Reaping the Whirlwind – Republicans Under Citizen Attack

Another Republican Senator under attack …

Perhaps consistently proposing bills stripping benefits and rights, defending a traitor in Chumph, and voting against the interests of Americans is beginning to catch up.

Lot of crazy going on in Kentucky right now, with the Governor calling for all elected officials sed fo or convicted of sexual harassment to resign.

Rand Paul attacked at home in Kentucky — suspect in custody

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) was the victim of an assault at his home in Bowling Green on Friday, said The Hill.

Police said that the Warren County Attorney’s Office issued a warrant for a 59-year-old man named Rene Boucher on Friday night and police took him into custody shortly thereafter.

“Senator Paul was blindsided and the victim of an assault,” said Sen. Paul’s spokeswoman Kelsey Cooper in a statement. “The assailant was arrested and it is now a matter for the police. Senator Paul is fine.”

Boucher was reportedly charged with second-degree assault resulting in minor injury.

 

Clown Bus Update – Iowa Pt 2

Rand Paul, Rick Santorum….

 

 

 

Rand Paul …Again

One of the things that should be required in this country as a condition to hold office is to pass you basic High School Government and Civics exam. I mean, if they can test poor people for drug use as a basis of receiving aid, then we ought to test all elected officials for intelligence, and a comprehensive understanding of how our systm of government works…

I mean, if you are too stupid to understand it, then by no means should you be allowed to serve.

That would eliminate a lot of problems in America.

Rand Paul: Majority Rule Gave Us Jim Crow, Japanese Internment

Senator Rand Paul, exercising his minority rights by conducting a filibuster on the US Senate floor…

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) compared President Barack Obama winning elections to Jim Crow laws and Japanese internment on Thursday, arguing that they all grew out of “majority rule” thinking.

On the Fox News show “On The Record”, host Greta Van Susteren asked him about Obama. “He is quoted back in January 23rd, 2009, right when he became president first term. He said, ‘I won, so I think on that one I trump you.’ I mean, this is sort of — this has always been the viewpoint he has communicated to Republicans on the Hill,” she said.

Paul responded, “Well, you know, the danger to majority rule, to him sort of thinking, the majority voted for me now I’m the majority, I can do whatever I want and that there are no rules that restrain me — that’s what gave us Jim Crow. That’s what gave us the internment of the Japanese — that the majority said, ‘you don’t have individual rights and individual rights don’t come from your creator and they are not guaranteed by the constitution.’ Just whatever the majority wants.”

He went on, “There is a real danger to that viewpoint. It’s consistent with the progressive viewpoint. It’s been going on for 100 years. Progressives believe in majority rule, not constitutional rule. They don’t believe that rights are inherent to the individual. They think your rights are whatever the government says they are, whatever the majority says.”

But Paul’s comment that Jim Crow grew out of majority rule does not jibe with history. Blacks were absolute majorities in Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina — and made up more than 40 percent of the population in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Virginia — during the 1880s, just after Jim Crow laws began. Presumably, if there was majority rule, then Jim Crow would not have been enacted.

Japanese internment began after then- President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order that the Supreme Court upheld in Korematsu v. United States.

 

The Rotten Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the Tree – Ron/Rand Paul

Rand Paul is the brand new Republican Party outreach to the black community farce…

Ron Paul addresses the neo-confederate faithful Libertarians

 

The Michigan GOP is seeking to increase the party’s visibility in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, 97.5 percent of which voted to reelect Barack Obama in 2012.

The solution? Open a new outreach center for Detroit voters, named the “African American Engagement Office.”

The GOP has tapped Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to headline the official opening of the office on Dec. 6, which will highlight “the Michigan Republican Party’s outreach efforts and our commitment to revitalizing Michigan’s urban centers,” according to the Eventbrite listing.

Paul will already be in Detroit to speak on the city’s bankruptcy crisis at the Detroit Economic Club, where he will “unveil his new legislative proposal to remove bankrupt Detroit and other economically blighted areas from poverty and the shackles of big government,” according to the Detroit Free Press.

Both the name of the office and the outreach strategy are already attracting their share of detractors. One Republican strategist told The Huffington Post that it sounds like Michigan Republicans are opening a “‘separate, but equal’ office in Detroit.”

Now – to most black folks who know of Rand’s daddy’s romance with white supremacists, and Rand’s opposition to the 1965 Civil Rights Act…

This is a bit like appointing your local KKK Leader as the Director of Diversity.

