Arkansas where segregatrion was still firmly entrenched. …Clinton was defeated by Frank White that fall… “We’ll be back,” he said. “We’re not going to let the people down.” – Ken Gormley, “The Death of American Virtue” (pages 22-23)

Bill Clinton’s outreach to African Americans has been a bedrock of his life.

Reaching out and finding common ground goes to the life Shirley Sherrod has lived as well. There’s been a lot of talk today about her father being shot by a white farmer over a “dispute over a few cows,” and how that informed her life. Talking about a teachable moment, Ms. Sherrod offers another one, especially for the Obama administration. Ms. Sherrod’s husband was Charles Sherrod, who was mentioned briefly today on “Morning Joe” as someone whose name should have been as familiar as “Jackson or Al Sharpton” to the NAACP. If we want to be honest, the teachable moment on race cascades outward to include Pres. Obama and his administration, who have missed the opportunity by design.

It shouldn’t be surprising that this is the second time the Obama administration has tripped on race, the first being when Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley collided and Pres. Obama weighed in. Ta-Nehisi Coate:

The argument has been made that this isn’t Obama, just the people working under him. That theory elides the responsibility of leaders to set a tone. The tone that Obama has set, in regards to race, is to retreat with great velocity in the face of anything that can be defined as “racial.” Granted, this has been politically smart. Also granted, Obama has done it with nuance. But it can not be expected that the president’s subordinates will share that nuance.

More disturbingly, this is what happens when you treat the arrest of a black man, in his home, as something that can be fixed over beers. [..]

I do not expect Barack Obama to condemn the Tea Party’s racist elements, any more than I expect Ben Jealous to lead the war in Afghanistan. But I do not expect him, or his administration, to make the work of the NAACP harder, to contradict them for doing that which the administration can not. I do not expect them to minimize those elements, thus minimizing the NAACP’s fight, and then accede, to people who are pulling from the darkest, vilest reaches of the American psyche.

The “beer summit” was supposed to be a teachable moment to move us beyond racial conflict, remember?

When Andrew Breitbart, a known wingnut assassin who lynched Shirley Sherrod, is trusted over a woman who worked her whole life fighting the civil rights battles of the ’60s that have yet to be won, therein lies an ugly reality, however difficult to accept.

Whatever teachable moment people crave on race, we live in the era of Pres. Obama who stated plainly a long time ago that he’s not interested in “the ideological battles that we fought during the ’90s that were really extensions of battles we fought since the ’60s.”

While Barack Obama was rising, Shirley Sherrod quietly and steadfastly did the work that the NAACP and other civil rights leaders from the 1960s have been doing to make his presidency possible.

So, here we are looking at Ms. Sherrod’s firing hoping yet again for another moment to make us all wiser on race.

That’s a difficult leap when the person at the top hasn’t said one word on record and in public on what happened under his watch and by his administration, while Sect. Vilsack takes the heat. Now, it’s Mr. Vilsack’s fault the “harassed” Sherrod phone calls came, but also the firing occurred, though it’s inconceivable that this action wasn’t ordered from way on high.

So the teachable moment will have to wait.

As for former Pres. Bill Clinton’s predictable, if gradual, rehabilitation we have all witnessed in 2010, not only has the Big Dog returned, but he’s doing things for Democrats Obama can’t come close to doing.

Pres. Obama’s behind it now, which won’t do Dems any good in November. But as I keep saying, even with more Republicans, which won’t impede Pres. Obama’s continuing political push to the right, the President can make gains and recover before the 2012 slugfest begins.

This reality is aided by the fact that the Republicans, including Sarah Palin’s Tea Party branch, have no new ideas. Newt Gingrich’s railing bigotry, coming after Sarah Palin’s Ground Zero anti-mosque Facebook post, is all simply a blast back to the Bush past. Republicans may buy it, but independents will not and neither will even disaffected Democrats.

Though it’s a cinch Pres. Obama will have a much rougher fight on his hands in 2012 than he ever did against McCain-Palin. …and it’s very likely that former Pres. Bill Clinton and perhaps even Hillary will be one of Pres. Obama’s strongest advocates when the time comes.

Teach that.

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Keith Olbermann at His Best, Obama at his Worst

By on 22 July 2010

[...] On the great American scourge of racism, this administration must stand, sometimes publicly, for something. Failing that it will fall–indeed, already has fallen–for anything. – On Lacking All Conviction, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


Mr. Olbermann hasn’t been this cogently outraged in over two years.

Couple that with Lawrence O’Donnell this morning, who laughingly said that the idea the Agriculture Dept. made the decision to fire Shirley Sherrod on their own is “inconceivable.” He also boiled the whole thing down to a nub: “Andrew Breitbart beat the White House.”

As for Gayle King, Obamaphile in chief, I have nothing but sympathy for her, because the more she talked today on “Morning Joe” the more ridiculously tone deaf she sounded. Though I’m sure the White House appreciates it, as they need all the help they can get since they didn’t have the courage to cut this story off the second they learned about the full story, it’s embarrassing to see anyone defend the indefensible.

It’s clear that the White House political shop hasn’t one clue how to do damage control.

…and good for Bill O’Reilly, who also came on air to make an unequivocal apology.

As for Ms. Sherrod, she wants to talk to Pres. Obama, from whom she believes she deserves a call, because he’s “not someone who has experienced some of the things I’ve experienced in life.” So, add Ms. Sherrod to the list of people who want to school Mr. Obama. He and his administration certainly could use it, though on race and class clashes it’s clear Pres. Obama and his people aren’t up to it.

