Category: Bigotry

We Do Not Need This Congressional Seat This Much

No Comments

I am talking about North Carolina’s 7th district, and its current incumbent, “Democrat” Mike McIntyre:

Rep. Mike McIntyre (D-NC) told North Carolina television station WECT that he’s unhappy the Boy Scouts of America lifted its ban on gay youth.

“I’m very disappointed,” McIntyre said. “I know my church has a long history of producing Eagle Scouts including my son and I know that many organizations that sponsor scouting are quite concerned about that and did not feel like it was an appropriate step. I know I’m concerned about it and did not think it was an appropriate step.”

No surprise that it’s also a member of the Blue Dog caucus.

We do not need Democrats who openly endorse bigotry.

Hopefully, he gets a primary challenge, but I just checked out Act Blue, and right now, he is the only candidate.

Bigotry is as Bigotry Does

No Comments

It appears that the Southern Baptist convention does not support the Boy Scouts if they do not allow them to be bigots:

Reaction to the Boy Scouts of America’s decision yesterday to allow openly gay scouts but continue the ban on gay adult leaders is drawing intense reaction from all sides.

………

Richard Land, an executive with the Southern Baptist Convention, said he expected many churches to quit sponsoring scout troops. “Frankly, I can’t imagine a Southern Baptist pastor who would continue to allow his church to sponsor a Boy Scout troop under these new rules,” Land, president of the convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, told the Baptist Press news service. “I predict there will be a mass exodus of Southern Baptists and other conservative Christians from the Boy Scouts.

Not “approving” of homosexuality may not necessarily make you a homophobic bigot, but demanding the right to what is a public accommodation on the basis of your disapproval does make you a homophobic bigot.

In the case of the Southern Baptist Convention, I am not surprised by this. Their bigotry dates back to their origins as a schismatic movement dedicated to promulgating slavery.

What Took You So Long?

No Comments

The guy in charge of Hispanic outreach for the Republican National Committee in Florida has quit and joined the Democratic party, saying that the bigotry is too much to bear:

Friend,

Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party.

It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.

Studies geared towards making – human beings – viewed as less because of their immigrant status to outright unacceptable claims, are at the center of the immigration debate. Without going too deep on everything surrounding immigration today, the more resounding example this past week was reported by several media outlets.

A researcher included as part of a past dissertation his theory that “the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ.” The researcher reinforces these views by saying “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.”

I will repeat my question, “What took you so long?”

H/t C&L.

Niall Ferguson’s Apology for His Homophobic Screed Ignores Decades of Homophobic Screeds

No Comments

Niall Ferguson recently made headlines by equating John Maynard Keynes sexuality with his positions, and using his homosexuality and childless state to condemn his policies.

When a firestorm brewed up over this, he quickly apologized, and while this apology seems sincere, the fact that he has a long history of making this statement:

Earlier Cambridge Professor and economist Michael Kitson tweeted out that he had heard Ferguson make the comments in the past:

Niall Ferguson’s empty apology niallferguson.com/blog/an-unqual… These were not ‘off the cuff’ remarks. I heard him make the same over 20 years ago.
— Michael Kitson (@MichaelKitson) May 4, 2013


Niall FergusonHarvard professor Niall Ferguson kicked off a storm yesterday, after it was reported that he had linked John Maynard Keynes’ economic philosophy to a lack of concern for future generations.

 This was a result, Ferguson reportedly told an investment conference, of Keynes’ own lack of children and homosexuality.

 Ferguson issued a swift — and seemingly sincere — apology, but it may already be too late. Critics of the noted historian are now going over his history to find more evidence that he truly believes in what he has now admitted to be “stupid and tactless” comments.

 Earlier Cambridge Professor and economist Michael Kitson tweeted out that he had heard Ferguson make the comments in the past:

 Business Insider reached out to Kitson, who offered more detail (emphasis ours):

I was at history seminar given by Niall Ferguson over 20 years ago. I am not good at dates but I think it was around 1990/91. I am better at locations – it was held in the Rushmore Room at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. Ferguson gave a paper, my recollection is that it was on German hyperinflation in the 1920s. But I remember distinctly his response to a question about Keynes: he stated that Keynes and his economics was completely short-termist and that he (Keynes) did not care about the long term or future generations because he was homosexual and did not have children. He elaborated at length on this point – it did not seem as off the cuff remark but a deeply held conviction. I remember being stunned at the time: because of the bigotry and because it showed a complete lack of understanding of Keynes’s work. So, it was with a sense of déjà vu that I read the comments that Ferguson has made recently about Keynes.

