There was a scene in the Cohen Bros. movie “Oh Brother Where Art Thou” in which incumbent Gov. Pappy “pass the biscuits” O’Daniel is sitting on the porch of his palatial estate with his campaign team discussing strategy. His nephew put forth the idea: “...what if we got us one o’ them there midgets of our own?” This is the first image that came into my mind when the Grand Obstructionist Party announced Palin would be the Veep candidate. “Hey, we gotta get us one ‘o them thar wimmenfolk like Hillary.” I had this very same premonition in the case of this new party chairman.

It is all fuzzy until you consider that; to Republicans, having a woman or a black person up for office is just an extreme political stunt that they have to catch up to or top. Callous logic and mindless power-hunger are always at the heart of their motivations. Count in it.

TnkUBush—Youre welcome. I just dont like those ole welfare kings.

Re:  FiftyGigs, February 1 at 7:01 am

Huh? q:S ?

Re:  By FiftyGigs, February 1 at 7:01 am

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Re:  By FiftyGigs, February 1 at 7:01 am

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Steele is a lunatic.

The really cool thing about Republican conservative spin is how you can take somebody’s position and, like, twist it around on them, and then snidely, brilliantly, devastatingly thank them for proving your point.

For example, instead of stopping at the first sentence, continue on to the last: “In order to survive the GOP must under go a through remodeling job.” That’s a great point.

The Republican’s comfort level with racism—you don’t hear many Republicans denouncing supremacists or even skinheads who plot against the President—the thing isn’t the overt racism of the party. Oh, it would be nice if Republicans did something about the nazis in their ranks, but the Republican leadership probably isn’t racist.

The problem shines through, though, in their philosophy. Taxing Americans to buy dinner for a starving family—albeit a white family as well as a black family—creates dependence, a welfare state. Taxing Americans to give .. uh, profit .. to Wall Street is harmless. Why is that so?

The only explanation, it seems to me, must be couched in racism. There can’t be any other conclusion. Republicans clearly hold a double-standard philosophically, and usually the standard can be counted on to break badly for minorities.

By KDelphi,

“I am unapologeticaly bigoted against rich, white old fat, conservative guys. Yes. I am tired of paying their bills.”

Yet another wide-ranging, small minded, stereotype. Thank you for proving my point so well.

At least you’re honest.

The problem with Republicans is that they think black voters are just as stupid as the pseudo Christian, fear baited, white trash class (there are many poor white thinking beings that are called Independents and Progressive Democrats) that fell for the Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber gigs.  They were the ones shouting “kill him” and were wowed by the right wing Faux News and talk radio fa$ci$t blather of Obama’s illegal citizenship and elitism.

People of color, fortunately, have better memories than the pandering pols of the party of the privileged give them credit for.  For ever since JFK/LBJ minorities have known which party has opposed voting rights, minimum wage hikes, affirmative action and many other minority favoring policies.  The memory of fifty years of adversity will not be altered over the course of a mere decade.

In order to survive the GOP must under go a through remodeling job.  A soul change that goes against the greedy soul of the party.  A newly skinned gate-keeping marionette won’t produce that make over.

I am unapologeticaly bigoted against rich, white old fat, conservative guys. Yes. I am tired of paying their bills.

Republicans can come to this site looking for what they want to see, and see exactly that. In the vein of Limbaugh and other anti-intellectuals, they then posit their perception of other’s “bigotry and racism” as proof that they are neither.
Yet they are tolerated, as is Michael Steele, so there is no bigotry. And racism? Do they realize racism is the belief that one race is superior to another?
Given the Republican choice of Steele, it is apparent that Republicans do not believe whites are superior to blacks either.
So, what’s the problem?

I am amazed to find such wholesale bigotry and racism on this Web space. It appears rampant here.

By and large you all write of your hate and fear of all republicans and a persons skin color is the main subject.

Forget the fact that republicans are people also and, the RNC voted six times before Steele won the top Chair.

Do you people honestly not see it or, are most of you outwardly and apologetically bigoted?

Just asking.

Republicans just can’t get it!  They think it’s all about appearance and blackberries.  They refuse to look inward and begin transformation from there.  These moves hardly fool anybody; in fact they look ridiculous.

Too bad.  Political parties are necessary in a democracy and I’d welcome debate with a principled conservative…just not Sarah Palin or Rsh Limbaugh.

Bush not only trashed the country, he brought down his own party providing no leadership and no forward movement.  The next book on Bush will force him to dig his own spider hole.