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Glenn Beck Gives Obama White House Permission to ‘Reconsider’

By on 21 July 2010

But what’s galling to me–gut-wrenching, really, like watching old news footage of blacks being beaten and clubbed at lunch counters–is that Breitbart obviously understood the powerful effect his tape would have, posted it anyway, and then assumed the role of ringmaster, expertly conducting the media circus, fanning the flames. It’s hardly the first time. But the moral ugliness of what’s just happened is glaring, and it’s hard for me to see how the media can justify continuing to treat Breitbart as simply a roguish provocateur. He’s something much darker. – The Breitbart Circus, by Joshua Green

Somebody didn’t learn from the Clinton era.

What Rush Limbaugh does on radio, especially on race, is what Andrew Breitbart does in new media.

What Democrats haven’t learned is that it doesn’t matter what offerings you give the right, like Shirley Sherrod’s head on a platter. People like Andrew Breitbart simply see it as weakness. You can’t appease them. You can’t back them off by trying to make them quiet. They’ll keep on coming, regardless of their mistakes.  They have no shame and no conscience.

Sect. Vilsack is now reconsidering Ms. Sherrod’s sacking, with the NAACP admitting they’d been “snookered.” The question is why Vilsack and the White House aren’t falling over themselves to admit a mistake. It’s a lesson in how to turn a good week into a very bad one. Because the White House political team in trying to get ahead of the story without the facts, also was too ignorant to know about Mr. Breitbart’s history of disseminating his own factoids in his own package.

Once again the White House political team has failed abysmally and given the right a powerful jolt of adrenaline on a story Breitbart concocted, which not even their humiliation for being wrong will quench. You cannot unring a bell.

Wonk the Vote makes a powerful point worth consideration in her diary today, whether you agree with its finer point or not:

The NAACP opened up this can of worms by passing that “resolution” calling the Tea Party racist. IMHO not a good plan. Not well thought out. For one thing, it further alienates disaffected voters who this tactic no longer works on but could still be won back to the Democrats if only they would behave like Democrats and pass a real Democratic agenda. Moreover, it OBVIOUS the right-wing haterade would go on a witchhunt in response to this resolution tactic. I saw it coming 10,000 miles away. This is what the inhabitants of Glenn Beckistan do. It’s their pattern. It’s counterproductive and ineffective to fight them with “boycotts” and “resolutions” that will never actually shut them up. You boycott MSNBC or something, you might actually get an apology once in awhile. You won’t get one from the rightwingers, you’ll get an angry army trying to do tit for tat. So even more importantly if you’re going to persist in doing these boycotts and resolutions, you have to be effing prepared for going into the battle that comes with that territory. You don’t blink at the first sign of backlash and force Shirley Sherrod to resign when Breitbart and Fox tell you she has to go! Especially without even watching the video of Sherrod’s remarks in its entirety, as the NAACP now claims it didn’t in its apology to Sherrod.

What happened in the White House was simple. Sherrod told part of the story by revealing the Administration was afraid it “would be on Glenn Beck.” They canned Sherrod and it was anyway, but then Beck surprised them.

We’re down the rabbit hole when Mr. Beck is more discerning on race than the Obama White House. Vilsack now has permission to “reconsider.” And so it goes.

The whiplash reaction from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. was all so predictable. Including the knee jerk reaction of Obama’s political team to a charge of racism from an African American against a white farmer, which absolutely terrified the Obama White House, regardless of whether there was any truth there or not.

The simple, yet unproved charge that an African American at USDA had discriminated against white folk had visions of white voter flight dancing in the Obama political team’s head.

After watching the right-wing for twenty years, especially during the Clinton era, I can attest that you will never get them to back down, even when they’re wrong, but also unfairly wrong and judging someone harshly on the worst of terms. Rush never flinched from calling Bill Clinton a murderer, while Rev. Jerry Falwell, an evangelical minister no less, blasted those lies far and wide, while saying it wasn’t that he was attesting to their truths at all. Of course not, he was just making sure everyone he knew could hear the unproven allegations that were false. During the 2008 election season, Sean Hannity dragged out “The Clinton Chronciles” to revive the Was Vince Foster Murdered meme. It goes on and on. It includes Democrats playing the race card against the Clintons during the primaries, because the Obamaphiles knew they could get away with it. That’s how playing the race card works, even on the unbelievable.

America continues its high wire hair trigger act when it comes to race. Barack Obama’s presidency has done nothing to change it, with the Sherrod firing adding more fuel instead of less to the incendiary atmosphere, which is being egged on by some Tea Party extremists.

The Obama White House should have known better. Unfortunately, because this incident had to do with race, a White House that was going to elevate our conversation on the subject ran scared and got caught up in their own moral cowardice.

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Democrats Jump 6 Points on Generic Ballot But…

By on 20 July 2010

How’s that stonewalling on unemployment benefits working out for you now, conservatives? On the heels of financial reform, even though it’s more talk than actual reform, Democratic approval jumps according to a new Gallup poll, even among independents (Republicans down 4 points, Democrats up 10). As for the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, well, they’re just helping make Republicans look even worse, though they’re likely the reason for the huge enthusiasm spike for Republicans over Democrats, the right leading 51% to 28%. So, regardless of the relatively good news, the “very enthusiastic” numbers should send chills down Democratic spines.

In the same week the U.S. Senate passed a major financial reform bill touted as reining in Wall Street, Democrats pulled ahead of Republicans, 49% to 43%, in voters’ generic ballot preferences for the 2010 congressional elections. – Gallup



I also wanted to share something that was quite priceless yesterday. On my Facebook page, a Tea Party enthusiast posted on my wall to invite me to join her group. It was a very sweet invitation, excitedly posted: Hope you’ll consider joining us Taylor. We got a great group going!!! My response is below:

Wow, Melissa. Are you nuts? I’m a LIBERAL, who has *many* complaints with Pres. Obama, most of which are because he’s moving our politics to the right. I will *never* vote for anyone or join any group who is against a woman’s individual freedoms. Not. Ever. !

