Democrat Senator Lays Out Republican Racism

Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia too to the floor of the Senate a few days ago and exposed the reason Republicans are holding up the appointment of Merrick Garland by President Obama to the Supreme Court.

Kaine: Race an Issue in Opposition to Obama Supreme Court Nominee

Senator Tim Kaine (D., Va.) said Wednesday that race may be a factor as to why President Obama is facing opposition in the Senate regarding his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow asked Kaine, a potential running mate for Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, if the Senate is delaying the nomination process due to a fundamental disrespect for Obama.

“I think that’s a very serious concern. The rationale that the Republicans use, ‘We want to wait until the next president and let the people decide,’ is what we call in civil rights, and I used to try civil rights cases, a complete pretext. That’s not the way it’s been done in the past,” Kaine said.

“There’s a lot of concern that this president’s nominee has been given second-class treatment, not because of the nominee but because of the character of the president himself and that is very painful for people to contemplate about the nation’s first African-American president, that they wouldn’t pay him the respect of having a hearing and having a vote on a nominee in the way they’ve done with other presidents.”

Maddow re-raised the issue of race, asking whether or not it is linked to the resistance Obama is facing from Republicans and the conservative movement over picking Garland.

“Raising the issue of this being the first African-American president, that issue of legitimacy, do you think that is the through line that explains the way Republicans and the conservative movement have treated President Obama? Do you think fundamentally it is about race, that there’s a racial element to the resistance to him that people should be more explicit in discussing?” Maddow asked.

“There is an attack on his legitimacy that I think is just fundamentally different than what’s come before,” Kaine said.

 

Man Attacks Democrat Senate Candidate With Brass Knuckles in West Virginia

A (likely) right wing thug blindsided and beat a Democrat Candidate for State Senate in West Virginia. The attack was planned, with the attacker first knocking out the candidate from behind with brass knuckles in another act of political thuggery.

West Virginia state Senate candidate Richard Ojeda, a decorated veteran is now hospitalized with serious injuries

West Virginia state Senate candidate, a veteran, brutally beaten

West Virginia state Senate candidate Richard Ojeda was brutally beaten during a cookout Sunday — just two days before his primary — and nearly run over with a pickup truck, Ojeda told NBC News.

Jonathan Stuart Porter, 41, was in custody Sunday. State Trooper Zachary Holden told NBC News he was being held on suspicion of malicious assault, malicious attempted assault and felony destruction of property.

In an interview from his hospital room in Charleston, Ojeda, 45, a Democrat and military veteran whose primary contest is Tuesday, said he had been at a barbecue in the mountains about 60 miles southwest of Charleston when Porter asked for a bumper sticker.

Ojeda, who said he has known Porter since they were kids, placed one on the rear bumper of Porter’s truck. Then Porter asked for a second one on the vehicle’s front grill.

“That’s all I remember,” Ojeda said. “When I woke up, my head was on a tree stump covered in blood. Everyone was looking at me.”

Ojeda suffered eight bone fractures and three lacerations to his face, as well as exterior swelling to his head, he said.

Ojeda’s primary opponent, state Sen. Art Kirkendoll, said in a statement that he was praying for Ojeda and wished him a full recovery.

“I was informed that my opponent was physically assaulted and injured at a political function today,” Kirkendoll said. “I do not now, nor have I ever, condoned violence. It has no place in our political campaigns or in our communities.”

Ojeda said witnesses told him that he was kicked and struck with brass knuckles, although Holden said he found no evidence of the weapon and Porter denied using them.

Afterward, when the assailant got in his truck, a neighbor who witnessed the beating jumped in between the vehicle and Ojeda.

“He feared Porter was going to hit him,” Holden said.

The attacker spun out in the gravel, and when a second neighbor tried to block his exit with an ATV, the driver rammed the quad several times, Holden said, adding that the man eventually ran over it — along with a second ATV whose driver also tried to block him.

Porter called police and peacefully turned himself in after hiding out in the mountains for six hours, Holden said.

Aside from a brief comment about the brass knuckles, Holden said, Porter refused to talk to authorities. A motive for the assault remained unclear, he said.

To Ojeda, however, it was clearly premeditated — and it was all about politics.

Citing what he described as the intense poverty, corruption and nepotism that plagues the region — and his campaign for transparency and good government — Ojeda said: “The moment you start asking questions, you become public enemy number one.”

 

Van Hollen Beats Edwards in Democrat Senate Primary in Maryland

The establishment Democrats won out last night in Maryland, where old-line Democrat favorite defeated fiery upstart Donna Edwards in a bruising Primary Race with racial undertones. Not that Von Hollen isn’t a good guy, or a great candidate – it is just his willingness to cave to the Republican Reich with the other Yellowback Donkeys.

Van Hollen wins Maryland Democratic Senate primary

Rep. Chris Van Hollen has won the Democratic primary to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski in Maryland, defeating Rep. Donna Edwards tonight.

Van Hollen had 56 percent to 37 percent for Edwards with 14 percent of precincts reporting, when The Associated Press called the race. (See results here.)

