If you support Rush Limbaugh, you're a racist. No doubts, no excuses.

This appeared on Rush Limbaugh's blog this week...


...after the following quote from his radio show.

This guy is an utter wrecking ball all by himself on the world stage to the point now of getting embarrassing. This presidency of Obama's, it doesn't take much to irritate the left. Try this: "Barack Obama's presidency is graffiti on the walls of American history." That's what his administration is. No more than graffiti on the walls of American history. We have a juvenile delinquent for a president who has ruined so much public and private property, not even his gang is making much of an effort here to protect him. It's an utter disaster.

If you support this horrible racist windbag, you're a racist yourself. No two ways about it. This isn't a policy discussion, this is race-baiting.

via Andrew Sullivan

Shirley Sherrod, the NAACP, Fox News and the media's buying of right-wing lies

The USDA/Andrew Breitbart/Fox News race-baiting story has so many angles.

The basics: Shirley Sherrod, a USDA employee, told a story at an NAACP gathering in March about an incident 24 years ago in a previous job where she had to help a white farmer stave off foreclosure. She describes how the incident helped to to overcome her own biases and help the white family to save their farm. Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted an edited version of the speech that made it seem as Ms. Sherrod was a racist who wouldn't help whites.

You should be familiar with Breitbart, the guy who hired two people to pose as a pimp and a prostitute to frame community organization ACORN. As a result of Breitbart's actions, Congress defunded ACORN and forced it out of business. It was later revealed (though scantly reported, especially by the New York Times - presumably out of embarrassment) that the videos were a heavily-edited scam seeking to make ACORN look bad.

After Breitbart posted the video, Fox News predictably jumped on it. Fox has been pushing a racial agenda in the last few weeks, between the fear-mongering over the New Black Panther Party and the NAACP's resolution condemning racism in some elements of the Tea Party.

Following the Fox News leap, someone in government - and who that "someone" is is in doubt - almost immediately forced Ms. Sherrod to resign.

This issue hopefully brings to a head several disturbing trends in American politics. Let's examine:

1) The rise of 'gotcha' politics based on edited materials or outright set-ups. The most obvious of these is the Breitbart ACORN hoax where a motivated political blogger was able to set up and bring down an organization not for criminal activity, but simply because he disagreed with their agenda.

Breitbart posted this heavily-edited video in response to the NAACP finally going after the racist elements in the Tea Party movement. He's part of a disturbing trend to try to paint blacks as oppressors holding white America down. In a real way, the Tea Party and Fox News are mainstreaming the agenda of the white supremacists.

2) The media's insistance on playing every issue as if there are two legitimate sides. Make no mistake, these movements have always existed. It's the national exposure that is different. The rise of the Internet and Internet-based media has given these people exposure. Couple that with the media's insistence on treating every issue as having two equal sides, like SportsCenter for politics, has given these hate-filled people a platform.

There are not always two equal sides. There certainly are not here. There is the truth and there is a lie and there is a woman whose life has been thrown into chaos because Breitbart lied and the media didn't do their job.

3) The media abdicating their traditional role as a watchdog. In many ways, this is the most troubling. Breitbart is a known and proven liar and Fox News is an obvious Republican shill. Yet the rest of the mainstream media runs with his claims with no checks, no investigation, no vetting. In pursuit of being the first, they neglect their basic duties. When investigative journalism is no longer the role of the mainstream media and in a world where Rolling Stone is now breaking major stories (and doing excellent analysis - this means you, Matt Taibbi), there is an obvious problem.

Murrow is spinning like a dynamo right now.

4) The media's lack of acceptance of their role once the lie is uncovered (by someone else) and their insistance on playing every issue as if there are two legitimate sides. Watching MSNBC's Tamryn Hall in the 11 o'clock hour today, she embarrassed herself. Even at this late hour, when the scope of the lie and the duping of the media is exposed, she still pretends that there are two sides. In introducing an "interview" with Breitbart, she mentions the ACORN tapes but fails to mention that Breitbart has been proven a liar and that the ACORN tapes are a hoax.

