Powell pointed to former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s use of the “shuck and jive” phrase in reference to President Obama, calling it a “racial era slave term,” and took on Romney surrogate John Sununu for calling President Obama “lazy.”
“When I see another former governor after the president’s first debate where he didn’t do very well, says that the president was lazy,” Powell said. “He didn’t say he was slow, he was tired, he didn’t do well, he said he was lazy.”
“Now, it may not mean anything to most Americans but to those of us who are African-Americans, the second word is shiftless and then there’s a third word that goes along with it,” he said.
Powell also called out to the “birther movement” as another example of Republican bigotry, asking “Why do senior Republican leaders tolerate this kind of discussion within the party?”
Well, Marco Rubio will have none of that GOP intolerance talk from Powell! No sir. According to Rubio, the GOP does not look down on minorities, and he can prove it!
"I disagree with General Powell’s assessment of the Republican Party today,” Rubio said. “The Republican Party is the party that [has] placed two Hispanics in the U.S. Senate, and we have an African-American senator in the United States Senate.”
See there? Three Senators representing two whole minorities! Take THAT Colin Powell.
Isn't it just typical of Republicans to claim their "tolerance of minorities" by citing their black and Hispanic friends?
Because with Rubio, the GOP and the Tea Party, it's never about the policies. It's really just about the label and the "messaging." If you're all for preventing the poor from getting access to health care or food stamps, or say keeping "illegals" in their place, the Republican Party will "tolerate" you no matter what color you are or where you came from.
In 2008, we witnessed John McCain making his last desperate attempt at winning a losing election with the choice of Sarah Palin for his VP nominee that resulted in one of the ugliest races we've seen. We also witnessed a new sort of Republican National Convention, a virtual hatefest that made many a viewer wince.
If anyone thought 2008 was as bad as it gets, I have a feeling they're sorely mistaken.
On Monday morning, before the abbreviated kickoff of the RNC, we may have seen the kickoff of what this Republican campaign will be about in 2012, and it wasn't pretty.
MSNBC's Morning Joe is broadcasting live this week from Channelside's Howl At The Moon (renamed The Elephant Bar.) On Monday's show, Chris Matthews brought up Mitt Romney's recent birther comment to Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus. In Michigan, Romney recently "joked" that no one ever had to ask for his birth certificate, because they knew where he came from.
Matthews said "That cheap shot ... was awful. It is an embarrassment to your party to play that card you are playing that ethnic card there." As Priebus laughed it off Matthews said "you can sit there and giggle about it, but the fact is your party is playing that card." Priebus appeared angry and pompous, but wasn't able to defend himself and seemed at a loss for words, at which point both Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski jumped in to help him out, which is typical of the hosts as regular viewers know. Not only did they defend Priebus on something that was indefensible, they employed the usual fake outrage at Matthews comments. Scarborough said "Chris, you think Mitt Romney's playing the race card? Wow. Wow." Yes, because Scarborough, a good old boy who grew up in the South, has never heard of such a thing.
When Priebus was finally able to compose himself and speak, he did what he's done before when confronted with his party's actions. Pretend to take the high-road and then shut down the conversation altogether, but before doing so, he defended Romney, again calling it a "joke" and saying anytime his party uses a little "levity" they get this type of outrage.
Yes. Apparently Republicans now see racism as "levity." Welcome to the general election. (You can see the exchange in the video below.)
Later, in typical bully fashion, Priebus appeared on FOX and attacked Matthews from there, saying it was typical for Chris Matthews to "play the role of being the biggest jerk in the room."
"You know, at that point you just tell the guy to go take a jump in the lake because obviously he's just trying to build his ratings on a show that isn't very well viewed, and I let him do it."
Funny. I watched the exchange but I missed the part where Priebus told Matthews to go jump in a lake. I did, however, see him cower like a spoiled bully as he let Scarborough do his dirty defense work for him.
And let's don't forget "Morning Mika." As usual, she tag teamed Joe's low road by taking her holier than thou route. She was mostly concerned about looking concerned, and terribly worried, saying "Let's work on tone."
Yes, let's do work on tone, shall we Mika? She was bothered not by the "tone" of Mitt Romney going full on birther. Nope. She was clutching her pearls because Chris Matthews was calling him out on it. Accusing someone of "playing the race card?" We can't have that! Out of line in Mika's moral code! But saying something that's racist? Not so much.
In the end, the "dynamic duo" wrote Romney's birther moment off as merely an awkward joke. I didn't see it as a joke. I saw it as a carefully choreographed comment. A campaign strategy.
