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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: A Smorgasbord of GOP Ugliness

Open Thread: A Smorgasbord of GOP Ugliness

by Anne Laurie|  April 24, 20142:54 pm| 159 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Republican Stupidity, Republican Venality, Assholes

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MisterMix beat me to the front page with the YouTube clip of Cliven Bundy making his “never said that, taken out of context” extremely racist remarks, so we have had a chance to judge his affect and sincerity for ourselves. Now that I’ve watched it, I retract my suggestion from the wee hours that some people were saying Bundy might be clinically senile; from the evidence of this video, he’s just old and mean and (as my lace-curtain Irish granny would put it) common as pig tracks.

***********
The Rude Pundit offers his usual excellent discourse on the latest Rising Young RW Media Weasel, Jayson Veley:

… In an Introduction to Creative Writing course, [Professor Brent] Terry went on a calm, reasonable, and absolutely biased tangent on how “racist, misogynists, money-grubbing people have so much power over the rest of us. And want things to go back not to 1955 but to 1855. There are a lot of people out there that do not want black people to vote, do not want Latinos to vote, do not want old people to vote or young people to vote. Because generally people like you are liberals.”

This was recorded by conservative student Jayson Veley, who obviously turned it over to Campus Reform, the clearing house for pathetic whiners who can’t stand to have any ideas but their own informing the opinions of the precious, delicate angels who are in college. This led to a Fox “news” hategasm, of course, of course.

First, the editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, Jebediah Fuckagoat or something like that, got to go on Greta Van Susterenenenen’s show and say things like, “[T]his is creating an atmosphere for conservatives in the classroom where they are feeling — this is why the student that released this video, this audio, is remaining anonymous. How is he going to be treated to come out as a conservative in an atmosphere where he is called a racist?”

So what intrepid reporter found out that the anonymous recorder was the aforementioned Mr. Veley? Oh, wait. It was Jason Veley himself, who was so afraid of being known that he went on Megyn Kelly‘s Parade of Shit What I’ll Sneer At. Obviously, Veley was there to reveal what a madman Prof. Terry was, just abusing students in a completely inappropriate rant. Except the second that Veley said, “He was talking about this poem that was themed and centered around the ideas of racial inequality,” whatever little point Veley and Fuckagoat and Fox wanted to make was over because what Terry said had to do with what they read in class. That’s it. Issue done. Academic freedom ain’t pretty…

There is much more, and you should definitely click over to read it.
***********
And finally, because I can be a small, small person, I actually giggled at David Ferguson’s Raw Story update on another GOP media darling:

… A former aide to the Reagan White House and author of The Roots of Obama’s Rage, D’Souza is charged with using straw donors to illegally contribute $20,000 to the U.S. Senate campaign of Wendy Long, a former school friend of D’Souza’s who unsuccessfully ran against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in 2012.

… Prosecutors submitted documents to the court showing that in March of 2012, D’Souza attempted to donate $10,000 to Long’s campaign and was informed by the campaign that the donation was double the legal limit of $5,000 per individual.

The campaign wrote D’Souza back asking if the donation was from him and his then-wife, and included the necessary papers for an individual donation from both D’Souzas. The papers were completed and returned to the campaign, although Mrs. D’Souza has since informed prosecutors that the donation was made with neither her knowledge nor her consent.

Furthermore, the cuckolded husband of Denise Joseph — D’Souza’s mistress in the affair that ended his marriage and another straw donor to Long’s campaign — made audio recordings in October, 2012 of his wife discussing D’Souza’s plans should he get caught making the illegal donations.

Ms. Joseph told her then-husband that D’Souza planned to plea guilty if caught, but would first plead not guilty in order to make use of the limited window of time he would purportedly have “to get his story out there.” …

Because it’s never about right and wrong, legal or illegal — it’s always about the narrative. Do you suppose the first Mrs. Dinesh and the first Mr. Denise will attend the trial? And if so, will they share a bench in the spectator section, or is it bride’s friends on one side and groom’s on the other?

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159Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    April 24, 2014 at 3:00 pm

    This liberal professor does not lecture his students about politics. He teaches them how to read, write, and think critically, then sets them loose in the world to tear the shit out of piss poor conservative “arguments.” If that’s what they want to do.

    Lecturing them about who is right without making an argument based on something (data, narrative texts) is lazy and a waste of time.

  2. 2.

    GregB

    April 24, 2014 at 3:09 pm

    Dinesh D’Souza, chairman of the newly formed Conservative Cuckold Caucus was unavailable for questions.

  3. 3.

    beltane

    April 24, 2014 at 3:09 pm

    If the first Mrs. Joseph is now the second Mrs. D’Souza, does that mean that the first Mrs. D’Souza is now the second Mrs. Joseph? Being a happily married liberal, I must confess to finding the marital arrangements of godly conservatives to be somewhat confusing. Maybe a chart would help.

  4. 4.

    Humanities Grad

    April 24, 2014 at 3:10 pm

    How have I missed that D’Souza’s mistress is named “Denice.” Please, dear FSM, let the two of them get married now. That’s a couples name made in headline-writer heaven. Dinesh and Denice D’Souza? How cute.

  5. 5.

    beltane

    April 24, 2014 at 3:14 pm

    @Humanities Grad: I’ll just call them Dinesh and Dineesh.

  6. 6.

    srv

    April 24, 2014 at 3:16 pm

    I used teh google thingy and there’s a Jason Veley with some definitely rocked ribs, so suck on that libtards.

  7. 7.

    D58826

    April 24, 2014 at 3:19 pm

    I realize that Mr. Bundy and his supporters are playing 11 dimensional chess while I have trouble with tic-tac-toe, but doesn’t it seem just a bit strange that Mr. Bundy, while waving a copy of the US Constitution, denies the existence of the federal government. After all it is said constitution that establishes the federal government. Oh well as I said 11 dimensional chess:-)

  8. 8.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 3:19 pm

    If you think it’s bad now, wait until the Supreme Court thinks lying is an important right in order to have free elections. Kennedy will say something nice, like the voters can decide what’s the truth. Fifteen states that now have laws against campaign ads that lie, will be over turned. The right will rejoice because of state’s rights and all that. Whoops, I meant first amendment rights.

    also, the case before the Robert’s Court is Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus

  9. 9.

    EconWatcher

    April 24, 2014 at 3:19 pm

    The absolute best part of this story is when D’Souza showed up at some Christian conference and stayed in the hotel with his mistress, while still married to his wife. When one of the event organizers called him on it, he pulled a George Costanza: He said, “I didn’t know this was frowned up in Christian circles.”

    Really. You can look it up.

  10. 10.

    Chris

    April 24, 2014 at 3:20 pm

    Can I just take this opportunity to say how much I really fucking hate conservatives? The whole lot of them. The mooching racist “it’s okay cause I’m white” scumbag, the human-shield using fascists who idolize him, the Ministry of Truth assholes legitimizing and whitewashing [heh] his words, the racist crooks like D’Souza who make a living milking the hate machine for every penny instead of getting an honest job… and most of all, the thousands, millions of dipshits watching and reading this crap from home and cheering it on, without whom none of this would be possible in the first place.

    Sorry. Rant over. Well, for now.

  11. 11.

    beth

    April 24, 2014 at 3:20 pm

    I just can’t believe there’s two women who would sleep with D’Souza.

