Barack Obama's Real Offense in the Eyes of the GOP - He's Black

When not insisting that Barack Obama is a Muslim who was not born in the United States, the Tea Party crowd is busy fantasizing about impeaching Obama.  Never mind that they have no legal grounds for doing so.  It's simply because they cannot stand the man.  His real offense?  He's black.  He embodies all the fears and resentments of angry whites who see their privileged position in society eroding and the white majority position in the population declining.  Soon, they will be merely like everyone else or, and this is what terrifies them, less than everyone else.  There's a good reason the Tea Party is so strong in the South: since the beginning of the nation, one might be nothing, but if you were white in the South, you were assured a superior position in Southern society in most circles (not all, of course, my New Orleans belle grandmother so "poor white trash" as the lowest of the low since, unlike blacks, they did not face racial barriers to self improvement).  These people are steadily losing that once assured position to black, Hispanics, Asians, etc., and it has become an obsession embodied by Obama.  In the New York Times Maureen Dowd looks at the GOP obsession to impeach Obama and rightly concludes that it's really all about race.  Here are excerpts:

ON the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, Kerry Bentivolio, a Michigan [Republican] congressman, has a dream, too: to impeach the nation’s first black president. 

Bentivolio graciously conceded that he’d have to come up with some grounds first. “I went back to my office and I have had lawyers come in,” he said. “And these are lawyers, well — Ph.D.’s in history — I said, ‘Tell me how I can impeach the president of the United States. What evidence do you have?’ You’ve got to have the evidence.” 

The Tea Party congressman, a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, hopes to find e-mails linking the White House to the I.R.S. examination of groups with a “Tea Party” label seeking tax-exempt status. 

“I stood 12 feet away from the guy and listened to him and I couldn’t stand being there,” he said of President Obama,. . . .

Bentivolio is the perfect avatar of the impeachment fever gripping a G.O.P. that’s unmoored from reality, given that he once admitted in a court deposition, “I have a problem figuring out which one I really am, Santa Claus or Kerry Bentivolio.” That’s why he sometimes used the pronoun “we.” 

He’s been playing Santa Claus — as part of a business he started 19 years ago called Old Fashion Santa — with his own six reindeer.

The Free Press reported that Bentivolio, no Edmund Gwenn in “Miracle on 34th Street,” left a teaching job in 2011 “after complaints he bullied students, even telling one class on its first day that his goal was to make all the students cry once during the year.” How much more gratifying to bully the president. 

Not content with fighting off a popular immigration overhaul or threatening to shut down the government and set off the first federal default, hard-core Congressional Republicans want to nullify the election. Unlike when the Republicans did their nutty impeachment of Bill Clinton — (Newt Gingrich is back, starring in the “Crossfire” reboot) — they don’t even control the Senate. And as David Axelrod told me, there isn’t a “scintilla of justification.”

Earlier this month, the president’s motorcade pulled into the Orlando Hilton and was greeted by about 50 protesters holding signs saying “Kenyan Go Home,” “Impeach Obama” and “Obama Lies.” 

This month has been rife with efforts among the G.O.P. “wise men,” using every channel possible — polls, op-eds, cable, Twitter — to try to talk sense to the goons of August. When Condi Rice is a “wise man,” you know you’re in trouble. 

The Democrats never impeached W. and they had real grounds: starting a war on false premises and sanctioning torture. “The Republican Party is in a constant struggle between its ego and its id,” Axelrod says, “and the id has mostly won out lately.” 

It isn’t the president who should leave. It’s the misguided lawmakers trying to drive him out.  For some of the rodeo clowns clamoring for impeachment around the country, Barack Obama’s real crime is presiding while black. 

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Colin Powell Slams North Carolina Voting Law

Retired General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell like myself once considered himself to be a Republican.  But, like me, most of my extended family members and many others, Powell is repulsed by the agenda of today's Republican Party.   Especially its agenda of disenfranchising minority voters, particularly blacks.  One would think that the GOP has merged with the KKK.  A piece at Talking Points Memo looks at Colin Powell's slamming of North Carlina white supremacist favored voter ID law in the presence ot North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory who signed the vile legislation into law.  Here are highlights:

Colin Powell spoke out forcefully Thursday against a sweeping new voting law in North Carolina, arguing that Republicans should be courting minority voters rather than driving them away from the polls.

