It was initially assumed that Cheddar Man had pale skin and fair hair, but his DNA paints a different picture, strongly suggesting he had blue eyes, a very dark brown to black complexion and dark curly hair.
The discovery shows that the genes for lighter skin became widespread in European populations far later than originally thought – and that skin colour was not always a proxy for geographic origin in the way it is often seen to be today.
The Money Shot here:
Tom Booth, an archaeologist at the Natural History Museum who worked
on the project, said: “It really shows up that these imaginary racial
categories that we have are really very modern constructions, or very
recent constructions, that really are not applicable to the past at
all.”
Yoan Diekmann, a computational biologist at University College London
and another member of the project’s team, agreed, saying the connection
often drawn between Britishness and whiteness was “not an immutable
truth. It has always changed and will change”.
I really wish Pioneer Little Britain Europe hadn't banned me from their face book pages because I would post this every place I could.
I am expecting to hear the common phrase, most often issuing from the right wing, of 'playing the race card'. I thought this definition summed up what that means:
Playing the race card is an idiomatic phrase that refers to exploitation of either racist or anti-racist attitudes by accusing others of racism.
There are multiple usages of the phrase "playing the race card" as noted in the entry that supplied the above definition.
I'm responding specifically to this one that characterizes conservatives:
George Dei, Karumanchery, et alia , in their book Playing the Race Card[4] argue that the term itself is a rhetorical device used in an effort to devalue and minimize claims of racism.
We have seen where the job performance by the President has had a basis in attitudes about race as reflected in this University of Delaware study:
The hypothesis for Hehman's paper centered around the possibility that whites’ racial prejudices influenced "how American" they perceived Obama to be, which would in turn predict their evaluations of his presidential performance. Furthermore, Hehman predicted that whites would be the only group in which such racial prejudice would ultimately influence their evaluations of performance and that it would affect only their evaluations of the president. He predicted that when whites evaluated Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., or when African Americans evaluated either Obama or Biden, racial prejudices would not affect their assessments.
In an election cycle which features the grand epic candidacy failure, Herman Cain criticizing Barak Obama for attending a black liberation theology church, because it represents an anti-American political ideology, while the church where Cain is himself a lay pastor is an older and much larger church with arguably a much more radical black liberation theology commitment is just one example of how bizarre the issue of race is in the 2012 presidential election which I wrote about here.
There is a spectrum of racism, from the form of racial animus, an unconscious racial prejudice that often incorporates racist stereotypical thinking, to the outright racism of white supremacists thinking embraced by the politics of the right, as reflected in tea partiers and other conservatives. This is reflected in the politics of years of presentations and seminars at CPAC, to the prevalence and acceptance of birthers among the right wing extremists who have hijacked the GOP. When white supremacists, racist tea partiers, and birthers are warmly and publicly embraced, but moderates are excluded and driven from the party that is otherwise intolerant of differences of opinion, and strongly anti-minorities, anti-immigrant, anti-gay, anti-muslim, anti-women and anti-science.
the Joker is
R-money's Trump card,
his suit is birthers
and racism, the
game is racist
dirty politics
We see racism in the opposition to Barak Obama's campaign for a second term, and we can objectively see racism in the opinions on the issues as well. It is NOT only a racial intolerance for one person, it is reflected in attitudes about political issues. But because President Obama has focused that larger issue animus so strongly, it is not the whole basis for the support of political positions, but it is a major facet of them, ranging from unions to health care reform, to taxation and the social safety net.
The right is incapable of recognizing their bias, and they rabidly deny their racism. I don't believe all of the conservatives who hold these extremist and racist views actually hate the people of color that they know. But their thinking and their ideology is deeply formulated in racist stereotypical thinking that is fanned and given a sort of right wing legitimacy by the racism of right wing media -- for example, almost any statements and assumptions promoted by individuals like Rush Limbaugh, or the statements about slavery made by Tea Party Queen Michele Bachmann or the dunce Rick Santorum, two more shining stars of the right :
"Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President," reads pledge.
That is a statement which is factually inaccurate, facts which can be verified. But it represents the kind of racist animus in the assumptions that underlie Republican ideology and belief.
Much has been made of Walker’s decision to exempt from his plan firefighter, police and state trooper unions — conveniently, the only three public sector unions that endorsed him. But as Dana Goldstein points out, not only are the exempted unions largely Republican-leaning, they’re also overwhelmingly male — over 70 percent of law enforcement personnel are male, as are over 96 percent of firefighters. On the other hand, many of the non-exempt unions represent professions that are disproportionately female — approximately 80 percent of teachers are women, for example, as are 95 percent of nurses.
African-Americans are also disproportionately employed in the public sector: According to a report by the nonprofit United for a Fair Economy, blacks are 30 percent more likely than the overall workforce to hold public sector jobs. Kai Wright reports that preliminary data from a study by Steven Pitts of U.C. Berkeley’s Center for Labor Education and Research shows that 14.5 percent of all public sector workers in the nation are black, compared to 10 percent in most other sectors, and around a quarter of black workers are employed in public administration, as compared to under 17 percent of all white workers.
The right wing is incapable of recognizing, much less acknowledging their racism or misogyny; and in many instances that might reflect their lack of awareness of the stereotypical underpinnings of their assumptions that form their beliefs. But they cannot be excused a complete failure to be factual, to conform their political positions to factual reality instead of their emotional ideology. The right demonstrates all of the functions associated with the amygdala, the rejection of any data regardless of it being accurate if it does not conform to the world view they choose to embrace. The amygdala is not associated with the rational thought processes, which is consistent with other scientific findings about the tendencies of conservative thought. It would be simplistic, and inaccurate, to assert that all conservatives are of lower intelligence. But it better explains the political polarization that we are experiencing, and which are emphasized and exacerbated, if we recognize that the right wing ideology that is driving the direction of the 2012 election, on issues and with candidates, are shaped on the right by strong cognitive bias that is largely impervious to reason because it is based on deeply held, even unconsciously held beliefs and stereotypes rather than deriving from fact and objective reality.
