“I will go to the NAACP convention, and explain to the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps,” said Gingrich.
The title of this post may be a touch misleading, because it is only 1:30 and there is still time for another candidate to take it to 11.
The Moar You Know
You can always count on Newt to deliver the goods. And by goods I mean toxic waste.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
You really should have quoted Gingrich in full. His suggestion of giving African Americans private accounts at Tiffany’s to replace their soc.iali.zed welfare checks was a master-stroke of policy.
Jennifer
Since he’s given fair warning, the NAACP folks will be well-prepared to point out to him that most food stamp recipients aren’t African-American.
MattF
Yeah, Noot, a.k.a., The Explainer. He’s got a lot to explain, and I guess once he starts he finds it hard to stop.
James Gary
“Demand paychecks?” What the f*ck is that even supposed to mean?
Emma
Jeezus on a Harley. It’s let-the-freak-banner-fly for republican candidates… And you think you’re joking, Cole? By 7 tonight, there’ll be someone out there with something worse.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
ah that’s nice newt, but either way they’re pretty much fucked as far as gop priorities go, right?
Felinious Wench
I want it televised.
Social Outcast
He didn’t mention black moms turning out babies to get bigger government checks. That’s side b of this single.
Comrade Dread
No, but the idea of food stamp recipients all being “urban” welfare queens, black single moms, and shiftless, lazy, strapping bucks buying T-bones has nicely settled into the common mindset as an accepted truthy statement.
Probably because if people knew how many hard working folks (with jobs, yeah, more than one) still couldn’t afford to live and feed their family without help from the government, there might actually be a damned revolution.
danimal
Yeah, the racism in that statement is amazing, but the statement is so condescending that I must assume Newt is pig-ignorant as well. Does Newt really think that blacks (the NAACP) don’t prefer paychecks over food stamps? Does Newt realize that most food stamp recipients are white? Does Newt understand that a large percentage of food stamp recipients also receive paychecks? Does Newt know anything beyond racist dogwhistles?
The eternal debate is whether the GOP is evil or stupid. Given the evidence, I vote both.
Satanicpanic
There was basically this same skit in Kentucky Fried Movie. Hope he’s got a helmet!
J.W. Hamner
Uhm… so he wants to replace food stamps with cash grants?
handy
@James Gary:
The NAACP should kiss the pinky rings of the jobs creators rather than the Democrats they presumably work hard to elect.
Beth in VA
Gingrich can’t be real, he’s a performance artist! Remember John Lithgow reading Gingrich? Good times. (Go to minute 3:00 for Lithgow, altho the intro speal is great too).
Maude
@Jennifer:
You just stop with the facts. To quote Reagan: Facts are stupid things.
Gex
So he admits there is a problem with job creation from the job creators in this country? Good, that’s a start!
What? Oh, he isn’t accounting for lack of employment as the problem. That’s the great thing about the GOP. Heads they win, tails we lose.
handy
@handy:
Or, shorter Newt (and all Goopers): Blacks, don’t you think I’m pretty too?
legion
I would pay so much money if he would actually do that. Newt, I triple-dog-dare you.
r€nato
Well, I’ve told this story before and I’ll tell it again, as it seems apropos:
One time I went back to Milwaukee with the then-girlfriend, to visit old HS friends of hers. This white couple had known me all of two hours in their entire lives but because we were all whites in the room, the husband felt it perfectly acceptable to rant about ‘the damned n(CLANG)ers on welfare.’
This was coming from a guy who had already spent several years drawing government disability checks; he was a stay-at-home dad while his wife worked. His injury from a motorcycle accident caused him only a slight gimp, as far as I could tell. He could have easily worked a desk job.
Yutsano
@danimal:
No mutual exclusivity here. Both seems appropriate.
Comrade Dread
@danimal: In this case, I’ll go with evil.
Simply because the truth would destroy every one of their arguments about trickle-down economics and show the end result of their preferred economic policies. With the exception being instead of food stamps, they’d expect the working poor to farm out their kids to corporations for money, take on a third or fourth job, sell organs (not kidding), or go stand in line at food bank charities and hope they weren’t out of food.
JGabriel
@James Gary:
Isn’t that one of the things, among others, that OWS was protesting for? A system that focuses on putting people back to work, after they bailed out the banksters?
But, of course, Republicans don’t like OWS, or any protests or demands from people who work or want work.
So ultimately it’s just Newt being his old hyopcritical lying self — accsuing people, but just black people (for bonus racism!) of demanding a food stamp “handout” insteads of jobs, when if fact they are demanding jobs.
.
r€nato
I just can’t understand why so many blacks don’t vote GOP; must be ACORN stuffing the ballot box.
Special Patrol Group
Wow. Teh Newtster really really really really really wants to win the South Carolina Republican Primary.
4tehlulz
BREAKING: Newt is actually Huey Newton in disguise.
r€nato
@Maude: actually he said ‘stubborn’ not ‘stupid’.
Special Patrol Group
@r€nato:
Indeed. It’s a mystery.
r€nato
@danimal: there’s a debate about it?
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
Speaking of the GOP’s tender concern for the personal finances of Americans:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/former_walker_aide_arrested_in_john_doe_investigation.php?ref=fpb
Maude
@r€nato:
How about Reagan was stupid?