Van Hollen had the support of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and many of Maryland’s prominent elected Democrats, but Edwards’ campaign won strong support from African-American voters and EMILY’s List, which spent millions of dollars on her behalf. Van Hollen’s own campaign significantly outraised Edwards, though.

Van Hollen is unlikely to face a serious general election challenge in deep-blue Maryland.

 

 

Donna Edwards, Rogue Democrat

Donna’s problem with the Congressional Black Caucus is she is more like Bernie, than Hillary. The CBC, which has sold their souls to the old guard, won’t support one of their own. Donna is refusing to be bought out by the old guard Democrat Party supporting a do-nothing CBC…

She apparently also isn’t real big on being a participant in the CBC Cabaret Circuit of expensive galas put on with taxpayer and donor money.

And that’s a problem.

Edwards confronts black lawmakers over refusal to back her

Locked in a surprisingly competitive Senate race with party favorite Chris Van Hollen, Edwards is pressing for more support from the Congressional Black Caucus.

On the verge of a possible upset of the Democratic Party’s longtime golden boy, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, in Tuesday’s Maryland Senate primary, Rep. Donna Edwards has a question for her fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus: Why aren’t more of you endorsing me?

POLITICO has learned that Edwards met privately last week with several CBC members to voice her frustration that so few African-American lawmakers had offered her their support, according to five sources familiar with the meetings.

Only four of the 46 CBC members — Reps. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Lacy Clay of Missouri, Robin Kelly of Illinois and Hank Johnson of Georgia — are backing Edwards over Van Hollen, an unusually small number for a group known for standing by fellow African-American lawmakers. Meanwhile, Van Hollen has been making hay over his growing number of endorsements from black political leaders in Maryland, including some in Edwards’ district, though he has yet to be endorsed by a CBC member.

Edwards, who won her House seat by defeating Al Wynn, a popular member of the CBC, in a Democratic primary in 2008, has had a strained relationship with many black lawmakers from the start. But with she and Van Hollen running nearly neck-and-neck in a primary that many expected Van Hollen to win easily, Edwards has been reaching out over the past two weeks to members of the CBC to ask why they’re not backing her bid to be only the second black woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She’s also pressed her case with lawmakers at the Democratic Club restaurant, where members often eat.

Sources close to the CBC and lawmakers familiar with the conversations said some of Edwards’ CBC colleagues responded to her in frank terms. Members of the CBC have long considered her abrasive and said she’s not an easy colleague to work with.

“She has not developed good relationships with the members of the CBC, quite frankly,” said a source familiar with the CBC. “A lot of people find her difficult.”

 

 

Racial Politics in Va Hollen v Edwards Primary Senate Race in Maryland?

This one is looking at the wrong issue.

Racial politics upend Democratic Senate primary in Maryland

The race was Chris Van Hollen’s to lose, but Donna Edwards has turned it into a nail-biter.

Donna Edwards bounded up the walkways of more than a dozen modest homes in a largely African-American neighborhood here on a recent Saturday afternoon, posing for photos and sharing a simple message: I’m just like you.

The Democratic congresswoman running for Senate reminded one family that she, too, is a single mom. She talked about working minimum wage jobs earlier in her life, and lacking health insurance.

Six months ago, Edwards was an afterthought in the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Sen. Barbara Mikulski. The race was Rep. Chris Van Hollen’s to lose — a star in House Democratic leadership, he would swamp the field with his fundraising and big-name endorsements, the thinking went.

But as the April 26 primary approaches, Edwards has pulled even or possibly slightly ahead of Van Hollen in one of the most hotly contested Democratic primaries of 2016. She has moved the needle with an explicit appeal to African-American voters, who typically make up about two-fifths of the electorate in Maryland Democratic primaries.

A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released Tuesday showed a neck-and-neck race, 44 percent for Edwards to 40 percent for Van Hollen. Edwards led by 10 points in a Baltimore Sun/University of Baltimore poll last month.

Edwards is trumpeting the historic nature of her candidacy — she would be the first African-American woman in the Senate since the 1990s — and outside groups are playing up her personal background in ads in the pivotal D.C. media market.

“It is the rationale for my running for the Senate seat … It’s about the perspective, the unique perspective that I would bring to the Senate,” Edwards said in an interview. “What people are saying is that I walked in their shoes. I walked in their shoes as a working person … as an African-American woman … as a mom.”…

Van Hollen criticizes what he calls Edwards’ thin résumé on Capitol Hill, painting her as a partisan bomb-thrower who has shown little ability or interest in working across the aisle to get something done.

Edwards, in turn, casts Van Hollen as an accommodating moderate. She says he was willing to cut entitlement programs to clinch a budget deal with Republicans. And she’s slamming him for supporting past trade deals, a potent line of attack among liberals as Congress prepares to take up a massive trade deal next year.

“There are differences when it comes to things like Social Security. Mr. Van Hollen has demonstrated that when push comes to shove that he’s willing to compromise on cuts to Social Security and Medicare,” Edwards said. “I think those are nonstarters.”

