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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Senator Obvious Checking In

Senator Obvious Checking In

by @heymistermix.com|  November 3, 20149:21 am| 110 Comments

This post is in: Post-racial America

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Mary Landrieu is winning the contest for the least objectionable statement of fact that will rile up wingnuts, and it’s surprising that a stalwart defender of the truth like Edwin Edwards disagreeing with her:

Specifically, Landrieu told NBC News that the “South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans. It’s been a difficult time for the president to present himself in a very positive light as a leader.”

Edwards told TPM on Saturday that Louisiana is “a rather liberal state in racial nations and there always will be some people who have problem with people of a different race — Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, what have you,” but “by and large people will accept a person based upon his policies and performance.”

“Now look, I’ll be honest,” Edwards continued, “I’m sure there are some people who don’t like [President Barack Obama] and never will because he’s black. But I don’t think that’s a significant amount.”

Landrieu better just keep her mouth shut, because if she says that water is wet, or sunshine is bright, some of these assholes might stroke out.

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Reader Interactions

110Comments

  1. 1.

    japa21

    November 3, 2014 at 9:31 am

    Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. And I am not talking about what Landrieu said.

  2. 2.

    schrodinger's cat

    November 3, 2014 at 9:32 am

    Truth is the first casualty in the wingnut world.

  3. 3.

    Mike in NC

    November 3, 2014 at 9:33 am

    “I’m sure there are some people who don’t like [President Barack Obama] and never will because he’s black.

    If only he’d cultivated the habit of wearing cowboy boots and giving reporters funny nicknames, things would have been totally cool. Also, too, pickup truck.

  4. 4.

    MattF

    November 3, 2014 at 9:38 am

    @Mike in NC: And, also, Obama has a VP whose soul isn’t roasting in hellfire.

  5. 5.

    Punchy

    November 3, 2014 at 9:38 am

    people of a different race — Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans

    This may be the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever read on BJ.

  6. 6.

    TooManyJens

    November 3, 2014 at 9:39 am

    Landrieu better just keep her mouth shut, because if she says that water is wet, or sunshine is bright, some of these assholes might stroke out.

    I see no problem here.

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    November 3, 2014 at 9:42 am

    The devil you say, Mr. Edwards.

    An interactive, multimedia time line articulating the events surrounding School Desegregation in Louisiana, made possible through a partnership between the Amistad Research Collection at Tulane University, the Louisiana State Museum, and The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. link

    From the “Today” part of the timeline:

    More than half of the districts in Louisiana are still under federal court orders requiring desegregation of the schools. Most of these orders have been in effect for more than fourty (sic) years, so long that many have forgotten the orders even exist.

  8. 8.

    Corner Stone

    November 3, 2014 at 9:48 am

    Has Gov Edwards ever *been* to Louisiana?

  9. 9.

    Corner Stone

    November 3, 2014 at 9:50 am

    Whether though lucky incompetence, or actively malicious intent, GWB’s monstrously bad response to Katrina has certainly benefited the R party in LA.

  10. 10.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 9:50 am

    @Punchy:

    You left out the best part, the “what have you.”

  11. 11.

    Gian

    November 3, 2014 at 9:52 am

    you know in 2014 they still roll out the fact that before people able to join AARP were born Robert Byrd was part of the KKK and that because Lincoln was a republican the democrats are the “real racists”
    and they do it with a straight face like it’s an any way relevant to who they are today.
    somehow the “lets do the poll tax again” party from the Roberts court just might be more telling about who they are now.
    Not what a dead guy did sixty plus years ago, and apologized for and repented.

  12. 12.

    MattF

    November 3, 2014 at 9:57 am

    Don’t forget that Edwards was the guy who people voted for because he was preferable to David Duke. But, no, Louisiana’s never had a racism problem.

  13. 13.

    boatboy_srq

    November 3, 2014 at 9:57 am

    @japa21: Believable. Two reasons: 1) Southerners have always been nice, genteel, generous people (to those they consider worth the attention, which excludes anyone female, brown, non-hetero or non-Xtian, but that’s the sotto voce caveat) so the criticism is totally unwarranted; 2) TABMITWH.

  14. 14.

    MomSense

    November 3, 2014 at 9:57 am

    @Cervantes:

    You beat me to it.

    Oh FFS the “what have you”.

  15. 15.

    elmo

    November 3, 2014 at 9:59 am

    @Gian:
    Yeah. The same people who scream “The KKK were all Democrats in 1950, so the Dems are the real racists!” also call Germany and Poland our “traditional allies.”

  16. 16.

    Comrade Dread

    November 3, 2014 at 10:03 am

    “The Earth revolves around the sun.”

    YAHAWER AARGLE BARLGE AHHHH!!!!