For the left and center to overcome that deeply held bias expressed in their politics, we need to not just call out racism and misogyny, we need to shine such a bright spotlight on it that it cannot survive unrecognized within the right themselves. To succeed in re-uniting this nation, with any remote hope of surviving and making progress out of our current crises, we need to be rational but to recognize the emotion rather than reason of the right. If we do not recognize the nature of the opposition, we cannot hope to change it or to prevail over it. We need to understand it to fight it, and to condemn it but not to demonize it, which will drive the right to more deeply entrench themselves. The right will continue to try to justify their bias with fact averse rhetoric pat phrases, like 'playing the race card'.
In contrast, MSNBC.com notes that the Nazis have hired and registered a lobbyist. As evil as the Nazis are - in spite of being called a 'civil rights organization for white people' by Fox Not-News - they are at least in this regard a heckuva lot more honest and less corrupt than the conservative influence peddlers. Given the warm reception, accommodation, and encouragement offered multiple white supremacist groups at conservative events such as CPAC, it can only be presumed that the target of their lobbying efforts will be conservative politicians. Despite their repeated but unpersuasive denials, there is a sadly broad streak of racism on the right; there have been a wide range of examples, from the racist comments left in various locations relating to the Trayvon Martin killing, along partisan lines, to the CPAC speakers, to the dismissal of Pat Buchanan from MSNBC.com for his support of racist media outlets and for the content of some of his books, to the warm embrace of the perennial, previously discredited hate-and-fear-mongers founded in part by the Koch Brothers dad, the John Birch society. There is white supremacist groups on the right, including neo-nazis of different stripes.
'Swastika on the ballot': American Nazi Party gets its first lobbyist
By Ian Johnston, msnbc.com
The American Nazi Party has its first lobbyist in Washington, according to reports.
The Hill newspaper, which covers Congress when it is in session, said John Bowles had registered with House and Senate offices as a representative of the “ANP,” according to disclosure records.
The records said that he planned to lobby on “political rights and ballot access laws,” and other issues such as civil rights, healthcare and immigration.
“You know, congressmen and congresswomen have always been telling the American public that they were open to other viewpoints,” Bowles told The Hill. “I’m going to see if they were sincere about that, or I’m going to call their bluff.” Bowles was a presidential candidate in 2008 for the National Socialist Movement, according to US News and World Report. Nazi comes from the German words for National Socialist. He told The Hill that people in America did not understand the term socialism, but knew what Nazism was. “So [we] decided: Why don’t we just say what we are?” he added. “In the future, when we get people on the ballot, when people see the swastika on the ballot, they’ll know what they’re getting."
"The White People's Voice to Congress and the White House"
I may not like them, I definitely do not agree with them, but I give them more credit than conservatives for at least being open and up front about who they are and their agenda compared to other conservatives in ALEC, or the Nut Gingrich, and Rick Saint-orum, who will presumably go back to influence peddling until the next presidential election cycle.
A Roll Call article from March 2001 (accessed via LexisNexis) says that he did:
Santorum has assembled a virtual Who’s Who of Republican lobbyists, including a number of prominent ex-lawmakers, to advise him on how to improve communications and coordination between K Street and Capitol Hill as the GOP leadership seeks to push Bush’s agenda. Among those attending the first meeting of the group last Tuesday were former GOPReps. Bob Livingston (La.), Bob Walker (Pa.), Rod Chandler (Wash.) and Paxon, as well as former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.). [...] Lobbyists who participated in the meeting include Jack Abramoff of Greenberg Traurig, David Carmen of the Carmen Group, Dan Meyer of the Duberstein Group, Dan Cohen of Arter & Hadden, Peter Terpeluk of American Continental Group, Dan Mattoon of Podesta-Mattoon, Don Fierce of Fierce and Isakowitz, Tom Korologos of Timmons and Co., Ed Gillespie of Quinn/Gillespie & Associates, and David Bockorny of Bergner Bockorny Inc. [John Bresnahan. "GOP Tightens Grip on K Street; Leaders Send Message To Associations." Roll Call. 3/12/2001]
A National Journal article from May 2001 (accessed via LexisNexis) reports the same thing:
Finally, both Santorum and Hutchisonare hosting twice-monthly, informal conversations with lobbyists.Santorum is meeting with contract lobbyists; Hutchison is talkingto representatives of trade associations. Santorum held his first meeting in early March with suchK Street heavy hitters as Jack Abramoff of Greenberg Traurig;Donald Fierce of Fierce and Isakowitz; Ed Gillespie of QuinnGillespie & Associates; Dan Meyer of the Duberstein Group Inc.;and Dan Mattoon of Podesta/Mattoon. Former Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., and former Reps. Bob Livingston, R-La., and Paxon alsoattended. [Louis Jacobson and Brody Mullins. "The GOP's New Bridge To K Street." National Journal. 5/5/2001]
No matter how many denials they make, racism is racism, and the right can't honestly deny it in their ranks. You can see it in the old timers, like Pat Buchanan, and you can see it in some of the statements made by the crop of contestants for the GOP Presidential nomination for 2012.
Pat Buchanan, a lifelong conservative political figure, was let go from MSNBC as a political commenter for his recent book, and for appearing on right wing supremacist radio shows to promote it. He is now complaining across the conservative media that he was treated unfairly, that he was the victim of a witch hunt.
I signed that petition to MSNBC that may have contributed to his being let go.
I don't blame the petition or the organizers however for the result. I blame Buchanan for the hateful views and where and to whom he promoted them for the termination, not the people who complained or objected or signed petitions. Buchanan is failing to properly take responsibility for his own positions. He is of course entitled to any hateful position he wishes. But he should recognize that if it offends the way he has, it will have an effect on his employment as a political analyst. This would seem to be so obvious, so axiomatic, that Buchanan's reaction is incomprehensible, and would appear to be a failure on his part to take responsibility for his views and actions having so deeply offended people.