Besides, Tea Party activists have *no* solutions and neither do Republicans; not to mention some of your people are wacky or down right racist.

In a another Facebook exchanged, I had reached out to a gal from Missouri asking to be friends.  She is an Obamaphile, which took me a while to find in Missouri, where I was born and raised and my big bro still resides, so I was interested to hear her response. It is below:

Hello from Missouri. Thanks for the add, but no thanks. I saw your blog and that was it for me.

I responded: heh-heh… Yeah, the truth tends to piss off Obamaphiles.

The people don’t judge “reform” the way political analysts like myself do, for which I have no doubt the Democrats are grateful. Action, however meager, is always better than no solution at all. It’s one reason why I’ve never been convinced Republicans will take over the House, though it’s certainly a long shot possibility, but also why I don’t think Pres. Obama is any danger for 2012 yet, though it’s equally clear it won’t be as easy as 2008, that’s for sure.

Republicans can squeal like stuffed piglets, but when it comes to presenting their, er… vision, they not only don’t have one, but the things that are needed in this country to help the people, like unemployment benefit extension, are seen as deficit busters, but tax cuts for wealthy are judged just fine.

People aren’t stupid, they get it.

Republicans are against everything, because it costs too much, even after being the ones who helped balloon the deficit under Bush.

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Megyn Kelly: ‘Don’t Make Me Cut Your Mic!’

By on 14 July 2010

The people who grab these videos for the web use the same cliches to title them. “Megyn Kelly DESTROYS Kirsten Powers on New Black Panther Case” says one of them; “Megyn Kelly schools lib pundit over New Black Panthers Party.” But why is she doing so many stories on the Panthers? It’s because Fox News uses the Panthers the way that Phil Donohue used to use the KKK or G.G. Allin. They’re good on TV. The difference between the Panthers and other freakish groups that look good on the air, of course, is that that they threaten white people. - Megyn Kelly’s Minstrel Show, by David Weigel


See 2:45 in video

The right is slobbering over Megyn Kelly again. The argument is about the New Black Panther Case, as well as this video.

Squeals of “catfight!” tell you all you need to know. It’s the right’s idea of ideological mud wrestling between two smart, good looking women.

RedState salivates, “Megyn Kelly Spanks Kirsten Powers.” No cigarette provided.

“Most Awesome 10 Minutes in Fox News History,” is how “The Other McCain” characterized it, then went on to add color:

I’m sure King Samir Shabazz watched this and said to himself, “Crazy cracker bitches.”

Newsbusters stays calm simply asking: The Greatest 10 Minutes of Television Ever?

The invincible News Hounds does a rundown:

Andrew Breitbart’s website, “Big Journalism,” has this headline: DOJ Discrimination Scandal: Megyn Kelly Schools Liberal Pundit.” Another site, “Fire Andrea Mitchell, Stop the Leftist Propaganda Machine” claims that “Megyn Kelly Destroys Liberal Mouthpiece Kirsten Powers As Kirsten Powers Defends The New Black Panthers.” (ewww, scary black men). “American Power” (oh, don’t ya love that right wing machismo!) says “Megyn Kelly Eviscerates Kirsten Powers.” And that paragon of true white American manly patriotism, “Free Republic” has this thread: “Megyn Kelly DESTROYS Kirsten Powers On New Black Panther Case.” “Gateway Pundit,” a source used by Fox homophobes in their attacks on Obama Education Czar Kevin Jennings, claims that “Megyn Kelly Destroys Far Left Crank Kirsten Powers.” America’s favorite “anchor baby,” Fox fave, and defender of all things white and beautiful, Michelle Malkin was a little more subdued with “ ‘Have Your Facts:’ Megyn Kelly Vs. Kirsten Powers on NBBP Thug Case.” But Malkin had other more incendiary headlines such as “Whitewashing Black Racism, Shabazz, ‘Prepare For War’.” (ewww, scary black man).

I’m wondering, is it the billy club or the fact that the man holding it is an African American with long black hair? Reverse the race on each person in the video and I’m wondering what we’d have. Seems obvious to me.

This post has been updated.

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For the NAACP, Mission Accomplished

By on 14 July 2010

The NAACP sure pissed off the Tea Party at their 101st annual meeting, starting with their Queen, Sarah Palin, who opined on Facebook about “divisive politics of the past,” which is taking a page from candidate Obama’s mantra about not refighting “the battles of the ’90s.” Palin goes on in her FB entry to invoke Ronald Reagan without a hint of irony, evidently not aware or trying to ignore Reagan’s Southern strategy that was founded in helping raise up white pride to walk his way.

But the Tea Party is becoming quite sensitive, touchy even, to the charge of racism. Could it be sticking?

I got an email today from someone representing Jordan Sekulow, a “political strategist” who worked for Bush-Cheney ’04, as well as Romney ’08, pushing back hard against the NAACP.

The NAACP’s resolution to call for Tea Party groups to remove “racist elements” from their ranks has fallen on defiant, if not deaf, ears.

I work with Jordan Sekulow, a former political strategist and grassroots organizer for Bush-Cheney ’04 and Romney ’08, who argues that the organization’s demand for “responsibility” is hypocrisy exemplified:

“The NAACP is an irrelevant, racist organization that is impeding the progress of black Americans. A once powerful, necessary, and important organization is now nothing more than a tool of the Democratic Party. We should all, black and white, reject the NAACP’s racial politics.”