    “Based on our knowledge of the speed of light and the distance of the farthest stars from us, the universe is at least 14 billion years old.”

    YAHAWER AARGLE BARLGE AHHHH!!!!

    “Your own bible states that in Christ there is no male nor female. You should be supporting full equality for women.”

    GET THE TAR AND FEATHERS!!!!

    And so on.

  17. 17.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 10:03 am

    I wish some Democrat would be brave enough to talk about the dangers of ingesting bleach.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 3, 2014 at 10:05 am

    @Corner Stone: Sure, just not the same Louisiana the rest of us have been to.

  19. 19.

    Tenar Darell

    November 3, 2014 at 10:07 am

    It always seems to go like this, a Democratic candidate points out the obvious, and the wingnuts do anything to point elsewhere or elsewhen. Shorter…

    – Elephant!

    – There are no elephants here! We’ve never ever had elephants here! We couldn’t possibly still have elephants still! Your fault for bringing up elephants! STFU about elephants! OK! Yes, there were elephants but they were yours from 60 years ago! They are not our elephants! Don’t look at the elephant!

  20. 20.

    Frankensteinbeck

    November 3, 2014 at 10:10 am

    Racists hate being accused of racism. They hate it perhaps more than anything else. I’m sure he doesn’t think he’s racist, and few of his constituents think they’re racist. They work hard to avoid the label without actually giving up their racism.

  21. 21.

    Ben Cisco

    November 3, 2014 at 10:21 am

    @Frankensteinbeck: In a world where the only thing worse than being a racist is being called one…

  22. 22.

    Just One More Canuck

    November 3, 2014 at 10:25 am

    @Corner Stone: Just because he was governor doesn’t mean he had to live there, does it? Kind of like in the Simpson’s, “Mayor Visits City”

  23. 23.

    El Cid

    November 3, 2014 at 10:26 am

    The American South has always been the friendliest place for African Americans. It was so friendly that when its ruling elites felt like there weren’t enough of them, they went and brought more over from Africa. So, so friendly.

  24. 24.

    Carl Nyberg

    November 3, 2014 at 10:28 am

    Louisiana is so progressive on racial issues the state’s leadership used Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to depopulate the state of Blacks.

    If we can’t send ’em back to Africa maybe we can send them to refugee camps in Texas and Alabama.

  25. 25.

    Carl Nyberg

    November 3, 2014 at 10:31 am

    @Punchy:
    Maybe there should be a website that gets every candidate for political office in the United States to define what it means to be White.

  26. 26.

    Elizabelle

    November 3, 2014 at 10:36 am

    WRT midterms: I feel like I’m in the path of a hurricane and that I hope my preparations were adequate.

    Nervous-making week, but need to stay grounded and realize we’ve got a sane president who will use his veto pen.

    Maybe this is along the lines of giving Republicans enough rope to hang themselves, whichever way tomorrow’s elections (and any runoffs) go.

  27. 27.

    Bobby Thomson

    November 3, 2014 at 10:37 am

    a rather liberal state in racial nations

    I assume this is the reporter not understanding “race relations” through Edwards’ drawl. Dead Girl/Live Boy Edwards is corrupt as hell, but I didn’t think he was a moron.

  28. 28.

    Punchy

    November 3, 2014 at 10:44 am

    Isn’t saying “The South hasn’t been too friendly to Blahs” about as uncontroversial, obvious, and rooted in solid facts as saying “the sky is blue”, “Amanda Knox got screwed by a corrupt judicial system”, and “the White Sox suck”?

  29. 29.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 10:44 am

    @Carl Nyberg:

    That might be playing into their hand. Why let them get away with using colors to describe — well, actually, define — groups of human beings?

  30. 30.

    Culture of Truth

    November 3, 2014 at 10:45 am

    It almost sounds he ended up conceding she is right.

  31. 31.

    Botsplainer

    November 3, 2014 at 10:47 am

    So this actually happened.

    http://www.wdrb.com/story/27188811/louisville-elementary-school-teacher-resigns-over-potential-ebola-scare

    A teacher asked to wait 21 days before returning to work after a mission trip in Kenya has resigned.
    A letter obtained by WDRB states that Susan Sherman would no longer be working for Saint Margaret Mary’s school.

    She was asked to stay away due to a scare of Ebola even though Kenya is more than 3,000 miles away from the nearest country hit with the virus.

    In the letter, Sherman says she has lost “the trust of a large number of people” and did not make the trip without “thought or prayer.”

    Sherman was not asked to be quarantined.

    The Archdiocese, which is currently Archbishoped by an asshole who likes to stand outside abortion clinics while rosary-carrying Latin Mass-loving thugs scream “slut” at non-Catholic patrons, actually made an effort ahead of time on this, to no avail.

    http://www.whas11.com/story/news/education/2014/10/21/15982988/

    Sierra Leone, Liberia these are places where the Ebola outbreak has peaked so far. That’s thousands of miles away from Kenya, on Africa’s eastern coast where a St. Margaret Mary teacher is now headed for a mission trip.