"I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote," the former secretary of state said in a speech at Raleigh, N.C., according to The News & Observer. 
Powell added, "It immediately turns off a voting bloc the Republican Party needs. These kinds of actions do not build on the base. It just turns people away."

Powell's remarks were even more notable given North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory's (R) presence at the CEO Forum in Raleigh.

McCrory (R) signed the voting bill — passed by the GOP-controlled legislature — with little fanfare earlier this month. The law, slated to take effect in 2016, will require government-issued photo IDs at the polls while shortening the early voting period in the state. Democrats and groups such as the NAACP and the ACLU have criticized the law for its punitive effects on minority and young voters.
Powell, who endorsed President Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012, has addressed his party's problems with minorities before. In January, he said that he still considers himself a Republican but acknowledged the presence of "a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party."

He revisited that theme in a big way on Thursday, arguing that measures like North Carolina's voting law punish minority voters.

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Former Texas GOP Chair: Immigration Reform Will Lead To A Biometric Mark Of The Beast

I get a lot of grief at times for my unrelenting effort to display the insanity of today's GOP and the fact that I blame much of the party's descent into crazy land on the Christofascists.   I would argue that, if anything, I go too easy on the spittle flecked nutcases of the Christofascist base of the GOP.  A case in point comes from the former chair of the Texas Republican Party who has obviously drunk way too much Kool-Aid.  Cathie Adams (pictured at left), the former chairwoman of the Texas Republican Party and not surprisingly the current president of the Texas Eagle Forum, maintains that immigration reform would lead to biometric scanning which, as everyone knows, is a tool of Satan. WTF is going on with the GOP that would allow someone this unhinged to have been state party chair?  Right Wing Watch has details.  Here are excerpts:

Yesterday, End Times radio host Rick Wiles interviewed Cathie Adams, the former head of the Texas Republican Party and current president of the Texas Eagle Forum, in a wide-ranging discussion which included a warning that immigration reform would lead to biometric scanning which, as everyone knows, is a tool of Satan.

Adams warned that the problem is not just that Hispanics are crossing the border illegally, but so are people from Muslim nations and so if immigration reform passes, we'll be giving amnesty "to people who are not here with the best intentions for America."

After Adams said that the Department for Homeland Security is unable to account for more than a million foreigners who have overstayed their visas, Wiles predicted that immigration reform advocates would call for biometric scanning as a solution to this problem, which Adams declared would be an unmistakable sign of the End Times.

Then, for good measure, Adams returned to the issue of all those sneaky Muslims who are entering the United States as refugees "from Moozlum, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures [who] are not here because they love America but because they are fleeing countries, and yet, what kind of culture are they bringing here? They want sharia law, just like what they left that was causing them to be persecuted."

Adams: I do understand that. I've seen it. I've heard it. And, of course, we know in biblical prophecy that that is the End Times. That is going to be the brand either on our foreheads or on the back of our hands.  That is demonic through and through.  That is End Times prophecy.  There is no question about that.

 Ms. Adams needs a brand on her forehead alright: "BC" for batshit crazy.  I increasingly believe that far right Christians are mentally ill.  Nothing else explains the level of insanity.

 

Yesterday, End Times radio host Rick Wiles interviewed Cathie Adams, the former head of the Texas Republican Party and current president of the Texas Eagle Forum, in a wide-ranging discussion which included a warning that immigration reform would lead to biometric scanning which, as everyone knows, is a tool of Satan.
Adams warned that the problem is not just that Hispanics are crossing the border illegally, but so are people from Muslim nations and so if immigration reform passes, we'll be giving amnesty "to people who are not here with the best intentions for America."
After Adams said that the Department for Homeland Security is unable to account for more than a million foreigners who have overstayed their visas, Wiles predicted that immigration reform advocates would call for biometric scanning as a solution to this problem, which Adams declared would be an unmistakable sign of the End Times.
Then, for good measure, Adams returned to the issue of all those sneaky Muslims who are entering the United States as refugees "from Moozlum, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures [who] are not here because they love America but because they are fleeing countries, and yet, what kind of culture are they bringing here? They want sharia law, just like what they left that was causing them to be persecuted."
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/adams-immigration-reform-will-lead-biometric-mark-beast#sthash.n927fz5o.dpuf