  12. 12.

    flukebucket

    April 24, 2014 at 3:20 pm

    @Humanities Grad: “Defeat of deduct went over defense before detail”

    sorry. It just popped in my head from my childhood.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 3:22 pm

    @beth: haha..

  14. 14.

    Anne Laurie

    April 24, 2014 at 3:23 pm

    @BGinCHI:

    Lecturing them about who is right without making an argument based on something (data, narrative texts) is lazy and a waste of time.

    If you read the Rude Pundit’s post, Professor Terry’s “context” was — as Veley admitted — “”this poem that was themed and centered around the ideas of racial inequality,” :

    Oh, and the recording of Terry that Veley made contains this from the professor: “That’s where creative writing meets up with the real world.” Yeah, Terry explains explicitly why he’s saying what he’s saying, that it’s the job of creative writers and good readers to see what’s the thought behind what people and characters and authors express. “Even if you never write another story and another poem after this class,” he tells them, “that’s what you’ve learned.” The Rude Pundit’s been at this a long-ass time. He’s observed teachers, critiqued teachers, and hired teachers. That’s good teaching.

  15. 15.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 3:25 pm

    Living in a fantasy world requires constant mental and emotional practice at fantasizing. Sooner or later, fantasy is all you are good at, and it takes over your life.

    Stare too long into fantasy, and it not only stares back at you, but it reaches out and drags you into its world.

  16. 16.

    beltane

    April 24, 2014 at 3:26 pm

    @D58826: You don’t understand. In these people’s little pea brains, the US Constitution has no connection at all with the US government. It is, instead, like an addendum to the Bible, listing all the God given rights that God forgot to tell Moses.

  17. 17.

    Hilfy

    April 24, 2014 at 3:27 pm

    is it bride’s friends on one side and groom’s on the other?

    You have won the Intertubes for the day with this brilliant question.

  18. 18.

    Comrade Dread

    April 24, 2014 at 3:27 pm

    The entitlement of these asshat young conservative kids is truly amazing. “We must never, ever hear anything that challenges or contradicts our world view from anyone, let alone a teacher, or else our poor little minds are polluted.”

    Sweet f***ing Buddha, even when Comrade Dread was an insufferable conservative douche college kid, he enjoyed talking about politics and religion with people who had different ideas. I enjoyed the arguing, the discussion, the moments that made me stop and think about what I believed and why I believed it.

    I think it was called ‘education’.

    Christ, save us from these people.

  19. 19.

    Marc

    April 24, 2014 at 3:28 pm

    @EconWatcher: Nah, the best part is that Dinesh D’Souza and his mistress both risked jail time to donate 20 grand to a candidate who had absolutely no chance of winning her race. No chance in hell. Gillibrand won it 72-27.

    “I, Denise, lust after… federal prison, apparently.”

  20. 20.

    BGinCHI

    April 24, 2014 at 3:29 pm

    @Anne Laurie: Hmm. Not entirely convinced, but I take the point. Hard to judge from outside the context, so I’ll just back away. I wasn’t condemning that guy, so much as pointing out that straight up political lecturing is, on the whole, not a great idea.

  21. 21.

    Calouste

    April 24, 2014 at 3:30 pm

    @Marc:

    Nah, the best part is that Dinesh D’Souza and his mistress both risked jail time to donate 20 grand to a candidate who had absolutely no chance of winning her race. No chance in hell. Gillibrand won it 72-27

    “I, Denise, lust after… federal prison, apparently.”

    There’s that number again.

  22. 22.

    srv

    April 24, 2014 at 3:31 pm

    @jl: Nietzsche or Schopenhauer?

  23. 23.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 3:34 pm

    @beltane:

    ” the US Constitution has no connection at all with the US government. ”

    They have a fantasy long lost US Constitution, but the US government departed from their fantasy Constitution, when unconstitutional Constitutional amendments rendered the government unfit for their fantasies.

    Fourteenth amendment is unconstitutional because was signed in front of a US flag with a fringe on it, or some such (fantastical) notion.

  24. 24.

    SatanicPanic

    April 24, 2014 at 3:35 pm

    @beltane: Yeah, they apparently think that the government isn’t what the founders intended. It’s stupid and irrelevant, but it’s not totally indefensible. If you’re into defending stupid ideas. Which I guess I’m doing right now so nevermind.

  25. 25.

    shelly

    April 24, 2014 at 3:36 pm

    Ah, the whine of Right Wing victimhood.

  26. 26.

    Amir Khalid

    April 24, 2014 at 3:39 pm

    I can’t help but wonder if there’s some symbolic significance to this very unfortunate event.

  27. 27.

    El Caganer

    April 24, 2014 at 3:40 pm

    @beltane: Communists think the Constitution was written by James Madison; patriots know the real Constitution was written by Jesus and Ayn Rand.

  28. 28.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 3:41 pm

    Speaking of GOP ugliness: John Roberts.

    I do not like Scalia one little bit, but can there be worse than Scalia? Look like the answer is yes.

    Roberts just makes stuff up out of whole cloth, and because he is a Supreme, he can write down in a legal opinion and it becomes true.

    Speaking of race: I don’t get the fuss over the Sotomayor Roberts spat. Sotomayor just pointed out that the court was, ahem, in danger of just making stuff up, and writing nonsense pretending to be some kind of argument (foe example, maybe paraphrasing, Roberts nonsense drivel pretending to be an argument that ‘the way to stop discriminating on race is to stop discriminating on race’), and Roberts decides to accuse Sototmayor of playing the race card in legal arguments. The little snot Roberts decides to make that aggressive accusation based on nothing that I can see in order to create a fake dishonest and bad faith pretext. And even TPM seems to be taking it seriously.

    If Scalia should, in a just world, be impeach for malfeasance and incompetence, then so should Roberts.

    As a white man, I have to say that Roberts is a discredit to his race, and sad that his dishonest, incompetent, and corrupt work is being excused on the basis of his race.

  29. 29.

    Chris

    April 24, 2014 at 3:42 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    The entitlement of these asshat young conservative kids is truly amazing. “We must never, ever hear anything that challenges or contradicts our world view from anyone, let alone a teacher, or else our poor little minds are polluted.”

    I wonder if I could raise a similar scandal about the substitute teacher I had that one year in undergrad when the regular professor had to drop out the first week. The guy was a Navy veteran who made us read nothing but his pet author Plato (as opposed to the more diverse reading list we’d been given), would regularly go off on twenty minute tangents about his time fighting the war in the Pacific, and less frequently would go off on tangents about how society today just doesn’t give Our Glorious Military enough reverence and love and appreciation.

    I’d have had far more grounds for going after him, given that his political rants were seriously detracting from class time.

  30. 30.

    Comrade Dread

    April 24, 2014 at 3:42 pm

    @D58826: It helps if you accept that they only accept the original document as they interpret it and reject the subsequent 226 years of ammendments, judical review, differing interpretations, history, and law that follows.

    Then it makes perfect sense.

    Or, as I said, anything that disagrees with or challenges their world view is not legitimate and they must whine and complain and hold their breath until they turn blue about it. Or strap on a six-shooter and put on a tri-corner hat and talk about liberty, blood, revolution dreaming of a world where they can reign over the godless liberal heathen and force them to do their bidding.

  31. 31.