    ‘It’s very similar to if we said something is going on in Miami and we live up here in Seattle,’ Dr. Ruth Carrico with University Hospital’s Vaccine and International Travel Center explained. Carrico takes her forefinger and places it on West Africa and then her thumb on Kenya. Without changing the distance, she then moves both fingers over to the United States and sure enough: same distance as Seattle to Miami.

    Carrico said that yes, the distance between West Africa and Kenya is a huge plus when it comes to keeping this teacher safe from contracting the disease; but, there are other preventative factors as well.

    ‘Also consider there is so much surveillance going on now that every place is watching,’ Carrico explained.

    Despite the distance and extra screening measures going on in Africa, St. Margaret Mary School and the Louisville Archdiocese wasted no time trying to put parents and other members of the school at ease. A letter was sent home to parents from Principal Wendy Sims stating that the teacher is going to ‘the remote village of Migori in Kenya. This village is in Eastern Africa, more than 2,000 miles from West Africa where the virus is located. The virus is not in any of the countries adjoining Kenya.’

    The letter also explained that while the teacher is a nurse and will be working in that capacity on the mission trip, she is ‘not an operating room nurse, so she will not be in contact with blood or body fluids.’

    The Archdiocese also released a statement confirming that the visiting medical staff ‘will not perform procedures on sick or unstable patients. The team will cooperate with all screening procedures, and the team will be well protected.’

    If I were Archbishop, I’d forego a couple of weeks of abortion worry in order to draft several excommunication decrees for people who would crush the helping spirit. Of course, that’s why I’m not Archbishop.

  32. 32.

    GregB

    November 3, 2014 at 10:47 am

    Look at the polls. Many of them showing strong Republican leads have disappeared.

    Now that election day is upon them they need to close their meme gaps to stay credible.

  33. 33.

    low-tech cyclist

    November 3, 2014 at 10:48 am

    @Carl Nyberg:

    Louisiana is so progressive on racial issues the state’s leadership used Hurricane Katrina as an excuse to depopulate the state of Blacks.

    I was going to point that out, but you beat me to it.

    And this happened less than 10 years ago. This wasn’t something that happened back in the Bad Old Days when we all agree that Bad Shit Happened but We’re Not Like That Anymore.

  34. 34.

    Cluttered Mind

    November 3, 2014 at 10:49 am

    @Mike in NC:

    If only he’d cultivated the habit of wearing cowboy boots and giving everyone funny and derogatory nicknames, things would have been totally cool. Also, too, pickup truck.

    FTFY. We can never allow ourselves to forget just how horrible W was.

  35. 35.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 10:50 am

    @Punchy:

    Isn’t saying “The South hasn’t been too friendly to Blahs” about as uncontroversial, obvious, and rooted in solid facts …

    If by using “The South” one does not include African-Americans, then maybe.

  36. 36.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 10:51 am

    @Botsplainer: Every American knows that the tiny country of Africa is just covered in disease just trying to get here. Look at all those blacks conspiring to send Ebola our way.

  37. 37.

    beth

    November 3, 2014 at 10:52 am

    @Botsplainer: These people would have killed Jesus after he touched the leper.

  38. 38.

    Scott S.

    November 3, 2014 at 10:54 am

    “Go ahead, call us on our painfully-obvious denial of objective reality! Point out the gigantic amounts of evidence that the South has a serious problem with people who aren’t white! We can still get the press to nod sagely at our gibbering!”

  39. 39.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 10:56 am

    @Cervantes: If you need to be picky, “The South” is not referring to the 13 states. “The South” is referring to the group of whites that believe the Civil War is not over, was fought over states rights, and that the blacks should just go back to Africa if they don’t like the way they are being treated.

  40. 40.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    November 3, 2014 at 10:56 am

    @Mike in NC:

    If only he’d cultivated the habit of wearing cowboy boots and giving reporters funny nicknames, things would have been totally cool. Also, too, pickup truck. changing his skin color to something distinctly caucasian.

    Fixed.

  41. 41.

    Goblue72

    November 3, 2014 at 10:58 am

    The next two years are going to be awful.

    Expect a watering down of ACA in exchange for not pushing the debt ceiling default button. Or in exchange for passing a budget. Or some other normal functioning of government hostage taking. The took the country hostage 2 years ago and nobody remembers. So why not do it again?

    There will also be a corporate tax cut proposal coming out early next year, so expect THAT to happen. And the frozen sequester gets unfrozen next year.

