Being a Black Conservative

Michael Williams, Texas Republican candidate, bemoans the double-edged sword that is being a black conservative. Conservatives may be non-racist enough to let black guys into their big tent, but Williams complains that he's sometimes mistaken for Herman Cain.

TPM asks if that happens a lot. "Not really," he told me. "A lot of people think I'm a waiter."

Quote of the Day

"The tea party has gone to great extremes to reach out to people of color."
Teri Adams, Tea Party organizer

If that quote doesn't make whatever liquid you're ingesting shoot out your nose, you must be dead already. Remember when they "reached out" to James Clyburn by yelling nigger at him..? Is this the kind of thing she means?

Arizona Inspires 10-State Suicide Pact

Inspired by Arizona's efforts to destroy its own economy and alienate 30% of its own people instituting bone-headed anti-immigrant laws, TPM lists 10 other states "talking about enacting similarly draconian legislation".

Maybe there's a secret master strategy afoot, but right now this looks like an economic and political suicide pact. What else would you call pandering to the shrinking angry white demo while alienating just about every other growing sector of society?

Ironic too that NY and California - the states that contribute most to the economy - strongly oppose these laws. But it'll be down to them to bail out Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, North & South Carolina, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah should they follow through on their suicide pact.

Ain't that grand? Think of all those undocumented workers in California and NY working to keep the anti-immigrant states afloat. It's almost a macrocosm of the "send-'em-all-back" microcosm that hypocritically depends on cheap, illegal labor to keep its lawns cut, it's houses clean and its children burped.

Arizona: America's Most Scenic Giant Racist Sh*thole

Gov. Janice Brewer (R-AZ) bowed to the Re-Palin-can base and signed the 'Stop Brown Folks On Sight' bill. For two reasons:

1. She's scared for her job
2. She's a white supremacist bitch who probably fantasizes about Arizona ceding from the Union and joining the WWII Axis powers instead.

"Halt! Papers Bitte!" Oh what a sad, sad figure she will be viewed as by history... Right up there with the Dixiecrats who fought LBJ over desegregation and the top-hatted tw*ts who tried to filibuster women's suffrage.

Cue obvious point: for all their phony libertarian stylings, this bill demonstrates there's nothing grass roots Republicans love more than massive, oppressive, authoritarian government. Hate government? Nope. They love government like Leopold von Sacher Masoch loved chicks in boots sitting on his face.

(Just to sign off with an unrelated thought, do we think we may have slightly overdone the ads for "You Don't Know Jack" Talking Points Memo guys? If TPM ain't owned by HBO, it is now.)

Holy Racism, Batman!

Psychologists at the University of Southern California have looked at 55 studies over the last 45 years involving more than 20,000 people (mostly Christians) and found a strong correlation between religious beliefs and racism.

"The studies show there’s significantly less racism among people who don’t have strong religious beliefs, while "highly devout" religious communities exhibit more prejudice against people of other races."

Surprised? Doubt it.

Religious fundies have always been the ultimate 'we're right, everybody else is wrong' clubs. This wouldn't be so bad if their ideas of right and wrong applied only to other people's beliefs and opinions. But they also apply right and wrong to race, sexual orientation and social class so people end up being discriminated against for things they have no choice about.

This is an important reason why so many people object to conservative Christians and wingnut pols teaming up to tamper with the delicate balance of Church v. State. It's one thing to have a racist pol seeking to influence minds - voters can choose to ignore them. But it's a different deal when those pols are parroting the megachurch pastors and presenting their nasty prejudices as the word of God with which you can't argue. Or vote against.

I know we're fast losing track of fact-based reality in America thanks to the antics of our Limp-baughs, Palins, Becks, etc. But we need to talk about this stuff. How can the GOP present itself as a democratic, secular political party in a country where the separation of Church and State is law when they're openly discriminating against various constituencies on behalf of their religious base?

And how can the Teabaggers and paleoconservatives argue that race has nothing to do with "taking our country back" when, as this study suggests, their 'spiritual wing' is pushing white supremacism from the pulpit?

Racist Says What?

Meg Whitman, a Republican candidate for governor of California, is trying to distance herself from a racist nutjob who endorsed her.