Cathie Adams, the former head of the Texas Republican Party and current president of the Texas Eagle Forum, - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/adams-immigration-reform-will-lead-biometric-mark-beast#sthash.nBl4YhJn.dpuf

Cathie Adams, the former head of the Texas Republican Party and current president of the Texas Eagle Forum, - See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/adams-immigration-reform-will-lead-biometric-mark-beast#sthash.nBl4YhJn.dpuf

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Immigration Groups to Target House of Representatives GOP

With Congress headed into summer recess and GOP House members headed back to districts where they will pander to the racists and white supremacists in the GOP base - most of whom, of course, profess to be godly Christian despite the fact that they are filled with hate towards others - pro-immigration reform groups are planning to target these GOP Congress members and perhaps convince them that doing the right thing should trump pandering to horrible people.  A piece in Politico looks at the planned effort.  Here are excerpts:

Outside groups plan to target more than 100 House Republicans over the August recess with an aggressive ground game aimed at persuading lawmakers to embrace immigration reform.

Their goal: prove that it’s not just Washington insiders who want a comprehensive immigration overhaul, but that conservative voters in their districts support it as well.

The unusually coordinated effort to win the recess includes a major grass-tops initiative by pro-reform groups like American Action Network, the Partnership for a New American Economy, Republicans for Immigration Reform and others to connect local business leaders, mayors, pastors and activists with GOP lawmakers on their home turf.

“During the previous debate when President [George W.] Bush pushed for immigration reform, there was no grass-roots effort and a loud minority that opposes reform controlled the dialogue. This time, proponents of reform are not going to be caught off-guard.” 

Unions and other immigration activist groups like the SEIU, AFSCME, the National Council of La Raza and others are going to lay out their immigration reform summer plan Wednesday on Capitol Hill that includes holding hundreds of events in districts across the country in an effort to target key lawmakers while members are at home during August.

Of course, the reform groups won’t have the battlefield to themselves.  Groups like NumbersUSA and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, who oppose the Senate’s immigration bill, have plans to gin up activists across the country to attend town halls and vocally oppose reform.

But reform advocates believe they’ve got the infrastructure in place to beat back those appeals.  Pro-reform outside groups have been coordinating in recent weeks in a nearly unprecedented way. Senior strategists from numerous groups are engaging in daily conference calls to ensure that they are targeting districts in a comprehensive way.

It will be an interesting spectacle to watch.

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Groundswell - The True Face of the GOP Base

The metastasizing of the cancer that is the Republican Party base appears to be intensifying.  Not only are minorities, gays and immigrants viewed as the enemy to be defeated at any cost, but so are members of the so-called GOP establishment and any Republicans who are not ranting, Kool-Aid drinking crazies.  The GOP fringe now is the party base.  As I have noted before, I honestly do not see how the GOP can be saved long term because the cancer has taken control of the party as a whole.  A piece in Mother Jones looks at the disturbing insanity, bigotry and hate that defines today's GOP.  Also, note the disturbing activities of the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas who thinks she is not bound by the usual constraints of judicial conduct and avoidance of any appearance of bias.  Here are excerpts:

Believing they are losing the messaging war with progressives, a group of prominent conservatives in Washington—including the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and journalists from Breitbart News and the Washington Examiner—has been meeting privately since early this year to concoct talking points, coordinate messaging, and hatch plans for "a 30 front war seeking to fundamentally transform the nation," according to documents obtained by Mother Jones. 

Dubbed Groundswell, this coalition convenes weekly in the offices of Judicial Watch, the conservative legal watchdog group. During these hush-hush sessions and through a Google group, the members of Groundswell—including aides to congressional Republicans—cook up battle plans for their ongoing fights against the Obama administration, congressional Democrats, progressive outfits, andthe Republican establishment and "clueless" GOP congressional leaders. They devise strategies for killing immigration reform, hyping the Benghazi controversy, and countering the impression that the GOP exploits racism. And the Groundswell gang is mounting a behind-the-scenes organized effort to eradicate the outsize influence of GOP über-strategist/pundit Karl Rove within Republican and conservative ranks. (For more on Groundswell's "two front war" against Rove—a major clash on the right—click here.) 