(Business Insider has asked Ferguson for comment on Kitson’s allegation. At the time of writing he has not responded.

Of course, Ferguson has a long history of being offensive, and being wrong about pretty much everything, so this should come as no surprise.

What is depressing that this guy has achieved an unusually level amount of professional credibility despite his record.

I Wonder if this is About Race

No Comments

The New York Times has an article about how the Danes are looking to roll back their social safety net:

It began as a stunt intended to prove that hardship and poverty still existed in this small, wealthy country, but it backfired badly. Visit a single mother of two on welfare, a liberal member of Parliament goaded a skeptical political opponent, see for yourself how hard it is.

It turned out, however, that life on welfare was not so hard. The 36-year-old single mother, given the pseudonym “Carina” in the news media, had more money to spend than many of the country’s full-time workers. All told, she was getting about $2,700 a month, and she had been on welfare since she was 16.

In past years, Danes might have shrugged off the case, finding Carina more pitiable than anything else. But even before her story was in the headlines 16 months ago, they were deeply engaged in a debate about whether their beloved welfare state, perhaps Europe’s most generous, had become too rich, undermining the country’s work ethic. Carina helped tip the scales.

With little fuss or political protest — or notice abroad — Denmark has been at work overhauling entitlements, trying to prod Danes into working more or longer or both. While much of southern Europe has been racked by strikes and protests as its creditors force austerity measures, Denmark still has a coveted AAA bond rating.

But Denmark’s long-term outlook is troubling. The population is aging, and in many regions of the country people without jobs now outnumber those with them.

Some of that is a result of a depressed economy. But many experts say a more basic problem is the proportion of Danes who are not participating in the work force at all — be they dawdling university students, young pensioners or welfare recipients like Carina who lean on hefty government support.

“Before the crisis there was a sense that there was always going to be more and more,” Bjarke Moller, the editor in chief of publications for Mandag Morgen, a research group in Copenhagen. “But that is not true anymore. There are a lot of pressures on us right now. We need to be an agile society to survive.”

The better term for an “Agile society” is a race to the bottom, and this really is the underlying principle of the Euro Zone, but I’m also wondering whether the fact that Danish society has become more multi-ethnic, and that there is a feeling, particularly amongst the nativist right, that taxpayer dollars are going to people who are not truly Danish.

It seems an unfortunate truism that attacks on the social safety net are frequently couched in terms of a condemnation of the lazy and undeserving “other”.

It’s Official: the SCOTUS’ Resident Troll Does Not Give a Sh%$!

No Comments

There really are not a whole bunch of formal rules for a sitting Supreme Court justice.

They are famously exempt from the ethics regulations that apply to other Federal judges.

That being said, there are a number of customs that have always been scrupulously observed.

One of them is not to make statements that appear to prejudge something that might come come before the court.

Well, Fat Tony just pissed on that one, and went one further, and made public statements on a case that is currently being decided by the court:

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told university students that key provisions of the Voting Rights Act had evolved from an emergency response to racial discrimination in 1965 to an “embedded” form of “racial preferment” that would likely continue indefinitely unless the court acts to end them.

Justice Scalia, speaking Monday night at the University of California Washington Center, elaborated on remarks he made in February during Supreme Court arguments over the act’s Section 5, which requires states and localities that historically discriminated against minority voters to obtain federal approval to change election procedures.

Section 5 functions as a racial entitlement because the federal government doesn’t take a similar interest in protecting the voting rights of white people from racial discrimination, Justice Scalia said.

Congress repeatedly has reauthorized the Voting Rights Act, most recently in 2006, when President George W. Bush signed a 25-year extension. At February arguments, Justice Scalia dismissed overwhelming congressional support for Section 5 as “very likely attributable to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement.”

Seriously. They heard the arguments, and they haven’t made a decision yet, and he is making public statements on this?

Is he nuts? Is it Alzheimer’s? Or maybe he realizes that he will never be Chief Justice, and he no longer gives a sh%$.

I do not know why he did this, nor do I care, but it is clear that he is no longer (if he ever was) fit to be a Supreme Court justice.

Can We Throw His Ass in Jail for Civil Rights Violations?