Tony
A video pre-enactment of Newt’s conversation with the NAACP:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7S5BP-tvR8
Jennifer
As of last summer, almost 47 million Americans, close to 15% of the population, was on food stamps. Out of that total, 33% of the recipients were African-American, which translates into about 15.5 million. 1% of recipients were Hispanic and the rest were white – 31 million of them, or twice as many white people on food stamps as black folks. So that means 20% of white people were getting food stamps, vs. 42% of black people. Given that as a group blacks have the lowest average income, that’s not an indication that anyone is cheating the system but rather an indication that people with less money tend to need food assistance more than people with more money.
r€nato
@Special Patrol Group: I love it when some random rightwing commenter says something like, “I don’t understand why those jigaboos keep voting for Democrats, who keep them down and keep them on welfare all the time! They must be too stupid to know what’s best for them!”
I’ve seen this sort of comment many times. They just don’t get it and I don’t think they ever will. It’s not the welfare (which is hardly exclusive to blacks); it’s that the Democratic party takes seriously concerns about racism, both past and present while the GOP approach is to tell them to shut up, quit their sniveling and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps like everyone else.
r€nato
@Maude: I don’t think I would agree with that, either. He was certainly canny, he wasn’t a deep thinker or a scholar but I wouldn’t consider him ‘stupid’ on that basis.
Sorry to be the turd in your snark punchbowl.
Now, GW Bush… he was stupid.
Stillwater
@James Gary:
Maybe Newt is actually advocating direct action here – that African Americans’s should take it to the streets, DEMAND PAYCHECKS! and destroy some shit along the way!
Maybe we’ve misunderstood him all these years!
ornerycurmudgeon
Newt Gingrinch is not only still in politics, but he is in the running for the Presidency.
Something is not right in this. We cannot be this stupid as a people.
But thank you, Cole, for aiming out of the circle. Much appreciated!
amk
steve benen’s “job creators” chart.
His piece today is a great read.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You can almost here ABL howl of rage from this blog.
Yes, we know how the last twenty years of American history is just a vast conspiracy by black Americans to buy houses so they could default on their mortgages, this would induce a banking crises that would crush the economy, just so they could go back to getting food stamps. After all, the best kind of cheese is government cheese, am I right?
Linnaeus
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the GOP is the party of neofeudalism.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
help. my arm is pinned to the desk by a sleeping kitten. fortunately, i was holding the mouse when he settled in but now i’m trapped.
please send food.
Brachiator
@r€nato:
I knew a woman in a similar situation. She even went on vacations while collecting disability. Her rationale was that she had worked for a while, and was only getting her own back, unlike people on welfare who, by her definition, deserved nothing.
@Special Patrol Group:
Yep. Exactly. I’m surprised he didn’t accuse Obama of fathering black children.
The Moar You Know
That Newt would, in theory, be able to do such an insulting thing and not have to worry about getting his sorry fat ass lynched on the way out says volumes about the forbearance, decency and restraint of the African American community.
MattF
Ah, there’s an additional dog-whistle here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/barack-obama-the-food-stamp-president/2011/12/07/gIQAzTdQdO_blog.html
r€nato
@Brachiator:
yeah, Ayn Rand used that excuse too. As do all of the other wingnuts who go on and on about freeloaders sucking on the government teat.
Jay in Oregon
@Emma:
Want to start a pool on who it will be?
Rick Perry?
Ron Paul?
David Brooks?
Andrew Sullivan?
wrb
Smart, rather.
Image of near president using his power to transfer the wealth of the working to his ghetto tribe members will have huge power & easy believability. It could work well for them.
Took the Newt to follow the logic all the way to its conclusion & go there.
The image of Obama transferring wealth to non-working blacks will be burned in by the end of this.
Cris (without an H)
Thank you, it actually is a salient fact that a disproportional percentage of African-Americans are on assistance. I hate to grant the Republicans any credit, but in that regard there’s actually a basis for their bullshit characterization of welfare as a Black thing.
And this is the real issue. The entire economic class system in this country is intertwined with our legacy of racist policies, and few people — especially Republicans — want to take on the enormity of addressing that. So they just blame blacks for choosing to be poor.
schrodinger's cat
When was the last time Newt did any honest work?
Brachiator
So let’s see. Black children are shiftless ingrates who should all have after school jobs as janitors. Black adults are all on food stamps.
Obama is a sozh ulest.
This makes Herman Cain the hardest working black man in America, in the sad, feverish imaginations of the GOP.
jl
Newt is only sincerely concerned about a sadly deluded oppressed population that is being held down by obsolete liberal myths. Newt wants to rescue them by application of innovative out of the box thinking.
I am sure no minority communities have ever thought about calling for more jobs.
Newt inspires me to do good. Here is my message to another deluded oppressed community, many of whom are oppressed by government checks of one sort or another, and sucked dry by useless parasitic leaders. (Edit: I mean ‘frauds’ but I want to be civil)
If Newt brings his medicine show to my town, I will see if I can get it played to the dupes who show up.
Sonny Boy Williamson II Take Your Hands Out Of My Pockets
http://youtu.be/uCq_1EfrYN0
And, yes there is a Sonny Boy Williamson 2 song for every situation.
Linnaeus
@r€nato:
A good friend of mine has a brother who is a libertarian and who loves Ayn Rand. But what did he do when he became unemployed? Took unemployment insurance payments from the state. Funny, that.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Linnaeus:
I think he was looting the looters and mooching the moochers, which makes it all A-OK in Aynistan.