Santa Clarita councilman Bob Kellar made remarks at an anti-immigration anti-Mexican rally that apparently troubled Whitman:

"'Bob, you sound like a racist,' " Kellar recalled. “I said, 'That's good. If that's what you think I am because I happen to believe in America, I'm a proud racist. You're darn right I am.'"

Oops.

One thing: does it ever occur to racists they have a phobia? Whenever I hear some scared, confused xenophobe claim pride in being racist, it makes me wonder... would someone with an irrational fear of spiders ever claim to be 'arachnophobe and proud'?

Chris Matthews: Back On The Weird

From time to time Chris Matthews digs out his stash of weird, takes a deep draw and exhales a voluminous cloud of stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I sort of like Tweety and his borderline schizo unpredictability. But sometimes he just makes you rewind and say "wha..???"

Remember his homoerotic musings about Giuliani and Ahmadinejad fighting it out in a bare-chested backstreet brawl? Remember his fleeting man-crush on Fred "Aqua Velva" Thompson?

Now Matthews hits the weird once more and waxes lyrical on Obama-era post-racialism. Commenting on the State of The Union speech last night, he said he clean "forgot [Obama] was black tonight... You don't think in terms of the old tribalism, the old ethnicity. It was astounding in that regard."

Although Matthews would probably prickle at being accused of racism, he's a perfect example of the duplicitous attitude too many avowed 'non-racists' have toward blackness. Without even thinking about it, he's basically saying "I like Obama because he's not being black. He's trying to be like me and I'm flattered by that."

Never kid yourself that the contextualized, subliminal racism of the 'thinking classes' is every bit as nasty as the blunt, indiscriminate racism of the unthinking wingnuts.

Obama Still Black, Racists Still Pissed.

In Georgia:

"A doll was found hanging by a noose in front of a red, white and blue sign that says "Plains, Georgia. Home of Jimmy Carter, our 39th President." A witness told the television station that the doll wore a sign with Obama's name on it."

Multiculturalism: American Style

They say America's the most pluralistic, multicultural society on earth. But spare a thought for those non-pluralistic, monocultural types who have to endure living here through clenched teeth and bulging arteries. Here's an unintentionally hilarious email to Pastor J. Grant Swank, Jr.:

“I thought I would let everyone know that I took a deer into **** Meats in Fishers, Indiana on Friday after Thanksgiving. It is the same place I have taken deer for 20 years. They told me they couldn’t take my deer today because it was a Muslim holiday and the Muslims were in the BACK SACRIFICING GOATS TO ALLAH. I repeated back to her slowly and in a shocked tone what she had just said to me. Then I told her: ‘Shame on you for putting your customers on the back burner and the American Hunter to the side while the people we are at WAR with practice their religion in the back of your building hidden from public eye.’ I left. My deer and my business.

Will now go to **** Deer processing at **** Middletown, Indiana 47356. It’s not that far away. Please let all the people know about this. If I wouldn’t have gone to jail I would have gone back to spit on the floor in front of the Muslims and draw my weapon. This is America. Let’s keep it.”

I'm sure this good 'Merikun complainer would imagine people subscribe to different religions and customs just to annoy him. I'm sure he'd assume liberals have no such travails to endure because we don't complain. But that really isn't the case.

I have no idea what said 'Merikun would imagine as a liberal equivalent to his deer processing disappointment. Maybe bringing in home-fermented tofu for blessing by a shaman at the wholefood co-op and being told no because lesbians were doing a wheat grass festival in the back? I'm not sure. But as a liberal, if I did experience such a scenario, I might sigh frustratedly, maybe roll my eyes... but I'd just come back tomorrow. I wouldn't react like a giant, spoiled baby with white power 'roid rage and spitefully try to screw someone else's livelihood because they don't share my irrational prejudices. Jeez.

Dobbs: Palinite or Dixiecrat?

"A presidential run by Dobbs seems like a strong possibility, but he won't be running as a Republican." Says Joe Conason at Salon. But Conason also writes:

"He has long attacked the GOP for "free-market idolatry," and blasted corporate greed in a way that won't fit in with today's Republican Party. Given the history of third-party candidacies, Dobb's departure from CNN "may mark the beginning of a political nightmare for conservatives.""