He has also said on-record that the words of a few individual extremists should not be mistakenly aligned with Tea Party values.

The subject of the email was entitled “NAACP Racist, Not Tea Party.” It gave me a good laugh.

Sarah Palin says, “The only purpose of such an unfair accusation of racism is to dissuade good Americans from joining the Tea Party movement or listening to the common sense message of Tea Party Americans.” Not really, as most people don’t care about political parties, least of all the Tea Party, which remains inside the Republican Party, a brand that went bust under Bush.

Meanwhile, Kentucky hopeful Rand Paul is hoping for a Tea Party caucus in the Senate.

Obviously, the NAACP will be relevant for quite a while.

Cartoon credit: Columbia Daily Tribune, by John Darkow

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Today in Crazy, Starring Vitter’s Birtherism, and Rand Paul Is Totally Nuts!

By on 13 July 2010

Sen. David “diapers” Vitter goes birther. Oh, but after sucking up to the crazies adds that it would be a mistake to get distracted by Obama birther lawsuits.

Preview of coming attractions if Republicans take the House?

Yesterday, the Washington Post did a very interesting article on a former Reagan administration official, Larry Brady, who is the minority staff director of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He’d be elevated and given much broader powers if Republicans take over the House. He’s no novice.

It was Rep. Issa and Larry Brady who helped take down ACORN.

“The administration underestimates Larry Brady’s effectiveness at its own peril,” says Goldberg, who once served as Democratic deputy staff director of the same panel and did damage control for President Bill Clinton. “He knows how to pick the issues that resonate, and get media attention with or without fingerprints.”

As head of the GOP staff on the oversight panel, Brady has been at the forefront of exposing controversies that, if nothing else, have caused political headaches for the Obama administration. They include allegations that the White House tried to bribe Democratic challengers in this year’s Pennsylvania and Colorado Senate races to drop out. Issa also released a report that he said documented ACORN’s aggressive political support for Democratic candidates. The report helped make the community organizing group a hot-button political issue and a target for conservative activists. Later, Congress cut off federal funding to the organization.

Mr. Brady is also not injudicious.

And if things do break his party’s way, Brady wishes his targets no hard feelings. He added: “It’s not personal; it’s issue-oriented.”

I’m not sure birtherism will be an issue on which Brady will bite. Hey, but the right has its crazies and we will be heading into the presidential election season, so you never know. Depends on how much pressure would be brought to bear.

…and I’m including this video of Rand Paul, a flashback to the ’90s, when he said Medicare is socialism and Social Security is a ponzi scheme, because Tea Party people do say the darndest things.

You go, Rand, joined by Sen. David Vitter kowtowing to the birthers, because Republicans are hostages to Tea Party people and wackos.

Today in crazy.

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Sen. Robert Byrd: From KKK to Voting for Obama

By on 28 June 2010

“The case this Administration tries to make to justify its fixation with war is tainted by charges of falsified documents and circumstantial evidence. We cannot convince the world of the necessity of this war for one simple reason. This is a war of choice. “There is no credible information to connect Saddam Hussein to 9/11. The twin towers fell because a world-wide terrorist group, Al Qaeda, with cells in over 60 nations, struck at our wealth and our influence by turning our own planes into missiles.” – Sen. Robert Byrd

The picture that will never leave my mind is Sen. Byrd railing at his Senate colleagues, because on the eve of the Iraq war no one was in the Senate chamber. That image of a lonely Sen. Byrd said it all at the time. Too many Democrats caved to cowardice to give George W. Bush leverage he didn’t deserve without a declaration of war. Byrd understood this. It was Sen. Byrd was the only one who warned Pres. Obama of his own Executive Branch power grabs, something that mimicked the Bush-Cheney era.

Sen. Byrd was the longest serving member of Congress. There is no one who knew the Senate more deeply or who loved it more.

One of the first people Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to win over when she became New York’s junior senator was the Dean of the Senate, Robert Byrd. When it came time for her to run for president, it wasn’t hard to understand why Sen. Byrd endorsed Barack Obama.

As a young man Byrd was the “exalted cyclops” of the Ku Klux Klan. He was a separatist who filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but in 2008 voted for Barack Obama. Byrd apologized for his Klan past many times, but the right will never let him forget it, though it was clear at the end of his life Sen. Byrd had come farther on the issue than the Republican Party and their cousins in the Tea Party.

Robert Byrd made bad decisions when he was young, but this was in the mid-20th century. No one can make excuses for Rand Paul, who obviously has issues himself on race at the beginning of the 21st century. There is a difference, but today on the right that’s not what you’ll hear.

Sen. Byrd’s memoir, “Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency,” is the story of George W. Bush, a man who Byrd clearly thought trampled the constitution. He had help. On this day we lose Sen. Byrd, a side note is saved for the man who helped Bush do what he did, Dick Cheney, who has battled coronary disease for a very long time and over the past few days was admitted to the hospital. Mark Knoller tweeted this yesterday about Cheney: A medical source tells CBS News that Mr Cheney is responding to I.V. treatment but his cardiac status is “tenuous.” Sen. Byrd’s contempt for the Bush-Cheney administration was palpable every time he talked about their reckless leadership. It’s a sad fact that Pres. Obama has decided to follow them in many areas, adding to that awful legacy.

Via Nate Silver, here are the vacancy laws in West Virginia.

I can still see Sen. Robert Byrd waving a small American flag as Sen. Teddy Kennedy’s hearse drove through Washington on its way to Arlington National Cemetery. The giants of the Senate have left the building a lesser chamber.