    MomSense

    April 24, 2014 at 3:44 pm

    Did Jayson Veley write a book called “Telephone”?

    If so, this is the link to amazon.

    http://www.amazon.com/Telephone-Jayson-Veley/dp/1495357724#reader_1495357724

  32. 32.

    Alex S.

    April 24, 2014 at 3:44 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Oh my God, his beatification was a heresy!

    In other news, here’s first-class Tom Levenson bait:

    Megan McArdle: “I apologize in advance, because I am going to talk about a book that I have not yet read.”

    http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-22/piketty-s-tax-hikes-won-t-help-the-middle-class

  33. 33.

    Comrade Dread

    April 24, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    @Alex S.: That McArdle draws a paycheck is proof that we do not live in a meritocracy.

  34. 34.

    David Hunt

    April 24, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    Do you suppose the first Mrs. Dinesh and the first Mr. Denise will attend the trial?

    That’s an amusing thought, but I suspect that Mr. Denise, at least, will not attend the trial because he is likely to be a witness to corroborate the recording and maybe give direct testimony of his knowledge of the scheme. It’s my understanding that a witness is not supposed to hear the testimony of other witnesses before they testify and thus, are not supposed to attend the trial in the gallery..

  35. 35.

    beltane

    April 24, 2014 at 3:55 pm

    @Comrade Dread: She’s just a paid troll who collects a larger than usual paycheck.

  36. 36.

    Mike in NC

    April 24, 2014 at 3:58 pm

    @shelly:

    Ah, the whine of Right Wing victimhood.

    Chris Christie. Cliven Bundy. Dinesh D’Souza. Surely it can’t be a mere coincidence that these upstanding conservative citizens are being harassed by out of control government bureaucrats!

    / Wingnut

  37. 37.

    StringOnAStick

    April 24, 2014 at 3:59 pm

    I read elsewhere that Dinette D’sofa is planning on using that tried and not-true defense: “I didn’t know it was illegal so I’m innocent”. Which should be interesting since there is evidence that he knew exactly that it was illegal.

  38. 38.

    Comrade Dread

    April 24, 2014 at 4:00 pm

    @beltane: Just the sheer laziness astounds me.

    I tried pulling the ‘write a book report based on the cover synopsis’ once too.

    When I was in the third grade and my teacher rightfully smacked me down. I would really like to think that any self-respecting publication should call bullshit on that kind of stunt by one of their writers.

  39. 39.

    JustRuss

    April 24, 2014 at 4:02 pm

    @Humanities Grad: I’m hoping she’ll change her name to D’nice D’souza.

    Also, I’d love to hear the back story regarding how her husband happened to be recording their conversation. That dude is the Batman.

  40. 40.

    raven

    April 24, 2014 at 4:07 pm

    @JustRuss: More like Bat Shit!

  41. 41.

    Trollhattan

    April 24, 2014 at 4:08 pm

    he’s just old and mean and (as my lace-curtain Irish granny would put it) common as pig tracks.

    Repeating myself from some other thread–Bundy and Hillary are the same age. Will be interested to see how many Republican types who waive off his blathering to being too old to know better will cut Ms Clinton the same slack every time she makes a quip they take umbrage with (i.e. each time she speaks).

    He’s just not that old! If he looks it, it’s because of the seventy-gazillion kids and being sunbaked, but that doesn’t give his brain (bwwaiiin) a pass.

  42. 42.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 24, 2014 at 4:10 pm

    When Roberts talks about how racism is no longer a problem, I keep seeing Stephen Colbert do his bit about how he doesn’t see race. He’s so blind to race that he’s not even sure what race he is.

    It’s hard to parody these people.

  43. 43.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 24, 2014 at 4:11 pm

    @jl: and @D58826: and @beltane:
    Yeah, this is Sovereign Citizen stuff. It actually does make sense, or at least it’s internally consistent, just paranoid and goofy. There are small variations, but the heart of Sovereign Citizen theory is that the current US government is a fake, an usurpation of power (by the post office, in one theory!) The real constitution ended somewhere around the 13th amendment, and you can tell by whether the word ‘citizen’ is capitalized. It gets even goofier than there, but they can both revere the ‘real’ constitution and pretend the federal government is invalid, because they believe the country was hijacked a hundred fifty years ago.

  44. 44.

    Belafon

    April 24, 2014 at 4:12 pm

    @Trollhattan: While I don’t think Clinton’s age hurts her, I would hold the potential POTUS to a higher standard than some guy in Nevada with a ranch. Just sayin’.

  45. 45.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 4:14 pm

    OT.. Bundy is giving a press conference about we the people and people pointing guns.. H e wants to know where the guns went/

  46. 46.

    MomSense

    April 24, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    I’m loving all these variations on D’Souza’s name although my personal favorite is the oldie Distort D’Newsa.

  47. 47.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 24, 2014 at 4:15 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: 150 years ago? Hm. Let’s see. What historical event happened with winners and losers who evidently are still fighting. Sort of like those legendary Japanese soldiers who hid in the jungle not knowing WWII was over.

    Re the conservative pols and blabbers who supported Bundy and are now backing off, lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.

    Except dogs are nice animals.

  48. 48.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 4:17 pm

    @MomSense: Hannity threw Bundy over board according to Mediaite. Bundy is now giving a news conference talking about something.

  49. 49.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 24, 2014 at 4:18 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady:
    Don’t get too swept up in ‘150 years ago’. I’m being REALLY approximate. It has definitely been used as justification by folks who want to invalidate emancipation, but mostly they use it to claim they don’t have to pay taxes or obey courts. The place where Sovereign Citizen theory jumps off the deep end into ‘What are you smoking?’ land is the belief that somehow knowing the truth gives them the power to ignore the current government. They can claim to be ‘sovereign citizens’ and not puny ordinary citizens like us.

  50. 50.

    Trollhattan

    April 24, 2014 at 4:20 pm

    @Belafon:
    I know, I’m just addressing with the perception that he’s shootin’ off his mouf because he’s old. They’re both, as it were, on the top of their respective games. They (Republicans) have to do a better job picking their hero-victims. This dude could be another Zimmerman, George.

  51. 51.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 4:21 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: Now now, the US Civil War was not about race at all. Everyone knows that. Don’t go playing the race card.

    @Frankensteinbeck: You have a point, but on the other hand, who does the post office usurper, governing under a fringed Admiralty flag (not a real US flag, with no fringe) send all those tax and fee moneys to? Not the real sovereign citizens anymore, but those other people.

  52. 52.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 24, 2014 at 4:24 pm

    @jl: Isn’t that just bizarre? For people who were unconcerned with slavery, they sure talked a lot about it in their various declarations of secession.

    Civil War Trivia: Abner Doubleday was serving at Fort Sumpter when it was fired on.

  53. 53.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 4:25 pm

    OT.. Bundy is good with a shovel and he keeps on digging.

  54. 54.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 24, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    @Alex S.: Freddie DeBoer is often infuriating, but his review of mcmegan’s review made me larf.

  55. 55.