Media Matters covered pretty thoroughly the racist views of the radio show in question, and the position of Buchanan in his book which asserts that the U.S. is 'disintegrating' because of the loss of status of white people. He also ascribes to the idea that white Europeans are genetically superior to other brown and black races, and that we can never have racial equality through the efforts of education, effectively, because of that innate inferiority. Buchanan believes that too many black and brown people will turn us into a third world nation.
Pat Buchanan will not be returning, the network announced Thursday. The decision comes just four months after MSNBC suspended the former Republican presidential candidate following the publication of his latest book.
"After 10 years, we have decided to part ways with Pat Buchanan," the network said in a statement. "We wish him well."
The book, "Suicide of a Superpower" contains chapters titled "The End of White America" and "The Death of Christian America" and was ripped by critics as racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic.
MSNBC President Phil Griffin said recently he didn't think Buchanan's book should be "part of the national dialogue, much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC."
Pat Buchanan is credited with being part of the writing of the Southern Strategy of the Nixon White House, the one that deliberately tried to use race and the civil rights legislation to turn formerly conservative Democrats into newly minted Republican voters.
Pat Buchanan was terminated for inappropriate, factually inaccurate, and highly offensive views, specifically those which are understood to promote white supremacy, anti-semitism, and racial hatred. Buchanan has defended the actions of Nazis involved in forced labor slavery and defended Holocaust war criminals. In 2010, Buchanan objected to the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Kagan because she was Jewish, and he felt that would create too Jewish an element on the Court.
William F. Buckley, who I credit for his condemnation of the bigot group, the John Birch Society, also condemned Buchanan. Again from wikipedia:
In 1991 William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote a 40,000-word National Review article discussing anti-Semitism amongst conservative commentators focused largely on Buchanan; the article and many responses to it were collected in the book In Search of Anti-Semitism (1992). He concluded: "I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism."[18][19] The Anti-Defamation League has called Buchanan an "unrepentant bigot" who "repeatedly demonizes Jews and minorities and openly affiliates with white supremacists."[20] Neo-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said about Buchanan that "There's no doubt he makes subliminal appeals to prejudice."[21]
Buchanan coined the term 'silent majority', and takes pride in his assertion that he was part of the 'Southern Strategy', and that he thinks there is nothing wrong with 'prefering his own race. He has long been a fan of racist writers and broadcasters.
He ran for the office of President in 1992, 1996, and 2000.
From wikipedia.org on the Southern Strategy:
In American politics, the Southern strategy refers to the Republican Party strategy of winning elections in Southern states by exploiting anti-African American racism and fears of lawlessness among Southern white voters and appealing to fears of growing federal power in social and economic matters (generally lumped under the concept of states' rights). Though the "Solid South" had been a longtime Democratic Party stronghold due to the Democratic Party's defense of slavery prior to the American Civil War and segregation for a century thereafter, many white Southern Democrats stopped supporting the party following the civil rights plank of the Democratic campaign in 1948 (triggering the Dixiecrats), the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and desegregation.
The strategy was first adopted under future Republican President Richard Nixon and Republican Senator Barry Goldwater[1] in the late 1960s.[2] The strategy was successful in some regards. It contributed to the electoral realignment of Southern states to the Republican Party, but at the expense of losing more than 90 percent of black voters to the Democratic Party. As the 20th century came to a close, the Republican Party began trying to appeal again to black voters, though with little success.[2] In 2005, Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman formally apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the previous century.[3]
It should be noted that Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman also has apologized for the right wing making a wedge issue of gay rights, particularly poignant, given Mehlman is himself gay, and that he was part of demonizing other gays.
The Southern Strategy section in Wikipedia goes on to state:
Although the phrase "Southern strategy" is often attributed to Nixon's political strategist Kevin Phillips, he did not originate it,[4] but merely popularized it.[5] In an interview included in a 1970 New York Times article, he touched on its essence:
From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that... but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats.[6]
and
Lee Atwater
Bob Herbert, a New York Times columnist, reported a 1981 interview with Lee Atwater, published in Southern Politics in the 1990s by Alexander P. Lamis, in which Lee Atwater discussed politics in the South:
Lee AtwaterYou start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.[35]
And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger".[7]
Herbert wrote in the same column, "The truth is that there was very little that was subconscious about the G.O.P.'s relentless appeal to racist whites. Tired of losing elections, it saw an opportunity to renew itself by opening its arms wide to white voters who could never forgive the Democratic Party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks."[36]
Buchanan was also a part of the Reagan White House, which has not been free from the tar brush of intentional racist strategies. Reagan's War on Drugs, launched at a time when actual drug use was declining anyway has been analyzed by some historians, legal academicians, and sociologists as an effort that was both a calculated political expedient, and a means to disproportionately target minority communities. Typically those communities of color have voted primarily Democratic. As a result of the War on Drugs, a disproportionate number of people who are non-violent criminals have had the same offenses which were previously misdemeanors raised to the level of felony convictions. The number of people in our prisons is twenty times what it was in the 1920s, with by far the greatest increase occurring in the Reagan era of the 1980s, as a direct result of the War on Drugs. It is more dramatic in the visual depiction than words can convey.
From Wikipedia's article on Incarceration:
Number of inmates. 1920 to 2006.[1][2] (absolute numbers) General US population grew only 2.8 times in the same period, but the number of inmates increased more than 20 times.