Even when pressed on the media's role, she constantly shifts blame to the administration. While the administration - if it did get involved (which is not proven yet) - is wrong, the administration was pushed by the huge media coverage of what turned out to be a non-issue. the media sreadfastly refuses to accept their roles as investigator and gate-keeper. They'll rightly take praise when they get it right, but they will not accept blame when their Pavlovian reactions are at the center of the problem.

Of course, in order for the situation to improve, the media as a whole will have to take a look at itself and it's practices, accept blame and responsibility for their failings and, most importantly, make the hard steps necessary to change. This includes risking the wrath of Fox News and the hard right.

Which means the situation isn't going to improve.

*******UPDATE********
Andrew Breitbart responds:

"I’m sympathetic that they went after her and not the NAACP. ... For the NAACP to conspicuously play the race card for political purposes is wrong, and the goal was to show that here’s evidence of racist behavior"

Right. It's about the NAACP. It's about a 12% minority holding back a 75% majority. Sure it is.

In his own way, however, Breitbart is telling the truth. It IS about the NAACP, and his desire to do to them what he did to ACORN. It's about removing obstacles to power. It's about removing those voices that tell us what we ought to be doing. It's about removing anything that might inspire guilt in the American psyche. It's about accumulating as much wealth and power in as few hands (as long as two of those hands are yours) as possible.

Tea Party spokesman on CNN:"Racists have their own movement. It's called the NAACP":

Riiiiight. An organization that has protected people from discrimination since 1909 is racist.

I love it when rich white people try to portray themselves as victims. How sad.

Racism? What racism? No racism in Sarah Palin's tea party world.

On tuesday, the NAACP passed a resolution condemning the racism it sees as coming from certain elements of the Tea Party.

Of course, Mrs. tea Party Mama Grizzly Sarah Palin has derided the resolution and denied any hint of racism coming from the movement she's trying to turn into her own campaign committee. "I am saddened by the NAACP's claim that patriotic Americans who stand up for the United States of America's Constitutional rights are somehow 'racists,'" Palin wrote in a Facebook note.

To Palin, Teabaggers aren't racist because they don't shout "Nigger!". Most of them don't, anyway. But don't forget this guy at a Palin rally in PA in 2008. (h/t Cesca)

But it's not about screaming the N-word anymore. Flashback to Lee Atwater's comments about race. About how it's not necessary, or wise,to shout that anymore. Now they use code words. They all know what it means.

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger"

And the Tea Party uses code words. We want to "take our country back". From whom? Who has the country now, and why aren't they American?

So Palin sees no racism. Then how about Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.com, CNN contributor and known race-baiter? today, Erickson suggested a return to the Nixon/Atwater Southern strategy of using code words to appeal to Southern whites, and their like-minded brethern by bringing back the Willie Horton ads.

Media Matters

"King Samir Shabazz Should Be 2010's Willie Horton," CNN contributor and RedState.com editor-in-chief Erick Erickson wrote of the manufactured scandal over the Justice Department's handling of the New Black Panther Party case: "Republican candidates nationwide should seize on this issue. The Democrats are giving a pass to radicals who advocate killing white kids in the name of racial justice and who try to block voters from the polls."

Erickson added: "The Democrats will scream racism. Let them. Republicans are not going to pick up significant black support anyway."

Who is King Samir Shabazz? He's the Black Panther who showed up at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008 and launched cries of voter intimidation. The Department of Justice investigated, found he was engaged in improper intimidation activities and acted. They placed an injunction banning him from any Philadelphia polling place for the 2012 elections.

The conservative Smear Machine has picked up on this, accusing the DOJ of not doing enough and blowing the racial dog whistle.

Here's Fox News' Megyn Kelly working herself into a lather because one of her guests was not vetted well enough and had the temerity to suggest that Kelly was perhaps overeacting.

ThinkProgress
This afternoon, Kelly invited New York Post columnist — and regular Fox contributor — Kirsten Powers to debate the importance of this story. Kelly bemoaned that “no one seems to give a darn” about the allegations promulgated by former Bush DoJ lawyer J. Christian Adams. The conservative activist claims that the Obama Justice Department dropped voter intimidation charges against the New Black Panther Party due to racial considerations. Contrary to the claims, the Obama DoJ has issued an injunction against the member of the NBPP who was seen engaging in voter intimidation tactics, prohibiting him “from displaying a weapon within 100 feet of any Philadelphia polling place through 2012.”