    Belafon

    April 24, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    The last sentence in this paragraph from Chait’s post about Bundy was hilarious (Chait is commenting on a discussion he is having with someone named Tuccille over whether Conservatives are racists):

    Where we differ is that, I’d argue, it’s not exactly a coincidence that Bundy also turns out to be a gigantic racist. Just like Ron Paul’s longtime ghostwriter turned out to be a neoconfederate white supremacist. And like the way Rand Paul’s ghostwriter also turned out to be a neoconfederate white supremacist. Presumably all these revelations have struck Tuccille as a series of shocking coincidences. Why do all these people with strong antipathy toward the federal government turn out to be racists? Why do all these homosexuals keep sucking my cock?

  56. 56.

    GregB

    April 24, 2014 at 4:30 pm

    Cliven Bundy is not a racist. Some of Cliven Bundy’s best friends are slaves.

  57. 57.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    It’s appalling that the Catholic Church is canonizing Pope John Paul II this weekend.

    He loaded the decks with conservatives and pretty much ignored the sexual abuse scandals. Does not deserve the honor at all.

    Maureen Dowd had a good column on this. A Saint He Ain’t.

  58. 58.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 24, 2014 at 4:33 pm

    fox didn’t run the bundy presser. Ran a BENGHAZI! segment.

  59. 59.

    flukebucket

    April 24, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    @JPL: Ha! Shit, he threw away the shovel and started drilling.

  60. 60.

    scav

    April 24, 2014 at 4:36 pm

    ‘Merkans don’t do Smorgasbords of Hate. They do All You Can Eat Buffets.

  61. 61.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 24, 2014 at 4:37 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: Are you joking? Things have come to the point where I can’t tell the absurd from conservative reality.

  62. 62.

    MomSense

    April 24, 2014 at 4:37 pm

    @JPL:

    Oh my! I definitely need to watch his show tonight to see how he contorts himself to get out of this mess.

  63. 63.

    Mezz

    April 24, 2014 at 4:38 pm

    That word does not mean what you think it means….

    I strongly get the feeling that most of these folks don’t understand what racism IS; therefore they’re completely and genuinely convinced that they’re NOT racist.

    But when you presume behavior – and poor behavior, at that – of an entire group of people based on scattered and rare experiences, and then use that presumption to cast that entire group of people beyond the pale of citizenship (note too the specific contrast with the “Spanish people” and how they have families) OR suppose that they might have been BETTER AS HUMAN PROPERTY and make no attempt to understand in any way the actual context of some of these issues – then you’re a racist. Full stop.

  64. 64.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 24, 2014 at 4:39 pm

    @Iowa Old Lady: not joking. I know, Poe’s law and such.

  65. 65.

    burnspbesq

    April 24, 2014 at 4:39 pm

    For a guy with an Ivy League education, ol’ Dinesh sure is dumb as a post. He should have taken whatever plea deal was on the table.

  66. 66.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    Deeenish D’Dumbfuck should NOT be put to death for dissing Barack Obama.

    He should be put to death for blubbering like a fucking baby.

  67. 67.

    srv

    April 24, 2014 at 4:42 pm

    @ranchandsyrup: If the tide turns enough against Bundy, all he has to do is open up on some BLM agents. Then we’ll be hearing about Bunkerghazi.

  68. 68.

    Chris

    April 24, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Pretty much inevitable. I would add that one of his most egregious offenses was stomping down on any kind of left-leaning (read: anyone who gave a shit about their congregations’ bodies and not just their “souls”) influences in the Central and South American churches, and giving full cover to the mass-murdering psychopaths who ruled there during that time. Given how Catholic most of those societies were, you can’t tell me that a strong and public condemnation from the Pope wouldn’t have at least made the rulers tread more carefully – but just like fifty years earlier with General Franco, the Vatican just wasn’t interested.

    (Makes an ugly contrast to the public stance he took against East Bloc regimes in places like his native Poland, which is what The Narrative prefers to remember him for).

    As an aside, I believe it’s also under him and Benedict XVI that the Opus Dei was strongly encouraged, and partly as a counterweight to a Jesuit order that was seen as being too prone to independent thinking. That made me give a small cheer when I saw that the new Pope was a Jesuit.

  69. 69.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 4:43 pm

    @Belafon: Right on. Chait may not be able to see anti-tax sentiment for what it actually is, but he’s grokked quite well what Bundy and the slime that are his apologists are all about.

  70. 70.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 4:44 pm

    @MomSense: I look forward to Hanniy’s reply to Stewart’s next segment. Hannity’s first one was hilarious in its weakness and dishonesty.

    I will mention again that, while Bundy’s bigotry on race and ethnicity (wrt to both African-Americans and Hispanics, even though what he says about the latter sounds nicer) is bad, I am surprised there was so little fuss about the fact that Bundy seems to be bald face lying about how long his family has owned and used land in Nevada. Or Bundy has a sad but innocent 80 year confusion.

    Local TV Station Sheds Doubt On Bundy’s Claims About His Family Ranch

    “…court records obtained by KLAS indicated the family’s cattle didn’t begin grazing the land until 1954. The Bureau of Land Management was created in 1946 (the same year Cliven Bundy was born.) ”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/cliven-bundy-ancestral-rights

  71. 71.

    burnspbesq

    April 24, 2014 at 4:48 pm

    @JPL:

    You have a problem with freedom of speech?

  72. 72.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 24, 2014 at 4:54 pm

    @srv: i think he likes the attention so if either the tide turns against him or he gets ignored, he may just throw the “let’s kill a fed” hail mary.

  73. 73.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 4:58 pm

    @burnspbesq: No, I’m standing up for the shovels of the world.

  74. 74.

    bemused

    April 24, 2014 at 4:58 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Wow. Fox and right wing media just doesn’t run away from one of their causes like this. Rare if not ever before. This time they are leaving skid marks. They must really think they stepped in it this time. Neve thought I’d see them in such a panic.

  75. 75.

    scav

    April 24, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    Throwing it out for correction / improvement.

    Cliven Bundy: The Fred Phelps of Patriotic Responsible Ranching.

  76. 76.

    Tommy

    April 24, 2014 at 5:00 pm

    My mom and dad are not liberals. But there was one thing I learned as a kid in my household. You are not allowed to be stupid. To this day you come to my parents house and say something stupid you will be called on it. Coolest thing ever.

  77. 77.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 24, 2014 at 5:01 pm

    @bemused: Klannity threw Bundy under the bus on his radio show as well.

    ETA: You can’t half-ass a justification for armed insurrection. Unless you are Putin.

  78. 78.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 5:04 pm

    @JPL: Whoops .. responded to the wrong comment..

    How do they decide that lies are okay but truth in advertising is good..

  79. 79.

    srv

    April 24, 2014 at 5:06 pm

    WASHINGTON — The National Labor Relations Board has granted Northwestern University’s request that it review its ruling that football players at the university are essentially employees of the school with full collective bargaining rights.

    It said a previously scheduled vote by Northwestern football players on whether to unionize could go forward Friday but ballots would be impounded for now.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/government-to-review-northwestern-bid-to-unionize/2014/04/24/10bcf60e-cbf0-11e3-b81a-6fff56bc591e_story.html

    WTF, when did this happen?

  80. 80.

    Patricia Kayden

    April 24, 2014 at 5:07 pm

    Just saw Bundy’s racist video on Ed Schultz. WOW. Rightwingers sure know how to pick ’em.