From the wikipedia article on Race and Crime:
As of 2001, the chances of going to prison in percentages for various demographic groups
From the section on Prison Data, correlating to the above graphic:
According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) non-Hispanic blacks accounted for 39.4% of the prison and jail population in 2009.[27] Hispanics (of all races) were 15.9% of those incarcerated in 2009.[27] Hispanics comprised 16.3% of the US population according to the 2010 US census.[28][29] According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics from 2000 to 2008 the rate of prevalence of incarceration for blacks declined to 3,161 per 100,000 and the white rate slightly increase to 487 per 100,000[30]. In 2009 American Indians and Alaskan Natives were jailed, paroled, or on probation at 932 per 100,000, 25% higher than for non-Indians/Natives (747), up 5.6% that year and 12% higher than 2007.[31]. However, crime in general declined during this time down to near 1970 levels, an 18% decrease from the previous decade.[32]
Many people incorrectly believe that the War on Drugs was a response to the problems in the 80s from crack cocaine. While that was a huge part of the crime increase in the 80's, the surge in crack cocaine did not occur until AFTER the War on Drugs was started. While I cannot directly link a specific person, like Buchanan, to the War on Drugs policy, there is a significant viewpoint that it was not so much a response to a problem as it was an attempt to promote a law-and-order position for political expedience, and that at the very least secondary to that expediency was the shift in voting patterns that resulted, which favored Republicans. Certainly the Reagan White House promoted terms commonly considered to be 'code' or 'dog whistles' such as 'Welfare Queen' and any number of nouns combined with the word 'Crack' to refer primarily to blacks. An example of scholarship on the topic is University of Dayton's Kenneth Nunn's work, "The Drug War as Race War" from 2002, which makes the connection quite clear.
An example of an analysis of policies NOT as a response to crime, but rather as an aspect of racial fears and an effort to counter 1960s increase in black voters that resulted from the civil rights legislation are works like U of MN Sociologist Chair Chris Uggens', in Ballot Manipulation and the "Menace of Negro Domination": Racial Threat and Felon Disenfranchisement in the United States, 1850 - 2002. Professor Uggen has been quoted here before for his other studies which indicate that felons - who are mostly black - have been disenfranchised to such a pronounced degree that it has altered the result of elections. It is Republicans who have largely been responsible for the black and felon disenfranchisement, and who are fearful of minority votes for Democrats, including voting by former felons. The correlation between restricting voting, drug policies, and race cannot be denied. Nor can the argument that this is a long term pattern by conservatives, whether they are more recent conservative Republicans, or the formerly conservative Democrats who switched to the Republican party, in part through the efforts to play on their racism by people like Buchanan through a range of Republican and other right wing political campaigns from the mid 20th century to the present.
Recently, companies like Microsoft, Wells Fargo, REI, Apple, BBC America, TOMS shoes, and Delta Airlines have terminated their relationship with a religious group that is right leaning, the Christan Values Shopping Network, specifically because of the relationship with five groups identified as hate groups because of their advocacy of discrimination, and in some cases even violence towards LGBT individuals and for their anti-women positions:
Focus on the Family Family Research Council Summit Ministries Abiding Truth Ministries Liberty Council
As an example of their offensive positions, groups like the Family Research Council employ people to do their research and form their official positions, who openly advocate for the deportation and/or imprisonment of all gay and lesbian individuals. The list of corporations which are denouncing CVN, and ending their business relationship with the group continues to expand.
A former presidential candidate, now Fox pseudo'News' personality, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is also employed as a spokesman and advisor for CVN; Huckabee incorrectly equates same sex sexual orientation with bestiality, necrophilia and pedophilia. Michele Bachmann makes similar ludicrous claims, statements she is trying to backpedal away from, now that she needs to be more centrist to appeal to mainstream voters:
Founders of CVN are right wing sort-of-celebrity Michael Lohan, noted among other things for his alcohol and drug use and his appearance on reality television in rehab, and minor celebrity Stephen Baldwin, noted extreme evangelical, and for advocating the debunked reparative 'pray away the gay' therapy, are the founders of CVN. Reparative therapy is discredited by all of the professional and medical associations in the U.S., and it is has a causal relationship not only to failed efforts to alter sexual orientation, but also for resulting in dramatic increases in suicide rates for those subjected to it.
There have been multiple reports, including most recently undercover video of the practice of reparative therapy, that link the clinic owned by Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus, where religion is promoted as therapy in spite of it violating professional standards for therapy. In addition, the Bachmann's promote the sale in the lobby of their clinic of a book written by a quasi religious quack who advocates for similar sexual reorientation, with personal endorsements by them.
Both Bachmann's are on record as having made extreme religious based anti-homosexual statements, and in the case of Michele Bachmann, have also advocated racist views about slavery and religion. Michele Bachmann is closely linked to the fraudulent religion exploiter, sleazy Bradlee Dean, who has similarly expressed repellent and extremist views on topics relating to false claims about the U.S. constitution; the dangers of homosexuality, including false and inaccurate claims about pedophilia and sexual predators (see video below, about 4:20 into the video); and racist comments which resulted in Dean losing his radio show on a local Salem network AM station, WWTC.
In fact, the link between homosexuality and child predators that Dean claims does not exist. I would encourage Penigma readers to read the entirety of the web site's content, but examples of the pertinent information is cited below, from the UCDavis website,Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation:
"For the present discussion, the important point is that many child molesters cannot be Members of disliked minority groups are often stereotyped as representing a danger to the majority's most vulnerable members. For example, Jews in the Middle Ages were accused of murdering Christian babies in ritual sacrifices. Black men in the United States were often lynched after being falsely accused of raping White women. In a similar fashion, gay people have often been portrayed as a threat to children.... It has also been raised in connection with scandals about the Catholic church's attempts to cover up the abuse of young males by priests.... [Child molesters] Instead of gender, their sexual attractions are based primarily on age. These individuals – who are often characterized as fixated – are attracted to children, not to men or women. ...Other researchers have taken different approaches, but have similarly failed to find a connection between homosexuality and child molestation. ....The researchers found that homosexual males responded no more to male children than heterosexual males responded to female children (Freund et al., 1989).
and in summing up the conclusions of existing research:
"Science cannot prove a negative. Thus, these studies do not prove that homosexual or bisexual males are no more likely than heterosexual males to molest children. However, each of them failed to prove the alternative hypothesis that homosexual males are more likely than heterosexual men to molest children or to be sexually attracted to children or adolescents."
Texas Governor and now declared 2012 Presidential candidate Rick Perry recently hosted a much-ballyhooed, little attended prayer event. That "Response" event invited the governor's of the other 49 states to participate, which suggests a questionable division of church and state - they all appear to have declined. Looking at the participants in hosting the "Response", I couldn't find any NORMAL, NOT EXTREME / mainstream group involved in hosting this event.