Perhaps why in his first speech in Detroit in the shiny new Minority Outreach Center… Only white folks showed up.

Not the least reason of which would be Rand’s ties to neo-confederates…

Rand Paul’s former staffer…”The confederate Avenger”.Sen. Paul says the white supremacist tendencies of Jack “The Southern Avenger” Hunter was just youthful indiscretion. In 2007 the former League of the South member wrote that if immigration levels remain unchecked, “A non-white majority America would simply cease to be America for reasons that are as numerous as they are obvious – whether we are supposed to mention them or not.” He was 33, and three years later he was co-writing Rand Paul’s book.

Ties to Secessionist Sympathizers? Don’t Worry, Rand Paul Will Still Endorse You

If there’s any Republican who needs to tread carefully when it comes to race, it’s Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Between his erstwhile opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, his ties to Confederate sympathizers, and the baggage of his father’s past, pundits and observers are primed to pounce on any missteps, like his ill-received speech at Howard University this summer.

But Paul doesn’t seem to know that he’s on shaky ground with racial issues. To wit, earlier this fall, he endorsed Greg Brannon, a Republican primary candidate for Senate in North Carolina. As Molly Redden reports for Mother Jones, Brannon is far outside the mainstream of American politics. He opposes public education, rejects the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over national law, and has lent his support to a pro-nullification rally held by the League of the South, a self-described “Southern nationalist” organization that is an obvious vehicle for neo-Confederate and white supremacist ideas.

Like Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Brannon sees the late Senator Jesse Helms, who represented North Carolina from 1973 to 2003, as a model for legislative behavior. “He was the one I most identified with,” said Brannon during a gathering this summer, “Senator No.” Helms, it should be said, was an unrepentant segregationist who used his power to institutionalize homophobia with attacks on gays and assaults on AIDS funding. To Helms, LGBT Americans were “weak, morally sick wretches,” and AIDS education was “obscene” and “revolting.”

Brannon stands with ugly forces in American life, and is the kind of far-right candidate who ought to be attacked and marginalized by Republican leaders. Like extremist candidates in Indiana, Missouri, and Nevada, his presence in the “tent” of the GOP is certain to alienate the voters who want to shift political gears without giving the car to a maniac. But, with endorsements from Rand Paul—“I support Greg Brannon, and expect him to be North Carolina’s next Senator”—and conservative activists like Red State’s Erick Erickson, there’s a fair chance he’ll make it through the primary and into the general election. And with a high profile comes a greater chance for disaster; given his history, I would be surprised if Brannon didn’t say something on race or gender that embarrassed him and his party.

Conservatives don’t just hate accusations of racism or racial insensitivity (that’s reasonable), they almost always deny that they have any substance, regardless of circumstance. It doesn’t matter that the right-wing indulged “birtherism” and called Obama a “food stamp president” and “Kenyan anti-colonialist”—it’s simply unreasonable to stamp those as racial. Likewise, when asked about his relationships with neo-Confederates and others on the far-right of American politics, Rand Paul has dismissed the questions as nonsense. “I don’t accept all of that and I don’t really need to or spend the time talking about all of that,” he said this summer in an interview with John Harwood of NPR, “If you want to talk about issues and what I stand for, I’m happy to, but I’m not going to really go through an interview reciting or respond to every yahoo in the world who wants to throw up a canard.”

Well, here’s the thing: If Rand Paul wants to avoid these questions, then he should avoid people who sympathize with white supremacists. And the same is true of the GOP writ large; if Republicans want to avoid accusations of prejudice or insensitivity, then the first step is to end the party’s association with lawmakers, officials, and activists who can’t help but indulge their worst instincts. After all, the Republican Party isn’t racist, and it shouldn’t be too hard to filter these people from the pool.

 

 

Rand Paul… The Next Aaron Burr?

Hmmm…Apparently the news that Tea Party darling Rand Paul has been copying his speeches directly from other folks has irritated the boy.

Now he wants to shoot it out ala Aaron Burr – Alexander Hamilton…

Apparently with Rachel Maddow, who has exposed him.

Now Maddow may be a bit of a mannish woman, and she makes no secret of her lifestyle preferences…

But I guess the fact that she is bookish, liberal, and rather anti-gun makes her a safe victim for him to challenge.