Citizen_X
@Stillwater:
And of course, since this is a conservative suggestion, they should be expressing their Second Amendment rights. Something like this.
I’m sure the Tea Party people will approve!
r€nato
@Linnaeus: …because…
(wait for it)
…he PAID TAXES so he was just getting back what he paid in!
..which means it’s OK for everyone else, then, right?
Because if it’s not, then that means your friend’s brother is a big ol’ hypocrite and thinks the world revolves around himself.
James Gary
@handy:
@Stillwater:
@JGabriel:
All good guesses. What’s pissing me off the most about this election cycle is that most of what the GOP candidates are saying doesn’t make any sense on any level, and the media just goes right along like they’re reporting on the behavior of reasonable humans.
I mean, Santorum could say, “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously!” tomorrow morning and it’d be quoted without comment in the lead story on that afternoon’s All Things Considered–followed by ten minutes of horse-race bullsh*t on “momentum” and similar meaningless buzzwords.
Ken
I don’t recall any similarly-courageous statements in Iowa about cutting back on agricultural and ethanol subsidies…
Older
@r€nato: I can beat that. My former husband and I were treated to a rant about niggers and hippies when visiting a neighbor. We were obvious hippies and our son was obviously black, and our neighbor seemed to think he was just being politely chatty, offered us coffee and cookies, etc. We moved soon after that visit, but still owned the house for some years. Later, when our son was living there, he dated the neighbor’s daughter. I asked him if he felt safe, and he said “Oh,yeah.”
pragmatism
@r€nato: no. john adams said stubborn. reagan tried to quote him and failed and instead said “stupid”.
some other choice quotes:
“I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.”
“Well, I learned a lot….I went down to (Latin America) to find out from them and (learn) their views. You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries”
“Trees cause more pollution than automobiles.”
“All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.”
Cris (without an H)
I’d consider it a weird victory to have a Republican quoting Chomsky.
r€nato
@Linnaeus: Maybe in Aynistan, it makes it OK if you bite the hand that helps feed you when you need it.
Of course, most decent people couldn’t sleep well at night being that kind of a sociopath. But, not all of us were born with or are in possession of a functional conscience.
Stillwater
@Cris (without an H): So they just blame blacks for choosing to be poor.
I think it’s actually more insidious than that. They do blame black people for ‘choosing’ to be poor. But they also accuse Democrats of creating a ‘culture of dependency’ by exploiting black people’s inherent laziness for political gain: to keep purchasing those black welfare votes. So it’s really a pretty amazing double-dose of GOP craziness.
Special Patrol Group
@James Gary:
Unless you’re Lee Atwater and/or have a specially trained ear. But otherwise, yeah.
Quaker in a Basement
Holy mackerel! What’s next? Can’t wait to see how Knoot addresses the next stereotype.
r€nato
@pragmatism: thank you. I retract my attempt at being a pedant.
amk
@schrodinger’s cat: egg.sack.lee. newt took the term grifter to a totally new level.
Cris (without an H)
@r€nato: In Rand’s defense: you exploit the system you have, not the system that only exists in your thousand-page fantasy novels.
wrb
@Ken:
Strange silence on winter heating subsidies in NH.
over_educated
The saddest things about Republicans is how their bigotry blinds them to someone who is much, much smarter than them. And now they’re going to be run over.
James Gary
@Cris (without an H):
You know, I’d completely forgotten that Chomsky wrote that sentence until just now. Gotta love that the Internet (in the person of you) only took two minutes to remind me.
Butch
@James Gary: OT: I used that phrase in a business writing class I teach. Noam, yes?
The Moar You Know
@Linnaeus: In Randland, it’s perfectly OK to steal from those who steal from others. I’m serious, BTW. So it’s all cool.
The most frequent justification for this horseshit is “I’m just getting back what I paid in”. I hear this a lot from a former high school friend of mine who, with the help of alcohol, put himself into a wheelchair permanently. Gets massive amounts of government aid for everything. Point of fact he takes home more per month than I do. He’s certainly taken far more out of the system than he ever paid in. Hell, he even moved back to California because the “benefits were better”. Wouldn’t begrudge it, but he’s also a full-metal teabagger who’s always railing about the “niggers and Mexicans on welfare”. I sometimes wish he’d get what he votes for.
sjw
@r€nato:
He actually did say “Facts are stupid things”, but then corrected himself. (It’s at 11:42 in this video, if interested: http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/5469 )
-sjw, who slogs through this stuff so you don’t have to, and who hopes he never has to listen to any part of any Reagan speech ever again. Living through it all the first time was quite enough. :)
jl
@James Gary:
‘ I mean, Santorum could say, “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously!” ‘
I dunno. I was thinking stuff like that around 7 AM on Jan 1.
Davis X. Machina
I think a massive public-works program, targeted towards historically-disadvantaged communities with sound prevailing-wage protections, and an affirmative-action component baked right in is a wonderful idea.
The only thing that scares me is who just had it. Because now on the strength of that, I have to re-think it.
