Huffington Post: From anti-lynching and civil rights bills in the 50s and 60s, it was “the party of Lincoln” that used the rhetorical cover of “states rights” to hold minorities down. Of course a rare species then known as Southern Democratic senators joined in, but as any student of the 1957, 1964 and 1965 civil rights laws knows, a large majority of Democrats voted yes and a large majority of Republicans voted no.
The consequent rise of minority voting and representation — and laws against discrimination in the workplace, coupled with affirmative action — have changed the face of America…to the point that even President George W. Bush had to support extending the 1965 voting rights Act in 2005. [ READ MORE ]
Great presidents lead. In a sense, Lincoln “rammed” through the Emancipation Proclamation just as FDR “rammed” through Lend-Lease, Truman “rammed” through desegregation of the military, and Lyndon Johnson “rammed” the Civil Rights Act down the throat of a gagging South. These might be considered more dramatic issues than mundane health care, I grant you — but grant me an exception for someone putting off doctor visits because he or she can’t afford to be sick. To that person, this bill is as dramatic as the difference between sickness and health — the great divide of mankind. –Richard Cohen, Washington Post [ READ MORE ]
On Monday morning, President Barack Obama ratcheted up his attacks against insurance companies in a last-ditch attempt to get a reluctant public and skittish Democrats behind his health overhaul legislation. [ FULL STORY ]
Bonus Video: The first couple welcomed guests to the White House on Monday, marking International Women’s Day. Mrs. Obama looked ravishing in a grey draped dress by Lanvin. [ READ MORE ]
Republican Goon-LIARS Respond:
Fox News’ Special Report, chief White House correspondent Major Garrett falsely claimed that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had not found projected savings under the Senate health bill to be “meaningful” in its second decade. In fact, CBO estimated that the bill would reduce the deficit in its second decade. [ READ MORE ]
Meanwhile, conservative media cast Democrats as “suicide bombers” in push for health care reform: Reacting to progress on health care reform legislation, conservative media figures have repeatedly referred to President Obama and Democratic officials as “health care suicide bombers” and characterized their efforts to pass a bill as “a Kamikaze mission” and “political suicide missions.”[ READ MORE ]
Fox’s Garrett distorted CBO findings on long-term savings under Senate health bill
Rush Limbaugh Promises To “Leav[e] The Country” If His Health Care Distortions Come True
Hannity & Dick Morris: “People stopped [health care reform] up to this point and I think they’ve got to now finish the job”
Limbaugh repeatedly refers to “Democrat” Party as “a gulag“
Rush’s new theory: Senate health care bill will lead to “250 million uninsured“
…..therefore Black People, please vote Republican — because Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Meanwhile WE of the NBRA have launched Racial Anti-Obama Ads — like the ones below:
What can I say, other than repeat what I have posted in this blog a thousand times: Black ReTHUGliTOMS demean blackness, hopelessly.
Today, it is pretty clear that African American interests are “better” served by the Democrats than the Republicans.
It is also true that Democrats have supported vicious confederate slavery in the yester years, but they, to a large extent rectified this in the sixties, beginning with the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
Some Democratic legislators from the southern epicenters of White Racism opposed President Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964, due to “KKK Hangover,” but most did support it. This Act drove a significant number of white voters away from the Democratic Party, and the Republicans instead of joining with the Democrats to reform America, pounced on the opportunity — grabbing the “Southern Vote” a.k.a the “Bigot-Vote.”
Up to date, the Democratic Party has a far much better Civil Rights record than the Republican Party, for without the “Bigot-Vote,” the Republican party has no footing.
Consequently, race-baiting smothered in fear-mongering became a staple of the modern Republican Party.
Republicans, and in this instance ReTHUGliTOMS like “re-living the past,” oblivious of the fact that modern Republicanism is just a new name for pre-sixties “Dixie-Cratism,” ….spun around, modernized and “Stealthified.”
The “Bigot-Vote” is the main-stay of the Republican Party, and they pander to it incessantly, with the help of the “putrid dung” excreted by Talk-Radio (Rush Limbaugh and Co.) and Fox News (O’reilly, Hannity and Co.)….to name a few of these vicious hyenas.
Hillary Clinton tried to dip her filthy finger into the “Bigot-Pot,” failed and got beaten by a “Black Man,” called Barack Obama.
And why is Obama “Black” and NOT “White” — for he is an offspring of the union of a white mother and a black father.
Simple answer: RACISM — perpetrated by “some” Democrats and a “large majority” of Republicans.
Evolutionary Scientist Richard Dawkins states:“It is the height of injustice to think of a person as “black” just because his blood is “tainted” with “black,” whereas, if “taint” is what it is, then his blood is equally tainted with “white,” in which case, he equally qualifies also as white.Philip Ochieng, a prominent Kenyan intellectual examines Dawkins’ assertion very thoroughly in this piece titled: Why Obama is Black, not White. — Excellent Read!
Depending on your view, it could be a matter of who is the “lesser of two evils.” ….Republicans or Democrats?
To me the Republican party is “super-evil.”
I won’t pen the language I am tempted to use, because someone else offers a more eloquent and “tighter summary” of what the ReTHUGlican Party represents:
Since the New Deal, Republicans have been on the wrong side of every issue of concern to ordinary Americans; Social Security, the war in Vietnam, equal rights, civil liberties, church- state separation, consumer issues, public education, reproductive freedom, national health care, labor issues, gun policy, campaign-finance reform, the environment and tax fairness. No political party could remain so consistently wrong by accident.
The only rational conclusion is that, despite their cynical “family values” propaganda, the Republican Party is a criminal conspiracy to betray the interests of the American people in favor of plutocratic and corporate interests, and absolutist religious groups.
