Looks like we just might have yet another entrant for the GOP primary. Betsy Woodruff, at Slate, posted this on Monday:
When the Republican National Committee assembles later this week in San Diego for its winter meeting, it’s hoping that Dave Agema doesn’t make the trip. That’s because Agema—the Republican National Committeeman for the state of Michigan—has become an embarrassment for much of the party. Specifically, he has a bad habit of posting racist, Islamophobic, and homophobic screeds on Facebook. He’s expected to attend the Winter Meeting in San Diego later this week, and some conservatives say the RNC isn’t doing enough to muscle him out…
Two weeks ago, on Dec. 31, 2014, he was at it again, posting the text of an article that ran in the white supremacist magazine American Renaissance. “Very interesting article by a public defender,” Agema wrote. “We are in a cultural battle. Very enlightening for anyone who is concerned about crime in America …” Nearly every line of the piece is astonishingly racist. For instance:
[B]lacks are different by almost any measure to all other people. They cannot reason as well. They cannot communicate as well. They cannot control their impulses as well. They are a threat to all who cross their paths, black and non-black alike.
“This guy is essentially the RNC’s David Duke, and they refuse to give him the boot,” said Dennis Lennox, a Michigan Republican consultant and 2008 delegate to the Republican National Convention….
Wednesday, again at Slate:
Scott Walker, the Republican governor of Wisconsin, is calling for a member of the Republican National Committee to step down from his post…
And the skeptics said it was “too soon”, or that Walker’s trail of corruption investigations would discourage him. Somewhere, Mr. Charles P. Pierce bolts upright, sensing a great disturbance in the Midwestern force.
Villago Delenda Est
I see no reason for this guy to step down.
He represents, it appears, to be mainstream Republican though right now. That this may damage the chances of the Republican party to elect people to office shouldn’t be a consideration, because, after all, conservatism cannot fail. It can only be failed by the sabotage of homos, sluts, thugs, mooslims, and mezkins. Oh, and race-traitor liebrals. Can’t leave them out!
sm*t cl*de
This guy is essentially the RNC’s David Duke
Isn’t David Duke the RNC’s David Duke?
Mustang Bobby
Steve Scalise apologized for addressing a white supremacist group, and it happened way back in 2002. Too mushy. The GOP needs someone now who won’t apologize and has a current resume of race-baiting.
Frankensteinbeck
@Villago Delenda Est:
I can see why you’d say that, but I disagree. Mainstream Republican thought still just barely holds onto verbiage like ‘Welfare encourages dependency’ and has managed to avoid outright saying ‘Blacks are inferior.’ The feelings may be the same, but the ability to pass the test of anyone willing to give them a shadow of a doubt (most soft racist whites) is important.
Frankensteinbeck
OT, France is passing anti-hate speech laws. Only white Christians are Charlie Hebdo. France has their own major racism problem, including laws designed to make it hard to practice Islam.
Lurker
O/T I’m on death watch. My cat, Tommy, is moribund. Fortunately, he is not in pain, but he is semi-comatose. He can’t walk. He does not eat nor drink. The vet is very pessimistic. I’m devastated.
raven
@Lurker: Aw, poor kitty.
Another Holocene Human
I thought his name sounded familiar. Turns out there was a flurry of posts about Dave Agema on Wonkette in 2013. Funny how they didn’t want to get rid of him before the 2014 vote (“Oldsters Choose – the Oldening”).
Also shocking that the Republicans pretty much internally decided to push out an open white supremacist, given they have so very, very many of them, also given they shrugged over Scalise and they want to double down on their immigration “policy”. While Boehner is showboating about Obama’s executive overreach on immigration (dog whistle about the Near Sheriff and the ill eagles in one go), here the RNC is pushing out one of their state party officials who posts racist shit on Facebook.
I guess he had the wrong friends.
Another Holocene Human
@Frankensteinbeck: France has always had a racism problem while denying they have a racism problem. One is tempted to say la plus ça change but that would be very cliché.
Another Holocene Human
@Frankensteinbeck: So he’s been made the sacrifice because he gives away the game. The rubes need that plausible deniability. By that I mean that certain segment of suckers who need to believe of themselves that they’re not racist while believing and signing onto racist things. If you start making it too obvious, they might catch on.
Hm, some validity to this, after all Bill O’Reilly had David Duke on a week or so ago specifically as a punching bag so his faithful viewership can continue to tell themselves that O’Reilly is fair and balanced and tells it like it is.
Lurker
@raven:
Thanks, Raven. It is a lovely quote.
ThresherK
“Embarrassment to the party” is one thing, but it’s not so much what he thinks and wants, rather than “putting it on Facebook” when the presumed reaction of the GOP leaders is That’s supposed to be subtext!.
@Lurker: I’m feeling for you, Lurker. Spill your heart here as needed.
Riley's enabler
Sending quiet thoughts and support, Lurker. I’m so sorry for your distress and for Tommy’s illness.
Sherparick
@Villago Delenda Est: Ditto. The only difference is that this guy has gone back to what Lee Atwater called “n******, n******, n******,” to rally the white base (base in more ways than one). as opposed to all the dog whistles (like compulsory drug testing for all recipients of welfare, food stamps, and unemployment compensation) that Scott Walker and Paul Ryan so successfully employ. http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/uncovered-last-lee-atwaters-infamous
Scott Walker is a master of it, especially with the way he phrases his anti-tax message. The problem for the Republicans is that Faux News and talk radio have been increasingly nutty each year of the Obama Presidency, and they particularly lose it when events start going the President’s way. (Events are stuff that just happen, which a President must deal with, but over which he little short term control. I personally think that people find conspiracy theories for all the crap that happens comforting, as opposed to the fact that the Universe(s) are just huge chaotic random event generators. Even Hari Seldon couldn’t control the future.