No Comments

We now have a report that New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly deliberately target people to be terrorized by the police on the basis of race:

Ever since the New York City Police Department initiated its reviled stop-and-frisk technique, the force’s laughable refrain has been that its officers are not engaging in racial profiling. It may not look like racial profiling to Mayor Michael Bloomberg or NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly, who oversee stop and frisk, but to the millions of blacks and Latinos harassed by the NYPD over the years it is a blatant campaign against dark skin.

Today, a New York legislator testifying in a class-action suit against stop and frisk confirmed that those suspicious of the program’s racial motivations are correct. Doubling down on an accusation he made in 2011, New York State Senator Eric Adams said on the record that he heard Commissioner Kelly tell then-Governor David Paterson and a room of other lawmakers that stop and frisk targets minorities because “he wanted to instill fear in them that any time they leave their homes they could be targeted by police.”

What Ray Kelly is alleged to have said here is exactly the same as burning a cross on a hill overlooking a minority neighborhood: Instilling fear in minorities on the basis of their ancestry.

This is Bull Connor sh%$, and it’s illegal.  It’s detention and harassment on the basis of race.

If the FBI is not on the case, someone needs to get their head out of their ass, and do their f%$#ing job.

Signs of the Apocalypse

No Comments

Too true

Michael Steel just said something that was:

  • Provocative, and
  • Not blindingly stupid.

What he said was that, if Republicans want to get minorities to vote for them they have to stop trying to trying to suppress their votes:

Steele said the RNC’s autopsy of the 2012 election does nothing to address the substantive reasons why the party fails to connect with minorities, highlighting voter identification laws championed by many Republicans, including Priebus, that disproportionately affect black voters.

“How does Reince Priebus reconcile his approach and his agreement with voter registration policies that many in the black community view as anti-black, racist, whatever the term happens to be,” Steele said. “You’ve got to reconcile how people feel about your policies, not just the fact that you’re going to show up. You can show up any time. It’s what you say and what you do when you get there that matters most to people.”

He’s right, of course, and he did not put his foot in his mouth in the progress.

I’m pleasantly surprised.

I Am a Racist

No Comments

And so are you.

We all are.

One of the conceits that many people have is that only bad people, with black hearts, are racists.

There is none among us who has not, at some point or another, experienced racist or bigoted feelings.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing an Op/Ed at the New York Times, muses on the fact that Oscar winning actor Forest Whitaker was stopped and frisked at a deli in Coates’ neighborhood:

Last month the actor Forest Whitaker was stopped in a Manhattan delicatessen by an employee. Whitaker is one of the pre-eminent actors of his generation, with a diverse and celebrated catalog ranging from “The Great Debaters” to “The Crying Game” to “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.” By now it is likely that he has adjusted to random strangers who can’t get his turn as Idi Amin out of their heads. But the man who approached the Oscar winner at the deli last month was in no mood for autographs. The employee stopped Whitaker, accused him of shoplifting and then promptly frisked him. The act of self-deputization was futile. Whitaker had stolen nothing. On the contrary, he’d been robbed.

………

 Since the Whitaker affair, I’ve read and listened to interviews with the owner of the establishment. He is apologetic to a fault and is sincerely mortified. He says that it was a “sincere mistake” made by a “decent man” who was “just doing his job.” I believe him. ………

 The idea that racism lives in the heart of particularly evil individuals, as opposed to the heart of a democratic society, is reinforcing to anyone who might, from time to time, find their tongue sprinting ahead of their discretion. We can forgive Whitaker’s assailant. Much harder to forgive is all that makes Whitaker stand out in the first place. New York is a city, like most in America, that bears the scars of redlining, blockbusting and urban renewal. The ghost of those policies haunts us in a wealth gap between blacks and whites that has actually gotten worse over the past 20 years.

………

 The other day I walked past this particular deli. I believe its owners to be good people. I felt ashamed at withholding business for something far beyond the merchant’s reach. I mentioned this to my wife. My wife is not like me. When she was 6, a little white boy called her cousin a nigger, and it has been war ever since. “What if they did that to your son?” she asked.

 And right then I knew that I was tired of good people, that I had had all the good people I could take.

I strongly you go and read the whole thing.

Bigotry is an evil thing, but it is in all of us.  It is a part of our Yetzer HaRa  (evil inclination).

By consigning racism to being the exclusive purview evil people, we have denied the racism inside ourselves, and inside our society.

Read the whole thing.