Now – this isn’t the first time Mr. Paul has run into trouble with the Academics. He claims to be a Doctor, but has never passed any state exam to certify that fact. He claims he is “self certified”…

Now…If she does decide to take him up on it, this Progressive for one would be more than happy to take her down to the range with a selection of a few accurate hand cannons in a Magnum caliber of choice to teach her how to hit exactly what she is aiming at. And loan her her new fav…

I pity the poor boy’s cajones.

 

 

 

Confederate GOP

George Wallace and Rand Paul – Two sides of the same coin.

Glad some other folks are now catching onto what has been obvious for quite some time! Rand Paul comes by his “confederateness” from his dad, Ron Paul – whose association with white supremacists and racists i long documented and established. That association is based on the Libertarian belief called “Right of Association” which insists that any individual has the right to associate, or disassociate with anyone for any reason he chooses…Including race. It is a defense of segregation and Jim Crow, and declares that the “Commerce Clause” upon which most modern Civil rights Legislation is based (or was before the 5 thugs in robes became a majority on the Supreme Court) is trumped by the unstated right in the Constitution.

Which is why Ron Paul could be seen frequently at lunch with white nationalist luminaries such as Don White and Jared Taylor at the local Tara Thai Restaurant near Tysons Corner, Va. Which is a small part of how positions first espoused by people like David Duke (the “Gentleman” KKK) and Jared Taylor (the “Color of Crime”) back in the early 90’s became mainstream in the Republican Party and accepted orthodoxy by it’s mouthpiece, Faux News.

Modern GOP is still the party of Dixie

In two earlier articles (here and here), I argued that the Republican Party’s extremism can be traced to its increased dependence on an electorate that is largely rural, Southern and white. These voters, who figure prominently in the Tea Party, often decline to interpret political conflict as a struggle among interest groups or a good-faith clash of opinion. Instead, they tend to identify the country as a whole with an idealized version of themselves, and to equate any dissent from their values with disloyalty by alien, “un-American” forces. This paranoid vision of politics, I argued, makes them seek out opportunities for dramatic conflict and to shun negotiation and compromise.

In what follows, I want to extend these thoughts a bit further by exploring one simple question: why is this strain of political paranoia so entrenched in the South? The answer, I believe, will shed light not only on the current state of our politics but on the evolution of American conservatism generally.

*

We should begin with a clarification. What we want to explain isn’t why rural voters might think their interests sometimes diverge from those of urban (and suburban) Americans. That is easily enough explained: they think it because it’s true. Rural and urban areas have distinctive concerns, and these sometimes result in incompatible demands on policymakers. These kinds of conflicts are the mother’s milk of politics, so none of this is particularly surprising or, indeed, interesting.

What is surprising and interesting is when this conflict is experienced not as a matter of interests but of identity. It’s one thing to see urbanites as fellow citizens whose policy preferences depart from one’s own; it’s quite another to argue that their policy preferences give rise to serious doubt about whether they’re really Americans. Yet exactly this is the message of all those conservative complaints about “socialistic” Democrats who ignore our constitutional traditions as they labor to install a “nanny state.” These aren’t true Americans, resolute, independent, self-reliant; they’re feckless, faux-European traitors. (Though one, in particular, may have closer connections with Africa than Europe. You know who I mean.)

 

Rev Mack Daddy on … “Freaky White People”

Rev Mack Daddy on “Freaky White People”…

Including Rand Paul, Christine O’Donnell, and John Boehner!

“Tying up white women! Ya’ll white people crazy!”

This is a classic!

 

Highlights From The Nastiest Debate of 2010

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This one is reminiscent of the infamous Hatfield and McCoys feud that roiled the Kentucky-West Virginia border years ago. Not sure why Jack Conway went there, to hammer Rand Paul on what was in all likelihood a stupid drunken college prank – but the “Aqua Buddha Man” Rand Paul certainly hasn’t done himself any favors in disposing of this one. Paul is a particularly nasty piece of work, who is a fake doctor, and a racist who tries and cover his tracks with Libertarian “principles”. One hopes the good folks of Kentucky have better morals than to send a piece of shit like this to the Senate.

 

Rand Paul — The Aqua Buddha Man!

An anonymous woman claims that Rand Paul was getting his freak on, with the Aqua Buddha!

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Exclusive: Rand Paul’s accuser clarifies “kidnapping”

The woman who sparked a national firestorm by recounting Rand Paul’s youthful indiscretions to GQ magazine is now clarifying her account: She says she was not kidnapped nor forced to do drugs by Paul.