There's a theory now that, since Romney polls at a new low of zero when it comes to the black vote, he's just going to focus on getting the white vote. In other words, now he's actually running against minorities. If that's the theory, then Romney's comment makes sense. Have you listened to the Republican Party lately? Food stamps? Welfare? Seen the voter suppression?
It sure sounds like they're running against minorities to me.
So while Priebus and the GOP may run from their records and comments like cowards, and those like Morality Mika take to their fainting couches, and trade in their "Morning Joe" to toss back a "Morning Vodka" before the cameras stop rolling, it's good to know someone like Chris Matthews is starting to say wait a minute:
“This is what an angry and desperate presidency looks like. President Obama knows better, promised better, and America deserves better. His campaign strategy is to smash America apart and then try to cobble together 51 percent of the pieces. If an American president wins that way, we all lose.”
“Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago and let us get about rebuilding and reuniting America.”
Florida Gov. Rick Scott went on CNN this morning and was asked questions about the Trayvon Martin shooting, but he didn't provide much in the way of answers beyond boilerplate talking points as per his usual playbook, except on one or two, perhaps unintentionally.
Or not.
When asked if he had questions about the Stand Your Ground law before he appointed the task force, he said "you want to make sure everybody is comfortable with safety," and then stated "I've appointed a task force led by my Lt. Governor 'who is African American."
While Scott said he doesn't know if it's a race issue, he does want you to know that his task force will be headed up by an African American.
Hmm. Why should that make a difference? What is he trying to say by asserting this? I think we know exactly what he's saying here.
He said his task force "will do a great job and justice will prevail," but he doesn't know if this is a race issue. He also repeatedly stated that his heart goes out to Martin's family, and added that "no family ever imagines this will happen to their child."
We might as well ignore the answer on the law itself. Just saying you want to make sure everybody is safe means nothing.
Scott says he doesn't know is if this is a race issue, but one thing he "does know" and repeated it just to make sure you do, is that "no family ever imagines this will happen to their child." Actually, African Americans can and do imagine this kind of thing could happen to their child, and/or themselves every day of their lives. After all, wearing a hoodie in the rain means you're wearing a hoodie in the rain for a white person, but makes an African American look as if they're just wandering about, looking like they're on drugs or something, and just plain "suspicious" according to George Zimmerman, who shot Martin. Perhaps Rick Scott is clueless about this, but I have my doubts.
As for Jennifer Carroll, his Lt. Governor who is leading his task force while black? Well, she recently said this of Rick Scott:
"On Monday, we're going to be celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday and I can't think of anybody currently in my life right now that more epitomizes the values and the vision of Dr. King than Gov. Rick Scott," she said.
"When the governor selected me to be his running mate, he did not look at the color of my skin," said Carroll, who was the only black Republican in the Legislature in 2010. "He looked at the content of my character and my integrity and work ethic, and what I brought to the table. This is the dream of Dr. King that was realized for me."
With the task force going forward, an African American is leading the way, and the white governor who appointed her epitomizes the value and vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, so it's all good.
For weeks as the details of the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin in Sanford began to unfold, there was a deafening silence on the case coming from Tallahassee. Amid national public outcry for a statement, or merely an acknowledgement of the shooting itself, Florida Governor Rick Scott said nothing.
Instead 22 days passed.
Only now that the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI have gotten involved do we get a cookie cutter statement from Gov. Scott urging law enforcement "to provide any assistance necessary to fully investigate this matter."
"The circumstances surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin have caused significant concerns within the Sanford community and the state,'' Scott wrote to FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey. "I understand an investigation was initiated by the Sanford Police Department and referred to the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office. I believe it is appropriate that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement provide any assistance necessary to fully investigate this matter. Accordingly, please ensure that FDLE offers and provides the appropriate resources to the State Attorney's Office as they continue their investigation."
Not until it becomes a potential political hot potato does Scott weigh in, and then only with a generic "CYA" announcement urging law enforcement to basically "do their job." Way to go out on a limb there, governor.
"I share in the desire of the family and the community to accurately collect and evaluate all the facts surrounding the tragic death of Trayvon Martin," Wolfinger said in a news release.
Seminole County Grand Jury which will be called to session on Tuesday, April 10, 2012.
I suppose it isn't too surprising that Scott would take little time out from handing out tax breaks to businesses and working on behalf of special interests to defend a mere citizen of the state who himself became the victim of a law pushed by those same special interests.