  81. 81.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 5:09 pm

    @bemused:

    ” Fox and right wing media just doesn’t run away from one of their causes like this. ”

    See my comment above about the fact that Bundy’s claim to have been on the land since the 1870s in Nevada is just not true at all. This guy is totally bogus. The links, and links from the links to local Nevada press say he has been grazing federal land since mid 1950s, and IIRC, owned some land since mid 1940s. Records of family framing and grazing back to 1900 or so, but in Arizona, not Nevada.

    And maybe took a few days for the quote by ex-sheriff in the Bundy posse talking about human shields to sink in.

    Bundy looking more and more like a con man, and not a fancy finance and corporate con man in a fancy suit that is respectable and in fashion. He is just bad news and trouble.

  82. 82.

    bemused

    April 24, 2014 at 5:10 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    I saw that. But, but liberals are reprehensible when they say racist things too!

    This is sort of a awkward crossroad moment. How far can they go to court the teaparty nutjobs without getting into really overt racist, homophobic, sexist quagmires? They haz a problem.

  83. 83.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 24, 2014 at 5:11 pm

    @bemused: They haz a problem indeed. I’ve been encouraging my area wingnuts to free themselves by having the courage of their convictions (like Bundy did) and speaking their minds. Sublimating ain’t good fer you.

  84. 84.

    Patricia Kayden

    April 24, 2014 at 5:13 pm

    @BGinCHI: You must have missed the part in the post which pointed out that the Professor was talking about a poem.

  85. 85.

    Eric U.

    April 24, 2014 at 5:14 pm

    @Amir Khalid: this is the sort of thing that has made me vow to stay out of churches and keep my distance from religious structures of all kinds.

    As far as it being a sign, that is always turned on its head. There was a church across the street from my childhood home. On one visit, I noticed that it was just a little different. They had wanted to build a bigger church in a different location, but the old church had burned. The only thing left was the crucifix. That was taken as a sign from god — not to accelerate their construction of the new and more suitable church, but as a sign to replicate the old church as best they could. There was no way the crucifix was going to be destroyed by a fire, it was on a heavy brick post some feet away from the actual structure.

  86. 86.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 5:17 pm

    @jl: To complete my thought. It is possible that Bundy’s bigotry is just an excuse to back out from supporting somebody who, it is more and more obvious on other grounds, is just a con man with no case whatever.

    Fox has broadcast stuff just as bad as anything Bundy said on race and ethnicity. I wouldn’t give Fox or other teabaggers too much credit on having scrouples on race and ethnicity because they are abandoning him on his comments, which I do not think are that far out by their own standards.

    But, hey, call me cynical…

  87. 87.

    drkrick

    April 24, 2014 at 5:22 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    Sweet f***ing Buddha, even when Comrade Dread was an insufferable conservative douche college kid, he enjoyed talking about politics and religion with people who had different ideas.

    But that’s their point – at the end of the day you stopped being conservative, which proves that different ideas are dangerous.

  88. 88.

    beltane

    April 24, 2014 at 5:22 pm

    @jl: Limbaugh has said the same exact things as Bundy numerous times over the past 25 years and yet I do not recall his ever being abandoned by wingnuttia on account of it.

  89. 89.

    Bubblegum Tate

    April 24, 2014 at 5:29 pm

    @jl:

    I am surprised there was so little fuss about the fact that Bundy seems to be bald face lying about how long his family has owned and used land in Nevada.

    Well, according to the conservatives I know (who are now scrambling to find a new spin on their WE STAND WITH CLIVEN BUNDY! stuff since that whole racism thing kinda blew up in their faces), that land is Cliven Bundy’s, full stop. It’s Accepted Conservative Truth at this point, and this whole racism thing is, in their estimation, just a way to distract you from the fact that the gummit is trying to steal his land from him. Yeah. “His” land.

  90. 90.

    The Thin Black Duke

    April 24, 2014 at 5:30 pm

    @beltane: Yeah, but Rush and his posse weren’t waving guns in the faces of the Feds.

  91. 91.

    catclub

    April 24, 2014 at 5:32 pm

    @Bubblegum Tate: “that land is Cliven Bundy’s, full stop.”

    Woody Guthrie said so.

  92. 92.

    Chris

    April 24, 2014 at 5:35 pm

    @drkrick:

    But that’s their point – at the end of the day you stopped being conservative, which proves that different ideas are dangerous.

    The truth has been spoken!

  93. 93.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 24, 2014 at 5:35 pm

    from Amanda Marcotte ‏

    Cliven Bundy verges on being living satire of what happens when a profoundly stupid person is led to believe he’s smart because of his race.

  94. 94.

    MomSense

    April 24, 2014 at 5:37 pm

    @jl:

    I saw that. I figured his “case” would fall apart once the details became available.

  95. 95.

    drkrick

    April 24, 2014 at 5:38 pm

    @Eric U.:

    the old church had burned. The only thing left was the crucifix. That was taken as a sign from god — not to accelerate their construction of the new and more suitable church, but as a sign to replicate the old church as best they could.

    I’d guess it was a “sign” in the sense that a few people in a closely divided church were convinced to change sides on the new design after the fire. Those fights make up for their irrationality with their viciousness.

    The old-timers in a church I used to belong to were afraid the new minister was going to have the 130 year old original part of the building they’d grown up with torn down to save on maintenance costs, so they had it declared a historic landmark behind the rest of the church’s back. With Christian love, of course.

  96. 96.

    Comrade Dread

    April 24, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    @drkrick: Actually, it was the Iraq War, the GOP reaction to Terri Schiavo, the 2007 recession and its direct links to GOP economic policy, and ironically enough actually sitting down and reading the four gospels and the words and deeds of Jesus Christ as recorded by the writers that turned me into a bleeding heart liberal.

    Turns out the actions of Jesus of Nazareth are almost, but not entirely unlike anything we generally call Christianity today.

  97. 97.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 5:40 pm

    I’m starting to wonder whether white people were better off as serfs…

  98. 98.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 5:41 pm

    @drkrick: Which is why the Texas GOP wants to abolish any attempt to teach schoolchildren critical thinking skills.

    They will, inevitably, learn to think for themselves and abandon the totally fucked up heretical monstrosity that is American Protestant Fundamentalism.

  99. 99.

    Tommy

    April 24, 2014 at 5:41 pm

    People that are racist are in fact racist. Maybe it takes a few day or weeks for them to reveal themselves, but always they do. They always do. It is just who they are. You can’t hide from it.

  100. 100.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 5:42 pm

    @Comrade Dread: I recommend reading The Wealth of Nations as well, to find out what Adam Smith actually said.

    He inspired Marx, you know.

  101. 101.

    Chris

    April 24, 2014 at 5:43 pm

    @Comrade Dread:

    Funny, that’s me too. There’s more than one thing that helped turn me from Republican (the teenage-glibertarian kind) to Democrat, but turning more liberal did coincide with me turning more religious. I wouldn’t say religion was a big part of me going liberal, but it was also no accident that it happened at the same time. (I’ve gone the other way on the religion thing since then, but not the liberalism).

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 5:45 pm

    From the Bundy Ranch Facebook page: A lotta this could stand as performance art:

    First they came for the Bundys and I did not speak out, because I was not a Bundy.

    Then they came for the Militias, and I did not speak out, because I was not part of the Militia.

    Then they came for the Church Members, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Church Member.

    And then they came for ME — and there was no one left to speak for me.