Our political parties have reduced the Senate and the House to a tiny shadow of what the founders intended. With Sen. Byrd’s passing there is no one to remind us of the Senate’s grandeur and importance, or the stature of what a senator should be, which goes beyond a rubber stamp for the Executive Branch or any political party when it is doing work the people don’t want. We are in an age of the small.

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Bill Clinton as Asset Makes People Say Crazy Things

By on 15 June 2010

He pointed out that President Obama’s approval ratings are much lower in these competitive districts than they are nationally: 54 percent of the likely battleground voters disapproved of Obama’s performance; 40 percent approved. “It’s very problematic for the president to have a 40 percent approval rating in these 60 Democratic districts,” Bolger said. “When you look at history, when the president is below 50 percent nationally, his party tends to lose more than 40 seats.” – Tough Road Ahead For Democrats

It’s smart people who don’t hold grudges. The ones who do just come off petty and small.

Josh Marshall spins himself into the floor on this one: Obama Oddly Unpopular in Former Slave States.

Pres. Obama and former Pres. Clinton have long ago put away the primary battles, a credit to political pragmatism that spreads through politicians when they need help on something or in a voting arena where they can’t help themselves. Being in the small fraternity of former presidents helps.

But the lengths people will go to contort rhetoric to fit a world view that ignores the obvious is remarkable. This is particularly stunning when smart people do it. Opining on a Roll Call article, Josh Marshall trips.

The gist of the piece is that Clinton is turning out to be an important asset in this cycle since there are many parts of the country where he can go and campaign effectively where Barack Obama just can’t. I talked to one candidate running in a race below the Mason-Dixon line a while back. And this person told me that where he’s running, outside of the few places, Barack Obama is just toxic. Not surprising. But it was bracing to hear it from the candidate’s own mouth.

What strikes me about the Roll Call article is that there’s not a single mention in the piece that Barack Obama is … well, black.

… A big part of the importance of Bill Clinton this year is that he can slip into parts of the country where President Obama is a political liability and give Democrats some presidential star power. Those places are predominantly in the South or to a degree even more in the border states. You simply can’t explain this phenomenon without taking the President’s race into serious account. The truth is that it’s not either/or but additive. The layers of politics and race are reinforcing. But it’s there.

Amidst an economic climate that is very worrisome, which we all can rightly say Obama inherited from Bush, Marshall never mentions the economics of Clinton’s appeal. Nobody can address it better in the Democratic Party, because the 1990s was a feel better time, something that can obviously aid Obama today.

On analyzing the economics, Marshall instead remains mute.

No doubt he’ll never mention Sect. Clinton, who like other secretaries of state has jumped over her president in popularity. Being apolitical has its perks. (It’s also important to remember that TPM didn’t think women were relevant in 2008, a moment when the first woman won a presidential primary, but we also saw Republicans finally putting a woman on the ticket.)

Coming from a former slave state, Missouri, and living in one now (one that Obama won in 2008, but likely won’t in 2012), I’m not about to doubt Clinton’s Bubba appeal, too. In Pennsylvania-12 former Pres. Bill Clinton made a difference because he can speak the language of Pennsylvanians. However, that Marshall can write an entire review on the Roll Call piece and extrapolate race by saying “it’s there,” without also understanding and mentioning the competing narrative is just, well, myopic at best.

There is also no doubt that Tea Party racists bent on impeachment, as seen in this video, are out there, but they are a very small minority who not even Clinton’s economic populism can reach.

Marshall talks to a politician who says that Obama is “toxic.” If Marshall is saying this is based solely on “well, he’s black,” then he’s not only wrong, but so biased as to be blinded.

We know that Blanche Lincoln was helped by Clinton, but also by postcards of Pres. Obama and the knowledge African American voters had that the President was behind Lincoln, not Halter. Of course, there is no doubt that Southerners also appreciate Clinton’s “y’all.”

Still, Marshall is miffed because Roll Call doesn’t mention that Obama’s “well, black.”

On the other side, Marshall doesn’t mention once in his post the 1990s economy and how good people felt about things back during the Clinton era. That people still believe that William Jefferson Clinton felt their pain and helped their pocketbook.

Marshall goes to great lengths to remind everyone that Clinton is going into slave states where Obama being black isn’t appreciated. Playing the race card is something Pres. Obama doesn’t need and isn’t helpful. It also isn’t good analysis.

That Marshall ignores the overwhelming popularity of Barack Obama in African American communities in the south, whose vote matters immensely still and always will to Democrats, is another stunning omission in his post.

Yet Marshall basically says Bill Clinton can reach the racists in Southern, former slave states, while ignoring the African Americans who love Barack Obama, as well as those individuals who like remembering the 1990s good, old days.

Yes, Barack Obama is, well, black. But it’s the economy, stupid, still applies.

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Politics Today: Incompetence, Liars, Sexism, and Racists

By on 04 June 2010

People are furious at politicians and the federal government. It’s easy to see why.

Pres. Barack Obama says he’s “furious” about the BP oil spill. Watching him say it should come with a laugh track. It may be so, but there’s no evidence of it. Does that matter? It’s ultimately up to you. For me what matters is the sheer political incompetence, but more importantly that there obviously aren’t enough bodies on the ground to do the job in the Gulf. The President could change that, but hasn’t yet.

Next we’ve got Rep. Mark Kirk who has lied repeatedly about his military service. Now he’s apologized.

Mr. Blumenthal lied about his military service. He also apologized.

State Rep. Nikki Haley has really been going through it. Her politics are not mine, but this is yet another example why women think twice before jumping into the political arena. Infidelity charges against Mrs. Haley have rocked the race in South Carolina. Now she’s been smeared by one of her own, with Republicans scrambling to demand an apology from a white male bigot who has no business in public office.

