Tag: Bigotry

Those Segregationists

Closing Thought–28Jun19

Biden has been trying to walk back his claims of working with segregationists like Eastland of Mississippi and Thurmond of South Carolina…..

Joe Biden is sticking to his guns amid heavy criticism for his remarks about working with Southern segregationist senators. Asked Wednesday if he was planning to apologize for his comments on the “civility” involved in working with the racist Democratic senators in the ’70s and ’80s, Biden said “Apologize for what?” “There’s not a racist bone in my body,” he said, per the Hill. “I’ve been involved in civil rights my whole career. Period. Period. Period.” Biden, speaking outside a fundraiser in Maryland, said Sen. Cory Booker, one of the Democratic rivals saying he should apologize for his remarks about Sens. James Eastland and Herman Talmadge, is the one who should apologize to him, reports NBC.

At the fundraiser, Biden stressed that he and Ted Kennedy had “detested” what the Southern senators stood for, but they achieved their goal of extending the Voting Rights Act, Politico reports. “We had to put up with the likes of … Jim Eastland and Hermy Talmadge and all those segregationists and all of that,” he said. “And the fact of the matter is that we were able to do it because we were able to win—we were able to beat them on everything they stood for.” Booker told CNN Wednesday night that he was surprised by Biden’s failure to apologize. “For someone to show the lack of understanding or sensitivity to even know when they’ve made a mistake and to fall into that kind of defensive posture—that I should apologize to him is really problematic,” he said

But these days how many people understand what is a segregationist or who they were….one of the biggest was Strom Thurmond…..and here is his bio…..

Strom Thurmond was a segregationist politician who ran for president in 1948 on a platform opposed to civil rights for African Americans. He later served 48 years—an astonishing eight terms—as a U.S. Senator from South Carolina. In the later decades of his career, Thurmond obscured his views on race by claiming that he had only ever been opposed to excessive federal power.

https://www.thoughtco.com/strom-thurmond-biography-4161322

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Closing Thought–16May19

I live in the Deep South and I hear all the time just how the South has changed they are calling it the “New South”…..that attitudes are changing and that the old days are gone…..

I never believed the hype! I have not seen anything changing in my region and then I read this from Georgia…..

A Georgia councilman who came to the defense of the city’s mayor after she was accused of racism said that interracial marriage is “just not the way a Christian is supposed to live.”

Mayor Theresa Kenerly of Hoschton came under fire recently after she allegedly told a member of the council that she rejected a job applicant “because he is black, and the city isn’t ready for this,” according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Kenerly later denied that she made the remarks.

“I do not recall making the statement attributed to me regarding any applicant for the City Administrator position, and I deny that I made any statement that suggest (sic) prejudice,” she said in a statement.

Hoschton, which is nearly all white, has a city code against discrimination based on “race, national origin, color, religion, creed, age, sex.”

Councilwoman Hope Weeks confirmed in an email that Kenerly made similar remarks to her in the parking lot.

Read the entire report here.

There is nothing “new” about the South…the same bigoted opinions are still there…just hiding beneath some smiles and lies.

The “New South” looks and sounds a lot like the “Old South”.

This Illustrates Where The Sympathies Lie

Closing Thought–11Apr19

About a month ago Rep, Omar made a comment about AIPAC and the MSM went batcrap crazy calling it antisemitism (actually it was not but the MSM wants to poke that toad)…..

When a true bigot and racist and bigot gets very little press, Rep. Stephen King of Iowa…..just a few of the verbage from this d/bag….

Rack up another racially tinged remark for Steve King. The Iowa representative Thursday compared Iowa flood victims to Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans in 2005—and the Iowans come out a little better in his eyes, CNN reports. “Here’s what FEMA tells me. We go to a place like New Orleans, and everybody’s looking around saying, ‘Who’s going to help me? Who’s going to help me?'” he said at a town hall in Charter Oak, Iowa (see Facebook video here). “We go to a place like Iowa, and we go, we go see, knock on the door at, say, I’ll make up a name, John’s place, and say, ‘John, you got water in your basement, we can write you a check, we can help you.'”