But she reiterated other odd aspects of her earlier story, including her claim that Paul and another college friend blindfolded her, tied her up, and told her to smoke pot and worship the “Aqua Buddha,” even if they didn’t physically force her to do these things.

The woman — who was made available to me for an interview by GQ reporter Jason Zengerle in response to the Paul campaign’s denunciations of his article — said she didn’t mean to imply that she was kidnapped “in a legal sense.”

“The whole thing has been blown out of proportion,” she told me. “They didn’t force me, they didn’t make me. They were creating this drama: `We’re messing with you.'”

 

Anti-Discrimination Laws in NY In the 40’s

Interesting article on the history of anti-discrimination laws in NY, which preceded much of the rest of the country by 20 years. So much for Mr. Paul’s “pricerples” –

Before the US Civil Rights Laws: Anti-Discrimination Action in New York State

Rand Paul’s criticism of the federal civil rights legislation of the 1960s can be better evaluated by looking at the workings of similar legislation that appeared on the state level two decades before.

In 1945, New York became the first state since Reconstruction to pass anti-discrimination legislation. At the time, there was plenty of biased behavior in the state based on race, religion, and nationality. Naturally, members of New York’s diverse ethnic population—plus many liberals of all backgrounds—found these discriminatory practices deeply offensive. As a result, the new legislation banned discrimination in employment on the basis of race, creed, color, or national origin and established a New York State Commission Against Discrimination to enforce this ban. In subsequent years, the law was expanded to cover discrimination in public accommodations, with gender discrimination added to the list of violations.

This law has a personal dimension for me. In 1946, my father, Jacob (“Jack”) Wittner, went to work as a field representative for the New York State Commission Against Discrimination. For nearly two decades, he took complaints of discrimination from aggrieved individuals, investigated these complaints, and wrote up determinations for the commissioners, who issued such determinations more or less as he wrote them. In the mid-1960s, he became director of investigations for the New York City Commission on Human Rights, and in later years worked for the federal government at enforcing its equal employment opportunity guidelines.

 

Michael Steele Buckdances Around Rand Paul Issue

The HNIC is having a bit of a rough time here, trying to come up with a defense (ANY defense) of Rand Paul’s position of Civil Rights…

He flatly refuses to condemn Paul’s viewpoint.

Now, this isn’t totally unexpected, as the RNC HNIC, Mikkie has to support his “team” no matter how repulsive and repellent they may be. What is sad is that he admits a number of other Republicans hold similar views…

Rand Paul expresses a Libertarian viewpoint which is why the vast majority of Minorities associate libertarianism with racism. Indeed, many white supremacists around the country have adopted libertarianism as a political viewpoint because it justifies their racism.

 

You Can Run…But You Can’t Hide, Rand Paul!

So you want to be a US Senator? Welcome to the real world, Mr. Paul. And no – you don’t get a pass on thinly veiled racism…

Except on Faux News.

The Kind of Racism Mr. Paul Finds Perfectly Legal

Rand Paul Cancels On ‘Meet The Press,’ Only 3rd Guest To Do So In 62 Years

Following a week of unsparingly critical press coverage, Kentucky Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul is now seeking to limit his national exposure.

A spokesperson for the Tea Party-endorsed candidate informed NBC News late Friday afternoon that an exhausted Paul was canceling his interview on Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Betsy Fischer, the executive producer for the program, told the Huffington Post.

“We booked him on Wednesday. Everything was set and then his press person emailed this afternoon that he was very sorry but he wants to cancel the interview. We tried appealing to the press person to not much avail,” Fischer said…

If Paul were to follow through on his decision to not appear on “Meet the Press” it would be, as Fischer describes it, “a big deal.” There have been only two other guests in the program’s 62-year history to have canceled last minute: Louis Farrakhan and Prince Bandar bin Khaled al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia.

 

More Issues For Tea Bagger Ky Senate Candidate Rand Paul

Seems that this isn’t the first time 1) Paul’s views have caused a bit of consternation, 2) people in the Paul’s campaign has had some “racial issues”, but 3)…

Rand Paul's New "Hoodie" - Same as the Old "Hoodie"...

It’s the first time there has been a calculated backpedal – which is one of those things Politicians tend to do when they get their cajones in a wringer… LIE.