Powers effectively dismantled the faux scandal for what it is, telling Kelly, “You can put me in the same category of people who don’t really give a darn.” “You don’t seem to know what you’re talking about,” Kelly immediately responded, growing more enraged as the two wrestled, jabbed, and bickered over the facts:

POWERS: The minute I challenge you, you tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about?

KELLY: Because you don’t.

POWERS: You just want people to come on and just agree with you –

KELLY: No, I want informed people.

POWERS: — that what you’ve been doing and the way you’ve been completely doing the “scary black man thing.”

Powers told Kelly, “I don’t remember people screaming” about the Bush administration’s miscarriages of justice in the Civil Rights Division. “Don’t make me cut your mic,” Kelly threatened at one point. Watch the showdown:

What racism? What code words? What dog whistles?

Olbermann deconstructs.

South Carolina, your racism NEVER disappoints

Washington Post

The knock-down-drag-out brawl for South Carolina's Republican gubernatorial nomination just got nastier.

A GOP state senator called front-runner Nikki Haley, the only woman in the race and a daughter of Indian immigrants, "a raghead" on a political talk show Thursday night.

"We already got one raghead in the White House," John M. "Jake" Knotts Jr. said on the Internet talk show "Pub Politics," according to The State newspaper. "We don't need another in the governor's mansion."

Knotts, a supporter of one of Haley's opponents, later apologized and said his comment was made in jest.

The comments were made on the June 3rd episode of Pub Politics, a South Carolina politics webcast co-hosted by conservative Wes Donehue and Democrat Phil Bailey.

As Dave Weigel reports:

Video of the interview has been kept offline since its initial broadcast. In a statement, Bailey and Donehue say that "what Senator Knotts said on Thursday’s show does not fit with our program and its goals." Conveniently for Knotts -- who has been condemned by state Republicans anyway -- the lack of the video prevents the story from taking on more steam. What's interesting about this is that Knotts is a close political ally of Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) -- and Donehue, according to FEC reports, has done work for Wilson.

Nice. Really nice.

Rand Paul defends the right of private businesses to discriminate

Republican Kentucky Senatorial nominee Rand Paul was on The Rachel Maddow Show last night and was asked what seemed to be an easy opening question: "Do you support the 1964 Civil Rights Act?". What followed was a near 20-minute fiasco for Dr. Paul, where he turned what should have been a simple "yes" into an exhibition in deflection.

Take the following phrases and mix-and-match them, preceed each with "What's interesting is..." (apparently his tell for when he's trapped by his own conflicting views) and you have almost the whole content of the interview:

"I deplore discrimination in any form"
"I would never belong to a club that discriminates"
"I think the parts of the Civil Rights Act that eliminated institutional discrimination were correct"
"But..."

The "but..." part was his non-answering answer to his statement that he opposes the part of the Civil Rights Act that desegregated private businesses, such as restaurants. He continually equivocated, trying to draw a line between forcing a business to cater to all customers and taking away that businesses ability to exclude people with weapons. (Huh??)

He would never directly answer and admit that he believes that private businesses should have the right to discriminate, though everytihng out of his mouth says that's what he believes. I'm not sure what's more shameful, his belief or that he won't man up and admit it.

Dr. Paul also doesn't see the disconnect between the idea that, as he says "racism is morally wrong" and his extreme limited-government approach which might acknowledge racism as wrong but would render the government powerless to do anytihng about it. In essence, 'I don't like racism but I don't think the government should do anything about it.'

Rand Paul is looking less and less like a viable candidate. If this is the type of person Kentucky (and the GOP, and the Tea Party, and Fox News) wants in the Senate, then we have to strongly reconsider the state of our nation.

I'll warn you about watching the video - it's excruciating.

Where is the Tea Party when you need them?

Where is the Tea Party on immigration? Where is the Tea Party on bank regulation?