    I know everyone is holding out hope for endless vetoes. But not. Gonna. Happen. 2 years is a long time, and the MSM would be all too happy to run with the “Obama is an obstructionist” story all the way to 2016 elections. At which point, the public will have soured on both parties completely – and Whites will vote once again for the Racist Party.

    Which leaves Obama with a weak hand – which means Compromise Obama will be back -giving the GOP a hot hand to roll out draconian cuts to the poor and working class.

  42. 42.

    JPL

    November 3, 2014 at 10:59 am

    GA elections will probably not be decided tomorrow but focus will be on black voters. Why isn’t focus on the rednecks who vote for the repubs?

  43. 43.

    Botsplainer

    November 3, 2014 at 11:01 am

    @beth:

    These people would have killed Jesus after he touched the leper.

    Possibly the finest statement I’ve seen on this.

    Stealing it, if’n you don’t mind.

  44. 44.

    Shakezula

    November 3, 2014 at 11:01 am

    “a rather liberal state in racial nations…”

    What?

  45. 45.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 11:01 am

    @Goblue72: I remember that prediction before the last shutdown.

  46. 46.

    Corner Stone

    November 3, 2014 at 11:02 am

    @GregB:

    Look at the polls. Many of them showing strong Republican leads have disappeared.

    I noted yesterday that I’ve been seeing exactly opposite. A number of polls where the D’s where slightly up or dead heats have been surging to the R candidates being ahead or even ahead outside the MoE.
    People responded that it’s most likely due to refining who “likely voters” will be, but it’s been consistently moving R, as I see the results, so it seems odd that that is all we’re hearing in the press.
    And as Norm Ornstein points out in The Atlantic, we’re simply not being informed about the extreme edge of some of these wackadoodle R candidates.

  47. 47.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:05 am

    @Belafon:

    “The South” is not referring to the 13 states. “The South” is referring to the group of whites that believe the Civil War is not over, was fought over states rights, and that the blacks should just go back to Africa if they don’t like the way they are being treated.

    You may think that’s an improvement — but, in any event, here are the actual words (Landrieu’s) that started the discussion:

    I’ll be very, very honest with you. The South has not always been the friendliest place for African Americans.

  48. 48.

    jonas

    November 3, 2014 at 11:07 am

    Democrats are going to have to think long and hard about two things. 1. getting more white people, particularly white men, to pull the D lever. and 2. getting those demographic groups most likely to favor Dem policies (young, women, minorities, etc.) to actually fucking vote. I don’t know what it’s going to take to wake people up, but essentially we’ve ceded control of the country to a small group of Fox News viewing lunatics.

  49. 49.

    Corner Stone

    November 3, 2014 at 11:09 am

    @Goblue72:

    which means Compromise Obama will be back

    The president’s desire to compromise to achieve some kind of action never went anywhere, IMO. The R’s could simply never allow themselves to get to Yes on anything. They’ve been playing this exactly the same in order to get to this moment, and the country is going to reward them for it.

  50. 50.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 11:10 am

    @Cervantes: Doesn’t contradict what I’m saying. When we say the South, do you just think of the land where the Confederate states were located. Or do you think of slave owners, the Civil War, Jim Crow, and Segregation?

    Because, if you’re going to further be technical, the South ought to include a number of states out west that I’m sure you’re not including in that list.

  51. 51.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:10 am

    @Corner Stone:

    I noted yesterday that I’ve been seeing exactly opposite.

    For example, today’s Iowa Poll has Ernst up by 9.

    She, by the way, is “very offended” by what Tom Harkin said recently. Here’s Ernst: “I think it’s unfortunate that he and many of their party believe that you can’t be a real woman if you’re conservative and you’re female.”

    Here’s what Harkin had said: “Well, you know, I hear so much about Joni Ernst. ‘She is really attractive, and she sounds nice.’ Well I got to thinking about that. I don’t care if she’s as good looking as Taylor Swift or as nice as Mr. Rogers, but if she votes like Michele Bachmann, she’s wrong for the state of Iowa.”

  52. 52.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:11 am

    @Belafon: What list? I don’t have a list. You think “The South” should be understood as a certain group of people, whereas Landrieu literally called it a place.

  53. 53.

    Culture of Truth

    November 3, 2014 at 11:12 am

    so if you include African-Americans in “the south,” as a “place” then her statement is untrue, and in fact “the South has always been the friendliest place for African Americans”?

  54. 54.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:14 am

    @Shakezula:

    Transcription error, that’s all.

  55. 55.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 11:15 am

    @Cervantes: Back to your original statement, she’s excluding blacks, specifically because when most people talk about “The South” in the way she did, she’s talking about all that stuff that happened there (including here in Texas) that treated blacks like property or not-real-citizens.

  56. 56.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:17 am

    @Culture of Truth:

    That’s just silly. Here was my point (in case you’re unable to look for yourself).