“And John will say, ‘Well, wait a minute, let me get my boots. It’s Joe that needs help. Let’s go down to his place and help him.'” He went on to say FEMA is “always gratified when they come and see Iowans take care of each other.” FEMA, however, wasn’t quite on board: “@SteveKingIA’s recent comments about @FEMA comparing recovery efforts are inaccurate,” tweets FEMA spokeswoman Lizzie Litzow. Louisiana lawmakers also struck back, with House Minority Whip Steve Scalise calling King’s remarks “absurd and offensive,” while CNN notes that Katrina killed over 1,500 in Louisiana alone, a far higher death toll that the few victims of flooding in Iowa and Nebraska. King recently turned heads by asking how “white nationalist” and “white supremacist” became offensive terms, the Hill recalls.

King just cannot keep his mouth shut……


Congressman Steve King has been lobbying to have his House committeeships restored after he was stripped of them over incendiary comments, notes Roll Call. This won’t help. The Iowa conservative posted a jokey meme about a modern civil war. King has since deleted the post, but you can see it at various sites, including the Hill. It reads: “Folks keep talking about another civil war; one side has about 8 trillion bullets while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use.” King then added his own line, “Wonder who would win,” accompanied by a smirking emoji. The image shows two robot-like figures fighting, one blue, one red, each made up of states based on their political leanings.

Both Roll Call and the Washington Post note that King apparently didn’t realize that his own state, Iowa, is in blue, not the side he would pick in that fight. King has not commented about the image or his decision to delete, but he took lots of flak almost immediately. King “isn’t actually COMMITTING treason, but he is fomenting and inciting it,” tweeted Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe. “Ample reason to expel him” from the House. King lost his committeeships over a quote to the New York Times—he insists he was misrepresented—in which he said, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?”

It is WRONG to equate Nationalism with patriotism.

Then King gets attacked with a glass of water…..

Iowa congressman Steve King may be used to hearing criticism over controversial statements, but that criticism took a much more personal turn on Friday. Police in Fort Dodge, Iowa, arrested a man after they say he threw a glass of water on King at a restaurant, reports KCCI. Blake Gibbins, 26, went to the table where King was eating lunch with a group of people and threw the water when King confirmed he was the GOP congressman, say police, per ABC News. Gibbins faces charges of simple assault and disorderly conduct.

Police say the attack was politically motivated, but they didn’t mention specifics. Most recently, King has taken flak for unfavorably comparing victims of Hurricane Katrina with victims of natural disasters in Iowa, with critics accusing him of playing on racial stereotypes. Before that, he got into hot water in Congress for his comments on white nationalism.

I dislike the toad King but Being attacked in an eatery is just wrong…..you can attack him verbally but not physically….

Still waiting for a more in-depth analysis of King’s racism and bigotry……and I wait…… 

Speaking of AIPAC…..

Several Democratic presidential candidates will skip the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference this year after a prominent progressive group called on them to boycott the event.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., will all ditch the conference, the Associated Press reported, and a spokesman for former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, told NBC News that he also will not attend.

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will not be going, The Jewish Week reported, and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro also won’t show, according to HuffPost.

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who is considering running for president as an independent, will also skip the conference, the Associated Press reported.

WE will see who gets the cash……and if these people do not then maybe the statement months ago, deemed antisemitic, is accurate.

Just a thought!

Turn The page!

It’s “Antisemitism” Again

OMG! The House is about to try and bring”charges” up on a member that they accuse of antisemitic words….Rep. Ilhan Omar is once again in hot water with the d/bags that are bought and paid for by AIPAC…..