Jennifer
@Brachiator: Thank you for inadvertently bringing up a point I left out: most food stamp recipients are children. 1 in 8 Americans receives food stamp aid; for children, it’s 1 in 4. There are about 75 million children age 17 or under in the US; that means that 18.75 million of the 47 million on the program are children, and 2/3 of the food stamp aid going to African-Americans goes to feeding kids under 17. So what we end up with is 5 million adult African Americans who are “choosing” food stamps rather than a paycheck. With unemployment at rates of 15% and higher for African-Americans, that means that about 27% of adult African Americans are food stamp recipients, and as already noted, 15% of them are unemployed because there aren’t any jobs.
Another thing the racists like to overlook – after children, the elderly and disabled are the second-largest group of food stamp recipients. I suspect that they make up at least half of the remaining 12% of African-American adults who receive food stamps.
Luthe
@Ken: Ethanol subsidies quietly expired on December 31. Score one for the good guys.
John M. Burt
It’s as though Newt (indeed, all of the Repub candidates) were standing in front of the bathroom mirror, fantasizing about what they’d really like to say if they could get away with it, not realizing that the reflective surface in front of them is really a TelePrompter….
pseudonymous in nc
@r€nato:
It’s one of those irregular verbs:
I get back what I paid into the system.
You are on welfare.
They are buying watermelons and fried chicken with our money and loading them in the back of their government-funded Escalades.
James Gary
@Special Patrol Group:
The thing is, this quote isn’t even a dogwhistle, it just doesn’t make any f*cking sense. Who exactly is the African-American community supposed to demand jobs from? Who, in the history of work, has ever gotten a job by simply demanding one anyway? Is the act of not demanding a job a sign of laziness? (And it seems to me that “demanding” jobs, rather than numinously “creating” jobs ex nihilo, is the exact opposite of the GOP’s supposed approach of “personal responsibility” anyway.)
In short: WTF?
ploeg
Sorry to say, Newt’s right on this one. Just look at how easy it is for historians to make tons of money providing historical services to large financial institutions. The money’s out there if only you just go out and hustle!
Calouste
@schrodinger’s cat:
Probably when his dad’s sperm was swimming towards his mother’s egg.
MattF
@Calouste: You mean… he’s human?
amk
@ploeg: LOL. Good one.
pseudonymous in nc
@Cris (without an H):
It’s a pretty recent legacy, too. The social mobility that came from the expansion of housing and education after WW2, taken up by people like gNoot, was institutionally shut off to black families. White Boomers struck it pretty fucking rich.
wrb
@James Gary:
Makes plenty of sense for a guy who wants to make clear to the base that he’ll say the “truths” that the Mass Moderate won’t.
Watch for more such from the Newt. It is his path to the nomination, if he has one.
Sour Kraut
I’m surprised he didn’t accuse Obama of fathering black children.
The LIEberal press is too afraid ask President Soetoro about Sasha&MaliaGate!
Special Patrol Group
@James Gary:
Come on, of course it’s a dogwhistle. Just as The Old Country Buffet ran out of tapioca because O’Barry is a Socialist. Also. Too.
Ask your racist uncle (or whoever), not that you’d want to start that conversation. I bet they can translate that shit for you. You think the Newtster got to where he is without knowing fluent Atwater?
tdd
The 2012 GOP tagline: Too stupid to use a dog whistle.
apostropher
Over 50% of all food stamp recipients are children or elderly. There simply aren’t enough schools in Newt’s America for all of those children to demand paychecks for janitorial work. Particularly when they’re competing with their grandparents for those jobs.
Cris (without an H)
Yeah. One reason I like the word “legacy” here (as opposed to “history”) is that it carries a strong connotation of “still with us.”
Calouste
@MattF:
I don’t think you can derive that from my statement. The only thing that can be said is that the Newt is a biologically created being, unlike the Romneytronic.
Jennifer
@apostropher: well over 50% – see my comment above. 2/3 of them are children; add in the elderly and disabled and you’re looking at less than 25% of food stamp aid going to able-bodied working-age people.
Lurking Canadian
The Republican line on this will be that it was not racist because he said “African Americans” instead of something else, so what are they all up in arms about?
Jamie
It’s always nice to see how the RC Church heals the hearts of a convert.
James Gary
@Special Patrol Group:
Come on, of course it’s a dogwhistle. Just as The Old Country Buffet ran out of tapioca because O’Barry is a Socialist.
Yeah, of course it is. I guess I’m just amazed that it’s gotten to the point where the actual phrasing no longer needs to have any semantic value.
Alex S.
Bring it on, Newt! Say the N-word!
The republican primary now consists entirely of dog whistles and god whistles.
JGabriel
@schrodinger’s cat:
High School. Newt did his own homework, because he was trying to impress his geometry teacher.
.
FlipYrWhig
So will any Republican take the opportunity to Sister Souljah Newt for this, to prove their willingness to distance themselves from extremists who say offensive things? Oh, wait, that’s only Democrats who have to do that.
The Moar You Know
@James Gary: Speaks well of your upbringing that you don’t hear this. To me it is as loud as a fire alarm.
Let me translate:
Given: Blacks are lazy.
Given: The Civil Rights unrest of the 1960s was nothing more than blacks wanting government handouts to make them “equal” to whites.
Therefore: Blacks only riot when they are “demanding” handouts (one popular piece of racist lore says that the LA riots stopped because all the welfare checks hit town the day it stopped, and the blacks were able to buy drugs again. Not kidding).
Therefore: blacks demand handouts. If they would only demand jobs instead!