Florida's "Stand Your Ground Law" was pushed through the legislature back in 2005 by the National Rifle Association and signed into law faster than you can say "the victim was 'armed' with nothing but Skittles and iced tea" by then Gov. Jeb Bush. At the time those opposed to the law feared that it would lead to shootouts in the streets in the name of self defense.
....your responses to our 2010 Questionnaire, in support of Second Amendment, self-defense, and anti-crime issues have earned you the following ratings by our organizations.
Once again our governor illustrates exactly what ground he stands on when it comes to the citizens of this state:
Gov. Rick Scott and Secretary of State Kurt Browning filed a petition in federal court Tuesday asking the court to throw out a section of the Voting Rights Act, one of the vestiges of the Civil Rights movement that has provided an extra layer of protections to minorities voters for the past 45 years.
The federal law requires that all changes to voting and election law in five Florida counties -- Hendry, Collier, Hardee, Hillsborough and Monroe – be approved by the U.S. Department of Justice or a federal court because of their history of racial discrimination against voters. The lawsuit alleges that the pre-clearance requirement, first established in 1972, is antiquated and unconstitutional.
This is just the most recent blatant attempt to undercut the will of voters who won the Fair Districts they voted for.
Now they want to throw out parts of the Voting Rights Act that protect areas with a history of voter discrimination. All at taxpayers expense, joining the taxpayer funded health care lawsuit to block voters from the benefits of the Affordable Care Act.
Self-proclaimed "fiscal conservative" Rick Scott will apparently spare no taxpayer expense when it comes to blocking them from policies they're clearly in favor of. He also doesn't seem to be concerned at how much money is being spent to fight back against his policies in just the nine short months he's been in office.
Florida is well on its way to a deteriorating quality of life that residents soon won't easily be able to afford, thanks to an unpopular Governor they don't want.
Now Rick "Supreme Executive of Deleted Emails" Scott would also like to claim their right to vote him out of office in the next election.
From a network that routinely suspends and dismisses its anchors for saying things it doesn't like, I can only assume that MSNBC is good with its resident bigot Pat Buchanan. Buchanan, as far as I know, has never been suspended or thrown off the network for making outrageous and offensive statements, and he's done it again. He's now an apologist for the crimes of extremist Anders Breivik in Norway. As Think Progress noted (below) Buchanan seems to think Breivik "may have had a valid point."
Offering his take on the horrendous terrorist attacks in Norway, Buchanan joined the Wall Street Journal and the Jerusalem Post in arguing that the far-right extremist perpetrator Anders Breivik may have had a valid point. Arguing that Breivik was bringing attention to his cause, “a Crusader’s war between the real Europe and the ‘cultural Marxists’ and Muslims,” Buchanan declares that, on the “climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world…Breivik may be right“:
But, awful as this atrocity was, native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.
That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists.
Europe faces today an authentic and historic crisis.
With her native-born populations aging, shrinking and dying, Europe’s nations have not discovered how to maintain their prosperity without immigrants. Yet the immigrants who have come – from the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia – have been slow to learn the language and have failed to attain the educational and occupational levels of Europeans. And the welfare states of Europe are breaking under the burden.[...]
As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right.
The sad reality is that Buchanan helps mainstream anti-Muslim intolerance. A regular MSNBC contributor and frequent guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Buchanan once invoked the Nazis’ attempt to march in Skokie, Illinois as an argument against the Islamic Center proposal in New York. He also used this platform to defend Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) “McCarthyesque hearings” on the threat of terrorism from American Muslims, saying American Muslims are “most susceptible or vulnerable to the recruitment” by terrorists who will “radicalize them and make them enemies of America.”
It's people like Pat Buchanan who fan the flames of intolerance again and again, (and when the flames contribute to an actual fire, they absolve themselves of blame) and you would think that would rate MSNBC disassociating themselves from him. This is only the latest example in a long line of outrageous, bigoted and racist statements Buchanan has made.
Before I'm accused of not believing in free speech, that isn't the case. Far from it. But MSNBC routinely bans and fires people who don't share their views, and suspends anchors for saying offensive things about FOX-GOP-TV anchors who make statements similar to Buchanan on a regular basis, but if a statement like the one above by one of their own is OK, that's practicing quite a double standard.
By continuing to put Pat Buchanan on the air and giving him a platform to say things like this brands the network as the same, and we can only assume that Pat Buchanan in turn speaks the views of MSNBC or he, like others, would be banned, suspended or fired.
Clearly, by their own standards, MSNBC feels the same as Buchanan.