The group that prides itself on stopping government overreach, and the party that claims to be about restoring balance in favor of average citizens is nowhere to be seen on these two issues.

Why aren't they out there? Aren't these two issues right in their wheelhouse? If they want to prove that they're an independent group - as opposed to the militant wing of the Republican party - then they need to get in front of this. Republicans voted as a bloc to stop debate on reforming the bak practices that led to the collapse of 2008. And Arizona's Republican governor signed legislation that requires American citizens to show their papers when stopped by police.

If this isn't an example of exactly what the Tea Party purports to be against, then I don't know what is.

Eugene Robinson/Washington Post
Where was the Tea Party crowd? Isn't the whole premise of the Tea Party movement that overreaching government poses a grave threat to individual freedom? It seems to me that a law allowing individuals to be detained and interrogated on a whim -- and requiring legal residents to carry identification documents, as in a police state -- would send the Tea Partyers into apoplexy. Or is there some kind of exception if the people whose freedoms are being taken away happen to have brown skin and might speak Spanish?

Even Joe Scarborough is against the Arizona law.

"...It does offend me when one out of every three citizens in the state of Arizona are Hispanics, and you have now put a target on the back of one out of three citizens, who, if they're walking their dog around a neighborhood, if they're walking their child to school, and they're an American citizen, or a legal, legal immigrant -- to now put a target on their back, and make them think that every time they walk out of their door they may have to prove something. I will tell you, that is un-American. It is unacceptable and it is un-American.

- Joe Scarborough via Benen

Of course, maybe the Tea Party are hypocritical racists.

The Tea Party's Pretty Hate Machine

U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva's office has received multiple threats over a new state immigration measure. Grijalva says he's opposed to the bill that would make it a crime under state law to be in the county illegally and would allow police to demand identification from anyone they suspected of being potentially illegal (ie: skin color).

The Arizona Daily Star reports that Grijalva spokesman Adam Sarvana released a statement Friday saying that the congressman's office received "some pretty scary calls," including one from a man "who threatened to go down there and blow everyone's brains out then go to the border to shoot Mexicans."

According to the Daily Star:

Grijalva staffer Ruben Reyes said the office has been flooded with calls all week about Senate Bill 1070. About 25 percent are "very racist" in nature, Reyes said, characterizing some as "telling that tortilla-eating wetback to go back to Mexico."

I'm willing to bet that the callers weren't A) black B) Hispanic C) Democrats

The Republican Governor's Association, led by Mississippi Governor, Confederate History Month pooh-pooher (slavery controversy "doesn't amount to diddly"), and possible 2012 candidate Haley Barbour, has embraced British terrorist Guy Fawkes. You know, the guy who tried to assassinate the king by blowing up Parliament. Sounds reasonable.

'But', you say, 'it's just rhetoric'. Really? Explain this guy (via ThinkProgress) and tell me the GOP isn't trying to mobilize guys just like him.



A truck, parked in a disabled person parking spot, emblazoned with a large Confederate flag, and featuring a picture of the World Trade Center burning. The text on the truck reads, “Everything I ever needed to know about Islam I learned on 9/11″:

Think Progress

While most sites focused on the offensive text and imagery all over the truck, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) noticed that the license plate contained a coded Neo-Nazi white supremacist message. CAIR alerted the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), which prohibits placing offensive messages on vanity plates but had missed this one in its normal authorization process. Upon review, the DMV concluded the plate did indeed contain a coded hate message, and recalled the plate:

The number 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, doubled to signify “Heil Hitler,” said CAIR’s Ibrahim Hooper. “CV” stands for “Confederate veteran” — the plate was a special model embossed with a Confederate flag, which Virginia makes available for a $10 fee to card-carrying members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And 14 is code for imprisoned white supremacist David Lane’s 14-word motto: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

Cesca

And then there's the photograph of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. I've never been able to figure out the wingnut worship of those buildings on fire with people falling to their deaths. But then to print this particular photo on the back of a pick-up truck seems remarkably disrespectful and, dare I say, unpatriotic. Yep. Nothing says "sweet decoration" like a photo showing the deaths of thousands of people on one of the bloodiest days in American history.