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    November 3, 2014 at 11:19 am

    @Cervantes: I saw Luke Russert (who happened to look like a 15 yr old with hangover on MSNBC this morning) mention that and go on to state that now Harkin has become some baggage for the Braley camp, instead of being able to help him as election day appears.

  58. 58.

    AliceBlue

    November 3, 2014 at 11:20 am

    Some people over at Kos are wailing that the Dem’s massive GOTV effort (Bannock Street Project I think) “didn’t work.” I don’t understand. How will we know if it did or didn’t work until after the election?

  59. 59.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:20 am

    @Belafon:

    Of course. It’s not a big point. I just don’t like that construction. “The South,” as a place was inhabited by slaves as well as slave-owners and others, and now includes all their descendants, more recent immigrants, and others.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    November 3, 2014 at 11:21 am

    @Culture of Truth: Quite true. African Americans all over the South opened up their homes for an evening’s meal and a night’s lodging to traveling African Americans they had never met before.

  61. 61.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:22 am

    @Corner Stone:

    Democrat = baggage, QED.

  62. 62.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:22 am

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    !

  63. 63.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 11:22 am

    @Cervantes: I’m just curious what you’re grasping for. When I hear “The South” in the way she said it, I completely understand what she’s talking about. As do a lot of people here. We know it excludes blacks, and for that matter, a number of whites. Even if it’s described as a place, it’s a place, a time, and an attitude. It’s what I see here in the Dallas area when I see blacks standing on the side of the road having their cars searched. It’s what I hear when I hear black people talking about the towns on the way to Houston they know not to stop at.

  64. 64.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:25 am

    @AliceBlue:

    Yes, it’s called the Bannock Street Project and it includes both careful targeting of voters and getting out the vote.

    (I have no idea what anyone is saying about it on the web, sorry.)

  65. 65.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:27 am

    @Belafon:

    Just think of it as a linguistic point and forget about it.

    Not necessarily in that order.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    November 3, 2014 at 11:28 am

    @El Cid:

    The American South has always been the friendliest place for African Americans. It was so friendly that when its ruling elites felt like there weren’t enough of them, they went and brought more over from Africa. So, so friendly.

    Bear in mind that plenty of apologists for slavery will happily claim that African Americans were better off as slaves here than free in Africa. These are the same people who believe that the biggest problem with slavery is that slave owners were too paternalistic and wound up preventing their slaves from developing independence. It’s much easier to understand comments about the Democrats keeping African Americans down on the plantation if you assume the people making them are starting from that viewpoint.

  67. 67.

    Sherparick

    November 3, 2014 at 11:30 am

    One of the memes that MSM and Village and Faux News is running this year is that now it is liberals who are in denial about polls they don’t like and unscientific thinking, etc. and of course it is bullshit. The most liberal of Web sites, Daily Kos has been stating that the Democrats are likely to lose the Senate for about a month. http://www.dailykos.com/election-outlook/2014-senate So, no we pretty well knew this shit sandwich is coming are way. The only real losses in I find painful is Mark Udall (I see standing up to the NSA and fighting for Privacy Rights and Civil Liberties is real winner on election day – Not), to be replaced with a charming wing-nut who I am sure will let his wingnut view fly over the next 4 years and Jodi Ernst replacing Tom Harkin in Iowa. Again, a real message that the national security state is unpopular in the heartland. I expect Joe Manchin will be a de facto Republican, at least as regards eliminating the EPA is concerned.

    At Salon, another of the resident believers in Green Lanternism is putting the blame on Obama for not being the “the Great One” who would overthrow 40 years of corporate oligarchy and 75 years of the National Security State (like the New Deal, created by my heroes Franklin Roosevelt for WWII, but then maintained, nurtured, and grown by Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower in response to both the threats, opportunities, and temptations of the post WWII world that resulted from the collapse of European Empires, and the presence of Stalin’s Soviet Union. Good luck with that when the Cory Gardner’s and Jodi Ernst’s of the plutocratic party are winning senate seats. There was of course comments about the Public Option and Cap and Trade (and the world where a 60 vote majority in the Senate with Lieberman, Nelson, Chris Dodd, Birch Bayh, would have voted for an Affordable Care Act with a Public Option, I would like to live in). There are parts of the article I actually agree with (grass roots organizing), but other parts just demonstrate the progressive left of America’s eternal love affair with itself and the meaningless gesture (the comparison of the 1963 March of Washington, which help lead to the passage of the following year of the 1964 Civil Rights Act is revealing for what the other two events are not. This was a great march connected to a particular piece of legislation. The 1982 anti-nuke March and this year’s Global Warming March were essentially much sound and fury signifying nothing. Reagan carried on with is Defense Build-up and won a landslide reelection in 1984 while characterizing the Democrats as “San Francisco” doves, pinkos, and gays and tens of thousands of nuclear arms remain in arsenals ready to blow up the world. Similarly, the recent March in New York is being followed by the election of Congresses with majorities of climate change deniers in charge. My point being that activism not linked to politics and a great act of legislation is pretty pointless. http://www.salon.com/2014/11/03/take_back_the_democratic_party_how_progressives_withstand_fox_news_last_obama_defenders_and_chart_a_new_future/

  68. 68.