Back to my Black Brothers & Sisters — The National Black Republican Association.
The late Khalid Abdul Muhammad was blunt and dramatic about you: “When white folks can’t defeat you, they’ll always find some Negro, some boot-licking, butt-licking, bamboozled, half-baked, half-fried, sissified, punkified, pasteurized, homogenized Nigger that they can trot out in front of you.”
Not to be outdone, movie director Spike Lee called people like you: “Handkerchief-heads, chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Toms.” — a statement I have “Pluralized,” from the original that was directed by Mr. Lee at the “Big Kahuna” Uncle Tom — The one and only “Long John Silver” Justice Clarence Thomas — A ReTHUGliTOM Smothered In “Uppity Niggerdom” a.k.a “NegroPhobia Syndrome.”
That said, the National Black Republican Association is just but a congregation of frustrated slaves crawling back to the plantation, so to speak! “Virulent Oreo Phenomenons,” “Punk-Asses,” and “Uncle Tom Calamities.” — Thanks to Historian John Henrik Clarke and Author June Jordan.
Your ADs above are a big joke — and an insult to the black community!
True or not, the Clinton campaign has been accused of playing the race card. The irony here, of course, is that Bill and Hillary only have themselves to blame for employing the kinds of political tactics now being used against them.
As the Barack and Hillary Show extended its tour to such off-off-off Broadway primary states as Indiana and North Carolina (coming soon to Puerto Rico!), it was inevitable that both sides would dust off the "playing the race card" script.
Recently, Bill Clinton was asked whether he had played the race card when he compared Barack Obama’s South Carolina victory to Jesse Jackson’s in 1984 and 1988. "No," he said in one of his typical outbursts of enraged self-pity. "I think that they played the race card on me, and we now know â?¦ that they planned to do it all along." Then Clinton added to an aide — without realizing he was being recorded — "I don’t think I should take any s— from anybody on that, do you?"Oh, the ironies. First, Clinton’s initial comments were entirely valid. Obama boasts enormous black support, more than 90%, and that’s what put him (and Jackson)over the top in South Carolina. Second, while it’s arguable that the Clinton campaign has, at the margins, played the race card against Obama, it’s hardly been with much gusto, effectiveness or racism.
Huh? Bill Clinton’s marijuana use was an issue in 1992 and, in 2000, the press went bonkers over allegations that George W. Bush had used drugs long ago. So why should it be racist to mention Obama’s even more significant drug use? Likewise, the use of the phrase "fairy tale" wasn’t racial. Even Hillary’s entirely valid, but now-infamous, observation that it was Lyndon Johnson, not Martin Luther King Jr., who secured passage of the Civil Rights Act can be described as racist only if the standard for racism is reduced to anything that hurts Obama. Dubbing inconvenient truths as "racist" is poisonous to U.S. politics. Which is why I have so little sympathy for the Clintons because it was the Clintons themselves who mainstreamed crying racism (or sexism or, in the case of Chinese fundraising scandals, anti-Chinese sentiment) in response to criticism.
Throughout his tenure as both "the first feminist" and "first black" president, Clinton Inc. routinely ascribed political opposition to bigotry. At a conference on race in 1997, Bill Clinton famously wheeled on Harvard scholar Abigail Thernstrom
– a high-minded critic of racial quotas — and bullied her with the question: "Do you favor the United States Army abolishing the affirmative action program that produced Colin Powell? Yes or no?" The tactic was no less brilliant for its cynical dishonesty. (Among the problems with Clinton’s ambush: Powell didn’t benefit from any affirmative action programs, which weren’t in place when he joined the Army nor even when he became a general.)
In 1999, when the Senate rejected his nominee for a Missouri judgeship, Clinton exclaimed that "the Republican-controlled Senate is adding credence to the perceptions that they treat women and minority judicial nominees unfairly." The Clintonites reflexively lamented how "angry white men" were standing in the way of progress, and even resorting to violence. After the Oklahoma City bombing, Clinton fingered the real culprit: Rush Limbaugh.
The first weekend of the Lewinsky scandal, Clinton suddenly invited his old nemesis Jackson to become the family’s spiritual adviser. He summoned black pastors, radio personalities and a battalion of black lawyers. Slowly — but oh so deliberately — the message went forth: Impeaching the first black president was racist. Rep. Charlie Rangel compared him to Martin Luther King. In response to the Starr report, Rep. Maxine Waters said that she was "here in the name of my slave ancestors" to thwart the racist assault on this honorary black man. When asked on BET whether Republicans wanted him impeached because of his affinity for blacks, Clinton responded, "It may be," wink wink, "that that’s a source of anger and animosity toward me."
Newsweek‘s Eleanor Clift, the Clinton’s reliable water-carrier, got the memo, saying of the all-white Republican impeachment handlers, "I mean frankly, all they were missing was white sheets. They’re like night riders going over. This is bigger than Bill Clinton."
Hillary Clinton played similar games, of course, insinuating sexism when convenient. But even if she didn’t, it’s worth remembering that she wants credit for being something akin to a co-president in the ’90s. Fine, it’s her record, too.
It’s no wonder the Clintons don’t like it when Obama and his supporters cynically complain that attacks on him are racially motivated; they’re dealing his own race card back at him. This surely stings as Bill no doubt sees this as ingratitude from a constituency he has long taken for granted. And we’d all be better off if this card were tossed from the deck. But make no mistake: Nobody should shed any tears for the Clintons.
About The Author: Jonah Goldberg is editor at large of National Review Online and author of ‘Liberal Fascism.’ He is also a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors.
If there is a lesson to learn from the speech on race that Barack Obama gave last week it is this: It’s a rare moment in the life of this country when a politician is moved by unselfish courage, rather than political expediency, to address the nation. Read the full story