It’s easy to name the newest member of Congress making the most headlines: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But another freshman lawmaker continues to generate controversy of her own, and it’s about to intensify this week. Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Muslim Somali-American, is again under fire for statements seen as anti-Semitic. And while the Minnesota representative has apologized previously for similar controversies, this time she is doubling down while denying the anti-Semitic allegations. The details of what’s going on:

  • What she said: Speaking last week in reference to Israel and its supporters in the US, Omar said, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” reports NPR.
  • The backlash: Critics pounced on that statement as anti-Semitic, including Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League. “Accusing Jews of having allegiance to a foreign government has long been a vile anti-Semitic slur that has been used to harass, marginalize, and persecute the Jewish people for centuries,” wrote Greenblatt to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
  • From colleagues: Democratic Rep. Eliot Engel, chair of the House Foreign Affairs panel, also called it a “vile anti-Semitic slur.” Another Democrat, Rep. Nita Lowey, chair of the Appropriations Committee, called on Omar to apologize, saying she “continues to mischaracterize support for Israel.” Rep. Josh Gottheimer, also a Democrat, likened this to when “John F. Kennedy’s loyalty was called into question simply because he was Roman Catholic,” per the Washington Post.
    Doubling down: Omar is not apologizing. “Our democracy is built on debate, Congresswoman!” she responded to Lowey. “I should not be expected to have allegiance/pledge support to a foreign country in order to serve my country in Congress or serve on committee.” She adds that opposing Benjamin Netanyahu “and the occupation is not the same as being anti-Semitic.”
    Possible rebuke: The House is expected to vote Wednesday on a measure that doesn’t mention Omar (at least in its current draft form) but is seen as an “unprecedented public rebuke” of her, per Politico. The resolution condemns anti-Semitism and the “myth of dual loyalty.” Republicans are pushing for more, however, including having Omar removed from the Foreign Affairs panel.
  • AOC defends: Ocasio-Cortez is backing up Omar. “One of the things that is hurtful about the extent to which reprimand is sought of Ilhan is that no one seeks this level of reprimand when members make statements about Latinx + other communities (during the shutdown, a GOP member yelled “Go back to Puerto Rico!” on the floor),” she tweeted, one of several on the topic.
    Trump weighs in: Omar “is again under fire for her terrible comments concerning Israel,” he tweeted. “Jewish groups have just sent a petition to Speaker Pelosi asking her to remove Omar from Foreign Relations Committee. A dark day for Israel!”
    Past controversy: Omar apologized earlier this year after asserting that support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins” and again for a 2012 tweet asserting that Israel had “hypnotized the world.” The “Benjamins” comment led to formal criticism in the House for perpetuating “anti-Semitic tropes.”

All this is so much bullsh*t and a waste of time and energy that should be focused on important issues…I am with Rep. Omar……time for the old farts in the House to admit they are agents of a foreign government…they want to investigate Trump when they may be just as guilty as he.

 

This Is Why I Dislike The GOP

To me the GOP and the people under the banner are total hypocrites more so than the religious d/bags of the “Religious Right”.

Why do I say this?

A couple of weeks back the GOP came out hard and full throated about the comments Rep, Ilhan Omar made about AIPAC….calling her a racist and demanded she resign……unlike some in the GOP she apologized (I was against her doing so for she spoke truth to power and need not apologize for the truth)

GOP has many members that make racist, yes racist, comments and seldom apologize mental midgets like Iowa’s Steven King (the d/bag not the author) and he seems to be proud of his hateful self……

Firebrand congressman Steve King has no plans to give up his job, despite a recent rebuke from his own peers. The GOP representative from Iowa said Thursday that he plans to run for a 10th term next year, reports the Des Moines Register. “I have nothing to apologize for,” said King. Earlier this year, King added to his history of controversial statements by telling the New York Times: “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?”