Scalia: Blacks Only Get to Vote When We Say So

No Comments

It appears that Antonin “Fat Tony” Scalia thinks that protecting people from having their right to vote stolen is “Racial Entitlement”:

Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it. And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don’t think that’s attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial entitlement. It’s been written about. Whenever a society adopts racial entitlements, it is very difficult to get out of them through the normal political processes.

Yes, preventing bad people from violating other people’s right to vote is “racial entitlement.”

What a repulsive bigoted excuse for a human being.

WE NED MOAR GUNS CUZ OV TEH BLAHS*

1 Comment

I am of course referring to National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre’s OP/ED on the right wing cesspool known as The Daily Caller, where he said that we all need more guns because of scary dark people:

Following President Obama’s call for a vote on proposed gun safety legislation in his State of the Union speech, Wayne LaPierre, CEO of the National Rifle Association, on Wednesday issued a call-to-action for gun owners to prepare for post-apocolyptic-style scenarios and rally against the gun control movement.

 ………

“Latin American drug gangs”:

Latin American drug gangs have invaded every city of significant size in the United States. Phoenix is already one of the kidnapping capitals of the world, and though the states on the U.S./Mexico border may be the first places in the nation to suffer from cartel violence, by no means are they the last.

(Emphasis Original)

Seriously, does the radical right do anything but find exciting new ways to scream the “N-Word”.

*This refers to an iundident with Rick Santorum said that, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.,” and then claimed that he had said “blah people.”

Words Cannot Express My Disgust

No Comments

Israel has been administering the Depo-Provera contraceptive to Ethiopian Women without their knowledge:

It isn’t an apology or an acceptance of responsibility. But for the first time, an Israeli government official has admitted what thousands of Ethiopian Jewish women have allegedly known for years – doctors in Israel have been injecting Ethiopian women with long-acting birth control medication known as Depo-Provera without the informed consent of the women. The effect of the shots lasts for months and the practice effectively sterilizes women for that period of time. Many Ethiopian women have reportedly received these shots for years with little or no say in the decision to receive them.

This is bigoted, and this is contemptible.

Whoever was behind this needs to be drummed out of the medical profession.

At least they have put an end to the practice:

Health Ministry Director General Prof. Ron Gamzu has instructed the four health maintenance organizations to stop the practice as a matter of course.

 The ministry and other state agencies had previously denied knowledge or responsibility for the practice, which was first reported five years ago.

 Gamzu’s letter instructs all gynecologists in the HMOs “not to renew prescriptions for Depo-Provera for women of Ethiopian origin if for any reason there is concern that they might not understand the ramifications of the treatment.

This is quite literally the least they could once this came to light.

In addition to being racist, it’s bad medicine. Depo-Provera has a lot of nasty side effects.

Quote of the Day

No Comments

As I’ve written previously, we are past the point in this country now where one’s views on homosexuality can be called a “matter of conscience.” No. Being against equality here isn’t a matter of conscience anymore than having been against racial equality in 1955 was. It is just bigotry plain and simple. Enough. Piss off. Go form your own Boy Scouts. Go form your own stupid country. You aren’t America anymore.

—Michael Tomasky

Creationism Lose

1 Comment

A federal judge has just ruled that public funding of private schools with creationist curriculums violates the 1st amendment:

A Louisiana District judge named Tim Kelley recently ruled that a Louisiana voucher program which used public money to pay for tuition for private religious schools has been deemed unconstitutional to the cheers of some, and sneers of others.

 In July Republican Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, enacted legislation that allowed more than $11 million taxpayer dollars to be given to schools that teach Christian creationism. At the time this was a big win for Jindal, who is a self-professed Christian.

 According to Reuters.com the state argued public money was well within the rights of the state to grant to religious institutions, but Judge Kelley disagreed. He ruled that:

Louisiana’s annual education appropriation, calculated under a complex formula known as the Minimum Foundation Program, was intended exclusively for public schools. To divert it violated the state constitution.

It’s a loss for the people who are trying to divert public funds to private schools in order to fund religious education and desegregate the schools, which makes it a win for the good old US of A.

One interesting thing though, the article, from the Examiner uses a very interesting turn of phrase to describe Bobby Jindal.  They called him a, “Self-professed Christian.”

Why the hell do they call him that?

There are any number of reasons to dislike Jindal, he is, after all, a right wing Republican who spends much of his time pandering to the basest instincts of the right wing, but his record regarding his personal faith has been very consistent.

I note this, because the Examiner has a noted right-wing editorial bent, and Bobby Jindal has a surfeit of pigmentation, and I think that the two are linked.