    Next up: Exercising the 1st Amendment without the 2nd: I kid you not — it’s a picture of the pepper-spraying University cop from a few years back.

    Exercising the 1st Amendment with the 2nd: photo of these armed yokels making their stand against the Bureau of Land Management.

    There’s a quote from Saint Ronald about America and God in there too …

    [If anyone knows how to embed images from Facebook into a BJ post, go for it. This stuff — and the supporter comments — is beyond parody. Full of “Saul Alinsky” and apparently Al Sharpton owes $2 million in taxes.]

  103. 103.

    MomSense

    April 24, 2014 at 5:45 pm

    Casey Camp, a Ponca Tribal Leader is on the Ed Show right now talking about climate change, fracking, Alberta shale, and keystone. She is an impressive spokesperson-really making a great case.

  104. 104.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 5:45 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    This. Adam Smith has gotten a bad rap.

  105. 105.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 5:47 pm

    From Al to Ted to Cliven….I hope we’ve reached peak Bundy.

  106. 106.

    Tommy

    April 24, 2014 at 5:48 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I was on a date the other day. I recall saying I didn’t like living in Lubbock, TX. Where I started school and someplace I hated. I recoil from it. Funny thing many years later I spent a ton of time in the state and loved it. Can somebody say San Marcos! But I will NEVER put a child in Lubbock public school system. I started there and happy I got out …..

  107. 107.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    @Baud: Actually reading Smith, you come to realize that the man’s name has been hijacked by the very people he decries in the work.

    Henry Ford may have been an anti-semitic sack of shit, but he understood what Adam Smith was talking about. Unlike the vile scum that were the Dodge brothers.

  108. 108.

    Bill Arnold

    April 24, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    For people opposed to surveillance by state security apparatuses:
    Russia’s Surveillance State
    (Via boing-boing). A taste:

    In every Russian town, there are protected underground cables, which connect the local FSB bureau with all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecom providers in the region. That system, or SORM, is a holdover from the country’s Soviet past and was developed by a KGB research institute in the mid-1980s. Recent technological advances have only updated the system. Now, the SORM-1 system captures telephone and mobile phone communications, SORM-2 intercepts Internet traffic, and SORM-3 collects information from all forms of communication, providing long-term storage of all information and data on subscribers, including actual recordings and locations.

  109. 109.

    MomSense

    April 24, 2014 at 5:50 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Wait wasn’t Reagan the president of a country that Bundy doesn’t recognize??

    I liked this story better at the very beginning when I thought they were talking about the Bunny Ranch.

  110. 110.

    SatanicPanic

    April 24, 2014 at 5:53 pm

    @Elizabelle: You know, that poem really requires sympathy and/or identification with any of the groups they’re coming for. I mean, yeah, maybe they will come for all of those groups but I don’t see why it follows that I’d be next. Why would they come for me? And why would I expect any those people to speak for me?

    Maybe they’re not including me, SatanicPanic, in the ME group.

  111. 111.

    Iowa Old Lady

    April 24, 2014 at 5:53 pm

    I joked about false flag a while back, but actually this would make a good false flag operation because you flush out the crazies who want to shoot up government officials. You take their pictures and license plate numbers and send that info to their local FBI offices so they know who’s likely to come and shoot at them.

  112. 112.

    Trollhattan

    April 24, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    Since is open thread, recall how Willard was on Staples board of directors? So then, this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

    Members of the American Postal Workers Union are launching protests Thursday in 27 states to decry a partnership between the U.S. Postal Service and office supply company Staples Inc. to run postal counters at its retail stores.

    The agreement between the Postal Service and Staples, announced in November, created a pilot program to operate 82 postal counters at Staples locations across the country. The quick-service counters will be staffed by Staples employees.

    Organizers plan to demonstrate at a Staples location in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, one of four protests planned in California. Of the 82, locations, 32 are in California; none are in Los Angeles.

    The postal workers union leadership have criticized the program, saying it will pave the way for privatization of post office jobs, a charge Postal Service officials deny.

    It is “taking away good, stable jobs and replacing them with low-wage, high-turnover jobs,” Mike Evans, the union’s California president, said in a statement. “That’s bad for postal workers and it’s bad for our communities.

    “Staples employees receive minimal training. With all the concern about privacy and identity theft, that’s just not the right way to handle the U.S. mail. Highly trained, experienced postal employees, who swear an oath to protect your letters and packages and who are accountable to the American people, should handle mail. This program is compromising service to our customers.”

    The U.S. Postal Service, however, denies that the partnership will lead to privatization and said it is merely accommodating consumers’ preferences.

    http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-postal-workers-staples-protest-20140423,0,7845959.story#ixzz2zqKVQIJF

    Let’s see, they hate the Postal Service, they hate public transportation (except roads paved with tax money), they hate trains that carry people instead of Bakken crude, they hate the NIH, they hate federal lands, they hate…..

  113. 113.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 5:55 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    It’s interesting that one of the main “government regulation” he decries are restrictions imposed on the free movement of labor. Of course, that has been interpreted to mean all government regulation is inefficient and bad.

  114. 114.

    Chris

    April 24, 2014 at 5:56 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Actually reading Smith, you come to realize that the man’s name has been hijacked by the very people he decries in the work.

    That seems to happen to a lot of belief systems. (Religious or otherwise).

    The creator, right or wrong, is sort of an okay guy. His followers, however, simplify, dumb down and eventually grossly distort what he had to say into something more convenient, then label it “REAL [Christianity, socialism, capitalism, American constitutionalism]” and ride it to power.

    And as a rule of thumb, I’ve found that the louder someone claims “I’m just going back to the pure roots of this belief system as its founders intended,” the more likely it is that they’re full of shit and just slapping a label on what they want to do anyway. YMMV.

  115. 115.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 5:56 pm

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    ” that land is Cliven Bundy’s, full stop. It’s Accepted Conservative Truth at this point ”

    I guess that usurper US Postal Service, under the fringed Admiralty court flag, sneaked in and doctored all the local court records over the last 20 years.

  116. 116.

    Tommy

    April 24, 2014 at 5:57 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: Ford has issues, you noted this.

    But at a time he paid his workers 3X what his competitors paid. Asked why:

    I want them to afford to buy what they make.

    I don’t know what else to say.

  117. 117.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 5:58 pm

    @MomSense:

    It’s the Dumb Bunny Ranch.

  118. 118.

    D58826

    April 24, 2014 at 5:59 pm

    @beltane: ah ha that’s where I was getting confused. If it had been Charlton Hesston walking around with the constitution on clay tablets then it would have been perfectly clear.

    They are still pea brains though, with apologies to the peas

  119. 119.

    bemused

    April 24, 2014 at 6:00 pm

    @ranchandsyrup:

    Oh yeah. I enjoy prodding them when I get the chance acting a little puzzled, calmly asking what then and what if questions. I know they don’t understand cause and effect or recognize the huge discrepancies in their assertions so eventually they get kind of twisted up and slip up telling how they really feel. It’s pretty revealing.

  120. 120.

    jl

    April 24, 2014 at 6:01 pm

    @Trollhattan: If the reactionaries were smart, they would claim their privatization efforts were modeled on good liberal Europe, which has expanded their postal service locations and have also done privatization and hybridization. But the problem there is that their (sometimes private, sometimes hybrid) postal services are allowed to provide a lot of consumer services that are jealously guarded by our corporate oligarchs. The reactionaries don’t want a variety of cheap consumer financial and communication services provided with a mandate to serve the whole country by the USPS.