King reiterated Thursday that he misspoke, or was perhaps misquoted, and said he does not in any way support white nationalism. Still, the original comments earned a rare rebuke from Republican and Democratic members of Congress alike, along with a punishment: King was stripped of all committee assignments, per Politico. King shrugged off the latter on Thursday: “If there’s ever going to be a time not to have committee assignments, this time with Nancy Pelosi as the speaker of the House is the time,” he said. One potential problem for him down the road: King already faces three primary challengers.

King is a old white racist and should be called out for what he is…..the GOP will not do that and as long as they allow this type of hate to stay in their party they will always bear the brunt of all criticism…..

Then there is another reason why I cannot see the use of the GOP……their members cannot see what poor people go through….no more evident than something the idiot Grassley said…..

As for Grassley, the irascible Republican penned an op-ed with House Ways and Means ranking member Kevin Brady (R-TX), that attempted to explain to angry voters that smaller refunds are the direct result of not overpaying.

“The size of your tax refund has nothing to do with your overall tax bill,” the two wrote in USA Today on Wednesday. “It merely reflects what you overpaid the IRS in your paychecks last year.”

According to Politico, Grassley was less conciliatory when previously asked about taxpayer discontent.

“Isn’t it kind of stupid to look at a refund, what your refund is?” he blurted. “That doesn’t tell you what taxes you pay.”

Clueless!

You can read more about GOP efforts to get past voter anger here.

I cannot support anyone that is a member of this party…the party of Trump and the party of HATE…..a clueless pack of old angry white guys…..clueless being the operative word.

 

 

Black Face–Another Sad Chapter

We are still hearing about the use of black face by white people to depict a black person…..why?

Virginia is in the news and black face is also…..but what of black face?  It is the 21st century and we are still talking about this act of bigotry.

Yes, there is a long disgusting history of its use in the US…..

Once called the “king of performers,” Al Jolson was famous in the 1920s for his portrayal of blackface.

It’s ironic on the first day of Black History Month a raging controversy erupted in America that recalls one of the more demeaning chapters, that of ‘blackface’, of American Black History.

The controversy prevailed after pages from the 1984 year-book of Virginia Governor Ralph Norton’s tenure at medical school was made public showing individuals dressed in blackface, and a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) uniform, hood and all.

The gravity of the situation not recognized

As the controversy rage, with calls for Northam to resign over his association with the blatant racist images, which he denies involves him, some people within the Caribbean American community failed to recognize the gravity of the situation. Some wondered why should the government pay a price for behavior as a young man of 25, some 35 years ago?

It’s not surprising this question would be asked. As has been seen in the past, several Caribbean Americans, although they are of the black race don’t fully comprehend, or appreciate some of the significance, especially the more negative aspects, of American Black history.

https://caribbeantimesnyc.com/2019/02/blackface-a-sorry-aspect-of-black-history/

I think it is sad that since this situation is a dire need of a solution that I had to find this article in the Caribbean Times…..

Now I ask….are we truly having a conversation on this situation or we just throwing diatribes at it?

I grew up in the racist South of the 50s and 60s and I do not see this as something that we should avoid….we need to air all the

Further Reading……..arguments and not the platitudes.

https://www.black-face.com/

https://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7089591/why-is-blackface-offensive-halloween-costume

Closing Thought–04Feb19

We all have heard the story of the governor of Virginia….his now famous photo the its me and the next day not me……

Virginia’s governor on Saturday vowed to remain in office despite widespread calls for his resignation after a racist photo surfaced on a school yearbook page, the AP reports. His refusal to step down could signal a potentially long and bruising fight between Northam and his former supporters. Northam said at a news conference he had prematurely apologized for appearing in what he called a “horrific” picture of a person in blackface and another wearing a Ku Klux Klan outfit. The photo appeared on Northam’s profile page in his 1984 medical school yearbook. The Democratic governor said he had never even seen the yearbook before Friday and that he was blindsided by what was on his page.