That one line I highlighted is why Van Hollen should lose this race, and the reason voters are abandoning him. Democrats have been in accommodationalist politics since Bill Clinton. And what it has got the country is a destroyed middle class, a economy in the dogpile, a housing meltdown, an illegal war, and the largest depression since the Great Depression. Ergo- the middle-class, the poor, and Progressives have been getting screwed by chickenshit Democrats reaching out their hands to Republican Rattlesnakes. If the entire Black Caucus bus ran off a 10,000 ft cliff tomorrow…Not a damn thing would change. President Obama has been a successful President…In spite of conservative racism based obstructionalism. I wonder how much better he could have been if his early advisers hadn’t counseled him to sell the country down the river for some fake bipartisanship. It has little or nothing to do with race.

I would like to see some people elected who understand clearly we are in a war with the American ISIS.

 

How SC Judges Could Force a Vote to Confirm

The Supreme Court requires a minimum of 6 Justices in attendance for the Court to legally hear cases. Perhaps it is time for a boycott by the Justices themselves.The result of not reaching a Quorum isn’t dismissal of the case, the case is moved onto the docket of next year’s cases to be heard. The reason this has not been used before is that it sets a dangerous precedent if used solely to delay the hearing of cases.

28 U.S.C. 1 provides:

The Supreme Court of the United States shall consist of a Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices, any six of whom shall constitute a quorum.

However – if the Court cannot meet…

 

Major Businesses Slam Georgia’s Anti-Gay “Religeous Freedom” Bill

Another conservative idea from the extremist right which is a stupid idea has put Georgia in the headlights of major corporations in the state, and has opened the door to exodus of at least one corporation.

The NFL has decided it really doesn’t want a Superbowl in a state where it’s paying customers can be discriminated against because someone’s “religion” tells them they don’t have to deal with gays, minorities, or other religions based on whatever whack-job interpretations some back-alley ignorant arsed so called preacher comes up with.

The bill’s Senate sponsor, Greg Kirk, a Republican

NFL Wants to Sack Anti-Gay Bill in Georgia

The NFL’s threat to re-evaluate Georgia’s Super Bowl dreams has the governor thinking twice about signing a controversial bill that would allow faith-based organizations to discriminate based on sexual orientation.

Roger Goodell, chairman of the National Football League is on the cusp of becoming America’s newest gay icon.

Goodell, who has an openly gay brother, and the NFL, have emerged as staunch allies in gay rights advocates’ efforts to defeat HB 757, the controversial religious freedom bill that passed the Georgia legislature late last week.

HB 757 began the year as “the Pastor Protection Act,” a measure giving clergy the right to refuse to perform same-sex weddings. But after two trips through the Georgia state House and Senate, the bill now gives faith-based organizations the right to hire and fire people who violate their “sincerely held religious beliefs,” as well as the right to refuse to rent facilities for events they find “objectionable.”

The bill would also make it illegal to force an individual to attend a gay wedding.

With every expansion of the bill, Georgia legislators were warned by local business leaders not to do to Georgia what Indiana legislators did in 2015, when their own Religious Freedom Restoration Act led to an immediate nationwide backlash, including more than 400 million #BoycottIndiana tweets in the week the bill passed.

A year later, local tourism officials estimate the city lost at least 12 conventions and $60 million in direct business as a result.

Brandon Lorenz, communications director with the Human Rights Campaign, called Georgia’s HB 757 “an Indiana-style bill that blatantly promotes discrimination.”

“The Georgia legislature took a bad bill and made it worse.” Lorenz said. “This is a bill that has all kinds of avenues for harm and discrimination for Georgians.”

Along with LGBT advocates, major players in Georgia’s business community have ripped the legislation.

Coca-Cola, Home Depot, and Delta Airlines oppose it. Michael Dell, Richard Branson, and Jack Dorsey have all spoken out against it. SalesForce CEO Mark Benioff, who has 16,000 employees in Georgia, has warned he’ll pull as much of his business as possible out of the state, tweeting last week:

“Once again Georgia is trying to pass laws that make it legal to discriminate. When will this insanity end?”

But in a state where football is practiced like a religion, it has been the loud and unanimous objections of the sports community that has raised the greatest doubts about whether Gov. Nathan Deal will sign the bill.

In addition to the Atlanta Hawks and Atlanta Braves, who called the bill “detrimental to our community and bad for Georgia,” Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank warned the bill would have a “long-lasting negative impact on our state and the people of Georgia.”

“One of my bedrock values is ‘Include Everyone’ and it’s a principle we embrace and strive to live each and every day with my family and our associates, a vast majority of which live and work in Georgia,” he said.

Blank has taken the lead in the city’s efforts to bring the Super Bowl to the city, including with a new $1.7 billion Mercedes-Benz stadium already under construction in downtown Atlanta. But on Friday, Goodell and the NFL dropped a bomb on Atlanta’s hopes of hosting the 2019 or 2020 Super Bowls when it said the RFRA bill would endanger the city’s bids if Deal signs it into law.