By the way, the Virginia DMV pulled the license plate number once they discovered what it meant.

This, this whole movement, is sedition.

The GOP runs on race because it apparently works

Not all of the anti-Obama sentiment is race-based. Just most of it.

Look at the Tea party complaints and the lack of truth behind them and then ask yourself, 'if this is a red herring, what's the real reason for the opposition?':
1) Taxes
TRUTH) Obama lowered them for 95% of working families

2) Health care
TRUTH) You can debate a states rights version of government power here (though the right has not), but the truth is that it's ridiculous for most tea partiers to oppose health care because, even by the worst objective numbers, we pay 1% more to cover 34 million more people (via Ezra) and reduce overall health care costs. Many of the beneficiaries of this coverage are tea partiers. Tea partiers who also, by the way, accept government run Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

TRUTH) It's NOT a government takeover. This is being done through private companies and if anyone thinks they're in danger, look at their stock prices post HCR

3) Subverting the Constitution
TRUTH) Where specifically? As the interviews with the Tax Day protesters showed, many cannot articulate their positions beyond "socialism". When questioned about what, exactly, this President is doing to endanger this country, they cannot answer.

Where were the protests when Bush launched an illegal war, based on lies and without a formal declaration of war? Where were the tea partiers when Bush gutted Due Process and the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus? Where were the demonstrations when Bush rolled back posse comitatus, allowing the Federal government to use the military in the streets of America to act as law enforcement?

Where were they then?

Given the lack of answers to these questions, the Tea Partiers inability to articulate their reasons for opposition and their failure to act when their rights were really being taken away, we have to conclude that their are other reasons for their opposition to Obama.

Look at this graph from the Washington Post via The Electoral Map. Look at where McCain's support came from.


In every state that was a part of the Confederacy, McCain won a greater share of white votes than he did nationally.

Given conservatives general dissatisfaction with McCain as a candidate I'd suggest that this is at least partially a referendum on Obama. As a black man.

Michael Steele, the chair of the RNC, acknowledged last week that the Southern Strategy is real. The Southern Strategy, cooked up by Richard Nixon and Pat Buchanan, was designed to appeal to southern whites by practicing racially-divisive politics in the post-Civil Rights era to build a reliable Southern bloc for the the Republicans. The GOP has denied this for years. Until Steele:

The Plum Line

“We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans,” Steele said. “This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties. Their parties walk away from them.

“For the last 40-plus years we had a ‘Southern Strategy’ that alienated many minority voters by focusing on the white male vote in the South. Well, guess what happened in 1992, folks, ‘Bubba’ went back home to the Democratic Party and voted for Bill Clinton.”

There's nothing illegal about admitting you're voting on race. True, I believe that it makes you an anachronism, but it's not illegal. But it is completely dishonest, intellectually and otherwise, to try to hide your true opposition behind charged code words. Obama is not a socialist. He's not a Muslim. He is black.

Just admit it.

Be a better Tea Partier, Tip #1: send lots of racist emails,blame Democrats

Carl Paladino, Tea Party candidate for governor of New York, finds himself in racial trouble (again), this time for sending racist, sexually explicit and beastiality-themed emails to friends.

Here's a rundown. Extremely graphic pictures can be seen at WNYMedia:

• Ahead of Obama's swearing-in ceremony, Paladino sent around a video entitled "Obama Inauguration Rehearsal." The video shows an African tribesman dancing, and is apparently popular among white supremacists.
• An email with the subject line "Proof the Irish discovered Africa" containing a video of monkeys that appear to be doing a Riverdance-style jig.
•  A video of a naked woman sent from a government email account.
• A bestiality video involving a horse screwing a woman.
• An email featuring this motivational poster:

• A photo of Barack and Michelle dressed in 70's blaxploitation pimp and ho outfits:

• A video entitled “Miss France 2008 fucking”
• A picture of Linda Lovelace's granddaughter licking a hot dog entitled "Now this is talent"

For his part, Paladino's spokesman doesn't deny any of it:

New York Daily News
Carl Paladino has forwarded close friends hundreds of email messages he received. Many of these emails he received were off color, some were politically incorrect, few represented his own opinion, and almost none of them were worth remembering.