  121. 121.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 6:03 pm

    @bemused:

    I enjoy prodding them when I get the chance acting a little puzzled,

    Bemused even.

  122. 122.

    bemused

    April 24, 2014 at 6:04 pm

    @Baud:

    Why yes.

  123. 123.

    lamh36

    April 24, 2014 at 6:06 pm

    @JPL: Hannity Disgusted With Bundy: Race Comments ‘Beyond Repugnant’

  124. 124.

    bemused

    April 24, 2014 at 6:09 pm

    Ha, Gov Brian Sweitzer is on Al Sharpton and said the right wing got sprayed by a skunk and they need to take a bath in tomato juice and vinegar to get the stink off.

  125. 125.

    JPL

    April 24, 2014 at 6:10 pm

    @lamh36: Mediaite has Bundy’s news conference. The good news is he had a shovel and the other good news is they won’t even defend his right to cheat the government. link
    He kept saying We the people and I told a friend that he tainted those words forever, for me.

  126. 126.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 6:12 pm

    There is some lowly employee at BLM that’s really enjoying this right now.

  127. 127.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 6:13 pm

    NY Times blogpost: Slavery Nostalgia is Real, and it’s Dangerous

    Northerners may be a little shocked that anyone could feel a bit nostalgic for slavery, in the manner of the government-hating Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy. But in the South, such sentiments are hardly unheard of, even if they are usually muttered in private over a few bourbons rather than spoken at a news conference.

    We follow an embedded link about restauranteur Maurice Bessinger to this September 2000 story: Sauce is Boycotted, and Slavery is the Issue

    ”People say my restaurant never served blacks, but that’s just not true,” he said, sitting in the headquarters office of Maurice’s Piggy Park, a chain of restaurants that has come to define South Carolina barbecue. ”We just served them on a segregated basis, like every other restaurant did. What the blacks didn’t realize was that they got the best food, because their dining room was actually in the kitchen.”

    Mr. Bessinger spent much of the 1950’s and 60’s attacking race-mixing, running the National Association for the Preservation of White People and refusing to let blacks into his main dining room, long after most other restaurants had given in. The Supreme Court eventually forced him to comply with the law.

    …. The only notable defender of Mr. Bessinger so far has been Patrick J. Buchanan, whose presidential campaign has established its state headquarters in the Piggy Park building.

    Mr. Bessinger came to grief when his restaurants offered for sale a little tract on how slavery is found in the Bible, and some slaves thanked the Lord for its existence. Otherwise, they would still be in Africa. Large grocery chains (Wal-Mart, Winn-Dixie, Kroger, etc.) stopped carrying Bessinger’s BBQ sauce and distanced themselves from him.

    However, Bessinger had another supporter, Glenn McConnell.

    Who has since become South Carolina’s lt. governor and is the newly named President of — wait for it — the College of Charleston.

  128. 128.

    Trollhattan

    April 24, 2014 at 6:17 pm

    @jl:

    Good point. Heard not long ago the USPS was considering resurrecting their banking services, which they discontinued, what, in the ’70s? Would put the payday loan industry out of business as fast as Craig’s List killed newspaper want ads, so I figure they’ll be stopped cold.

  129. 129.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 6:17 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    I know.

    First they came for the tax cheats …

    then they came for the racists …

    then they came for … d’oh!

  130. 130.

    Original Lee

    April 24, 2014 at 6:17 pm

    @beltane: where would you like your internet delivered?

  131. 131.

    Chris

    April 24, 2014 at 6:24 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    It’s not even just in the South. It’s a very widespread, commonly held opinion among white conservatives that slavery simply wasn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be. Though the South is certainly ground zero for that sentiment.

    It’s also very common on the conservative side of the aisle to equate government welfare with slavery, as this idiot rancher just did (it’s where the “liberals are keeping blacks on the plantation” thing and memes like that come from).

    Once you’ve accepted that absurdity, it’s a very small step to go on to say that in fact, slavery was better than government welfare.

    “After all, under slavery, black people had to work for their keep instead of just lying around collecting tax money. And if black people are going to depend on somebody, isn’t it better for them that they depend on good, Christian men of strong moral character, who will keep them working and useful rather than lazy and shiftless, and who, being good Christian men of strong moral character, can be trusted not to abuse them too much? As opposed to depending on a government of socialists and sinners which is just using their votes as part of a conspiracy to destroy America that’ll ultimately leave everyone worse off?”
    /wingnut

  132. 132.

    lamh36

    April 24, 2014 at 6:24 pm

    @CNNPolitics 25m
    First Lady no longer speaking at high school graduation address after seating controversy http://cnn.it/1ieel6p pic.twitter.com/dwuwcKDXJB

  133. 133.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 6:28 pm

    @lamh36:

    I’m sure Cliven Bundy is available.

  134. 134.

    WaterGirl

    April 24, 2014 at 6:30 pm

    @lamh36: That’s depressing. It’s totally irresponsible to speculate, but I’m guessing there were death threats and the Obama’s decided it wasn’t worth the risk. I am disgusted by all the blatant racism lately.

  135. 135.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 6:30 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    SatanicPanic, my dear, (and other Balloon Juicers): we are firmly ensconced in the “them” and “those people” group.

    It’s hard. I know.

  136. 136.

    SatanicPanic

    April 24, 2014 at 6:30 pm

    @Elizabelle: I’m nodding along going.. good, good

  137. 137.

    Mike in NC

    April 24, 2014 at 6:32 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Bessinger had another supporter, Glenn McConnell. Who has since become South Carolina’s lt. governor and is the newly named President of — wait for it — the College of Charleston.

    This McConnell character is a real piece of work. Up until just a few years ago his family owned a shop that sold Confederate battle flags and other “memorabilia”, and he still likes to dress up like a faux rebel general at reenactments. They probably kept the hoods and white robes in the back room. Google the name and you’ll find lots of pictures.

  138. 138.

    lamh36

    April 24, 2014 at 6:35 pm

    @WaterGirl: @Baud:

    As I understand it, FLOTUS was asked to speak, the Admin did not request it. So all the backlash shoulda been focused on them, not FLOTUS. But I did see that even people on lib blogs here and elsewhere bought the backlash view of the situation and put the onus on FLOTUS and Admin for the “controversy”.

    But whatever, FLOTUS will be speaking here in NOLA at my own mother’s alma mater, Dillard University’s commencement ceremony. Dillard is an HBCU and one of the few private HBCU in the country. And I’m sure there are graduating classes in that other place who would be perfectly happy having FLOTUS along and could care less about “seating” arrangement.

    But I guess it would be in bad form for FLOTUS to accept a request to speak at another place in the same state or even city.

  139. 139.

    Baud

    April 24, 2014 at 6:47 pm

    @lamh36:

    Good for her. I’d rather be in New Orleans rather than Topeka, and maybe it’ll help boost turnout for Landrieu in November.

  140. 140.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 6:54 pm

    @Chris:

    Yes. Those poor scrabbling whites didn’t even get to be house “servants”, did they? The black man, holding the Southern white working man down. Even then.