One of the influential conservatives guiding the group is Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, a columnist for the Daily Caller and a tea party consultant and lobbyist. Other Groundswell members include John Bolton, the former UN ambassador; Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy; Ken Blackwell and Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council; Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch; Gayle Trotter, a fellow at the Independent Women's Forum; Catherine Engelbrecht and Anita MonCrief of True the Vote; Allen West, the former GOP House member; Sue Myrick, also a former House GOPer; Diana Banister of the influential Shirley and Banister PR firm; and Max Pappas, a top aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). 

A third agenda item that Wednesday morning was beating back the effort to end the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gay Scouts.

A high-priority cause for Groundswellers is voter identification efforts—what progressives would call voter suppression—and when Groundswellers developed a thread on their Google group page exploring the best way to pitch the right's voter identification endeavors . . . .

In one post, Ginni Thomas encouraged Groundswell members to watch Agenda: Grinding America Down, a documentary that claims that progressives (including Obama) seek "a brave new world" based on the "failed policies and ideologies of communism" and that an evil left is purposefully "destroying the greatest country in all of world history."

Groundswell has set itself up as the theme lab for the true-red activists of the conservative movement. Fearing that some hydra of the left has long been running wild, vanquishing the right, and bringing the nation closer to utter ruin, the members of Groundswell have birthed a hydra of their own. 

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Boehner Forced to Repudiate GOP Rep. Steve King’s Racist Remarks

If one wants to see the true face of today's Republican Party, one need look no farther than Rep. Steve King's (R-IA) who is pictured above.  The man is a homophobe, racist and would have women be obedient chattel of their husbands.  However, while many GOP elected officials dance around and try to cloak the party's agenda, King shouts it from the roof tops.  Recently, King engaged in an extremely racist anti-immigrant rant that went so far over the top that even spineless House Speaker John Boehner  felt compelled to do some damage control.  Talking Points Memo looks at both Kings rant and Boehner's attempt to hide the real GOP agenda.  Here are highlights:

Rep. Steve King's (R-IA) comments last week disparaging young undocumented immigrants went a step too far, drawing a Tuesday night condemnation from Republican House Speaker John Boehner.

Arguing against legalizing undocumented immigrants in an interview with Newsmax, the tea party stalwart said that for every valedictorian DREAMer -- an immigrant brought to the U.S. as a child -- there are existed 100 more who carried drugs across the border.

"For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that weigh 130 pounds and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert,” he said. “Those people would be legalized with the same act."

Boehner called the remark "wrong."

"There can be honest disagreements about policy without using hateful language," he said in a statement. "Everyone needs to remember that."

Democrats and the White House also condemned the comment earlier in the day.

Don't be fooled by Boehner.  King is the true face of today's GOP, especially it's Christofascists/Tea Party controlled base.

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GOP's Steve King Says Comparison Of Immigrants To Dogs Was A Compliment

The hate and bigotry of today's Republican Party is at times nothing less than stunning.  Especially since these same people wrap themselves in the mantle of religion and pretend that they are the defenders of godliness and Christian values.  If one reads the New Testament, the only figures who drew Christ's open wrath and condemnation were the Pharisees who acted far batter than today's "godly Christian" crowd in the GOP base.   A case in point is the horribly nasty Representative Steve King (R-IA) who seems to take hatred of others who are white far right Christians to new heights when he says that his comparison of immigrants to dogs was a compliment.   Think Progress has details:

In a Univision interview, leading Hispanic reporter Jorge Ramos confronted Rep. Steve King (R-IA) over remarks in 2012 where the congressman likened immigrants to dogs. King refused to apologize, even as Ramos told him “many people would find that offensive and racist.” 

Here is an excerpt of the testy exchange:

RAMOS: So from your point of view, you actually did not compare immigrants to dogs?
KING: I said that speech was about the vigor of legal immigration. It was a very complimentary speech and no I did not do that.

RAMOS : I don’t think many people found that complementary. [Crosstalk]. You know it is not complimentary to compare a group of immigrants to animals.

King has compared immigrants to animals more than once, including the time he suggested an electrified border fence because “we do this with livestock all the time.”

During the same interview, the leading opponent to immigration reform also remarked that what happens to DREAMers and undocumented immigrants is not his “responsibility.” “American citizens and legal Americans do not have a moral obligation to solve the problem of the 11 million people that are here unlawfully,” he said.

Individuals like King will be the death of not only the Republican Party but of Christianity as well.