“That is not my picture. That is not my person in that picture,” Northam told reporters at the Executive Mansion in Richmond. While he acknowledged apologizing on Friday, Northam said he had no actual recollection of wearing such racist garb. He spoke to classmates from medical school who agreed. He said he was in the process of obtaining a yearbook so that he could try to determine how the photo even got on his profile page. It remained unclear whether Northam’s remarks would calm the wave of criticism sparked by the yearbook’s contents. Before he spoke, the Virginia Democratic Party was among those who issued a statement demanding Northam’s immediate resignation. (Florida’s secretary of state resigned in January over blackface photos.)

Seriously?  This guy is tap dancing (no pun intended) to try and save his job…..personally time for this d/bag to step down….do the right thing!

I Said What?

Rep. Steve King of Iowa has a loong and disgusting history of making insulting and racist comments and statements.

Congressional Republican leaders agreed to strip Rep. Steve King of his positions on House committees Monday after he lamented in an interview with The New York Times that the term “white supremacist” had become offensive. 

The Iowa Republican tried to clarify that he rejects white supremacy, but with his long history of creating uproar across the nation with his racially-charged comments, those objections largely fell on deaf ears.

While defending his remarks in the past, the Iowa Republican has claimed he is regularly misquoted and that he doesn’t trust most media outlets.

Before his recent re-election, King was under fire for reports that he met with members of the Freedom Party, a political organization founded by a former Nazi SS officer, during a trip to Europe funded in part by a Holocaust memorial nonprofit. 

Some of the remarks he has made in the past……

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2019/01/15/steve-king-most-controversial-comments/2578768002/

Finally the GOP has grown a spine and stepped up and acting against King for his blatant racism…….

“This is not the first time we’ve heard these comments,” McCarthy said of King’s remarks. “That is not the party of Lincoln and it’s definitely not American.” McCarthy met with King for an hour before House GOP leaders decided to kick him off the committees. “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive?” King wondered in a New York Times interview last week, in which he described the Democratic Party as “no country for white men.” After losing his committee seats, King claimed his remarks had been misunderstood and said McCarthy had made a “political decision that ignores the truth.” (King was defended by David Duke after a controversial tweet in 2017.)

After years of out right bigotry what made the House decide to do the right thing and punish this toad?  Was this just the GOP trying to find a way to change the conversation?

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/republicans-steve-king-support-778658/

I am pleased they did act but it is not enough….there should be NO place for a bigot in the US House of Representatives.  Period!

The South Shall Rise Again!

My weekend and this is the news I see as I awaken from my slumber…..more racists….more bigotry.

And the bumper sticker that show a Reb soldier holding the stars and bars  saying “Forget Hell”!

For some old farts in the New South the Civil War, War Between The States, never really ended…just a break between secessionists plots…..and during the Cold War “Love It Or Leave It” was a popular slogan they hated anything Russian and anyone that said anything positive about it.

Boy have things changed!

Not everyone is hating the Russia thing: Certain neo-confederates are promising to post a Russian-language page to share ideas with Russians about “Southern nationalism,” reports AL.com. Called League of the South, the Alabama-based group made its announcement only days after President Trump and Vladimir Putin met to discuss issues off the record in Helsinki. A letter from league president Michael Hill argues that Southerners and Russians have a lot in common. “As fellow Whites of northern European extraction, we come from the same general gene pool,” writes Hill. “As inheritors of the European cultural tradition, we share similar values, customs, and ways of life.”

Hill goes on to argue that “as Christians, we worship the same Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” and says cooperation between the two peoples “could indeed be the foundation for a better world.” Labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the League of the South has chapters in 16 states and advocates for a second Southern secession. As of this writing, their website has mysteriously gone down. Regardless, analysts are seeing a fresh alliance between Trump boosters, Russia, and white nationalists, Newsweek reports. “The current Russian government … cites figures who are unambiguously fascist and Nazi,” says historian Timothy Snyder. “There’s been a kind of renaissance of the 1930s which has crept up on us.”