    Iowa Old Lady

    November 3, 2014 at 11:31 am

    I’ve been home from the gym for about an hour and have received two R robocalls. Thank god for caller ID.

  69. 69.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 11:32 am

    @Sherparick:

    I see standing up to the NSA and fighting for Privacy Rights and Civil Liberties is real winner on election day – Not

    Yep. See how that helped get the Democrats out to vote. And then wonder why Democrats get all wishy-washy on issues. It’s the corollary to “If voting doesn’t matter, then why are Republicans trying to take it away?”

  70. 70.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:38 am

    @Sherparick:

    Thanks.

    You said a Udall loss would be particularly painful. I agree — and not least because the aforementioned Bannock Street Project was named after a successful campaign in his state.

  71. 71.

    Calouste

    November 3, 2014 at 11:39 am

    @Botsplainer: Rome is about as far distant from the center of the Ebola outbreak as Kenya. I suggest we quarantine all the archbishops for 21 days, because they all have just been over to Rome.

    Ebola is like mad cow disease, it makes your brain completely mushy, except that it is transmitted via radio waves. If you don’t want to get infected, turn of your TV.

  72. 72.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 11:41 am

    @Roger Moore:

    Bear in mind that plenty of apologists for slavery will happily claim that African Americans were better off as slaves here than free in Africa.

    In fact, that was the whole point of slavery: to better the lot of Africans. It’s obvious when you stop and think about it.

  73. 73.

    Corner Stone

    November 3, 2014 at 11:42 am

    @Botsplainer: Why is that teacher being such an asshole about it? It’s not that much to ask.

  74. 74.

    shortstop

    November 3, 2014 at 11:48 am

    @Punchy: No kidding. And by “Chinese,” he means everyone from Asia. Except for Japanese, of course.

  75. 75.

    Belafon

    November 3, 2014 at 11:48 am

    @Botsplainer:

    A teacher asked to wait 21 days before returning to work.
    …
    Sherman was not asked to be quarantined.

    “It’s not a quarantine because she wasn’t asked to stay away from people. We just want her to stay away from our people.”

    It’s like teacher doesn’t get how that’s not really a quarantine.

  76. 76.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    November 3, 2014 at 11:49 am

    @Sherparick:

    This is one of the big problems I have with the basic dichotomy of what politics ends up as these days: all politics may be local, but the franchise is top-down. People might like the ideas you sell, but if you attach them to a franchise, then rationality ends to leap clear out of the window. And far too many Dems have been running screaming from the franchise and any of its accomplishments. It’s hard to get people excited about voting for a person with a D next to their name when far too damn many of the leaders of that party don’t actually seem to fucking want to be in that party. And unfortunately, when it comes to issues, all that enthusiasm and clamor means a damn sight when too many of the leaders either are too afraid to take it up, or outright think you’re the enemy for taking a certain side. Unless you get a sympathetic ear with some power, all that activism and enthusiasm might as well be pissing in the wind. Especially since shame has had such diminishing-to-non-existent returns lately.

  77. 77.

    TR

    November 3, 2014 at 11:54 am

    @MattF:

    This, a million times.

    If there’s anyone who should know Louisiana has a racial problem, it’s the guy who ran for governor AGAINST A FUCKING KLAN LEADER.

  78. 78.

    Elizabelle

    November 3, 2014 at 12:16 pm

    @Corner Stone:

    [Luke Russert said] now Harkin has become some baggage for the Braley camp, instead of being able to help him as election day appears.

    Did he really? Instead of giving voters Harkin’s actual and full quote, which is a completely defensible statement?

    How slick and stupid.

  79. 79.

    The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik

    November 3, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    How can it be defensible? I mean, he’s a DEMOCRAT for god’s sake!

    And seriously, that’s how it seems to be these days in politics: for the GOP and conservatives, innocent until proven guilty in the court of public opinion. For liberals and Dems, guilty until proven innocent, and even then you’re still probably fucking guilty you fucking commie. Anything the GOP does is pure as fucking rain, anything the Dems do is suspect, questionable, and likely anti-American as fuck so fucking treat them like pariahs because they fucking deserve it.

    I don’t know how we break through this either. It feels like it’s crystalized too much to fight anymore.

  80. 80.

    MomSense

    November 3, 2014 at 12:32 pm

    A friend of mine has apparently converted to wingnut sometime in the last week. What is this nonsense about the President not wanting women to stay home with their kids??