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GOP Voter Suppression Efforts Increasing in South

Perhaps realizing that their longs for a return of the Old South when blacks were chattel and obviously could not vote, Republicans in legislatures across the South are making frantic efforts to limit the ability of minorities and liberal leaning younger voters to vote.  Rather than facing the fact that what the are peddling is not wanted by more and more citizens, the GOP's last stand effort will be to limit voting to angry white Christofascists and Tea Party members.  It's disgusting to watch, but such is the nature of today's increasingly hideous GOP.  A column in Talking Points Memo looks at the phenomenon which is occurring here in Virginia.  Here are column excerpts:

In an era of declining white majorities in America, Southern Republicans in charge of state legislators are moving hard while they feel they still have the chance to clamp down on the right to vote and if at all possible restrict minority voting. Here’s the latest example. 

Republicans in the North Carolina state Senate introduced voter identification legislation Thursday that's even more restrictive than a version passed by the state House earlier this year, the Charlotte Observer reported.

The state Senate bill, which would take effect in the 2016 election, removed half of the forms of identification allowed under the state House's legislation, such as cards from the University of North Carolina system of colleges, state community colleges, local governments, private employers and law enforcement agencies. 

Under the proposal outlined by state Senate Republicans, seven types of government-issued identifications would be accepted, namely driver’s licenses, passports, non-driver IDs and military or veteran cards. The state's legislative session ends next week.

As is the norm and as occurred here in Virginia during the last session, the Republicans whine about voter fraud even thought there are almost no documents cases.  The seek to take away citizens' right to vote while fixing a problem that doesn't exist.  I ask again, when are GOP city and county committee meetings doing to start with white robes and hoods being passed out to all members (or will the members simply bring their own)?

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Time to Emigrate? Nate Silver Predicts GOP Holding 50-51 Senate Seats After 2014 Election

It is stunning at times to see progressive causes and equality advancing in South America and in Europe - even in South Africa - yet America seems at times to be lurching backwards with racists, bigots and foul religious extremists either in ascendancy or not plummeting in a death spiral as they deserve.  In America a main representative of this regressive process is today's Republican Party with a party base that stinks of racism, worships ignorance, and holds anyone deemed as  "other"  - which is virtually anyone who isn't a conservative white conservative Christian - with open contempt.  And despite this, gay statistics nerd Nate Silver predicts that the GOP may make major gains in the U. S. Senate in 2014.  Currently, the Senate is the only obstacle to passage of extremist legislation passed by the gerrymandered GOP controlled House of Representatives.  If the GOP were to take control of the Senate, other than a presidential veto, there would be no stopping GOP insanity and bigotry.    Hence my question, is it time to bail and emigrate?  Talking Points Memo looks at Silver's current predictions:

Following former Gov. Brian Schweitzer's decision not to run for Montana’s open U.S. Senate seat this weekend, New York Times polling guru Nate Silver predicted Monday that Republicans will hold 50 to 51 seats in the upper chamber after all ballots are counted in the 2014 Congressional mid-term elections.

Silver hedges in his prediction by reminding his readers that the outcome will be affected by several factors, namely local variables, the quality of candidates yet chosen by both Democrats and Republicans, economic indicators and President Barack Obama's approval rating.

It is equally important to look for early indications of whether G.O.P. primary voters will be more tolerant of moderate and “main street” Republicans than they were in 2010 and 2012. A strong set of Republican nominees could give the party as many as a dozen credible opportunities to pick up the seats they need – whereas a weaker series of candidates could require them to win almost all of the races that remained competitive after the primaries.

Read Silver's full state-by-state analysis here.

Silver hedges in his prediction by reminding his readers that the outcome will be affected by several factors, namely local variables, the quality of candidates yet chosen by both Democrats and Republicans, economic indicators and President Barack Obama's approval rating.

Read Silver's full state-by-state analysis here.

 Silver does have these caveats:

It is therefore important to watch macro-level indicators – especially Mr. Obama’s approval ratings, the generic Congressional ballot and major economic measures – in addition to following the recruitment and polling in individual states.

It is equally important to look for early indications of whether G.O.P. primary voters will be more tolerant of moderate and “main street” Republicans than they were in 2010 and 2012. A strong set of Republican nominees could give the party as many as a dozen credible opportunities to pick up the seats they need – whereas a weaker series of candidates could require them to win almost all of the races that remained competitive after the primaries.

Click image to enlarge

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