The event itself was sponsored by the American Family Association; here is a list of some of the offensive positions promoted by that group, from Right Wing Watch ( I could have provided my own, but they appear to have been so well-researched and comprehensive, that I refer readers to them; I could not do better myself.):
The American Family Association
The American Family Association is the driving force behind The Response. Founded by the Rev. Don Wildmon in 1977, the organization is based is best known for its various boycott campaigns, promotion of art censorship, and political advocacy against women’s rights and LGBT equality. The organization also controls the vast American Family Radio and an online news service, in addition to sponsoring various conferences frequented by Republican leaders, including the Values Voter Summit and Rediscovering God in America. The AFA today is led by Tim Wildmon, Don’s son, and its chief spokesperson is Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issues Analysis for Government and Public Policy and host of its flagship radio show Focal Point.
Fischer routinely expresses support for some of the most bigoted and shocking ideas found in the Religious Right today. He has:
•held gays responsible for the Holocaust and likened them to domestic terrorists and Nazis who are intent on committing “virtual genocide” against the military, and asserts that “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office”;•said “we have feminized the Medal of Honor” by awarding it to a soldier who saved his fellow combatants rather than killing enemies;
•demanded all immigrants “convert to Christianity” and renounce their religions;
•asserted that Muslims have “no fundamental First Amendment claims” and should be banned from building mosques and deported from the US, adding that Muslims are inherently stupid as a result of inbreeding;
•claimed African American women “rut like rabbits” due to welfare and that Native Americans are “morally disqualified” from living in America because they didn’t convert to Christianity and were consequently cursed by God with alcoholism and poverty;
•said that the anti-Muslim manifesto of the right-wing Christian terrorist who killed dozens in Norway was “accurate.”
Other AFA leaders and activists are just as radical:
•AFA President Tim Wildmon claims that by repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell President Obama shows he “doesn’t give a rip about the Marines or the Army” and “just wants to force homosexuality into every place that he can.”
•AFA Vice President Buddy Smith, who is on the leadership council of The Response, said that gays and lesbians are “in the clasp of Satan.”
•The head of the AFA’s women’s group led a boycott against Glee because she accused it of indoctrinating children in homosexuality and idolatry.The editor of AFA Journal Ed Vitagliano said that gay pride months are an affront to the Founding Fathers and will usher in “a return to pagan sexuality.”
•A columnist for the AFA demanded Christians stop practicing yoga because it was inspired by the “evil” religions of Buddhism and Hinduism.
International House of Prayer (not to be confused with the pancake people)
The Response’s leadership team includes five senior staff members of the International House of Prayer (IHOP), a large, highly political Pentecostal organization built on preparing participants for the return of Jesus Christ. In a recent video, IHOP encouraged supporters to pray for Jews to convert to Christianity in order to bring about the Second Coming. IHOP is closely associated with Lou Engle, a Religious Right leader whose anti-gay, anti-choice extremism hasn’t stopped him from hobnobbing with Republican leaders including Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann and Mike Huckabee. Engle is the founder of The Call, day-long rallies against abortion rights and gay marriage, which Engle says are meant to break Satan’s control over the U.S. government. One recent Call event featured “prophet” Cindy Jacobs calling for repentance for the “girl-on-girl kissing” of Britney Spears and Madonna. Perry's The Response event is clearly built upon Engle's The Call model.
Engle has a long history of pushing extreme right-wing views and advocating for a conservative theocracy in America.
Engle:
•is a proponent of “Seven Mountains” dominionism, a movement that seeks to have Christians take control of all aspects of American life, including government, business, entertainment and the media;supports the criminalization of homosexuality;
•claimed that universities with LGBT anti-discrimination measures are teaching students to “accept the mark of the beast”;
•is waging a “spiritual war” on the Supreme Court to get abortion outlawed in America;
•prayed that Ellen Degeneres will be “converted” from homosexuality.
•led a prayer rally in Jerusalem to lead one of the "greatest awakenings in the earth" to bring the Jews of Israel to Christianity.
•claimed that the devastating tornado in Joplin, Missouri was God’s judgment for abortion.
IHOP’s founder and executive director, Mike Bickle, who is an official endorser of The Response, like Engle pushes radical End Times prophesies. In one sermon, he declared that Oprah Winfrey is a precursor to the Antichrist.
Tony Perkins
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, is a co-chairman of The Response. At the FRC, Perkins has been a vocal opponent of LGBT equality, often relying on false claims about gay people to push his agenda.
He:
•called gay rights activists “intolerant,” “hateful,” “vile,” “spiteful” and “pawns” of Satan;
•denied that there was a correlation between anti-gay bullying and depression and suicide, saying instead that gay and lesbian teens know they are “abnormal” and “have a higher propensity to depression or suicide because of that internal conflict";
•wrote that Senators would have "the blood of innocent soldiers on their hands" if they vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell and allow gays to serve openly in the military;
•likened President Obama to a Middle East dictator when the president refused to defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act in court;
•said “I don’t know if the country can survive” another Obama term;
•said that armies that allow gays and lesbians to serve openly – including several U.S. allies in Iraq and Afghanistan –“participate in parades, they don’t fight wars to keep the world free.”
Jim Garlow
One of the most prominent members of The Response’s leadership team is pastor Jim Garlow. The pastor for a San Diego megachurch, Garlow has been intimately involved in political battles, especially the campaign to pass Proposition 8. Garlow invited and housed Lou Engle to lead The Call rallies around California for six months to sway voters to support Proposition 8, which would repeal the right of gay and lesbian couples to get married. He claims Satan is behind the “attack on marriage” and credits the prayer rallies for the passage of Prop 8. He said that during a massive The Call rally in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium “something had snapped in the Heavenlies” and “God had moved” to deliver Prop 8 to victory.
Most importantly, Garlow is a close spiritual adviser to presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and leads Gingrich’s Renewing American Leadership (ReAL). Garlow is a principal advocate of Seven Mountains Dominionism, and wants to “bring armies of people” to bring Religious Right leaders into public office and defeat their political opponents.