    I have no idea what she is talking about.

  81. 81.

    Geeno

    November 3, 2014 at 12:35 pm

    @Cervantes: Has that place been an historically friendly place to blacks? Not well some people in that place are nice to blacks. Is your quality of life – in that place – better or worse for you if you are black? If the answer “worse” that place is “unfriendly”.

  82. 82.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 12:35 pm

    @Elizabelle:

    Did he really? Instead of giving voters Harkin’s actual and full quote, which is a completely defensible statement?

    If you think that was bad, look at Maeve Reston’s utter incompetence in the LA Times. If that does not enrage you, then please tell me where your bodhi tree is and I’ll come join you.

  83. 83.

    ? Martin

    November 3, 2014 at 12:37 pm

    Demographic observation:

    The F1 race in Austin on Sunday appears to have outsold the NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway held at the same time. It wasn’t a venue limitation – the TMS is smaller and didn’t sell out and had lower ticket prices.

    Now, I’m sure this is just another example of the war on old white men, but it’s quite an interesting result to see in Texas of all places.

  84. 84.

    Eric U.

    November 3, 2014 at 12:39 pm

    @Elizabelle: people scoff when I say that the media is the propaganda wing of the republican party. I am not sure what it would take for them to realize how hard they are working for the republicans

  85. 85.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 12:44 pm

    @elmo: pre-wwii Poland libel! The US state dept and Polish gov’t were allies in trying to discourage Polish people from emigrating to the US. This including stopping mails. Woo, USPS, integrity of the mails (*unless you’re Polish)!

  86. 86.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 12:45 pm

    @MomSense:

    In a speech he gave last week, talking (in part) about the dearth of good day-care and low-cost pre-school options, the president said: “[S]ometimes, someone, usually Mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. That’s not a choice we want Americans to make.”

    He may have meant, and should have said, “That’s not a choice we want Americans to have to make.”

    Mountains out of molehills, earth-shaking scandal, the usual Republican nonsense.

  87. 87.

    SRW1

    November 3, 2014 at 12:47 pm

    I am confused. Wasn’t Edwards the dude who said that voting for the crook, ie his wonderful self, rather than that racist other dude was important? But now he is sure that there never was a time when black folks were threatened by racism in Good Old Looooeeesianana?

  88. 88.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 12:50 pm

    @Ben Cisco: Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA4IkGUcxe8#t=123

    this took me about a minute to find because I forgot how to spell Sisko, that is obviously your fault, network IT administration man…

  89. 89.

    Ben Cisco

    November 3, 2014 at 12:51 pm

    Well, whaddya know – there’s yet another John Cole out there, and he weighs in on the outside money in the Hagan-Tillis race.

  90. 90.

    MomSense

    November 3, 2014 at 12:52 pm

    @Cervantes:

    So he was saying that working parents shouldn’t be penalized for taking care of their children responsibly?

  91. 91.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 12:54 pm

    @Ben Cisco: Sort of meta about the US and DS9, “Hey, we have a Black lead, let’s talk about racism — in the most oblique way possible. That way we won’t lose our conservatard fans.”

    Like in that dystopian future episode, it was all “hint hint subtext”. Best thing about that episode is when it’s referenced in another episode when Nog points out that Adrian Bell looks a lot like Cmdr Sisko. Quark dismissed him, “All hewmons look alike.”

  92. 92.

    Ben Cisco

    November 3, 2014 at 12:54 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: Ha! I did take a little license there…

  93. 93.

    Ben Cisco

    November 3, 2014 at 12:56 pm

    @Another Holocene Human: Roundabout ways of making the point was a Trek staple. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield made quite the impression at a young age.

  94. 94.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 12:57 pm

    @MomSense:

    Well, you should probably read the transcript when you have a chance. (There’s a link in my previous response.)

  95. 95.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 1:00 pm

    @Carl Nyberg: Louisiana is so enlightened on race that when the truth was finally told (again, and against great resistance) about the mixed race nature of the Creole population (refugees from the French Caribbean) families who had been swearing up and down they were Creole and not Cajun TOTALLY DIDN’T start swearing up and down they were definitely Cajun and not Creole. OH WAIT.

    I feel bad for NOLA, though. As in NC, the Anglo population took control over the city through political violence when they got too impatient to wait for a demographic dominance that might never come. After that, things quickly got oppressive. Mardi Gras which has the image of the tourist-oriented, Disneyfied party started as a form of cultural and political resistance.

    Things will never get better until the oil trade is gone.

  96. 96.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 1:04 pm

    @beth: Che worked at a leper colony and that hated his ass, so QED.

  97. 97.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 1:10 pm

    @jonas: 1 and 2 work against each other.