I hope you get the idea. I think liberals honestly don’t get the scope of the complete contempt and hatred that “conservatives” hold for people of color.
slag
Wait. Is Newt suggesting that black people should get together as a coalition to make demands on the government and various private employers for a living wage? Because I believe we have a word for such a coalition.
JPL
Newt’s platform is Clean toilets for America.
Linda Featheringill
@Stillwater: #36
Hey! Way to go Newt!
FlipYrWhig
@slag: Maybe they could have some kind of march for jobs and justice. I can’t believe that hasn’t been tried before!
Linda Featheringill
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Awwwww! :-)
Linda Featheringill
@JGabriel:
Oooooh! You’re bad!
:-)
RossinDetroit
@Brachiator:
The most vehement Tea Partier I know, who quotes Fox chapter and verse in every conversation, is also on permanent government disability. From a heart condition caused by being morbidly obese for 40 years.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@JGabriel:
He was love-triangulating even back then.
James Gary
@The Moar You Know:
Therefore: blacks demand handouts. If they would only demand jobs instead!
No, I understood the dogwhistle-ness of it from the start. My point (see also my comment at #80) is that no one ever got a job by “demanding” one–as everyone knows, that’s just not how the world of employment works. To equate “demanding a handout” with “demanding a job” is just semantically nonsensical. It’s close to gibberish.
slag
@FlipYrWhig: I know! Newt is totally on to something here. Then we could come up with coalition branding and maybe even a slogan…I’m thinking thinking thinking…well, whatever it ends up being, at least we know we’ll be Stronger Together when we Make America Happen.
I’m on board.
RossinDetroit
@The Moar You Know:
I think he means it’s more of an air raid siren than a secret signal to the racists.
Tone In DC
The overweight salamander is WORSE than Lee Atwater. And that is saying something.
The NAACP wouldn’t invite that subhuman sack of waste to address the association, they could barely tolerate Bush Jr., IMHO.
Sir Nose'D
I’m just thinking out loud here, but Newt is on to something. Maybe those colored people should form a national association, if you will, to work towards developing political, educational, social and economic equality of minorities in the U.S.
Brachiator
@Alex S.:
And again, the nonsense that it ain’t really racism until someone says the N word. Let’s go back to what was said:
Seems to me that this insults every African American in the country, save Herman Cain, with its odious assertion that all black people are lazy spongers, and that only white people could possibly be hard working Real Americans(tm).
I can easily imagine that there are black children, watching their parents come home after a hard day at work, wondering just who the hell this fool Newt is to so blithely disparage their lives, and black children who are dealing with newly charged taunts from classmates that they are nothing more than the spawn of the lazy underclass.
It’s absurd to suggest or believe that a slap in the face doesn’t count unless it is accompanied by a racial epithet.
@The Moar You Know:
Sadly, there are still some liberals who are just as bigoted as any conservative.
Yevgraf
I’d pay good money to see Newton do this. It would be one of the greatest things I could witness in my wretched life.
Sufferen ACE
@Tone In DC: Yes, but they are hardly the group of snarling jackals who wouldn’t invite him either. How much you want to bet he would show up wearing a flack jacket pretending that he was in some kind of danger just walking into their convention.
Sufferen ACE
@Tone In DC: Yes, but they are hardly the group of snarling jackals who wouldn’t invite him either. How much you want to bet he would show up wearing a flack jacket pretending that he was in some kind of danger just walking into their convention.
Special Patrol Group
@Brachiator:
I suppose that must be true from a statistical perspective at the very least. How about at the public level? Any public figures you could point out for us? Any public liberal just as bigoted as Rush Limbaugh? Is there a liberal version of Lee Atwater (in terms of bigotedness (bigocity?)? If so, please let us know forthwith so that we may shame them as soon as possible. Thanks in advance.
Suffern ACE
For his next “I’m an andreline junkie” stunt, Newt pledges to go to Frances Fox Piven’s house, ring the doorbell, and run away.
wrb
The Newt is growing a flaming crest and nuptial pads in preparation for taking America in his slimy amplexus.
AA+ Bonds
I’m always intrigued by this idea of civilization on the Right where people literally steal bread to feed their starving families
Rightists seem very interested in creating the right conditions for American Bolshevism
AA+ Bonds
@Brachiator:
Roger Moore
@Suffern ACE:
Then he’s a liar. We all know that it should be “waddle away” if he wants to be remotely accurate.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t think he means “demand paychecks” from employers. He means “demand that the government create the conditions for private-sector Real Jobs, rather than handouts including Government Work.” It’s part and parcel of the Republican fantasy that tax cuts and deregulation make business thrive, which makes bosses hire, which means that Republican free-market laissez-faire bullshit is better for everyone (including disadvantaged members of minority groups) than Democrat Welfare.
Mnemosyne
@wrb:
Dude, they’ve been pushing that line since 2008 at least. What did you think the squeals of “We’re turning into Zimbabwe!” were all about?
I seriously doubt that any voter out there hasn’t heard this line of attack yet. I don’t think it’s going to persuade anyone who wasn’t already persuaded by it in 2008.
AA+ Bonds
I think many liberals, the sort who like to filter out comments on websites, simply don’t want to be aware of how openly and consciously racist white American men will get, given any substantial amount of time and a room full of only white men
That’s why I always giggle a little when the ivory tower starts talking about unconscious or systemic racism: that ain’t your biggest problem, hoss
AA+ Bonds
@Mnemosyne:
Since 1992, more like
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: It was the subtext of Republican sturm und drang about the stimulus and the health care bill too. Obama wants to take your hard-earned money and give it to Those People! Why don’t they just get a job, like I did, until I got this disability check I totally deserve?