Garlow has a long record of extreme rhetoric.
He:
•when Prop 8 passed in California, claimed that African Americans “saved us from the bondage and enslavement that would come upon us if gay marriage actually passed in a state” and alleged marriage equality supporters are going to “totally destroy the definition of the family”;
•likened homosexuality to bestiality, saying that if marriage equality is upheld “the next court case could conceivably say that if three people wanted to marry or four people or five people or if someone wanted to marry their dog or their horse”;
•compared gay adoption to children losing their parents in the September 11th attacks and said that supporters of gay rights are “almost like an Antichrist spirit”;
•told conservative activists that “your land has cancer” and believes that the “lethal ideological ‘radiation’” of progressives “is killing our nation” and “poisoning us and our children”;
•argued that legal abortion is responsible for unemployment.
John Hagee
While Senator John McCain rejected John Hagee’s endorsement during the 2008 presidential campaign for his “deeply offensive and indefensible” remarks, Perry invited Hagee to join The Response. Hagee leads a megachurch in San Antonio, Texas, and is a purveyor of End Times prophesies. Like members of the International House of Prayer, Hagee utilizes language of spiritual warfare and says he is part of “the army of the living God.” He runs the prominent group Christians United For Israel, which believes that eventually a cataclysmic war in the Middle East will bring about the Rapture.
John McCain was forced to disavow Hagee for a reason as the Texas pastor:
•claimed that God sent Hitler to be a “hunter” of Jews to usher in the establishment of Israel and “do God’s work,” lamenting that Jews are no longer “spiritually alive.”
•referred to the Catholic Church as ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’
•believes that Hurricane Katrina “looked like the curse of God” and ravaged New Orleans in order to stop a “homosexual rally” and punish the city’s high “level of sin.”
•said that if gay marriage becomes legal “you can kiss this country goodbye,” alleged that the US is “rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah,” and demanded that the government stop funding AIDS research and treatment to stop benefiting a “sinful lifestyle.”
•demands that “wives submit yourselves to your husbands” and said that the “husband has a God-given role as leader of your home.”
•said that God won’t allow the United States to win wars anymore because “we have allowed the worship of Satanism in the U.S. military.”
James Dobson
James Dobson, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent figures in the Religious Right. Founder of both Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council , Dobson has been instrumental in bringing the priorities of the Religious Right to Republican politics, including campaigning hard for President George W. Bush. But many of the views that Dobson pushes are hardly mainstream.
Dobson:
•is no fan of the women’s movement, writing that women are just “waiting for their husbands to assume leadership” ;
•claims that marriage equality will “destroy the Earth”;
•insists that the Religious Right’s fight against Planned Parenthood is “very similar” to that of abolitionists who fought against the slave trade.
•Asked if God had withdrawn his hand from America after 9/11, Dobson responded:
“Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America's abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. "The wages of sin is death," as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures.”
David Barton, an official endorser of The Response, is a self-proclaimed historian known for his twisting of American History and the Bible to justify right-wing political positions. Barton’s strategy is twofold: he first works to find Biblical bases for right-wing policy initiatives, and then argues that the Founding Fathers wanted the United States to be a Christian nation, so obviously wanted whatever policy he has just found a flimsy Biblical basis for. Barton, “documenting” the divine origins of his interpretations of the Constitution gives him and his political allies a potent weapon. Opponents who disagree about tax policy or the powers of Congress are not only wrong, they are un-American and anti-religious, enemies of America and of God
David Barton.
Barton uses his shoddy historical and biblical scholarship to push a right-wing political agenda, including:
•Biblical Capitalism: Barton’s “scholarship” helps to form the basis for far-right economic policies. He claims that “Jesus was against the minimum wage,” that the Bible “absolutely condemned” the estate tax,” and opposed the progressive income tax.
•Revising Racial History: Barton has traveled the country peddling a documentary he made blaming the Democratic Party for slavery, lynching and Jim Crow…while ignoring more recent history.
•Opposing Gay Rights: Barton believes the government should regulate gay sex and maintains that countries which “rejected sexual regulation” inevitably collapse.
I continue to be amazed at the talent of the right to make large amounts of money that goes fully or in part, to line their personal pockets, off the base constituencies to whom they appeal. I continue to be appalled at the lies, disinformation, and misinformation that consistently is promoted by the right, including every serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination and the religious leaders and base which supports them.
Other AlliesAmong the other far-right figures who signed on to work with Gov. Perry on The Response are:
•Rob Schenk, an anti-choice extremist who was once arrested for throwing a fetus in the face of President Clinton, and who allegedly had ties with the murderer of abortion provider Dr. Barnett Slepian
•Loren Cunningham, who is working to mobilize support for the rally is a co-founder of the radical “Seven Mountains Dominionist” ideology. Cunningham says that he received the “seven mountains” idea, which holds that evangelical Christians must take hold of all aspects of society in order to pave the way for the Second Coming, in a message directly from God.
•Doug Stringer, The Response's National Church and Ministry Mobilization Coordinator, who blamed American secularism and the increased acceptance of homosexuality for the 9/11 attacks, saying “It was our choice to ask God not to be in our every day lives and not to be present in our land.”
•Cindy Jacobs, self-proclaimed “prophet” and endorser of The Response, who famously insisted that birds were dying in Arkansas earlier this year because of the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
•C. Peter Wagner, an official endorser of The Response, is one of the most prominent leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation, a controversial movement whose followers believe they are prophets and apostles on par with Christ himself (other adherents include Engle, Jacobs and Anh). Wagner has advocated burning Catholic, Mormon and non-Christian religious objects. He blamed the Japanese stock market crash and later the devastating earthquake and tsunami in the country on a traditional ritual in which the emperor supposedly has “sexual intercourse” with the pagan Sun Goddess.
•Che Ahn, a mentor of John Hagee and official endorser of The Response, who endorses “Seven Mountains” dominionism and compares the fight against gay rights to the fight against slavery.