Number 1 –

Rand Paul Made Same Racial Comments in 2002

Rand Paul’s appearance last evening on Rachel Maddow wasn’t the first time he made comments about racial discrimination.

In a May 30, 2002 letter to the editor of the Bowling Green Daily News about the Federal Fair Housing Act, Rand Paul made his beliefs about legalized discrimination quite clear.

Here are some excerpts from his letter headlined “Distinction blurred between private, public property”:

A recent Daily News editorial supported the Federal Fair Housing Act. At first glance, who could object to preventing discrimination in housing? Most citizens would agree that it is wrong to deny taxpayer-financed, “public” housing to anyone based on the color of their skin or the number of children in the household.

But the Daily News ignores, as does the Fair Housing Act, the distinction between private and public property. Should it be prohibited for public, taxpayer-financed institutions such as schools to reject someone based on an individual’s beliefs or attributes? Most certainly. Should it be prohibited for private entities such as a church, bed and breakfast or retirement neighborhood that doesn’t want noisy children? Absolutely not.

Decisions concerning private property and associations should in a free society be unhindered. As a consequence, some associations will discriminate.

-SNIP-

A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination – even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin.

Number 2 – As to that “racial thing” – it seems Rand Paul’s Spokesman had to step down in January over some comments made on his MySpace –

FLASHBACK: Paul Campaign Spokesman Resigned Over Racism On Myspace Page

Controversy is swirling over Rand Paul’s doctrinaire libertarian take on the civil rights legislation of the 1960s. But this is not the first time the Kentucky Republican’s campaign has hit a bump in racially sensitive territory.

In December, Chris Hightower, the spokesman for Paul’s senate campaign, was forced to resignafter a liberal Kentucky blog discovered that his MySpace page had a comment posted around Martin Luther King Day that read: “HAPPY N***ER DAY!!!” above what appears to be a historical photo of the lynching of a black man…

Hightower, who was also the frontman of a local Megadeth-style metal band called Commander, wrote a MySpace post referring to “Afro-Americans” titled “Blacks don’t like my Napalm Death hoodie”:

So, I was in Rivergate Mall today in line to get some pizza and I noticed a group of Afro-Americans were looking at me with hate and whispering stuff. I was wondering WTF and procceeded to sit facing them and give them the “what the fuck are you looking at look”. Anyway after a few snarls they quit looking at me. I was like do these fuckers think I am someone else or what? Anyway I finished my food and went to find some new shoes. About 10 minutes later, another group of Afro-Americans are giving me the same looks, it then dawns on me, there has to be something on this hoodie that is pissing off the Afro-Americans. And sure enough when I get outside the mall I look and bingo. KKK …. LOL!”

And now Number 3 – The lie calculated to calm the storm –

REVERSAL: Paul Now Backs Ban On Discrimination By Businesses

The Rand Paul camp has issued a new statement (via Greg Sargent) saying that Paul does in fact support the power of the federal government “to insure that private businesses don’t discriminate based on race.”

That appears to be a full reversal from Paul’scomment on Rachel Maddow Wednesday night that, referring to the section of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that bars private institutions from race-based discrimination, “had I been around, I would have tried to modify that.”

Said Paul spokesman Jesse Benton (who, by the way, was also a spokesman for Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign):

“Civil Rights legislation that has been affirmed by our courts gives the Federal government the right to insure that private businesses don’t discriminate based on race. Dr. Paul supports those powers.”

That goes further than the statement from Rand Paul himself earlier today that endorsed the Civil Rights Act because of its “intent” but fell short of supporting the power of the government to ban racial discrimination by private businesses.

 

Tea Bagger Republican Senate Candidate From Kentucky, Rand Paul Supports Segregation

This was a veritable train wreck. Rand Paul is the son of Congressman Ron Paul whose racist associations with the C of CC and white nationalist groups are well documented. Rand Paul takes the Libertarian view that the Government cannot regulate discrimination by private businesses – which as Rachel points out during this interview means that businesses, primarily in the South by the time of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be able to legally exclude Minorities as customers or workers on the basis of being private enterprise…

Ergo the Bus Boycott of Montgomery, and the Wallgreen lunch counter protests would have been illegal…

On the part of the Civil Rights workers.

What this is, is a thinly veiled regurgitation of David Duke’s “new new new” KKK in suits philosophy – sometimes expressed in their terminology as a “Right of Association”.