R-Jud
@wrb: I like “nuptial excrescence”, myself.
FlipYrWhig
@AA+ Bonds: Since 1964, more like. See under strategy, Southern.
wrb
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t either, but I think Newt’s game is to appear braver/more trustworthy to the base by saying it with less subtlety.
Catsy
@JGabriel: I see what you did there.
Villago Delenda Est
@JGabriel:
[rimshot]
wrb
@R-Jud: That is better.
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
And less than a hundred years ago, they said Jews caused the Great Depression with their Jewy Jewishness and the inherent greedily-sucking-money-from-good-righteous-Gentiles tendencies that go hand in hand with it.
The more things change…
Mnemosyne
@AA+ Bonds:
But I mean they were specifically applying it to Obama and comparing him to Mugabe from the beginning. Not just general racism, but the specific accusation that Obama was going to steal money from white people and give it to black people.
@wrb:
Oh, they’re definitely switching from a dogwhistle to an air horn when it comes to this stuff. But a lot of Republicans — and especially Southerners — don’t seem to realize that white people don’t like this stuff. Even if it’s what they secretly think or say when they’re alone with other white people, it’s just not done to say it out loud, in public.
The Republican base will eat it up, but I honestly think there’s a good chance it will backfire with independents.
nastybrutishntall
Those silly The Blacks, only voting for Obama because they’re racist like that. Newt will show them the error of their ways. “I know a lot of you strapping young bucks are being kept from breaking rocks or whatever it is you people can do by minimum wage laws and OSHA, so I propose that employers can hire you, regardless of their ability to pay! In fact, they could house you as well, for free even, in dormitories, probably in farming or whatnot. In fact, there’s a farm in Georgia that comes to mind…”
wrb
@Mnemosyne:
That’s what is delightful about it. Newt is likely to get them in a contest to become the loudest air whistle, and the loudest may just win the primary, but will be damaged for the general.
I just hope Newt’s numbers start surging.
Suffern ACE
@FlipYrWhig: Yes. I believe he is asking the poor to organize to obtain capital gains tax cuts for the rich and to allow a few more toxins in their drinking water.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
Such as?
Or do you mean, “You know! Those guys!”
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@The Moar You Know:
FTFY– trust me, black people know.
Brachiator
@Special Patrol Group:
We don’t have to go very far. Consider some of the previous ABL threads here, where she was often attacked by many who were good liberals, but who just could not deal with the inconvenient truth of their own bigotry.
A few years ago, a generally good, and liberal, radio talk show host who went by the moniker of Mr KABC went ballistic on the air when a caller challenged him on how he could consider himself to be a good liberal when he was in media, but by his own admission had no close black friends, and lived in a largely segregated neighborhood.
Many liberal Democrats jumped over a huge hurdle when they voted for Obama, and found that they had unshackled themselves from a great deal of this country’s legacy of American apartheid. But it wasn’t that long ago where serious Democrats were sagely intoning that Real American Working Class White People(tm) in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and elsewhere just might not be able to vote for a black candidate.
There are many good liberals who (and you know who you are) who love blacks and Latinos. As long as you don’t have to work with too many of them, or have a nonwhite boss, or live next door to them.
A good friend of mine is a black woman who is often simply presumed to be the first person in her family to have attended college by the Los Angeles West side white liberal parents from her daughter’s school, even though her family history is often more distinguished than theirs. They were shocked to discover that black people can live in largely black neighborhoods with spectacular homes that rival their own, since in their narrow, but liberal, universe, all non celebrity black people live in Watts or Compton.
These people are often in love with the idea of a disadvantaged and deprived “minority,” who of course need their help and guidance. But the idea of blacks or Latinos who are their peers or bosses still makes them nervous. As I noted, many people have burned this off, but the residue lingers.
You know, it’s kind of like people who can quote Ta-Nehisi Coates, but who have never read any other black author in their life.
And I will see your Rush Limbaugh and raise you a Geraldine Ferraro:
And as an aside, I know a number of people, all fairly liberal, who got along fabulously with their women co-workers, but who went nuts with sexist rage when one of the women became their boss, even though she was clearly the best person for the job. But that’s another story for another day.
catpal
Thanks to what I learn from this place and others and great links like this one SNAP
“Fayette County, PA has a 95.3% white population, 4.7% minority population — and has a Higher Food Stamp Recipient percentage than Philly.”
Will we ever see Media actually report this to disparage these ugly Repugs truthy statements?
R-Jud
@Brachiator:
This sort of patronizing attitude applied to about 2/3 of the white kids in my Teach for America cohort. It may have applied to me, too, but I had been called out on it while still a teenager by my black foster brother, so I at least was watching myself for it.
Special Patrol Group
@Brachiator:
So you got some unspecified blog comments. That’s as bad as Rush Limbaugh?
I’ve never heard of this person or of this incident. You got any links for me? This is as bad as Lee Atwater et al?
Examples? Who were the party leaders publicly leading them on?