    I remember a great book, “Tobacco Culture”, with letters by George Washington and other top Virginia planters complaining that debt to the Brits was making them slaves. Slaves, slaves, slaves.

    …….

    Laughing a bit at ABC’s evening news on how Bundy’s backers are fleeing.

    A lot of them are, publicly. ABC flashed photos of Dean Heller, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul.

    He said out loud what many rightwingers probably say (and think) in private. That’s his transgression. How inconvenient.

  141. 141.

    Patricia Kayden

    April 24, 2014 at 7:03 pm

    @Elizabelle: Not only out loud but caught on tape. There is no way that they can argue that Bundy’s comments have been “taken out of context”, which is their usual claim.

  142. 142.

    sm*t cl*de

    April 24, 2014 at 7:07 pm

    @Elizabelle:
    Then they came for the Militias Neo-Nazis, and I did not speak out, because I was not part of the Militia cheered them on.

  143. 143.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 7:08 pm

    @Mike in NC:

    Do read the NYTimes links. NYTimes also did a story on the controversy over McConnell’s appointment as College President.

    I guess he’s a pleasant person, so just pay no mind to that posing with people dressed as slaves business?

    States rights, peoples.

    NYTimes on College controversy:

    … in recent months, two rancorous and still-evolving disputes — one centered on the newly selected president’s affection for the history of the Confederacy and another about encouraging incoming students to read the memoir of a lesbian [“Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel] — have thrust this oldest college south of Virginia into protracted turmoil as the latest flash point in the nation’s culture wars.

    …. Questions of political independence are also shadowing Mr. Benson’s expected successor, Lt. Gov. Glenn F. McConnell, who has been the subject of a separate debate here after a selection process that critics contend was a secretive charade intended to install the Republican in a plum post. The decision, they say, bypassed better qualified candidates.

    Although Mr. McConnell has deep ties to the college — he is an alumnus who once led the student body and later represented Charleston in the State Senate for decades — he has no experience as an academic administrator. More troubling to some of his detractors, he has supported keeping the Confederate battle emblem on the grounds of the State House, participates in Civil War re-enactments and once ran a store here that sold, among other items, souvenirs related to the Confederacy.

    … But to Mr. McConnell and his supporters, his record has been willfully distorted and misinterpreted. Backers point to his efforts to direct lottery proceeds to historically black colleges and universities, and to his work on a monument to black history.

    “Judge me by my record, not by someone’s rhetoric,” Mr. McConnell said in a lengthy interview on Monday at a Charleston McDonald’s. “It’s easy to mischaracterize someone rather than understand them.”

    Keep ’em in their own historically black colleges, and out of ours, maybe? And maybe not …

    College of Charleston has a 6% African American student body. Granted, it’s an expensive private school. But …

  144. 144.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 7:09 pm

    @sm*t cl*de:

    Yeah. Pretty much. About time, no?

    PS: coming for the neo-cons would be good by me, too. Also.

  145. 145.

    Mnemosyne

    April 24, 2014 at 7:11 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Just as a side note, Fun Home is actually a really great book. I think the students will get a lot out of it.

  146. 146.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 7:22 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    Not if conservatives in South Carolina have anything to say about it.

  147. 147.

    Pogonip

    April 24, 2014 at 7:25 pm

    @beltane: Thing One and Thing Two?

  148. 148.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 24, 2014 at 7:40 pm

    @MomSense:

    I heard The Ed Show on the radio (while sitting in Atlanta traffic that took an hour and a half to go 18 fucking miles, thankyewverymuch), and I agree with you. She is very impressive, and I hope we hear more from her.

  149. 149.

    SiubhanDuinne

    April 24, 2014 at 7:42 pm

    @Baud:

    From Al to Ted to Cliven….I hope we’ve reached peak Bundy.

    What about “Little Bundy Frou-Frou, hoppin’ through the forest”?

  150. 150.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 7:46 pm

    @Tommy: And Ford was hated by his fellow industrialists for actually paying his workers enough to afford the goods they made.

  151. 151.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 7:49 pm

    @Elizabelle: They’re going to allow Bundy to twist slowly, slowly in the wind.

    Every last one of them is dishonorable scum, looking to save themselves.

  152. 152.

    Origuy

    April 24, 2014 at 7:58 pm

    @MomSense:

    I liked this story better at the very beginning when I thought they were talking about the Bunny Ranch.

    No wonder Sean Hannity jumped on this story so quickly. Link SFW, but the rest of the site definitely isn’t.

  153. 153.

    Elizabelle

    April 24, 2014 at 8:23 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Agreed. Until the next shiny and possibly useful rightwing object appears.

    Villago: what exactly were the four words your co-worker came up with? Can’t remember the precise topic, but I couldn’t figure out your meaning …

  154. 154.

    rikyrah

    April 24, 2014 at 8:40 pm

    Study: Reviewers Find More Errors In Your Writing If They Think You’re Black
    April 24, 2014

    A new study by Nextions reveals that reviewers of a legal brief were likely to find more errors once they learned that the author was Black.

    Based on findings from a previous study that revealed supervising lawyers are more likely than not to perceive African-American writers as having subpar writing skills when compared to their Caucasian counterparts, the researchers attempted to confirm if they would unfairly evaluate legal writing by Black lawyers.

    The results were most unsurprising.

    http://newsone.com/3006968/nextions-study-racism-black-white-writers/?omcamp=sf_N1TW

  155. 155.

    Tommy

    April 24, 2014 at 9:25 pm

    I will just say this, cause it needs to needs to be said.

    “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist; Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist; Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist; Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew; Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

    My Jewish friends tell me I should listen. I laugh them away.I don’t find it funny. People are coming for you and me and nobody seems to care, want to stop them.

  156. 156.

    Villago Delenda Est

    April 24, 2014 at 9:26 pm

    @Elizabelle: The four word solution: He, she, or they can be killed.

    Being a sysadmin at a major university, in charge of the mail system, he beats his head against his desk on an almost daily basis dealing with end users who just do not get it. Or, more maddeningly, administrators and faculty who just do not get it.

    Surprised he’s still sane. I think his devotion to things like Terry Pratchet novels and Arrested Development are very helpful in catharsis, though.

  157. 157.

    Frankensteinbeck

    April 24, 2014 at 9:39 pm

    @Patricia Kayden:
    Also, he used the words ‘negro’ and ‘picking cotton’. This is important. Dog whistles require deniability, and the threshold of proof for racism in our society is very high. Uninvolved whites (I know, I’ve been like this) will give the benefit of the doubt to very racist arguments. Racist leaning whites will interpret anything that does not use a few words that our society has specifically tasked as racial epithets as reasonable and non-racist. Well, Bundy made the exact argument a lot of conservatives make, but he used the epithets uninvolved whites cannot deny.

  158. 158.

    Tommy

    April 24, 2014 at 9:43 pm

    @Frankensteinbeck: He should have just say nigger. I come from a family where if you say cotten picking negros we know what you are saying. At least I know. It isn’t rocket science.

  159. 159.

    Bruce Baugh

    April 25, 2014 at 12:58 pm

    @Baud: Not much. A friend of mine works for BLM in Portland and says that all across the west, BLM has had to close offices and send employees home thanks to bomb threats, threats to assassinate people entering or leaving offices, and so on. BLM knows that most such threats never amount to anything, but enough do that they’re taking no chances.

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