We're not surprised the political establishment feels threatened by Carl's drive the take Albany back for taxpayers. Our campaign won't be wading through the details of what is just another liberal Democrat blog smear. It figures that members of the Party who brought us record taxes, record spending and record debt would want to change the topic from reform to having sex with horses and S&M parlors.

Ahhh.... it's the Democrats fault for "trying to smear me". So much for accountability.

WNYMedia

In this political climate, it’s safe to assume that the opportunists and hangers-on that make up much of Carl’s activist base will dismiss this report as a “smear” and circle the wagons around their candidate. It is the political culture wrought by Sarah Palin. A reflexive defensiveness to criticism from the opposition on even the most obvious of hypocrisies, malevolence or provable falsehoods.

Endorsement of GOP candidate: "You’ve got the black one with the reading thing"

Stay classy, Republicans.

Dave Weigel

Via Jonathan Chait, we see Vietnam War hero Bud Day — known these days for his support of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and his habit of constantly wearing his Medal of Honor around his neck — giving Charlie Crist an endorsement he might regret.

“You know, we just got through (electing) a politician who can run his mouth at Mach 1, a black one, and now we have a Hispanic who can run his mouth at Mach 1,” Day said. “You look at their track records and they’re both pretty gritty. Charlie has not got a gritty track record.”

Day confirmed he was speaking of Obama and Rubio.

“You’ve got the black one with the reading thing. He can go as fast as the speed of light and has no idea what he’s saying,” Day said. “I put Rubio in that same category, except I don’t know if he’s using one of those readers.”

Apparently, gun possession should be punished by immediate execution

The Weekly Standard advocates the immediate killing of anyone caught in possession of a gun. Or maybe it only counts if you have brown skin and a name that doesn't sound like Steve. Why are the rules different in different parts of our empire?

The All-White Basketball League. Yup, you read that right.

Huff Post

In January, basketball fans were greeted with the shocking news that a man sought to create a whites-only basketball league. The outrageous plan elicited a loud public reaction, with Charles Barkley calling the league "blatantly racist." The league's commissioner, Don "Moose" Lewis, eventually admitted that the league promotes segregation and simultaneously proposed a whites-vs.-blacks game called "snowball vs. bro ball."

The league, which has yet to actually set up shop anywhere, escaped media attention during much of the following months, but it's back in the spotlight thanks to "The Daily Show." Scroll down to see Jason Jones speak with the league's commissioner, who continues to defend the league.

teaparty.org founder: "I've never seen any racial slurs" at tea party events; his sign: "Niggar"

Media Matters

The Washington Times' Joseph Curl reported that "Dale Robertson, founder of teaparty.org, said no one knows who might have yelled out racial epithets during" a recent Capitol Hill tea party protest. Curl later quoted Robertson as saying, "These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there. ... They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never seen any racial slurs."

Below is Dale:



Dale rhymes with Fail.

More tea party hatred, and a defense of it from Republicans

Huff Post

A protester sitting in the House gallery just disrupted the early business going on in the chamber by screaming out: "The people have said no!" and "You took an oath." Leadership tried to gavel the members back into session and ordered the Sargent in Arms to remove the unruly man. Before he was escorted out, however, he did receive a fair amount of applause from the Republican side of the aisle.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) emerged from the House floor irate to denounce Republicans for cheering on the protester, saying that dozens were encouraging lawbreaking and making the situation dangerous for the unarmed ushers who have to wrestle out protesters in a tight space. He yelled at Roy Blunt on the House floor, telling him to get his colleagues in order. "That's why you get this kind of virulence and hatred," he said.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) came to the defense of the racists and bigots who shouted slurs at members of Congress Saturday. The Tea Party protesters shouted the ‘n’ word at African American members of Congress the ‘f’ word at an openly gay member.

Rather than condemn the anachronistic behavior, Nunes blamed the Democrats, saying that they make people do and say crazy things with their tyrannical behavior.

“When you use a totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy,” Nunes told C-SPAN’s Steve Scully Sunday morning when asked about the slurs. “I think that people have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone they can do it."