No, I don’t know who you are. This is ridiculously vague and reeks of “everyone knows that..” conventional bullshit wisdom. Please be specific. I’m looking for examples to compare with someone like Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh or Lee Atwater. Were you even paying attention?
Lame anecdote. Next?
What people?
Anyone in particular? Any liberal public figure I’ve heard of?
That’s pretty bad. As bad as Limbaugh? The page at Media Matters would suggest no, but this is a pretty bad statement from a public Democratic figure.
Didn’t you already exceed the allowable number of vaguely truthy anecdotes which prove exactly fuck-all?
Woodrowfan
the repubs are switching from dog-whistles to air-horns. Any bets on the first republican prez candidate to “slip up” and say “n***er” in public over an open mic? My money is on Ron Paul….
Chris
@Older:
I know the type. Neighbors, family members, co-workers and other variations of conservatives who just can’t WAIT to get it off their chest how much they fucking hate me (oh, not ME personally, you understand, just… yeah).
I never understood these people. I mean, forget about politics, morality, right and wrong – simple necessity should dictate that if you’re going to have to live and interact with someone over a long period of time, you avoid the controversial shit when you can. I can’t remember any time when I’ve talked a conservative’s ear off with unsolicited liberal diatribes.
Opinions are like assholes – and at their age these people ought to know that not everyone wants to hear their opinion any more than they want to see the crack of their ass. Ah, well. Rant over.
The Moar You Know
@AA+ Bonds: Won’t be so nice as the one in Russia; every person in this country, even if they don’t own a gun, sure as shit knows where to lay their hands on one.
A revolution/civil war in this country, with the kind of firepower that everyone can lay their hands on these days, could end with over half the population dead.
I’m not in favor of that outcome.
SFAW
Fixed, to better reflect the Reichtard mind.
Cassidy
@Brachiator: No one suggested that. That’s completely in your head.
Special Patrol Group
@Cassidy:
In fact, they quite clearly suggested the opposite.
See also: Whistle, Dog.
Corner Stone
“Some people say there are liberals who…”
gelfling545
@Linnaeus: My libertaran ex son in law has no problem with his daughter needing to get SCHIP or attending a state university. Go figure.
Brachiator
@Special Patrol Group: RE: We don’t have to go very far. Consider some of the previous ABL threads here, where she was often attacked by many who were good liberals, but who just could not deal with the inconvenient truth of their own bigotry.
This is quite funny. The threads are there in all their glory. As are the names of the posters. As are the posted reactions by John Cole and others. There is very little about this that is vague or unspecified.
You can’t be serious? Where were you during the 2008 campaign. Mars?
@Cassidy:
I have no idea what you are referring to here.
You got something better than standard issue white liberal snark?
The Other Bob
Let’s see – of the 4 Tea Partiers I know:
3 work for state government. Of the 3, 1 guy’s wife works for bailed out Chrysler dealership and 1 woman’s husband works for a government-owned utility.
The forth hasn’t held a decent job for 2 decades, despite a master’s degree. He has been on various forms of public assistance and just applied for Social Security.
Linda Featheringill
[Whistle!]
SETTLE DOWN PEOPLE!
Be quiet! Listen!
Why don’t we all just admit that while assholery is offensive, assholes come in all flavors.
Then let’s just move on to more important subjects.
Like, my daughter is in the process of falling in love. My elderly cat has decided that life is good, after all. Baby BG is being born in the Chicago area. John Cole has a godson. WV won a ball game.
Stuff like that.
The Other Bob
I agree that this is not Dog Whistle. Isn’t Dog Whistle supposed to be a little more subtle?
This is blatant racism. Maybe the MSM will even report on it.
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, gun ownership would determine who the new warlords would be. With government authority gone, I suppose gangs would be the main beneficiaries in urban areas, militias in rural areas, with the nice suburbs contracting out to private security firms like mad to keep the scary white trash and ghetto trash out of their clean neighborhoods.
… so, for a little while at least, it’d be a remake of the nineteenth century, starring MS-13 as the new Irish Mob, the Hutaree types as the new Ku Klux Klan, and Blackwater as the new Pinkertons. Sounds like all kinds of fun.
Cassidy
@Special Patrol Group: I read it more as “deathclock” kinda thing; like we’re slowly getting over hurdles into full metal bigotry of a national GOP candidate for POTUS. As far as hoping that party dies a quick,painful death, it doesn’t get any better.
SFAW
Presumably refers to:
And, frankly, I don’t think anyone WAS suggesting that. Especially since Cole highlighted a “nigger”-free statement as “Today’s Most Blatantly Racist Statement”.
.
.
.
So we got one (perhaps more?) thing from Ferraro, and the “real people” thing from Hillary (or maybe Mark “Nobody Appreciates What A Great Campaign Manager I Am! Well, Shrummy Does!” Penn). Not sure I’d count Hillary in the “liberal” ranks, and Ferraro – who the hell knows what she was thinking? And she was condemned by (presumably) liberals for that statement. As opposed to Rushbo, whose racism gets condemned by tons of conservatives, right?
Were there other “liberals” making allegedly racist statements? Or, at least, statements which set your race-dar a-twitching? Or is it just that you were pissed about the ABL threads, and this is chickens coming home to roost, so to speak. (And, no, I didn’t read any of the ABL threads to which you appear to be referring. That’s most likely because I’m a racist at heart.)
El Cid
Perhaps we’ve gotten it all wrong, and Newt is recommending a return to the public employment programs which were so greatly expanded in the New Deal.