No one can convince me that this is a coincidence. I mean, just think, “Wow. Last year, no Af Am chairs, now, two! What a coicidence!”. The GOP was thinking of an Af Am anyway. Yeah…

PSmith—I dont have to go to HuffPO to know how cynical the GOP is—I glanced at their “dont be hatin’ on Michael Steele” article as I referenced one on Lanny Davis (it is a beaut)

Once again, troublesum has it nailed:“In many of the states he won, Obama’s margin of victory was made by black voters; so of course republicans are going to go after that vote.  They learned from Dean’s 50 state all inclusive strategy.”

ThnkUBush—“It’s telling to note that the first four posts on this subject are all about Mr. Steele being black.”

Yes, certainly is! Youre absolutely right! I wonder why the GOP mentioned it at all! I mean, the Party is SO diverse! I’m sure that Af Ams are running out to register as GOP as we speak.

NEITHER Party of the duopoly has addressed the concerns of the disproportionately poor Af Am community, nor any other poor community for that matter.  I heard President Obama mention “poor” yesterday, for the first time in ages, in the context of “poor moving up to middle class”. Nothing about the nouveau poor, formerly middle class, which is a growing segement of both parties. GOP are just too self involved to even notice.

We’ll see how it “works out”. .

Political Insurgent and Ed Harges—-NAILED IT!

The GOP has already tried this. We saw Clarence Thomas placed on the Supreme Court, only to serve as a racially novel vehicle for the same old bigoted Republican agenda. We saw Colin Powell and Condy Rice as Secretaries of State in the Bush administration, and we saw that they were simply used as token figureheads, behind which neocon Republicans pursued their evil business as usual, sometimes by undermining and humiliating the African Americans whom they’d recruited to front for them.

There is no such thing as a black Republican. Those who call themselves such are a slap in the face to everything Civil Rights fought for.

The Republican party is the greatest advocate of civil inequality, social and political injustice, wasteful, selfish spending, and the greatest opponent of diplomacy, free speech, liberal journalism, human rights and of course any policy that might provide fair and balanced treatment of those on the middle class to poverty levels.

Republicans are at the forefront of denying people—especially minorities—the basic ability to survive in this country. They propose taking the citizen’s financial freedom away, they try to take the citizen’s working rights away, they try to choke the citizen out of house and home with taxes; they try to stunt our intellectual growth by taking away funding for schools; they try to kill us by making it difficult to impossible to get decent and affordable health care.

These are facts of what the modern day Republican party has become. They are nothing like the men of Lincoln’s time who would have opposed everything that modern day Republicans currently fight for. The Republican Party stands for one thing: Greed. They care only about money and how to make lots of it, and the only reason a black person would affiliate him/herself with that party is because they identify with that doctrine.

This is of course not to say that the Democratic Party is any better. They possess more moderate policies and seem to have an inkling that the people matter somewhat, but otherwise, they can be just as cruel and thoughtless. Worst of all, they are gutless.

That said, I wish him all the best in acquiring a nice fat check. White or Black, Republicans are all the same. They will change nothing for anyone and gain everything for themselves as long as they can or until their indiscretions are so obvious that someone’s forced to call them out. As someone once said, if money is what they love, then money is what they will get. And that is it.

No wonder the RNC and DNC are completely without direction, they both keep naming failed ex-politians with very little or no vision for the future. What is with the choice of Steele anyway? Is the GOP finally going to attempt to be an inclusive party? Their only foray into expanding their base in the last decade has been their shameless pandering to catholic hispanics, which has proven to be an abject failure because the spanish voting block figured out that the repugs treat hispanics like they treat the unborn, we want your vote and will protect your right to life or to live free, untill after election day, then your on your own(and mow my lawn and pick my fruit and try not to be noisy about it. and for god’s sake don’t a living wage)

Instead of talking about Mr. Steele’s skin color it would be great if people here, and TruthDig itself, were educating people on the elections being held in Iraq today.

Iraqis head to the polls today for provincial elections. The competition for this vote is fierce both among and within Iraq’s rival factions, as each party is looking to undercut its opponents, make up for past boycotts or desperately hold onto seats. Iraq will hold its first provincial elections in four years on Jan. 31. A lot of hopes, both inside and outside Iraq, are riding on this vote.

The Iraqi Sunnis and their Saudi backers hope to expand their piece of the political pie. The Iraqi Shia and their patrons in Iran are attempting to consolidate their power. Turkey hopes to ensure the Iraqi Kurds remain boxed in. And the United States needs elections to go smoothly enough that it can justify a more rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq and shift its focus to Afghanistan. While the election results will send tremors through Iraq’s fragile ethno-sectarian landscape, an impending Arab-Kurdish battle remains the principle cause for concern.