These slugs will get in bed with anyone that will help spread their racist bullshit.

We Are Better Than This

Surely everyone knows about the mash-up in Virginia this past weekend…..it illustrated that the fights of the 1950-‘s and 60’s are still being fought …..that issues from the past have never gone away.

I read a good op-ed entitled…”We Are Better Than This”…..

Making America Great Again means entertaining support from white supremacists, neo-Nazi’s, the Ku Klux Klan, the survivalist movement, vigilante militias, and it is all neatly packaged in a spiffy new advertising meme labelled the alt-right.

Okay, America, we are now experiencing what it means to go back in time. This is what they meant when they said we were going to take America back. It meant we were going to revisit the good ole’ days when overt racism was the order of the day, when nuclear detonations were rationalized and accepted as, well acceptable, when white men made all the decisions and coal was king. Back to the days when environmental degradation was a critical component to economic progress. Back when civil liberties could be curtailed in the name of law and order, especially if you were from the classes of the troublemakers

Source: We Are Better Than This – LA Progressive

I am sorry but this type of thing, these confrontations, does nothing to “Make America Great Again”….

The President has come out with comments on the violence…..

President Trump’s comments so far on the violence in Charlottesville have been denounced by those on both sides of the political aisle. A sampling of columnists’ takes on his response:

  • In the New Yorker, Jelani Cobb says this is one of the weakest responses to Nazism America has seen. Even the eventual White House clarification wasn’t much better than Trump’s original response. “When questioned about the rationale for Trump’s evenhandedness, the White House clarified that both the protesters and the counter-protesters had resorted to violence. This is notable in that the United States was once a country that did not see Nazis and those willing to fight them as morally equivalent.”
  • At CNN, Timothy Stanley says Trump failed this test. The president likely sees “not a prejudice problem but a crisis of law and order” when he looks at what happened in Virginia, just like many conservatives consider the KKK and Black Lives Matter “as bad as each other.” But “Black Lives Matter, for all its faults, sees a truth that Trump does not: America operates an unjust racial hierarchy in which people of color are relegated to the bottom. When African-Americans protest, they are expressing their powerlessness, they are punching upwards. White supremacists, by contrast, enjoy power and authority. They are punching downwards out of irrational hate.”
  • At FiveThirtyEight, Julia Azari points out why it’s interesting Trump isn’t specifically condemning white supremacy. His “comments are striking for a couple of reasons. For one, Trump repeatedly denounced his predecessor, Barack Obama, for refusing to use the phrase ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ to refer to attacks by Islamist radicals. For another, denouncing Friday’s white supremacist protest and Saturday’s (apparent) attack should have been comparatively easy for an American politician.”
  • Michael Gerson acknowledges at the Washington Post that it’s difficult to find the right words in the face of a tragedy like this, but Trump is, apparently, completely incapable of doing so. “The flash point in Charlottesville was the history of the Civil War,” and “the oppression and trauma that led to Appomattox did not end there. Ghosts still deploy on these battlefields. And the casualties continue. But Trump could offer no context for this latest conflict. No inspiring ideals from the author of the Declaration of Independence, who called Charlottesville home. No healing words from the president who was killed by a white supremacist. By his flat, foolish utterance, Trump proved once again that he has no place in the company of these leaders.”
  • In the New York Times, conservative writer and radio show host Erick-Woods Erickson weighs in. Though he considers the “social justice warriors” of the far left and the white supremacists of the far right to be “two sides of the same coin,” Erickson points out that a white supremacist was allegedly to blame for this violence. “On a day that saw one person killed during the Charlottesville violence, the president did not need to play the ‘both sides are culpable’ game. No side would be protesting in Charlottesville had not the white supremacists decided to march.”

Sad thing is that this is not an isolated occurrence…..more to come….

There is a wealth of articles and such about what the country should do about this rise in hatred…..a better question would be “what will this country do about this rise in hatred”?