Racist tea baggers fit right in the Republican strategy

Benen

But by last night, a related question arose: why aren't Republicans making any efforts at all to denounce the actions of their extremist allies? Can there be any doubt that if liberal protestors, speaking out against the war in Iraq a few years ago, had engaged in these kinds of tactics, the demands for Democratic condemnations would be overwhelming?

Cesca

Maybe I'm shrill, but it's probably because the Republicans have employed Southern Strategy politics for decades and have no interest in apologizing to anyone who might be offended by such behavior.

Racist, violent tea partiers go WAY too far

Huff Post

Preceding the president's speech to a gathering of House Democrats, thousands of protesters descended around the Capitol to protest the passage of health care reform. The gathering quickly turned into abusive heckling, as members of Congress passing through Longworth House office building were subjected to epithets and even mild physical abuse.

A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) had been spat on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.

But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.

Other tea partiers carried signs, shown below, threatening gun violence on those who would pass this bill. This is WAY out of hand. where is the indignation? Am I the only one who remembers the outrage when Cindy Sheehan set up a demonstration outside of Crawford, TX, to protest the Iraqi War? There were no threats of violence and yet it was a national story. This is buried on CNN and not even mentioned on Fox.

Where is the evenhandedness from the media? Where is the shame on behalf of the GOP for coddling these nutjobs?

Santorum: Obama "may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims"

And this guy wants to be President of the United States? Why do I think the 2012 GOP primaries is going to be the American Idol of who can say the most outrageous, outlandish shit?

Huff Post

I think the Democrats are actually worried he may go to Indonesia and bow to more Muslims. That's sort of the concern that every time he seems to go to these other countries, he comes back or starts some sort of controversy that hits his popularity. I'm serious.

Teabaggers keep pushing their hands farther into the racial fire

Thomas Frank, the author of What's The Matter With Kansas, examines the tea party movement and it's paranoid contradictions:

Huff Post

Not too long ago, Kansas would have responded to the current situation by making the bastards pay. This would have been a political certainty, as predictable as what happens when you touch a match to a puddle of gasoline. When business screwed the farmers and the workers--when it implemented monopoly strategies invasive beyond the Populists' furthest imaginings--when it ripped off shareholders and casually tossed thousands out of work--you could be damned sure about what would follow.
Not these days. Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: To the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today's Kansans of their job security, and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land and next thing you know they're protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO and there's a good chance they'll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed--unions, antitrust, public ownership--and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.

So if it's not jobs, and land and health pushing them to the tea parties, what could it be?


There's also the less kinder view

How could it *possibly* be about race. Noooo......

via Cesca

What's wrong with this description of a teabagger from Idaho?

SANDPOINT, Idaho — Pam Stout has not always lived in fear of her government. She remembers her years working in federal housing programs, watching government lift struggling families with job training and education. She beams at the memory of helping a Vietnamese woman get into junior college.
But all that was before the Great Recession and the bank bailouts, before Barack Obama took the White House by promising sweeping change on multiple fronts, before her son lost his job and his house. Mrs. Stout said she awoke to see Washington as a threat, a place where crisis is manipulated — even manufactured — by both parties to grab power.

Here's how it's all -- or mostly -- about race. The far-right is against punishing the banks, so it can't be the bank bailouts. The far-right also supported a massive increase in the size of government, unitary executive power grabs and unconstitutional measures fueled by fear-mongering over the very remote threat of terrorism. And Mrs. Stout is suddenly worried now? I smell bullshit.

Adding... The healthcare crisis isn't manufactured. People are going broke and dying. The horror stories are readily available online. Just Google "health insurance horror story" and see how "manufactured" the crisis is. Furthermore, look at any bar graph of the economy as of one year ago or any basic jobs number and tell me if the crisis is manufactured. Hell, this woman's son lost his house! How can she possibly suggest the economic crisis was manufactured? Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Then, on the other hand, look at numerous studies about the instances of terrorism and the odds of an American dying in a domestic terrorist attack. And then tell me which crisis is manufactured or exaggerated.

These people are pissed because there isn't a doddering old white guy in the White House -- like they're used to. That's what this is all about.