A political nightmare for conservatives? Sure. But all things considered, Dobbs' pungent mix of blue collar populism and undisguised racism makes him more like a pre-civil rights era Dixiecrat than a Palinite conservative. So I'd say the DNC should be just as alarmed as the RNC if he makes a run. For peckerwood Dem voters who think the working man should get a fair shake but still struggle with their own hatred for minorities, voting for Dobbs might be (literally) a no-brainer.

The scariest 2012 scenario now portends a four-way race between Palin 'conservatives', the GOP, Obama Dems and Dobbs Dems. It would be nothing if not a wild ride.

Don't Let The Door Hit Your Racist Ass On The Way Out

According to El Dobbs' goodbye statement on his show last night:

"I've talked extensively with Jonathan Klein; Jon's the president of CNN, and as a result of those talks, Jon and I have agreed to a release from my contract that will enable me to pursue new opportunities."

Is this tactfully worded code for getting sh*tcanned? I imagine CNN could take the racist bigotry and the conservative griping - they had Beck on there for years after all - but that whole house-shooting deal? Once you go off the deep end and start sounding clinically paranoid, you lose your conservative kudos and just start sounding very old and very sad.

So it's off to Fox Business, that Shady Pines retirement home for old bigots, with him. He should have fun hanging out with Imus trading cracks about Mexicans and black people hair.

Fox News Expert Establishes New Low

Retired army colonel Ralph Peters was on Bill O'Reilly last night expressing his anger that Obama found the massacre at Fort Hood 'incomprehensible'.

“The speech was clearly written by someone who didn’t serve in the military… No, it wasn’t hard to comprehend and it’s not now. It was the act of an Islamic terrorist who gunned down 55 people, 54 people, because he believed he was doing the will of Allah in accordance with the Koran.”

Luckily for Peters, he enjoys the First Amendment freedom to spout divisive bullsh*t. If he was speaking on the BBC, for example, he'd be up in court for fomenting racial hatred. Freedom of Speech aside, is there really no legal mechanism for shutting down racist scumbags on TV? God forbid, my kid should glimpse a tit on network TV or hear an unbleeped cuss. But straight-up racist evil masquerading as opinion? Knock yourself out.

New York Post "Hellish Cauldron of Racism, Sexism, and White Rage"

New York Post editor-in-chief Col Allan "likes to rub his penis up against his female employees, whether they want him to or not" says fired editor.

After The New York Post ran that sub-Klan cartoon with Obama as a dead chimp earlier this year, Sandra Guzman, a post editor, complained and was duly fired. Now Allan is probably regretting that decision after she decided to sue his ass and lift the lid on life at the Post. Some of the choice examples include Allan's alleged propensity for rubbing his dick on female employees, his idea of running a cartoon depicting Jews as sewer rats and mention of a young female copywriter being offered a gig in return for a blowjob. Phew... classy stuff.

Malkin & Buchanan: al Qaeda's PR Company

There are so many revolting anti-Muslim sentiments being expressed in the Fort Hood aftermath. And it's easy to think the worst of judgmental bigots like this commenter at the Washington Post:

"The thirteen innocent people murdered at Ft. Hood were sacrificed on the altar of "diversity" and political correctness."

I guess if you were a proper Christian - not one of those blowhard posers who use Christianity as a cover for their fascism - you'd forgive garbage like that because it's motivated by fear and confusion.

But the people who cannot be forgiven are the enablers and excusers who should know better who perpetuate the bigotry of the sheeple. The only group that benefits from their nasty habit of painting normal Muslims as radicals are the real radicals everyone's so terrified of. After all, how can you be a radical if your entire religion is radical? How can you be a bad guy when you make everyone a bad guy?

Bigoted c***s like Michelle Malkin and Pat Buchanan may as well be working as al Qaeda's PR department.

Racism Masquerading As News

Is it just me or is this Politics Daily story dumber than sh*t and twice as nasty?

I repeat, why is it only American Muslims who are subjected to this variation of the 'when did you stop beating your wife' rule and expected to condemn crimes that no-one in their right mind would possibly condone? I can't imagine "NAACP Condemns Ohio Rapist" or "AARP Condemn BTK Killer" would have been considered newsworthy.

Brace Yourselves...