Sherparick
@Lurker: Our thoughts are with you. The hurt is also part of the love.
brantl
Boy, when Walker runs you out, you’ve stepped in it, wiped it on your hands, and smeared it on the walls.
Lurker
Dear BJers. Thank you so much for your support and compassion. I’m besides myself with grief. Tommy is the sweetest, gentlest, cat I’ve ever had the privilege to live with.
The vet is hinting at euthanasia. I’m sick just thinking about it.
satby
@Lurker: Oh Lurker, I’m so sorry.
JGabriel
Clearly they aren’t real conservatives. REAL consevatives applaud racist, Islamophobic, and homophobic screeds – just like they applaud conservative senators for whoring.
satby
@Lurker: It’s a hard decision to let them go, but the vet wouldn’t hint at it if he thought there was any hope. He’s trying to spare you and Tommy a long drawn out end. But if Tommy isn’t suffering and you want him to go on his own time that’s fair. If you know he’s not suffering. You gave him a safe home and love, it’s all they ask for. I’m sure he knows how much you love him.
Lurker
@satby:
Thank you for your kind words. It helps a little bit.
No, Tommy is not in any pain. I would much prefer for him to go on his own time, with me next to him, in his own home.
Paul in KY
@Lurker: Very sorry to hear that, Lurker.
Cervantes
@Lurker:
These are comforts denied to many human beings in the end. Your Tommy is so lucky that you’ve been there for him, and vice versa.
As you know, healing and peace will come to you soon enough. You still have time to love, and then to grieve. Perhaps it helps to know that others hold you gently in their thoughts.
Paul in KY
@Lurker: You ate the adult here & (if necessary) you make the adult decision for your poor Tommy.
Elizabelle
@Lurker: Thinking of you and Tommy. I’m glad you had so many good years together, and it’s so hard to lose them.
Lurker
@Cervantes:
@Elizabelle: @Paul in KY:
Than you BJers for your support. The BJ community is terrrific.
I’ve lost two other cats before and it never gets any easier. Every time, it’a horrible ang long-lasting heartache.
Kay
@JGabriel:
I don’t know if you read this blog, it’s Michigan politics, but they’ve been on the “embarrassment” story for a while.
They go after Snyder with it because he’s supposed to be a modern, socially acceptable Republican :)
Lurker
@Sherparick:
@Riley’s enabler:
@ThresherK:
Thank you for your kindness. I can use all the support I can get.
Amir Khalid
@Lurker:
Just got home and saw your sad news. I hope Tommy has an easeful passing, and you find comfort in the memories.
Paul in KY
@Lurker: Have lost a couple myself. Know what you mean. Wish I had met Tommy. He sounds like a wonderful cat.
Lurker
@Amir Khalid:
Thank you. I also hope he has a peaceful passing.
@Paul in KY:
Yes, Tommy is a lovely little soul, very affectionate and very gentle.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Lurker: This happened to my cat in 2008 (kidney failure) I had her euthanized in my arms at the vets office where she’d gone her entire life – she felt safe there.
Then my dog in late 2013, on our front lawn with a great local vet who does euthanasia at home.
It leaves a mark that never goes away. My father, not the most emotional of men, told me that. He is right.
The cycle moves on. We got a puppy Saturday. But you never forget the ones that came before, not for a second.
Honors and love for Tommy.
CONGRATULATIONS!
As to the post and the linked article, I have an ex-girlfriend who I am still on decent terms with, and she is a public defender. I’ll just take one sentence from the article:
This is an absolute crock of shit. She started laughing so hard when I read her this I thought she was going to drop the phone. Nobody in the prison system is “polite and deferential”, to put it nicely.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Lurker: I’m so sorry. I hope you can find some comfort in the circumstance that he isn’t in pain. They leave such big paw prints on our hearts.
Lizzy L
@Lurker: Sympathies. I lived with a cat named Tommy — big ginger kitty. He went truckin’ about 2-3 years ago. I miss him still. May your Tommy’s passing to the Land of Many Mice be peaceful.
Lurker
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
@Lizzy L:
Thank you so much, guys. Your expressions of sympathy mean a lot to me at times like these.
Jebediah, RBG
@Lurker:
So sorry. We all know that we will outlive our pets but that doesn’t help our pain when the time comes. I am sure he appreciates the life and love you gave him.
Lurker
@Jebediah, RBG:
Thank you so much. I can use all the support I can get right now. My Tommy is half-comatose in my lap, wrapped up in a big towel to keep him warm. He thanks you too for your support.
MissBarbie
@Lurker: So sorry, Lurker. The last time I had to make the decision it was made easier by the fact that the vet told me that Bubba (a most beautiful apricot tabby) had kidney and liver cancer, and also that he was in pain. I told her to euthanize him right then and there. I felt bad that I didn’t recognize the signs earlier. The vet’s office sent me the nicest card afterward with his footprint on it. I’m saving his ashes to be buried with mine when I pass away. My deepest sympathies.
Lurker
Tommy passed away peacefully this morning. He went on his own time. In his own home and I was lying next to him when it happened. R. I. P. sweet boy.
Paul in KY
@Lurker: Glad he had a peaceful passing, Lurker. You were a great owner to the end.
Jebediah, RBG
@Paul in KY:
Agreed. A kitty couldn’t ask for much more.
Cervantes
@Lurker:
“Peacefully.”
Now there’s a beautiful thing. Feel better soon.