•John Benefiel, a self-proclaimed "apostle" and official endorser of The Response, who claims the Statue of Liberty is a "demonic idol" and that homosexuality is a plot cooked up by the Illuminati to control the world's population, and that he renamed the District of Columbia the “District of Christ” because he has “more authority than the U.S. Congress does.”
•James “Jay” Swallow, official endorser of the rally, who calls himself a “spiritual warrior” and hosts “Strategic Warriors At Training (SWAT): A Christian Military Training Camp for the purpose of dealing with the occult and territorial enemy strong holds in America.”
•Alice Smith, who advocates "spiritual housecleaning" because demons "sneak into" homes through everyday objects.
•Willie Wooten, a self-proclaimed “apostle” who claims that God is punishing the African American community for supporting gay rights, reproductive freedom and the Democratic Party.
•Pastor Stephen Broden – Broden, an endorser of The Response, has repeatedly insisted that a violent overthrow of the U.S. government must remain “on the table.”
•Timothy F. Johnson – Johnson, a former vice-chairman of the North Carolina GOP, was elected to that post despite two domestic violence convictions and still unresolved questions about his military service and educational record.
•Alice Patterson – Patterson, a member of The Response's leadership team, insists that the Democratic Party is controlled by a "demonic structure."
These Hate Zealots hiding under cover of religion and right wing politics do incalcuable harm to this country, and to specific groups of people. Their words are the justification for violence and hatred. From the FBI website on hate crimes: Definition:"..., Congress has defined a hate crime as a 'criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or n part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.' Hate itself is not a crime—and the FBI is mindful of protecting freedom of speech and other civil liberties."
From an MSN/AP article in 2009:
Crimes motivated by race
Half of all hate crimes are motivated by race, according to the FBI. One out of every five is driven by religious bias, and one out of every six is based on sexual orientation bias.
Hate crimes in every other category, OTHER than sexual orientation (real or perceived) and religion have trended downwards, although that trend is minimal for racially based hate crimes. Crimes based on sexual orientation have increased, and one factor for that is the hate, fear and misinformation promoted by the right, especially the so-called 'religious right'. Another category for hate crimes is immigrant status, or perceived immigrant status, another topic for hysteria rather than reason and fact.
The right dislikes having what they characterize as fringe groups included in their mainstream, but the bottom line is that the people they are considering as presidential candidates, this election, and the last election, largely fit that description. We cannot afford to run, much less elect, candidates for the highest office in this country who believe these views, who listen to these people, who rely on their support, and who want to impose this hateful, horrible mindset on our country. This is not about politics; it is about sanity opposing insanity, it is about moderate centrists opposing extremists.
This is about reality based Americans opposing the demented fear and fantasy driven ideologues.
Garry McCarthy, Chicago Top Cop, Calls Gun Laws 'Government-Sponsored Racism'; Right Responds
Gun rights advocates and other right-wing groups responded harshly on Friday to some strong words on gun control by Chicago's new top cop.
Garry McCarthy, brought in as the superintendent of police by newly elected mayor Rahm Emanuel, made the comments at St. Sabina, a liberal black church in the heart of Chicago's South Side. The Auburn-Gresham neighborhood where the church is located has struggled with gun violence for years, and its pastor, Father Michael Pfleger, is an outspoken supporter of limiting gun rights.
So McCarthy was playing to his audience when he made remarks like these (at around 5:40 in the video):
"So here’s what I want to tell you. See, let’s see if we can make a connection here. Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What did they all have in common? Anybody getting’ scared? Government sponsored racism. I told you I wasn't afraid [of race]. I told you I wasn't afraid. "Now I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of the African American history in this country, and tell me if I’m crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers across this country, that are killing our black and brown children."
Immediately after those remarks, he also insisted, as he has often said since coming over to Chicago from Newark, N.J., that the gun control debate has to move "back to the center."
But conservative commentators overlooked that more moderate position in their response to the recently-surfaced video.
“After several minutes of gratuitous self-promotion, McCarthy launched into a racially charged tirade in which he accused the NRA and law-abiding gun owners of participating in a government-sponsored program to kill black people," Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, wrote on the group's website.
Like most of you, we believe an assertion such as McCarthy’s is too nutty to dignify with a response." Andrew Breitbart's Big Government blog goes for guilt by association: "McCarthy states his comfort speaking to the “right audience” about his views," blogger Rebel Pundit writes. "Could this be because outspoken radical activist Rev. Dr. Michael L. Pfleger is the Pastor of the Faith Community of Saint Sabina? Pfleger is known for his strong anti-gun views, outreach to prostitutes, anti-drug campaigns, and warm relationships with Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton and Jeremiah Wright."
And a vitriolic blog post on ChicagoNow pulled no punches. "[W]e have a top cop more interested in appearing at racist churches making race-baiting speeches than doing his job," writes Warner Todd Huston. "Emanuel better watch out because what we obviously have here is just another arrogant jack-booted thug that thinks he should be allowed to make up his own laws instead of enforcing the laws actually on the books.
McCarthy issued a relatively toned-down statement on Friday. "Strong gun laws against illegal firearms are critical in order to maintain public safety and private rights,” McCarthy said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “Gang and drug activity intersect with guns, and all three must be the focus of violence-reduction efforts in our communities.”
Obviously from my previous writing, I agree with Mr. McCarthy that gun violence has a disproportionately large impact on certain demographics of race and economic status. I agree with him completely that preventing - so far as it is humanly possible - the possession of illegal firearms by people who will do violence or commit crimes is essential to public safety. I would point out that doing so makes all of us safer, whether we are legal gun owners, or choose not to own firearms.
In considering the knee-jerk reaction on the right against Mr. McCarthy, I found the following video to be informative in how effective McCarthy has been in pursuing his theories, as they are reflected in crime statistics, including the reduction of gun violence.