“The South Carolina Republican Party strongly condemns any use of racial or religious slurs. Senator Knotts should apologize for his inappropriate comments, so that we can put this unfortunate incident behind us and focus on issues important to moving our state forward,” said Republican Party Chair Karen Floyd in a statement.

Unfortunately for the Republicans in South Carolina, as well as Sarah Palin, who will reportedly endorse Nikki Haley, both the Tea Party activists and Republican voters have said everything imaginable about Pres. Barack Obama. An apology is hardly enough.

We have Republicans across the country vilifying Obama as a socialist, Glenn Beck going the full Nazi, with no point of decency ever invoked. Rand Paul hemmed and hawed about the Civil Rights Act, also taking issue with other groundbreaking legislation that makes this country more equal.

I don’t care about Haley’s politics or with whom she’s slept. But until people call for the resignation of Neanderthal bigots who hold office we’ll never purge our politics from these racists.

“We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion.” – Sen. Jake Knotts

Now that Obama has canceled his diplomatic trip to Indonesia and Australia because of the BP blowout, the countdown begins on where he will travel. The Carteresque worry about his presidency starting to creep in, as he’s being held hostage because the White House got behind on the politics of catastrophe. Helpless to change what BP has done. Trying to catch up politically because the White House political shop didn’t understand the job of the presidency: People want to see their president in action in a crisis; behind the scenes machinations don’t count, especially when an environmental and economic debacle is claiming a way of life for Southerners.

Nothing in politics today is particularly inspiring.

The national pastime, baseball, stepped in to provide it. A blown call in a perfect game, with Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers showing some class after Jim Joyce blew the call. But then the boss, Bud Selig, stepped in to say, tough, he wouldn’t reverse the call.

It takes leadership to make things right and some people just aren’t up to it.

Beyond Gov. Bobby Jindal’s ridiculous call to end the moratorium on drilling off LA coast, he’s stepped in to express the people’s pain, but also make up for his first appearance in the State of the Union response debacle.

But it was Charlie Crist who said, where’s the Navy and the Coast Guard? We need more help down here, so why not deploy everyone we’ve got?

That should have been Obama’s call. I guess he was too busy celebrating at the White House or getting another jersey. President Obama’s performance remains below the curve. Perception in politics is reality and politicians live or die by the public’s judgment of it.

This post has been updated.

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Macaca’d!

By on 22 May 2010

Rand Paul is finding out what it’s like to be caught in a maelstrom of your own making. The incoming is not only deserved but escalating, which the videos below illustrate.

Libertarian defenders of Paul’s whacked views are joining him in his digging deeper tour. Segue to David Weigel’s latest, though he doesn’t realize it’s not only Paul that’s wrong, but himself:

It’s essential to put Paul’s belief in the context of 2010 instead of the context of 1964. He sees less of a need now for the government to intervene against discrimination in private business because there is less discrimination now. And go and try to prove him wrong on that.

First Weigel should start with his own defense of why “it’s essential to put Paul’s belief,” which seems also to be Weigel’s, “in the context of 2010 instead of the context of 1964.” Rand (and evidently Weigel) are of the belief that because there is less bigotry and racism today, one can certainly say that, then Title 2 is less relevant, because there are fewer protections needed. Never mind the people who fall victim to the discrimination that would rise without Title 2. To Rand’s mind those establishments who discriminate would have to be drummed out of business through public shaming. Imagine that, with your local bigot opening a new restaurant, let’s call it, White Meat Only Pork Chop Grill. I can see the local headlines now.

I guess it takes a black man to explain to those who want to forget history. Errol Louis, with whom Weigel appeared on “Hardball” did just that, which I mentioned yesterday, though with both Matthews and Louis, Weigel was rendered mute, something he should once again consider when writing about civil rights for the Washington Post. I’d also suggest Weigel “crack a history book,” as Louis suggested to Paul, but it’s obvious from Weigel’s latest “defense of Rand Paul, part II” that he thinks history isn’t instructive, because after all we are in 2010 and things are different. Shorter: protecting civil rights is just so last century. Honest to God, has Weigel not paid attention to all the cranks out there targeting Pres. Obama? From “Hardball”:

LOUIS: But the guy‘s got to crack a history book. I mean, it‘s not like this is the first time these issues came up. This was the argument all throughout the Civil Rights movement. People were saying, It‘s my restaurant, it‘s my bus station, you can‘t tell me what to do, you can‘t tell me what to do at our local university, on and on and on and on. And again, it‘s not a dead issue. There‘s still litigation around this on a regular basis… … and people need access to the courts to relitigate this because there are a lot of Rand Pauls out there who think that because they own a lunch counter, they can just decide to rewrite Supreme Court rulings. That‘s another part of the Constitution that the tea party folks don‘t like to acknowledge, that there have been rulings on this, that the Constitution, you know, is determined by the Supreme Court, the interpretations of it. You know, there are a lot of folks out there who are doing all kinds of stuff based on their personal interpretation of the Constitution that‘s at odds with the Supreme Court, at odds with American history, at odds with the wishes of most of the voters, including in Kentucky. He‘s got to get himself a little bit closer to the mainstream if he wants to be taken seriously.

One of my own incoming Rand Paul fan emails proved this point. I’ll reprint just the last part here once again (full email text here), because some people just don’t get it.

… And as far as the current resident of the White House is concerned, I would gladly discriminate against him in business and it would not have anything to do with the color of his skin…..” – R. Simmons

Case closed.