    White men are insensitive as a group to the needs of the rest of the Dem coalition. They don’t care because they don’t have to care. Campaigns that excite them tend to work to keep the unlikely voters home because they feel like they have no political voice.

    It’s more complicated than this, but the “lunchpail” voters Tweety wanks about are long gone. What’s turning Georgia? It’s certainly not a new pitch to white men. It’s people like Stacey Abrams working to empower people like her. And this is no triviality, as we’ve seen in Georgia, the old power structure in rural parts of the state is all too eager to use the power of the state and subvert the law to intimidate and silence political activists who threaten to give the voiceless and voice in local government. What’s going on in Georgia is no laughing matter.

  98. 98.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 1:16 pm

    @Corner Stone: They get to this moment because of the Constitution and the way it doles out power. If we didn’t all have our heads up our asses huffing our exceptional American farts, we’d change it.

    I’m trying the fuck to figure out why the Founding Fathers ditched the Parliamentary system for some theoretical French shit that didn’t exactly work out very well.

  99. 99.

    drkrick

    November 3, 2014 at 1:18 pm

    @? Martin:

    The F1 race in Austin on Sunday appears to have outsold the NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway held at the same time. It wasn’t a venue limitation – the TMS is smaller and didn’t sell out and had lower ticket prices

    I wouldn’t entirely discount the fact that there are 36 top level NASCAR races as opposed to one F1 race in the US this year. Nevertheless, nteresting call by Ecclestone and F1 to move their race up two weeks to compete head to head with NASCAR in the state. Seems to have worked out for them, and a pretty exciting race as well.

  100. 100.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    November 3, 2014 at 1:19 pm

    You know who else didn’t think racism is a problem in Louisiana? Duck Hitler

  101. 101.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    November 3, 2014 at 1:23 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I’m trying the fuck to figure out why the Founding Fathers ditched the Parliamentary system for some theoretical French shit that didn’t exactly work out very well.

    Hmm, why would plutocrats set up a system of governance that benefits plutocrats. Thinking..

  102. 102.

    Mayken

    November 3, 2014 at 1:24 pm

    @El Cid: yes, it’s amazing huh? And it’s still super friendly to African Americans. This guy gave one family an awesome friendly bonfire: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/man-caught-on-camera-burning-democratic-campaign-sign-on-black-familys-lawn/

  103. 103.

    Another Holocene Human

    November 3, 2014 at 1:25 pm

    @Ben Cisco: Yeah, I think that episode is a little more subtle than people give it credit for. Oh yeah, the makeup isn’t subtle at all. But there is this little point where huge difference that these two guys are willing to cheat, lie, kill, and even die for isn’t immediately perceptible to outsiders.

  104. 104.

    Bobby Thomson

    November 3, 2014 at 1:38 pm

    @Punchy:

    Amanda Knox got screwed by a corrupt judicial system

    Says you. At a minimum, the woman clearly gave false statements to police and tried to rail road a Congolese man. Whether she also committed the murder is left as an exercise for the reader, but her story has lots of holes in it.

  105. 105.

    boatboy_srq

    November 3, 2014 at 1:50 pm

    @MomSense: It’s the Democrat War on Women (who are busy tending The Mister’s young’uns, darning socks and minding the house like Good Submissive Xtian Women™ should do) again. Something about BHO thinking women deserve [gasp] pay (let alone equal pay).

  106. 106.

    geg6

    November 3, 2014 at 2:21 pm

    @Goblue72:

    Which leaves Obama with a weak hand – which means Compromise Obama will be back -giving the GOP a hot hand to roll out draconian cuts to the poor and working class.

    And just why would he do that? He doesn’t have to pander to anyone at this point, so what is his motivation to do this?

  107. 107.

    geg6

    November 3, 2014 at 2:22 pm

    @Cervantes:

    I think African Americans in the South are bright enough to figure out what Mary is saying there and not feel any sort of insult to their hospitality.

  108. 108.

    Cervantes

    November 3, 2014 at 2:44 pm

    @geg6: Glad to hear you don’t think otherwise.

  109. 109.

    Roger Moore

    November 3, 2014 at 2:58 pm

    @Another Holocene Human:

    I’m trying the fuck to figure out why the Founding Fathers ditched the Parliamentary system for some theoretical French shit that didn’t exactly work out very well.

    Because the Parliamentary system of the late 18th Century was pretty awful. It was still dominated by the House of Lords, and the House of Commons was substantially less representative than our Senate is today. The contemporary Westminster system has developed in the time since our Constitution was written, and then in the face of fierce conservative resistance.

  110. 110.

    Mnemosyne

    November 3, 2014 at 7:00 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Two words: rotten boroughs. The first reforms of them didn’t begin until 1832. So, yeah, I’m not surprised the US Founding Fathers didn’t go with what was at that time considered a broken and corrupt system of government.

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