This kind of result is what I wish to see, and what I believe my co-bloggers also wish to see happen. I believe this is absolutely possible, without keeping legal and responsible gun owners from possessing firearms. If minor inconveniences like registration and gun purchasers being checked for things like a criminal conviction (including drugs and/or gang activity), or a pattern of domestic violence as evidenced by a restraining order, or a medical history of mental illness that includes violent behavior or threats, then that is a reasonable balancing of individual rights to own firearms for their own enjoyment and the need for public safety where far too many people are injured, killed, or threatened. McCarthy correctly addresses issues which have a disproportionate and devastating impact on largely minority areas of Chicago, issues which parallel those problems in other communities. I would argue that those areas are affected in this way not because of a correlation to race or ethnicity and violence, but because of the correlation to prejudice against minority individuals that tend to result in fewer opportunities, greater obstacles to success, and other problems that are the result of poverty. So long as poverty affects those demographically defined groups more severely than other segments of our population, they will be more strongly affected by crime and gun violence as well; the two go together.
I strongly disagree with the right attempting to discredit McCarthy, and the way in which the right characterizes both the black religious community and sincere, legitimate, effective efforts to reduce crime. Black churches have a long history of being a source of stability and progress in these communities, of making positive and constructive contributions to solving the problems of the areas in which they are located.
There is nothing 'jack booted' or 'thuggish' about McCarthy. Government is in part very much a matter of our laws and law enforcement. McCarthy is perfectly correct when he points out the racism that has been inherent and intended in the old 'Jim Crow' laws. Another example of racism as it intersects with government is the recent indictments of the campaign staff of the former Republican governor of Maryland from the 2010 Maryland state election, where there was attempted voter suppression of exclusively black voters: http://penigma.blogspot.com/2011/06/right-wing-racism-voter-suppression-and.html .
Just one more in a long line of conservative, and recently largely Republican, political and government connected racism. I think the balancing of the right to free speech by the legislation that prohibits this kind of voter suppression very closely parallels the need to balance the right to own guns against the legitimate public safety issue of regulating legal guns to reduce crimes by illegal guns which were initially legally owned and obtained, or illegally transferred to criminals.
It has been a recurrent theme on the right that liberals / Democrats "steal elections". As a result, the issue of voter fraud, voter suppression, and related issues in election fraud and manipulation have become a recurrent theme in my writing here on Penigma.
What I have uncovered is that there is far greater activity to alter the vote by the Right, by conservatives and Republicans. Investigation demonstrates very little improper or illegal activity by the left, despite the Right's blind belief and relentless repetition of the claim without supporting facts.
Two longtime political operatives who worked last year on Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s gubernatorial return campaign were indicted today for ordering what the state prosecutor called deceptive robocalls intended to suppress votes on the night of the election.
Julius Henson and Paul Schurick each face three counts of conspiracy to violate Maryland election laws, one count of attempting to influence a voter's decision and one count of failing to provide an authority line (on campaign material). Schurick also is charged with one count of obstruction of justice.
The Baltimore Sun in their article provided a link to the actual indictments. As regular readers already know, I read court documents; some of them are quite entertaining. Others are rather dry, but informative. These are the former. From page 2,
"7. ...The Plan centered on what was termed "The Schurick Doctrine", which was "...designed to promote confusion, emotionalism and frustration among African Democrats, focused in precincts where high concentrations of AA vote." [sic] The Plan stated that "[t]he first and most desired outcome [of the Schurick Doctrine strategy] is voter suppression." The Plan focused on 536 precincts, and provided that "[v]oter suppression operations will take place in 472 precincts, and we found that 64 precincts warrant persuasion operations..."
The Right frequently protests they are not racist, and it is true that some of them are not; but some of them are, in so far as they demean or target a segment of the electorate on the basis of race for voter suppression. I think it is fair to assert that this is pretty clearly an attempt at black voter suppression when the people indicted themselves refer to their intent to commit voter suppression. It is pretty hard to spin this as anything else, given their own wording.
The indictment goes on, on page 9, to state:
"44. ..."Counts by County of African American Voters"; a second page captioned "Proposed African American Messaging", and numbered at the bottom center as page "1"; a third page captioned "Proposed AA Messaging Cont..." and numbered at the bottom center as page "2".
From the Baltimore Sun article, continuing:
Edward Smith, Jr., Henson's attorney, said his client will plead not guilty. Peter Zeidman, an attorney for Schurick, said the charges are "based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the facts."
"When the truth comes out," Zeidman said, it will be clear that Schurick "did not violate any laws."
An arraignment in Baltimore Circuit Court is scheduled for July 18.
The former governor was not accused of wrongdoing. He released this statement: "I believe in the rule of law. I believe in my friend and colleague, Paul Schurick. I hope a fair resolution is reached as quickly as possible for both Paul and Mr. Henson."
The indictment, handed up by a Baltimore City grand jury, came after an eight-month investigation by State Prosecutor Emmet Davitt into tens of thousands of robocalls that went out late on Election Day. A caller instructed voters in Democratic areas to stay home and “relax” because Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley had already won. In fact, the polls were still open.
The indictments are in fact pretty clear about the meetings with the campaign leadership, the payment, the phone calls made directing the robocalls to take place, the confirmation that the calls were made and how much was to be paid for those robocalls. The indictments are pretty clear about exactly what election laws were violated and how. The investigation appears to be meticulously conducted; the evidence is pretty overwhelming. I cannot see from reading the Grand Jury Indictments how it is that there is any "fundamental misunderstanding of the facts" as the defense attorney alleges.
From what I read in the Baltimore Sun article, and from the Indictment, this appears to be very clearly a case of race targeted voter suppression, of election dirty tricks, conducted with careful planning by the campaign of the Republican candidate for Governor in Maryland. The Republican candidate lost, but one wonders, had he won, if the investigation would have been as successful.
Reading cases like this, it is much more difficult to believe the protestations from the right that they have no interest in keeping voters from the polls who don't vote their way when they claim voter fraud, and when they pass Voter ID legislation without any proof that voter fraud is occurring or that their legislation would in fact prevent the voter fraud they fear. One means is illegal, one means is to try legalize voter suppression; the goal is the same.
A genuine respect for representative government, for the principles of the Founding Fathers in this country, is to encourage the widest possible participation in elections and in government. The Right doesn't really seem to care about those principles when it means they don't win by honest means.