But something tells me that people know that anyone trying to say that the Civil Rights Act is just so 1964, but also that it’s less relevant today than then because there is less discrimination, is a desperate attempt to make Libertarianism credible, which when taken to its fullest definition proves otherwise.

Why can I say this? Because I’ve been called a Libertarian leaning Democrat for many years. However, the reason I lean and do not subscribe is because when you take it to its implementation Libertarianism is an epic public policy fail. Hey, but my political views are mature unlike others who pop off in public or write defenses that strain their credibility beyond the snapping point.

A great video proving why Libertarians haven’t tried to make this case before comes via Rachel Maddow, the woman who was so mean to Rand Paul that he won’t do TV interviews anymore.

The next video, via Ben Smith, proves the anonymous oppo hit campaign has begun against Paul. And whether you agree or disagree with this morphing of Paul’s statements with history, it shows the dangerous nature of not respecting history’s impact on society when running for Senate in the age of the mega new media world.

Note to all prospective candidates out there: When you’re hiring advisors for your campaign team make sure they not only understand your views, but protect you from the whack side of them. You don’t get credit for being honest if what you’re saying suggests a dangerous public policy shift that would leave a whole class of people unprotected, not to mention the President of the United States in a position that he would have to send out an advance team to make sure he could get served in a public place.

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Rand Paul: Biggest Mistake was Talking to Rachel Maddow

By on 20 May 2010

“It was a poor political decision and probably won’t be happening anytime in the near future,” the Tea Party endorsed Senate candidate told the Laura Ingraham show on Thursday morning. “Because, yeah, they can play things and want to say, ‘Oh you believed in beating up people that were trying to sit in restaurants in the 1960s.’ And that is such a ridiculous notion and something that no rational person is in favor of. [But] she went on and on about that.” – Huffington Post

Was Rand Paul’s performance on Rachel Maddow’s show last night the greatest GOTV for Democrats in the history of Kentucky politics?

Rand Paul has had many opportunities before last night to state his unequivocal support for the Civil Rights Act, but only when his Senate bid is in danger does he bother to make the effort. In damage control, day one, Rand Paul releases a statement:

“I unequivocally state that I will not support any efforts to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

However, it’s this telling exchange that reveals him:

Question: Would you have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Rand Paul: I like the Civil Rights Act in the sense that it ended discrimination in all public domains and I’m all in favor of that.

Questioner: But…?

Rand Paul: (nervous laugh) You had to ask me the “but.”

Indeed, he had to be pushed on the “but” factor, because when you say “in the sense that” what you’re doing is qualifying your support for the most important piece of civil rights legislation in American history.

David Weigel offers an embarrassingly contorted defense of Rand Paul’s statements, obviously thinking from a protected mindset of the 21st century, totally devoid of 1960s context. Defending Paul’s statements on the excuse that it’s what other conservatives believe completely ignores that this is why the Civil Rights Act had to be passed in the first place.

So is Rand Paul a racist? No, and it’s irritating to watch his out-of-context quotes — this and a comment about how golf was no longer for elitists because Tiger Woods plays golf — splashed on the Web to make that point. Paul believes, as many conservatives believe, that the government should ban bias in all of its institutions but cannot intervene in the policies of private businesses. Those businesses, as Paul argues, take a risk by maintaining, in this example, racist policies. Patrons can decide whether or not to give them their money, or whether or not to make a fuss about their policies. That, not government regulation and intervention, is how bias should be eliminated in the private sector. And in this belief Paul is joined by some conservatives who resent that liberals seek government intervention for every unequal outcome.

Why exactly we should care that conservatives join Paul in their resentment towards “government intervention” on behalf of individuals being denied their pursuit of happiness by bigots evidently escapes Mr. Weigel. For the Washington Post to publish such drivel is disappointing.

The biggest mistake Mr. Paul was not talking to Rachel Maddow, which came after the Kentucky Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board interview. It was not knowing American history while running for the United States Senate.

I also find it incredible that I was the first person to take the time to transcribe his interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal. The editorial board of that paper slammed his views, but the actual quotes are the most devastating.

In the America that Rand Paul would make, the death of an African American at the hands of a racist is simply murder. His child like thinking never considers that a racist would hunt a black man down simply because he believes that his supremacy demands it. Mr. Paul doesn’t understand that it is this thinking that inspired congressional leaders to fight hard against Paul’s hero Barry Goldwater to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

So, yeah, going “on and on about that” silly little issue of how this country stopped the lynching, murders, beatings, white and black drinking fountains, separate lunch counter areas for whites and blacks, and the massive discrimination targeted against all African Americans was really wrong of Ms. Maddow, in Rand Paul’s mind.

The comments over at Huffington Post by libertarians are not only revealing, but taken to the ultimate conclusion prove why Rand Paul is not only on the defensive, but back-pedaling from an outrageous equivocation on the Civil Rights Act that puts his Senate candidacy in peril.

Akston

If an ignorant and hateful private business owner chooses not to serve me based on my race, gender or religion, should I ask government to force him to do so?

If I’m an ignorant or hateful person and I choose to boycott a business based on its owner or employee’s race, gender, or religion, should the business owner ask government to force me to buy their product or service?