They are doubting his religiosity because he is not white enough.

H/t DC at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.

Paul Ryan Assumes the Role of a Scooby Doo Villain Bigot

No Comments

They tore off the mask, and Paul Ryan’s response was, “I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling N*****s:

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin on Monday blamed Democratic turnout in “urban areas” for the loss by the Republican presidential ticket last week, saying he was surprised that he and Mitt Romney did not do better in the nation’s big cities.

“The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview with WISC-TV. “When we watched Virginia and Ohio coming in, and those ones coming in as tight as they were, and looking like we were going to lose them, that’s when it became clear we weren’t going to win.”

The remarks prompted scorn from some liberals who viewed Mr. Ryan as blaming inner-city minorities for the Republican defeat.

Including this liberal.

What a miserable excuse for a human being.

John Roberts Looks to Keep Pigment Rich Folks From Voting

1 Comment

It’s no surprise that mere days after non white voters gave Democrats their margin of victory in the Presidential and Senate elections, the Roberts court has decided to review the voting rights act:

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to review a legal challenge to the Voting Rights Act, a landmark law adopted in 1965 to protect African-American voters who had faced decades of discrimination at the polls.

 The court’s decision comes just days after a presidential election in which Latino and African-American voters played a big role in re-electing Democratic President Barack Obama, reflecting a basic shift in national demographics.

 The high court accepted an appeal brought by Shelby County, Alabama, challenging a core provision of the act that requires nine states and several local governments with a history of bias to get federal permission to change their election procedures.

 Arguments in the case will likely be heard by the Supreme Court in early 2013, with a decision expected by the end of June.

 Some justices on the nine-member court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, have signaled in earlier cases discomfort with policies that draw distinctions based on race.

 In a 2009 Voting Rights Act case, the Supreme Court avoided ruling on the law’s constitutionality. The court suggested that the federal “preclearance” requirement may no longer be needed or constitutional. Roberts, dissenting from a 2006 voting-rights decision, criticized what he called “a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.”

 ………

Make no mistake here, this is the conservative wing of the supreme court looking to get Jim Crow voting regulations going again, because it favors conservatives in elections.


 “The America that elected and reelected Barack Obama as its first African-American president is far different than when the Voting Rights Act was first enacted in 1965. Congress unwisely reauthorized a bill that is stuck in a Jim Crow-era time warp,” he [Edward Blum, professional bigot and American Enterprise Institute Scholar*] said in a statement.

Yes, Mr. Blum, no racism in the good old USA. 

You might want to check out the Jezebel post, “Twitter Racists React to ‘That Nigger’ Getting Reelected.”

*But I am repeating myself.

I Bet Those Log Cabin Republicans Feel Stupid Now

No Comments

Yesterday, I said that the Log Cabin Republicans were idiots for believing that Mitt Rmoney would sign ENDA, which would outlaw workplace discrimination against gays.

Well if you are a gay Republican and think that Romney is going to protect your job from bigots, the news that he actively prevented sane sex parents from being listed on their children’s birth certificates:

It seemed like a minor adjustment. To comply with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2003, the state Registry of Vital Records and Statistics said it needed to revise its birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The box for “father” would be relabeled “father or second parent,” reflecting the new law.

 But to then-Governor Mitt Romney, who opposed child-rearing by gay couples, the proposal symbolized unacceptable changes in traditional family structures.

 He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romney’s lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word “father” on individual birth certificates, and then write in “second parent,” in ink.

 ………

 Romney expressed similar beliefs during a speech in 2005 to socially conservative voters in South Carolina, as he was beginning to be viewed as a serious candidate for president.

 “Some gays are actually having children born to them,” he declared.”It’s not right on paper. It’s not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father.”

Why on earth do gay Republicans think that Rmoney will protect them in the workplace if he wants to deny them basic rights as parents?

Seriously, Mitt Romney just sold you the Brooklyn Bridge.

BTW, as a note, Murray Waas wrote this, and I’ve always been impressed by his journalism, and he got this story despite attempts to cover this up:

In a preliminary response this month, the Department of Public Health withheld most of the documents because they reflected conversations between lawyers working for the state and “are therefore exempt from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege.” The Globe subsequently obtained many of the documents from a source who requested anonymity.

Here’s a piece of advice if Murray comes calling about a story, tell him the truth, because he’ll get it anyway.

Murray Waas is now officially on my list of “People I Do Not Want to Piss Off”.