Wingnut-think at Townhall.com

"The base commander at Fort Hood says soldiers who witnessed a shooting rampage that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" before opening fire at the Texas post."

I guess that personnel file where Hasan stated no preference on religion is now a little redundant. More grist for the wingnut hate mill. Trust Fox PAC to get the ball rolling:

""The name tells us a lot, does it not, senator?" Fox News's Shep Smith said while interviewing Kay Bailey Hutchison, a Texas senator."

But even the MSM are not immune to the anti-Muslim reflex. In a report on the backlash following the Fort Hood massacre, CBS say:

"The Arab-American Institute said it received one threatening call from an unidentified male shortly after Hasan's name was released. The group, which condemned the massacre, said it expected more."

CBS news wants us to know that the Arab-American Institute 'condemned the massacre' - just in case we wondered if they had a pro-massacre stance.

It's mind-blowing to think that mainstream news still indulges bigotry by using this variation of the 'when did you stop beating your wife?' principle. Would CBS, for example, have asked the Lutheran church to clarify whether they approved or disapproved of the BTK Killer? Was it considered necessary to point out that the Vatican did not approve of the Oklahoma City bombing even though Timothy McVeigh was raised Catholic?

I like to think I'm living in a civilized society. Even though there are a loud minority who hate pluralism, every rational person accepts there are Americans of different religions and ethnicities who have just as much a stake in our country as the white Christian majority.

But since 9-11, even the most moderate American Muslim groups are obliged to stand up and condemn every crime committed by other Muslims just in case we think they're not on-side. This is discriminatory, insults everybody's intelligence and makes the lunatic nativists feel validated. If we really are civilized, can we quit doing this?

OK, Liberals, Stop Shooting at Lou Dobbs

Lou Dobbs is all pissed that some dirty foreigners/liberals have been taking potshots at his house because of his "views on illegal immigration and border security."

But the cops aren't convinced foul play is involved and the neighbors say stray hunters' bullets are common in Dobbs' neighborhood:

Neighbor Rocky Russo, who was dressed in camouflage gear and bowhunting for white-tailed deer near Mr. Dobbs’s property, said, “might have been some idiot taking a shot at a squirrel in a tree. Who knows?”

I'm going to look an ass if anyone does off Dobbs but, really, who the hell would bother assassinating a semi-senile, third-rate CNN hack? It would be the political assassin's equivalent of banging a fat chick.

Driving While Mexican

There's a new variation on the old 'driving while black' moving violation. It turns out Dallas police have been ticketing drivers for not speaking English - on at least 39 occasions during the past three years.

The case that broke the other 'not speaking English' tickets occurred when Ernestina Mondragon was "stopped for making an illegal U-turn by an officer who cited her for three violations: disregarding a traffic control device, failure to present a driver's license and "non-English speaking driver.""

I'm sure this will start up more nativist arguments about immigrants learning English. Mostly by barely-intelligible rednecks who should consider themselves lucky they weren't cited too.

Racist Judge Still Judgin'

Keith Bardwell Still Has a Job. Somehow.

It's been 42 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional.

It's been 20 days since this racist piece of s*** broke the law. Yet he's still a judge. Hello..?

RNC Facebook Now Purged of Racism. Sort of...

One of the pictures now purged from the RNC Facebook page.

The Republicans just removed a number of offensive user-posted pictures from its Facebook page. One picture referred to poor kids in India as 'scab-eating mouth breathers', another showed John Kerry being shot in the head and another showed Obama eating fried chicken with the caption 'miscegenation (i.e., mixed-race marriage) is a crime.'

No-one's claiming the pictures were posted or endorsed by the RNC. But there is widespread puzzlement why it took them an entire week to delete them - and then only after they realized they were about to become a news story.

A comment on the Discussion Board says:

"This Facebook page has just pulled all member-posted photos, probably due to news stories about to break about some racist photos that were here for a week before being deleted... Up until this morning, there were a bunch of photos in a gallery, posted by members. Some of them were pretty blatantly racist in nature."

If you give the RNC the benefit of the doubt, it could be that the photos were planted by mischievous liberal trolls. But why would it then take a week to clean them up? Maybe they didn't throw the s*** themselves, but it sure found a convenient sewer to land in.