At what point is it proper to add force to free citizens’ voluntary associations and disassociations. Who should choose which voluntary criteria are unacceptable? Where else should force trump voluntary interaction?

harlembells

The answer to your first question is a simple and unqualified YES. A commercial enterprise does not have a legal right to discriminate against you (or me) simply because the owner is “ignorant.” What if that “ignorant” owner controls the local phone company? Do I have to go without a phone? What if that ignorant owner controls the local electric company? Do I have to go without electricity? What if that ignorant owner controls the sale of property in a particular development? Am I forced to live somewhere else? The owner’s ignorance and bigotry don’t define my rights. That is what the Civil Rights Act was about. No, I cannot force him to let me be a guest in his home. But if he opens a hotel that will allow YOU to be a guest, then he has no right to bar me from renting a room there too. These issues were decided 50 years ago. The ignorant and hateful tea bagger candidate would like to revisit them, but why? Are white Americans still that bigoted that they want to discriminate on the basis of race again? Can we just accept that this man is not fit to be a US Senator (since he does not even believe in one of our fundamental Constitutional precepts) and move on?

Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri I actually remember what it was like to be in a town that had racial tension. Where some of your neighbors actually thought blacks were different, that is to say lesser; my own relatives, having grown up in the southern state of Missouri, believed that there was no doubt that whites were superior. I remember busing when I was in high school; a knife drawn against me, then retracted when authorities appeared. All of this had a severe impact on me, so that I’m not afraid to talk about the issue of race, but also can sense a racist a mile away.

The trouble with Rand Paul is that his intellectual thought process never takes into consideration that without the Civil Rights Act of 1964 this country would have remained mired in discriminatory practice that propped up the racists in this country, which go back to the time of the Civil War and further.

tbrookside

The bottom line is that libertarians believe that racists possess property rights just as they possess free speech rights.

Not one of the liberal commentators complaining about this today would claim that when an ACLU lawyer supports the right of neonazis to hold marches, that this proves that the ACLU is racist. NOT ONE. Because everyone understands that defending the free speech rights of racists doesn’t mean you endorse their views.

But apparently liberal commentators have no problem asserting that a similar defense of the property rights of racists proves that Rand Paul is a racist.

By so arguing, you are arguing that every libertarian – every last one – is a racist. And that’s useful to know, because libertarians have tried to work with liberals on issues like ending the drug war, opposing the more authoritarian elements of the War on Terror, attempting to create more transparency in government, and on civil liberties in general. And I guess we shouldn’t do that, and shouldn’t try to work with you —-ers, ever. Not if this is how you’re going to be. Go —- yourselves.

Frustrated in PA

You do not understand a TRUE LIBERTARIAN philosophy. Property rights have never trumped individual liberties and the individual rights of people. This is coming from a woman who has long been a social libertarian and studied the libertarian philosophy. The difference is that I support the ACLU fighting for the 1st amendment. I have always stated that I don’t agree with any white supremacist but I will fight for their right to say what they want to say. HOWEVER, Rand Paul is running for a FEDERAL office that decides laws that afffect minorities and their CONSTITUTIONAL rights. The ACLU does not have that power…….a SENATOR does so his views that a private business has a right to discriminate and that a WOMAN, like me, does not have the ABSOLUTE right to control over her body, like a MAN does (it is an equal protection argument) is relevant and should be exposed.

Using the Commerce Clause to justify private businesses being exempt from federal discrimination laws, while defensively offering that free speech of racists is protected, is nothing less than promoting the notion that white supremacy should be reborn on the back of freedom.

Rand Paul’s reasoning that he supports private businesses rights over THE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS WHO WOULD BE DISCRIMINATED THROUGH RACISM is the very tenet of conservatism that the Civil Rights Act was created to address.

These protections is what the Tea Party movement wants to undo, while simultaneously trying to convinced people that they are also for the Civil Rights Act, especially now that they’ve been caught out through the nakedness of their hero Rand Paul.

The sheer naïveté of Paul to think that speaking out against avowed racists who practice commercial white supremacy for profit, thinking this action will be enough to destroy their bigotry, or as other libertarians commenting at HuffPost state, run them out of business, is a mind operating on the most kindergarten of levels, especially with what we’ve learned from history.

The Constitution was a place our founders began. All Rand Paul had to do was learn about the Civil War era to understand how cultural racism was woven into our country’s creation.

The only thing that forced a change was making it unlawful and punishable to discriminate against African Americans. It’s why the Civil Rights Act was passed.

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NEWS NOW: Levy Calls Israel North Korea, Another Blumenthal Quote, Bill for Blanche, and An Act of War

By on 20 May 2010

[...] When the prime minister doesn’t immediately apologize and invite Chomsky back to the country, we can be sad. When Israel closes its gates to anyone who doesn’t fall in line with our official positions, we are quickly becoming similar to North Korea. When right-wing parties increase their number of anti-democratic bills, and from all sides there are calls to make certain groups illegal, we must worry, of course. But when all this is engulfed in silence, and when even academia is increasingly falling in line with dangerous and dark views like those of Reichman, the situation is apparently far beyond desperate. – Gideon Levy

First, I want to bring your attention to my post over at Huffington Post on Rand Paul. The comments are very interesting, with quite a few libertarians weighing in and getting creamed. Following the faulty logic in their defense of Rand Paul leads them smack into the wall built by white supremacists.

Via Greg Sargent, from the Stamford Advocate.

“I wore the uniform in Vietnam and many came back to all kinds of disrespect. Whatever we think of war, we owe the men and women of the armed forces our unconditional support.”

It’s the drip, drip, drip of damaging information that kills you.

On another front, it seems Bill Clinton is going all in for Blanche Lincoln. This is not transactional politics, folks, it’s about his relationship with her. I’m not rooting for Clinton or Blanche Lincoln on this one.

Oh, and least we forget BP’s oil spill, the disaster hit shore today. Robert Redford, whom I met on another environmental issue, has done an ad for NRDC as we meet the one month mark since the disaster happened. Unfortunately, nobody’s listening.

…and the “war on terror” has now morphed into CVE, aka “countering violent extremism.”

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