At the top of Iraqi political pyramid are the Shia, who form Iraq’s largest — yet most divided — communal group. The last time elections were held in 2005, Iraq’s Shiite Islamist parties were more or less united by the country’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, under the United Iraqi Alliance. That alliance consisted of the country’s largest and most powerful political group, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Hizb al-Dawah (HD), the movement of radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Fadhila Party (based in the oil-rich region of Basra). At that time, the Shia seized upon an opportunity to band together and consolidate Shiite power in Baghdad at the expense of the Sunnis.

This time around, the Shia will remain the most powerful political bloc, but they will be nowhere near as united. The biggest battle of note among the Shia is between the ISCI and the HD. Al-Maliki, the HD leader, started out as little more than a compromise candidate when he came to power, but he is now emerging from the ethno-sectarian fray to become one of Iraq’s most powerful political players. His negotiations with various Sunni and Shiite groups, creation of tribal councils, and behind-the-scenes maneuverings to bring the bulk of the central government’s security apparatus under his control are a serious challenge to ISCI’s authority. Iran can be assured that the Shia will come out strong again, but Tehran faces a much more complicated task than before in managing these intra-Shiite rifts as it pursues its agenda in Iraq.

Iraq elections Part 2.

The wide array of Kurdish opponents all see the threat of Kurdish independence skyrocketing with Kirkuk in Kurdish hands, making it all the more imperative for them to band together and keep the Kurds locked down. Al-Maliki, looking to boost his profile amongst both Sunnis and Shia, has been key in the anti-Kurdish effort, stressing the need for stronger central authority in Baghdad (thereby undercutting Kurdish regional autonomy), fighting to keep the United States from establishing U.S. bases in the Kurdish north, and even threatening to send tanks to surround Kirkuk. Al-Maliki’s moves against the Kurds have played extremely well in both Sunni and Shiite camps, while the Kurds have been getting more and more nervous over the fight that lies ahead.

The United States has already shifted its focus to Afghanistan and is readying plans for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq to free up more troops. U.S. troops already are scheduled to leave Iraqi cities for bases by June, and now the Pentagon is also making plans to accelerate the withdrawal even further over the next 16 weeks. For that accelerated withdrawal to happen, the United States needs these elections to go as smoothly as possible. That means postponing the Kurdish-Arab battle for a time when the U.S. military will be less accountable for such flare-ups. Washington needs to be able to declare the Jan. 31 elections a victory for Iraqi stability and democracy — and that means pushing back the coming Kurdish-Arab fight to another day.

The plan for now is to postpone the vote in the Kurdish-majority provinces of Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah and in Kirkuk. This will permit the Kurds to keep, for the time being, the extra seats they gained from when the Sunnis failed to participate in the 2005 elections. If those seats continue to be held by the Kurds, that will be one less match in the powderkeg of Kurdish-Arab relations. But there will still be some sparks. Elections will be held in one province in which the Kurds currently hold parliamentary seats as a result of the 2005 elections due to the Sunni boycott: Ninawa. This vote, particularly in the volatile city of Mosul, will set the stage for the level of competition and violence in the coming Kurd-Arab showdown.

In many of the states he won, Obama’s margin of victory was made by black voters; so of course republicans are going to go after that vote.  They learned from Dean’s 50 state all inclusive strategy.

Republicans have always been good at beating democrats at their own game.  50% of the delegates to the 2012 republican convention will be black/hispanic.

This is the same thinking of choosing Sarah Palin to take Hillary’s votes from the Democrats. We didn’t vote for Obama because he is black but, because he has ideas that work and can COMMUNICATE THEM WELL.

The GOP is clueless about the American People. It’s about substance and not gender or race.

Well…. I have to admit that this is much better strategy than zero votes in the house on the stimulus pkg.

Contrary to public opinion, the upper echelons of the GOP have never truly been averse to those of ethnic origin, have they?  This was only a ruse to ensure the vote of those who ACTUALLY ARE racists.

Does it stand to reason that the “monied classes” would put their children in the hands of ethnic nannies if they truly believed them to be inferior…?  Highly unlikely.

They must be desperate.  This is like seeing two of the cards in seven card “no-peek”, one-eyed jacks wild.

Gosh, Golly!  Hillary… Sarah   Barack… Michael

Hey GOP, are you starting a new party? How are you going to drag all of the NeoCONs with you? Smoke and mirrors! Lie! Of course! What’s wrong with me?