In that case, I’m all for it. We can get a lot of needs taken care of for our country, give jobs to people who need them thus providing income as well as employment continuity for future work, and reduce the stigmas against those needing “aid”.
Well, Newt does see himself as a “Churchillian” type leader.
Larv
@Brachiator:
But Alex S didn’t say that this wasn’t racism. I took him to be saying that that’s the logical next step. That is, as long as Newt’s going to be a racist shitbag, he may as well go full racist and use the N word.
Special Patrol Group
@Brachiator:
They are? Huzzah, then you can point me straight to them! Are these public figures like I asked for or are they merely anonymous blog commenters? Are they as bad as Rush Limbaugh? I can’t wait to find out!
I was out. If it’s so egregious and obvious, why don’t you help me out here. Thanks in advance! Also2, were they as bad as Lee Atwater like I asked before? You never answered that one either.
You got anything more than vague truthiness?
Cassidy
@Linda Featheringill: So not a vampire?
Svensker
@Linda Featheringill:
Her trip is going well?
This is neat. Fingers crossed.
wrb
@SFAW:
You missed the numerous PUMA sites of that time.
Lucky.
No need to seek the ugly now.
Peregrinus
@r€nato:
He meant to say “stubborn,” but at least once he messed up and said “stupid,” as I have it understood.
burnspbesq
I suppose it would be shrill and excessively partisan to point out that the jobs Mr. Gingrich is referring to don’t exist because Republicans in Congress have made it impossible for the President to go full metal Keynesian.
MildlyAmusedRainbowPerson
@Linda Featheringill:
Well, yer gets yer strawberry santorum, yer peach cobbler santorum, yer french vanilla santorum, yer double chocolate santorum….
And then of course there’s the burning issue of sprinkles or waffle slice…..
john f
@Chris: And in light of that story about the fee-for-service fire department in Tenessee letting homes burn to the ground, don’t be late on your private security force payments!
Jan, 2027 Libertarian Newswire: “4 Hour Shootout Ends With Hutarees Storming Residents Homes as Rentacops look on: “Tragedies like this can happen when you miss payments” said a Rentacop spokesperson.
PeakVT
I had an opportunity to spit on Gingrich circa 1996. I’m sorta wishing I did now.
Raven Rant
Newt: Boldly pioneering entirely new dimensions in
mansplainingwhitesplaining.SFAW
Thinks for the reminder, so to speak. Yes, I did tend to avoid them.
I suppose it would be shrill and excessively partisan to point out that the jobs Mr. Gingrich is referring to don’t exist because Republicans in Congress have made it impossible for the President to go full metal Keynesian.
SFAW
OK, so I messed up the previous one …
In any event:
Yes, it would, because EVERYONE knows that the Republicans, led by Boehner, Cantor, and Ryan, are all about JOBS JOBS JOBS, and they were just trying to prevent the blackity-black Kenyan Mooslim commie in the Black House from destroying the country, which his “Keynesian” (a/k/a commie fascist) stimulus would have done, no doubt.
Oh, and Mitch the Turtle, also, too.
Brachiator
@Larv:
There is nothing particularly logical about racism. This kind of thing is a fetish for certain white liberals.
SFAW
The ability to construct a cogent, cohesive argument is an under-appreciated skill. Maybe one of the esteemed attorneys who comment here can help you with it.
dead existentialist
@r€nato: I beg to differ.
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/279.html
See #7 on the list
Google? How does it work?
Special Patrol Group
@Brachiator:
Which certain white liberals? Any specific examples you care to share with us? (If you’re still getting around to other specific examples of previous vague generalizations you’ve made, we can wait. Thanks in advance.)
opie jeanne
@The Other Bob: Similar to our limited experience with Tea Partiers.
The one that got us was the inspector working for the county who came out to inspect our fireplace which was being rebuilt (permit). He stood there on the porch and ranted about government waste, government employees feeding at the public trough, etc., until we wanted to scream, but we couldn’t because we didn’t want condemn the work all because of politics.
We are retired now but we have both worked for government agencies as well as private companies, and I owned my own business for quite a few years, and I’ve never been able to grow a skin thick enough to take comments like that. My dear husband worried the entire time I was going to rip the guy a new one, and explain the irony attending his comments. I didn’t but I ranted for an hour after he left.
r€nato
@dead existentialist:
apparently, it works by typing in a search term which always brings back a correct answer. Sometimes several of them!
Corner Stone
@Brachiator:
The certain kind of white liberals who live in the treehouse at the back of your property?
Do they make chocolate covered cookies by any chance?
burnspbesq
@SFAW:
Thank you for enlightening me. I am prone to making such heretical statements.
SFAW
1) I am here to serve.
2) Heretical? Do you float? If not, we’ll burn you for being a witch. Sort of.
Ian
Old thread already, but the Paul campaign managed to put a really racist anti-Chinese ad up today (erm, yesterday?) that rips Huntsman for speaking Chinese and suggests he had illegitimate Chinese children
Nancy Irving
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh man, he was on his first wife then.
Nancy Irving
@Davis X. Machina:
Don’t worry. Newt is not going to propose any jobs programs–not for blacks, not for anyone.
He’s just going to kill Food Stamps.
The rest is up to us.
Nancy Irving
Why is it always the libertarians who won’t pay child support?